Free Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf Page B

who killed Rocco, and you also find out who killed me. You clear my name, and you also bring my killer to justice.”
    “You might not like what I find.”
    “How so?”
    “For starters, when I got to your house this morning, I found a musical scale trailing out of the piano. The song was ‘When You Wish Upon a Star.’ That have any significance to you?”
    A light bulb flashed on over Roger’s head. It was less than a five-watter, but it would get a lot brighter and a lot hotter before I was done. “It was my favorite piece. I play it a lot, and sing along.”
    “I remember you telling me you serenaded Jessica the evening you proposed. ‘When You Wish Upon a Star,’ by any chance?”
    The light bulb grew to twenty-five watts. “Yes, as a matter of fact, that was the song I played and sang for Jessica that evening. After that, we always considered it our song.”
    “So if she had been there with you last night, it would have been natural for you to play it for her again?”
    Seventy-five watts. “I suppose so, yes.”
    “Now tell me about your burglar-alarm system. How does it work?”
    “It’s a marvelous device. It connects to every door and window in the house. It goes on automatically when the front door closes. You have to disengage it after you go in and before you go out, or the thing sets off a wail you wouldn’t believe.”
    “When I got to your place this morning, the door was ajar. The musical scale had gotten wrapped around the door handle. That’s how I got in without setting off the alarm. The question is, how did the killer get out?”
    “Beats me.”
    “Jessica lived there in that house with you for nearly a year. Did she know the code to disengage that alarm?”
    A hundred watts. “Yes, she did.”
    “So she could very easily have disengaged it after she shot you and walked out without setting it off?”
    “Yes, I suppose she could have.”
    “Did anyone else know the alarm code?”
    “Sure, lots of people.”
    “Name them.”
    Two hundred watts and flashing caution. “OK, OK, so she was the only one.”
    “Right. The only one besides you who could have gotten out without tripping the alarm. Now let’s investigate the other end. In order for the killer to get in, you had to disengage the alarm, correct?”
    “Yes.”
    “Would you have done that for Rocco DeGreasy?”
    “Of course not.”
    “His brother Dominick?”
    “Noway.”
    “How about Jessica?”
    “Stop right here,” he said in a fragmented balloon you would expect to come out of somebody with his head buried to the shoulders in sand. “I know in my heart that Jessica did not kill me, just as I know in my heart that I did not kill Rocco DeGreasy. So you can stop that line of questioning here and now.”
    “OK. Let’s try this one.” I pulled the rubber Kermit the Frog toy out of my pocket. “Ever see this before?”
    Roger squeezed it several times, giggling when Kermit’s tongue unfurled. “You see them around. It’s a pretty popular toy. I can’t say I recognize this one as being any different from a hundred others I’ve seen. Where did you get it?”
    “I found it outside your house. It hadn’t been there long. My guess is that it was dropped by the killer.”
    “Well, that would leave out Jessica. She would never carry around something as silly as this.”
    “Or it might have been dropped by somebody who saw the killer.”
    “Oh.” He didn’t seem very happy to hear that there might have been an eyewitness to his untimely demise. I guess that’s what love does to you. Makes you put on your blinders whenever your canter takes you anywhere near the truth. “Mister Valiant, how was I… I mean, what did he use to …”
    “You were shot once in the chest. It looked to me like a clean hit. You didn’t suffer much, if that’s your concern.”
    He nodded, and a matched set of crystalline teardrops rolled down either side of his face.
    “You were apparently killed with some kind of antique musket