Read Switch for Free Online Page B

any known Jewish holidays. There was speculation that Aaron was doing private penance for a misdeed in the past, but like so many mysteries facing the Detective Division the mystery of Rosenthal's yarmulke had been relegated to the "unsolved" file drawer.
    "How do you like the case?" Janek asked. He'd only spoken briefly with Aaron the day before.
    "Goddamn horror show. Sorry about Al, Frank. Lou all right?"
    "She'll make it," Janek said. "You talk to Taylor yet?" Taylor was the precinct commander, a uniformed captain not overly fond of detectives who used his space but were not under his control.
    "He's pissed at Hart. Wanted these rooms for a rape crisis center."
    Janek looked around. "Nice. Sweep it out yourself?"
    "Everything but the interrogation rooms. Thought I'd leave them just the way they were."
    Janek checked the pair of cubicles separated by a short corridor which allowed observation through narrow slits of one-way glass. "Better buy some roach spray," he said. "You know...yesterday I couldn't stand having to deal with this. I actually prayed aloud the guy would come in this morning and confess."
    Aaron shrugged. "Yeah. Well, when they're that easy they're no fun."
    They went downstairs, then out to the Taco-Rico on Seventh Avenue South where they ate lunch and talked. Aaron knew all about Stanger and Howell and the fistfight in the morgue. Everyone knew about it. "It's Sweeney. He blabbed, and how now they're being punished by having to work the case under you."
    "Sweeney's saying that?"
    "That's what's going around."
    "That prick. Yesterday I let him drive my car."
    "He told you you needed a ring job, right?"
    "Said my engine sounded bad." Janek glanced at Aaron. "He blabbing about that too?"
    "Not that I know of. But cars are his sideline. He owns a piece of a garage." Aaron eyed him carefully. "You know, Frank, you really ought to be more excited about this case. Got great potential. Kind that can make you famous."
    "Yeah, I know, it's the big bizarre case you wait for all your life. Great if you solve it. The worst kind if you don't."
    "We'll solve it."
    "I'm not so sure. Anyway, I don't like it all that much."
    "Right now you don't. But you will, Frank. When you get into it you will."
    Â 
    A fter lunch they returned to the office and stared together at the crime-scene photographs. They each stood before a set, then changed places, then changed again. Then Janek started pacing, back and forth, looking for something which he felt was there that he had missed before. What was it? Something revealing, abnormal, even beyond the abnormality of the switch. Something about the way the crime scenes looked. Something . . . he didn't know exactly what.
    "See anything?" he asked Aaron finally.
    "Guess you do, the way you're pacing around."
    "Do you?"
    "Crime-scene photos."
    "Yeah, of course."
    "Maybe there's something else."
    Janek waited, and when Aaron didn't continue he became impatient, wondering if he hadn't looked too hard seeking an aura which wasn't there.
    "Too perfect," Aaron said after a while.
    "Interesting. What do you mean?"
    "Not sure."
    "Come on, Aaron."
    "They're contrived, somehow."
    " Yeah? "
    "Like they were meant to be photographed, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean."
    "The killer didn't take the pictures."
    "Of course he didn't. Still..."
    "You mean the scenes look like they were arranged to be photographed?"
    Aaron was bent over now, peering very close. "Hmmm. I'm not sure about that either."
    "You said 'too perfect.' Now, just what does 'too perfect' mean?"
    "I don't know."
    "Symmetry?"
    "Sure there's symmetry when you switch heads around."
    "We know that already. But is there something else?"
    "There is something, Frank. Something that hits you until you look too hard and then you don't see it anymore."
    "So what is it, for Christ's sake?"
    Aaron stood back, shook his head. "Beats me."
    "Well, I'll tell you what I think it is. Arrogance. Conceit. 'I defy you to solve this crime. I defy