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time.”
    Dominic held the evidence bag up and shook it.
“Maybe. We’ll check for his prints, of course, but I don’t think he
did it.”
    “Oh? Why do you say that?”
    “Gut instinct. He seems genuinely horrified by
the whole thing. Besides, why would he pull the fire
alarm?”
    “Crime of passion,” I said. “He killed her in
the heat of an argument, realized what a terrible mistake he made
and so he pulled the alarm to summons help.”
    “But he’s got a cell phone. Why not use
it?”
    “He didn’t think of it.”
    “All right then.” Dominic pointed at the
chain-link fence stretched between the concrete columns. “Why would
he run all the way around the fence to the back side of the garage
to pull the alarm there when he could have pulled another box right
next to the elevator?”
    Okay, it made sense what he said; I must admit.
He thinks a lot like Tony. I guess that’s why we make such a good
team together. “All right, so are you telling me you think someone
else killed her and that the killer ran all the way around the
fence to pull the alarm?”
    He shrugged at that thought. “Don’t know. I’m
just going with my gut, Carlos; always listen to the
gut.”
    “Geez, you know you’re even beginning to sound
like Tony now.”
    “Yeah?” He smiled at that. “Thanks.”
    I laughed. “That’s not necessarily a
complement. Trust me.” I checked my watch and saw that we had been
there nearly an hour already. “Speaking of Tony, has anyone called
him?”
    Dominic checked his watch. “I left a message on
his cell. He should have gotten it by now. Want me to call him
again?”
    It had been a year and a half since I started
working with Dominic. When we first teamed up I have to admit I
didn’t feel as confident working homicide cases with him as I did
with Tony Marcella. But the kid has proven his worth, and in some
cases, invaluable. The key difference is that with Tony I always
felt like I was playing second fiddle. With Dominic, I’m always the
head enchilada. Call it ego; I guess every good cop has one, but
damn it, I like it. I looked at Dominic and shook my head easy.
“No, don’t call him again. If I know Tony, he and Lilith are
probably all tangled up in a witch’s knot under the sheets like a
couple of young love nuts. He’ll call back when he comes up for
air.”
     
     
     
    Tony Marcella:
     
    I suspected the moment Lilith walked through
the door that something was up. She seemed tense, and fidgety. When
I asked her what’s wrong she shut me down with just a stare. I
figured it best to give her some room and let her wind down, but
the longer she was home, the more nervous she became. I saw her
walk to the window to look outside no less than six times, and
check the lock on the door seven. At one point she went over to the
bookcase to refer to the dictionary, for what I don’t know. I
finally took her by the hand and sat her down on the
sofa.
    “Lilith, I beg you, please tell me what the
hell is going on. Why are you acting so peculiar?”
    “Tony, I….” Her breathing grew quick; her hands
trembled, and I saw in her eyes something I once thought impossible
in Lilith: fear. The notion of anything unnerving her unnerved
me.
    “Lilith, tell me.”
    “I fucked up, Tony. Fucked up big
time.”
    “Wha…what did you do?”
    “I froze. I played my fuck’n` cards like some
cool-shit chick, and when it came time to act I froze.” Her eyes
had been wandering—no, darting around the room as she spoke. But
then she suddenly zeroed in on mine and pulled me in with the same
stare that only moments earlier shut me down like a train wreck.
“She’s dead,” she said flatly.
    My mind went blank. I couldn’t imagine who she
meant: the girl downstairs with the balloons the other day, her
mother, the woman at the Cyber Café who told Lilith to piss off
because Lilith asked her to take her noisy phone conversation
outside. Although I thought the score of that one was settled after
the