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introduced me to Tom Swain, the Deputy DA, who had
restrained Stone from punching me on Saturday at the opera house.
    Stone grunted and followed me. If he appreciated my gesture of collegiality, he
didn't let it show. We each grabbed a chair at the big round conference table. "So what
brings you to my humble establishment?"
    He said, in an almost conversational tone, "Where were you yesterday?"
    I raised my brows. Stone and I had never engaged in casual conversation. To my
knowledge, nothing had occurred that would require me to provide an alibi for Sunday
afternoon, but I obliged him, anyway.
    "I was with Jana Deacon, hiking around Rocky Mountain National Park. We
spent some time at Mills Lake."
    He nodded approvingly which, for Stone, was unheard of. "I know the place." He
had met Jana in that same room a few months earlier and, for reasons I couldn't
fathom--and didn't want to fathom--they had actually hit it off. Maybe it was the fact that she carried
a Glock G20 and knew how to use it.
    Stone would like that sort of thing.
    "So you really were in Estes Park?"
    "I was. I wasn't dodging you, if that's what you're getting at."
    "The thought did occur to me." He rested his arms on the marble table top.
"Saturday night you said you noticed something about the angle of the dead man's fall. I
want to hear more about that."
    "Unfortunately, there isn't much more. I only noticed him when he was a few
feet from the ground. He seemed to be falling at a fairly shallow angle, not straight up and
down."
    "Was he falling head first?"
    I thought about it. "I don't know. I think so."
    "Was his back to you, or his front?"
    "I don't know that, either."
    "Were his arms flailing?"
    "I don't know. He was just a blur, something I saw as I was falling backwards. All
I really have is an impression that he was moving towards us, as opposed to straight
down."
    He shook his head in disgust. "You're a hell of an eyewitness. Did you actually
see anything?"
    "Only what I've told you. I know you're frustrated about that. So am I. Just out of
curiosity, I took a look at Wikipedia last night, trying to figure out the velocity formulas for
a falling object. If I'm calculating correctly, and assuming their information was accurate,
the entire thing lasted less than five seconds. From the time he went over the balcony till
the time he hit the floor. He would have been moving at something over 250 feet per
second by the time he landed."
    "And you saw him for the last ten feet?"
    "Give or take. Maurice saw him for a little longer."
    "Great," he muttered, looking aggravated. "This is worthless."
    I shrugged. "I didn't tell you it wasn't. I just know what I saw. Or didn't see. You
could have just called me and saved the trip."
    "I could have. But I didn't. I have more questions. Could you see his face?"
    "No."
    "So you don't know whether he was conscious or not?"
    I raised my brows. "Is there any doubt about that?"
    He growled, "There's doubt about everything. Was he conscious?"
    "I don't know. He was just a flash as he went by. I didn't notice him flailing his
arms or anything like that. Or doing anything to break his fall."
    "For all the good it would have done him," Stone said. He stood up. "What else do
you know about this?"
    "That's everything. I've never met the man, never spoken to him. I didn't see him
before the opera, nor during intermission. Nothing. I now know his name, but it means
nothing to me."
    He stared at me. "Why don't I believe that?"
    I shrugged. "You never believe anything I tell you. Until it's too late."
    His face colored. "What do you mean by that? Are you threatening me?"
    "No, Stone. I'm not threatening you. It's just that you always refuse to listen to
me, even when--" The stubborn set of his jaw told me I was wasting my time. "Oh, what's
the point? We are who we are, and neither of us is going to change."
    "I guess not," he said in a dismissive tone.
    "Can I ask you a question?"
    "I'm the one who asks the questions, Larsen. Not