The Good Guy by Dean Koontz

the armchair. Her tail thumped the floor in response to Linda’s coaxing.
    The one small lamp left most of the room dusted with shadows, and the alchemic light from the monitor gave Pete a tin man’s face, his smooth scar shining like a bad weld.
    He was handsome enough that a half-inch-wide slash of pale tissue, curving from ear to chin, did not make him ugly. Plastic surgery would reduce or even eliminate his disfigurement, but he chose not to submit to the healing scalpel.
    A scar is not always a flaw. Sometimes a scar may be redemption inscribed in the flesh, a memorial to something endured, to something lost.
    The driver’s license appeared on the screen. The photo was of the killer with the Mona Lisa smile.
    When the printer produced a copy, Pete handed it to Tim.
    According to the license, Kravet was thirty-six years old. His street address was in Anaheim.
    Having rolled onto her back and put all four paws in the air, Zoey purred like a cat as she received a gentle tummy rub.
    Tim still had no evidence of a murder-for-hire plot. Richard Kravet would deny every detail of their meeting in the tavern.
    “Now what?” Pete asked.
    As she charmed the dog, Linda looked up at Tim. Her green eyes, though remaining wells of mystery, floated to him the clear desire to keep the nature of their dilemma strictly between them, at least for the time being.
    He had known Pete for more than eleven years, this woman for less than two hours, yet he chose the discretion for which she wordlessly pleaded.
    “Thanks, Pete. You didn’t need to climb out on this limb.”
    “That’s where I’m most comfortable.”
    This was true. Pete Santo had always been a risk-taker, though never reckless.
    As Linda rose from the dog, Pete said to her, “You and Tim known each other long?”
    “Not long,” she said.
    “How’d you meet?”
    “Over coffee.”
    “Like at Starbucks?”
    “No, not there,” she said.
    “Paquette. That’s an unusual name.”
    “Not in my family.”
    “It’s lovely. P-a-c-k-e-t-t-e?”
    She didn’t confirm the spelling.
    “So you’re the strong silent type.”
    She smiled. “And you’re always a detective.”
    Shy Zoey stayed close to Linda all the way to the front door.
    From various points in the night yard, a hidden choir of toads harmonized.
    Linda rubbed the dog gently behind the ears, kissed it on the head, and walked across the lawn to the Explorer in the driveway.
    “She doesn’t like me,” Pete said.
    “She likes you. She just doesn’t like cops.”
    “If you marry her, do I have to change jobs?”
    “I’m not going to marry her.”
    “I think she’s the kind, you don’t get a thing without a ring.”
    “I don’t want a thing. There’s nothing between us.”
    “There will be,” Pete predicted. “She’s got something.”
    “Something what?”
    “I don’t know. But it sure is something.”
    Tim watched Linda get into the Explorer. As she pulled the door shut behind her, he said, “She makes good coffee.”
    “I’ll bet she does.”
    Although the secreted toads had continued singing when Linda had walked among them, they fell silent when Tim set foot on the grass.
    “Class,” Pete said. “That’s part of the something.” And when Tim had taken two further steps, Pete added, “Sangfroid.”
    Tim stopped, looked back at the detective. “Sang what?”
    “Sangfroid. It’s French. Self-possession, poise, steadiness.”
    “Since when do you know French?”
    “This college professor, taught French literature, killed a girl with a chisel. Dismembered her with a stone-cutter.”
    “Stone-cutter?”
    “He was also a sculptor. He almost got away with it ’cause he had such sangfroid. But I nailed him.”
    “I’m pretty sure Linda hasn’t dismembered anyone.”
    “I’m just saying she’s self-possessed. But if she ever wants to dismember
me,
I’m okay with that.”
    “Compadre, you disappoint me.”
    Pete grinned. “I knew there was something between