Read The Guise of Another for Free Online

when he worked Narcotics—places that smelled of pit bulls, pot, and the unmistakable cat-urine scent of the meth labs.
    The security guard, a young man who looked barely old enough to drink alcohol legally, sat behind the hotel-like reception desk, an economics textbook open in front of him.
    “I need to see one of your residents,” Alexander said, still holding out his badge. “A Ms. Ianna Markova.”
    “Is Ms. Markova expecting you?”
    “She is not. But if you tell her it's about the death of Mr. Putnam, I'm sure she'll make herself available.”
    The security guard picked up a phone, dialed, and spoke in a whisper. After a few seconds, he placed the phone back in the cradle and said, “Follow me.”
    They walked to the elevator and the kid pushed the button for the twentieth floor—the penthouse. Alexander then rode up alone. When the elevator arrived, the doors opened to an antechamber. The door to the penthouse stood on the opposite side of the antechamber. Alexander walked over, knocked lightly, and waited until he heard the sound of diminutive feet padding on the floor inside. An attractive woman appeared, wearing a blue spaghetti-strap tank top, white yoga pants, and a soft smile.
    “I'm Detective Alexander Rupert of the Minneapolis Police Department.”
    The woman looked at his badge.
    “Are you Ianna Markova?”
    “I am.”
    “Mind if I ask you a few questions about James Putnam?”
    She didn't move at first. She looked at Alexander as though processing his request, and then said, “Come in.” Ianna walked to the heart of the apartment, where a fourteen-foot wall of tinted glass faced the Mississippi River. Alexander stepped up to the glass to look out. If Ianna Markova had been standing in that spot a couple hours earlier, she could have watched him on the Third Avenue Bridge, holding on to the cold, steel rail as though his life depended on it. “Nice view,” he said, turning his attention back to Ianna.
    “If you like rivers,” she replied. She sat on a white couch and smiled at Alexander, motioning with her hand to show him to a love seat opposite her. Her eyes seemed to hold his just a little too long, and she smiled a little too easily for someone who recently lost a boyfriend, Alexander thought.
    “Didn't the Highway Patrol already take care of this stuff?” Ianna asked.
    “They did ma'am. This isn't about—”
    “Oh, please don't call me ma'am.” Ianna curled her pedicured feet up underneath her. “Do I look like a ma'am to you?”
    Alexander took a moment to look at Ianna and concluded that there was nothing “ma'am” about the woman. He swallowed hard and hoped that she hadn't noticed his stare. “No, I guess you don't,” he said. “By the way, I'm sorry for your loss.”
    “Thank you,” she said casting her gaze to the floor not unlike an actor responding to a cue. “It all happened so suddenly.”
    “How long did you know Mr. Putnam?”
    “We were together for three years.”
    “You own this place with him?”
    “No. He owned it. I'm hoping to buy it. I have a little windfall coming.”
    “The wrongful-death case?”
    “You know about that?”
    “So Dogget hasn't told you…”
    Ianna sat up in her seat. “Told me what? Is there something wrong?”
    Alexander hesitated, not wanting to be the one to bear bad news. “You may want to call him.”
    “What is it?”
    Alexander paused again, but then said, “He said that girlfriends can't collect on a wrongful-death action. Only wives.”
    That cold slab of information seemed to catch Ianna off guard. She began absently looking around the apartment at the furniture and the adornments. “I don't understand. I thought…I mean, there was no wife. I was all James had. He didn't have a wife.”
    “I'm sorry.”
    “How can that be fair?” She pressed a hand against her chest. “You're saying that he told you I'm getting nothing…at all?”
    “That's what Dogget said. It's not my call.”
    She hesitated as if to