Free Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf

find a pair of red suspenders anywhere. I found green, blue, yellow, polka-dot, orange, striped …”
    I did a few wheelies with my index finger. He caught my drift and kept his story rolling.
    “When I finally found a store with the right color suspenders, they couldn’t change my bill. I hung around downtown until my bank opened, broke the bill, went back, and bought the suspenders.” He pointed to a wrapped package lying on top of my desk. “I returned home about ten this morning and found the place crawling with cops. I overheard two of them describing what had happened. That I, or rather the real me, had been killed. I didn’t know what to do. I’m not very decisive when it comes to emergencies. I suppose I should have identified myself to the police, but I was afraid to. I feared that whoever got to the real Roger might come after me, too. Then I thought of you.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Don’t mention it. Since I’m supposed to be dead, I didn’t want to wait for you out in the hall where somebody might recognize me, so I picked your lock. I didn’t think you would mind. You don’t, do you? It’s actually my first try at it. As I told you before, I’ve always had a hankering to be a detective. I believe every detective should know how to pick locks. I’m sure you do, don’t you? So I bought some lock-picking tools I saw advertised on the inside cover of a matchbook.” He showed me a set of picks only slightly smaller and less clumsy than the iron bar I use to pry the hubcaps off my car. “They came with a self-instruction manual. Pretty neat, huh?”
    “Tell me,” I said, after giving the office bottle another howdy-doody. “How long before you start to, you know, fall apart?”
    The bunny stared with deep foreboding at the far wall, as though the hand of God had just inscribed there the recipe for hasenpfeffer. “Hard to tell. Roger put a large jolt of mental energy into creating me. I could easily last forty-eight hours before I … until I …”
    A dark, watery boo-hoo balloon plopped to the floor, but I give him this much, it didn’t spill any tears. “You have any idea who murdered me?” he asked.
    “Yeah, I got an idea. You get a call from anyone last night?” I asked. “Or anybody come to see you?”
    He shrugged, a ridiculous move for a guy with next to no shoulders. “I don’t know. The mental strain of creating a doppel tends to disrupt short-term memory. I remember up to early yesterday evening, but not much after.”
    “You don’t remember getting a call from your wife? Saying that she wanted to come over for a talk?”
    “Jessica? Jessica carne by to see me? Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.” Talk about happiness. If Roger had been Flash Gordon, he would have been outside his rocket ship swinging on a star. “I knew you could pull it off, Mister Valiant. I knew I picked the right man. I knew you could get me Jessica back. How did you do it? Put the arm on Rocco? That it? I’ll bet that’s it. You found out what he had on her and forced him to stop.”
    With a swift left jab, I punched a jumbo hole in the biggest of his balloons. “Not so fast. I don’t know for sure whether or not Jessica came to see you last night. If she did, it wasn’t for a reconciliation.”
    “Why then?”
    “The police think she killed you, and I go along with them.”
    The rabbit shook his head so vigorously hjs flopping ears left spiral marks on the fur around his head. “Not a chance. She loves me! She would never do something like that. What makes you suspect her?”
    “For starters, your last words.” I took out my notebook and read them to him. “No fair! You got me everything? Jessica. My contract.” I turned the notebook and laid it on the corner of the desk so he could read his final statement himself.
    Twice he followed the words with his finger and both times wound up in exactly the same place. “Wait! I’ve got it,” he said, holding a finger straight up as if to test the wind. “I