Free I Don't Like Where This Is Going by John Dufresne

fancied himself a swinger. Ned called Elwood on occasion to ask for his advice with younger women, whom he just couldn’t figure out. Elwood’s mom, Lainey Roth Wingo, was an atypical Jewish mother who wrote YA novels and did not like to be disturbed by rambling phone calls from her only child, whom she had fictively killed off in her breakout novel, Rap City in Blue (peanuts/anaphylaxis). The parents were not divorced but lived apart except for the month of August, when Ned migrated to Provincetown with all the other analysts, and Lainey joined him. They brought along their current girlfriends.
    Elwood answered his phone, told whoever it was that he’d be there in five minutes, and invited me along to a breaking story. “A body’s been found in the lot behind Lamps Plus on South Maryland.” Elwood drove a Fiat 500 in which he’d installed a workstation in the passenger-side front seat—swivel desktop, computer,police scanner, and wireless printer. I climbed in back and shoved the camera bag and food wrappers to the side.
    He said the on-air reports were essentially eye candy for the easily distracted. His real journalism happened on his station-sponsored blog, where he could go into depth on a story. We arrived at Lamps Plus. It helped that Elwood knew the detective leading the crime scene investigation. He and Detective Lou Scaturro belonged to the Bocce Club of Las Vegas.
    I said, “You play bocce, Elwood?”
    â€œFor the Knights of Cabria. Lou plays for the Sons of It’ly,” Elwood shook hands with Detective Scaturro and introduced us. “What do we have here, Lou?”
    What we had was the body of a young woman, which had been discovered that morning by a homeless guy out Dumpster-diving. The body had been wrapped in the distressing green, gold, and black pleated polyester bedspread that was now folded next to the corpse. The girl, Detective Scaturro told us, had been garroted with an electrical cord, which was still coiled around her neck. He unzipped the body bag and held it open. A cluster of red dots rimmed the girl’s eyes. Her lips were swollen. Elwood squatted to get a closer look. Her shaggy hair was black; she wore a nose ring on her left nostril and smelled like melting plastic. Her left arm was crosshatched with razor cuts. Detective Scaturro resealed the bag and nodded to the EMTs, who lifted the body onto a gurney. He said, “She hasn’t been dead long.”
    Detective Scaturro had a high forehead and a thick brush of russet hair. His eyes were forest-green, his chin modest and dimpled. The wrinkles around the eyes suggested easy and eager smiles. I knew from his guileless face that Scaturro was married and had a flock of boisterous kids. I knew he speculated in realestate. I knew he drank modestly, favored grappa, and had never even considered smoking cigarettes. I knew he kept no untoward secrets and told no unnecessary lies. And when I say knew , I mean, of course, imagined.
    Most body dumps are tough to unravel, but this one would not be. Detective Scaturro said, “Miss Doe was murdered elsewhere.”
    â€œAnd I know where,” Elwood said. “I recognize the bedspread. Check the Starlite Motel on South Las Vegas Boulevard.”
    Detective Scaturro raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. “So are you going to tell us the story?”
    â€œNot much to tell,” Elwood said. “A while back I hit a rough patch. I spent several wasted nights at the Starlite, drinking bourbon, inhaling chocolate, and reading Philip K. Dick novels. But not before I stashed the abominable bedspread in the closet.”
    Detective Scaturro dispatched a unit to the Starlite. Officers were soon able to view the motel’s surveillance videos. At four-thirty P.M. yesterday, a man walked into Room 112 with our Miss Doe on his arm. At six thirty-seven this morning, the man, who had registered under his own name, Ted Seeley, left the room