Free Name Withheld by J. A. Jance Page B

to do with Don Wolf's murder, are you?"
    "He told me so himself," I answered. "Said he might just as well because I was sure to figure it out myself eventually. I believe the term he used was prime suspect . What do you think?"
    Long before I finished asking the question, Audrey Cummings was already shaking her head in an emphatic no . "I don't think so," she said.
    "Why not?"
    "Did he tell you about his father?"
    "He said something about him dying of cancer, I believe. Something about that leading him to what he's doing now, to being involved in cancer research."
    "Gordon Whitten had cancer," Audrey told me. "But he didn't die of it."
    "What did he die of then?" I asked.
    "He committed suicide," she said. "He went down to Mexico for some kind of oddball alternative treatment. When that didn't work, he killed himself. Blew his brains out. Believe me, if Bill Whitten was going to knock off Don Wolf, he wouldn't have done it with a bullet to the back of the head. Never. Not in a million years."
    And put that way, I have to admit, Audrey Cummings' theory made a lot of sense. What it sure as hell didn't do was make my job any easier.
    A few minutes later, when she had to rush off to her court appearance, I headed north to the Fremont district to take a look at Don Wolf's condo. A message taped to the security phone at the Lake View Condos announced that the manager had been called away and would return in a few minutes.
    Retreating to my car, I pulled out my laptop and made a start at translating my notepad notes into a form the brass at Seattle P.D. deem acceptable. I still don't know what I did wrong, but smack in the middle of writing a paragraph, the damn cursor quit. It got stuck halfway through the words Designer Genes and wouldn't budge. A little box appeared in the middle of the screen. GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT, I think it said, or words to that effect. YOU MUST SAVE YOUR WORK OR YOU WILL LOSE IT.
    Which, of course, was a lie. The cursor was stuck. I couldn't have saved my work if my life had depended on it.
    In over twenty years of being a cop, the words GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT have never once popped up in the pages of my never-ending series of dog-eared little notebooks. They never have, and they never will. Which is why, slick though they may be, computers will never altogether replace pencil and paper.
    And they won't replace detectives, either.

Six
    J ack Braman, the Lake View Condo's surprisingly youthful manager, returned eventually. He was short, round, and effusively helpful. When I clued him in as to what was going on, he was suitably distressed. With keys jangling nervously on a heavy key ring, he led me to the elevator of the five-story complex.
    "I've been managing condos for three years now," he said, shaking his head. "Never had one of my residents get murdered before, although I guess Don Wolf was a likely enough candidate."
    To look at him, Jack Braman didn't appear old enough to be out of high school for three years, to say nothing of managing condos.
    "What do you mean by that?" I asked.
    Braman shrugged. "From what I understand, he had a wife down in California somewhere, but being married sure as hell didn't seem to slow him down none. If you catch my drift," he added.
    "You mean Don Wolf had female visitors?"
    "Constantly."
    "The same one or different ones?"
    Jack Braman shook his head. "Different ones, although there was one who was here so much I was starting to think maybe she was his wife. But there were younger ones as well. Girls who were closer to my age than his."
    "Hookers?" I asked.
    "I wouldn't know about that," he said. "Not for sure, but I guess they could have been."
    Flushing furiously, Jack Braman turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door to Don Wolf's apartment. As soon as he did so, the appallingly unmistakable odor of death gushed out into the hallway.
    Braman's eyes widened. He gagged and choked and almost fell. "My God. What's that awful smell?" he demanded.
    Had Jack