Free Lassiter 06 - Fool Me Twice by Paul Levine Page A

turned out to be an African-American woman and an
Asian-American woman. They arrived, toting their cameras, tape
measures, fingerprint kits, and assorted technological doodads.
    Kip followed them around
for a while, eyes wide, mouth closed, except when he asked the
difference between the Glock nine-millimeters city cops carried and
the Beretta used by Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies.
    I was sitting on the battered sofa with the
two detectives in mismatched chairs at slight angles to me. Abe
Socolow paced in front of me. He wore his trademark black suit,
white shirt, and black tie, but it being a Sunday night, the tie
was loosened at the neck.
    The major asked all the right questions, and
I had none of the answers. No, I didn’t expect Kyle Hornback here.
That’s right, I leave the front door unlocked, preferring burglars
to walk in, rather than busting up the place. Besides, unless you
know to batter the door, it’s stuck shut by the humidity.
    Where was I earlier in the evening? On South
Beach. That’s right, I left the youngster here alone.
    The crime scene investigators had shooed Kip
away while they photographed the body, and now the lad joined me,
moving close on the sofa, where I put my arm around him. Even under
the paddle fans, it was about eighty degrees in the house, so the
goose bumps on Kip’s arms couldn’t have been from the temperature.
Maybe it was starting to sink in. Maybe it was becoming real.
    The major asked Kip what he saw, and he ran
through the story. Footsteps, his door opening and closing, someone
in my bedroom . . .
    “ That’s when they must have
taken my tie,” I chimed in.
    “ Shut up, Jake,” Socolow
said, still pacing.
    Voices downstairs, Kip continued, furniture
moving, the front door closing again. He sneaked down the landing,
saw the body spinning, tossing shadows across the moonlit room, ran
back upstairs and climbed out his window. Same story he told me
with no embellishments.
    “ Good try, Abe,” I said,
“but I don’t think the kid killed him, even though he doesn’t have
an alibi.”
    “ What about you, Jake?
What’s your alibi?”
    “ What’s that supposed to
mean?”
    “ Hey, Jakie, let’s get
something straight here. This is a murder investigation, so I
ask—”
    “ The questions,” Kip
interrupted. “Or if you want, we can finish this
downtown.”
    I hushed the kid with what passes for a
stern look. “Go ahead, Abe. Fire away.”
    “ Where’s your client?” Abe
Socolow asked.
    “ Which one? I’ve got two or
three, you know.”
    “ Jake, don’t jerk me
around. Where’s Louie Baroso?”
    “ I don’t know,” I answered,
truthfully.
    “ When’s the last time you
saw him?”
    “ Three days
ago.”
    I could have added, “in my
office,” but the question was when , not where , and I preach to my clients
just to answer the question, no more, no less.
    “ Where?” Socolow
asked.
    “ In my office.”
    “ What was he doing
there?”
    “ The usual, dropping ashes
on the carpet, flirting with my
    secretary.”
    Socolow gave me a pained look. “Did he
mention Kyle Hornback?”
    “ Yeah, he asked if he could
use my house to kill Kyle, maybe add him to the living room
furnishings along with the beanbag chair and lava lamp.”
    The muscular young detective looked up. “He
said that?”
    The major rubbed his forehead as if he had a
migraine, and Abe stopped pacing and squarely faced me. “Jake,
don’t fuck with me, okay?”
    “ Yeah,” Kip said in his
tough-guy voice, or at least as tough as his eleven-year-old tenor
could make it. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, it’s
up to you, pal.”
    “ What is it with you two?”
Socolow demanded, scowling.
    Just then, Kip leaned over
and whispered something to me. I patted him on his goose-bumped
arm, held his hand, and whispered something back. Abe Socolow’s
dark eyes shot me a question, so I answered. “He said you remind
him of Frank Sinatra in The First Deadly
Sin .”
    “