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him.”
    â€œScott?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd you feared he might try to harm her?”
    I shrugged. “It occurred to me.”
    â€œDo you know for a fact that she didn’t bring a knife with her?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I guess I don’t. I stayed in bed.”
    â€œAnd you went back to sleep.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo you have no idea what she did between the time she left the bedroom and when you heard her screaming.”
    â€œI have a very good idea,” I said. “She told me.”
    â€œBut she could be lying.”
    I sighed. “She’s not lying.”
    â€œIn fact,” he said, “if you’re telling the truth, you really cannot tell us anything about Ms. Banyon’s actions this morning between the time she walked out of your bedroom and when you heard her screaming and came upon her with Scott’s body in the driveway, is that right?”
    â€œI am telling the truth,” I said.
    I wondered what they were asking Evie. Probably establishing the fact that she couldn’t account for my actions while she had been jogging in Brewster.
    They had themselves two excellent suspects.
    Vanderweigh led me through his questions again, and then Lipton came over and sat with us and asked me the same damn questions. I asked for more coffee, and Vanderweigh went and
got it. I’d had no breakfast, and I was feeling woozy and lightheaded. The coffee helped a little.
    It seemed like I’d been in there for several hours when there came a soft knock on the door. Lipton got up and went out of the room.
    He was back a minute later. He was holding a plastic zippered bag. He put it on the table between us. It held a knife. The blade was five or six inches long with a serrated edge. It looked like a steak knife.
    â€œRecognize this, Mr. Coyne?” said Lipton.
    â€œNo. Is it the murder weapon?”
    â€œMaybe.” He glanced at Vanderweigh, then turned back to me. “It appears to match a set of knives from the kitchen in the cottage you were renting.”
    I said nothing.
    â€œIt was found in the bushes about twenty feet from Larry Scott’s body.”
    â€œSo it’s probably the murder weapon,” I said.
    â€œThat remains to be seen,” said Vanderweigh. “Take another look at it.”
    I looked at it and shrugged. “We’ve only been in the cottage since night before last. We haven’t cooked or eaten there, except for cereal yesterday morning and sandwiches for lunch. We didn’t use any sharp knives. The woman who owns the place kept the key under the doormat. Anybody could’ve gotten in there.”
    They asked me a few more questions—the same ones they’d been asking me before—and then the two of them looked at each other, and Vanderweigh said, “Terminating interrogation at—” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “—at eleven forty-seven A.M.” He snapped off the tape recorder. “You’re free to go, Mr. Coyne, but I’ve got to ask you not to return to that cottage.”
    â€œCrime scene and all.”

    â€œYes.”
    â€œFor how long?”
    â€œA couple days, anyway.”
    â€œSo what’re we supposed to do?”
    â€œThat’s up to you. Go home, if you want.”
    â€œAll our stuff is in that cottage. My car’s there.”
    Vanderweigh nodded. “I’ll have one of the Brewster officers take you back to get your things. I’m afraid you can’t have your car for a while, though.”
    â€œYou think we killed him somewhere else and transported his body to our driveway?” I said. “So we could find it and report it and make ourselves logical suspects?”
    He shrugged. “Why don’t you go clean out the cottage? When you get back, I’m sure someone’ll be happy to help you find a rental.”
    â€œWhat about Evie?”
    â€œYou can wait here for