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me, wrapping his windbreaker around my shoulders. Marvin looks like your favorite uncle, portly and graying. I was grateful for his presence as the other officers arrived and went about their grisly business. Their voices seemed loud and callous, and when a Polaroid flash went off, I nearly jumped out of my skin. They had a video camera, too, but I kept my back resolutely turned on the scene they were recording.

Marvin brought over Lieutenant Michael Graham, a weedy, dark-haired fellow in parka and sneakers. He wore a look of intense disappointment, which I later learned was a permanent feature, not a reaction to queasy witnesses.

“Ms. Kincaid, I’ll need a brief statement now, then a more detailed account tomorrow morning. OK?”

“Whatever,” I said numbly. “Is Tommy all right?”

“Who?”

“Tommy Barry, he’s over by the pillar. He’s drunk. He said ‘You’re killing her,’ and then he passed out.”

But Tommy, it seemed, was also long gone. He must have slipped out the exit to the dock, and gone around to the street on the outside walkway. I was asked urgently for his description, which I provided, and for a description of his car, which I’d never seen. Some officers left in a hurry, and only then did Lieutenant Graham ask me about finding Mercedes. I made a calm, step-by-step statement, and when it was done I erupted into sobs.

Graham watched me mournfully for a minute, then dispatched Marvin to take me home. I made a stop at the ladies’ room to scrub off the blood. Marvin came in with me, and a good thing. As the pink-tinged water spiraled slowly down the drain, I nearly fainted clean away.

“Carnegie, you all right?”

“Sure. Fine. No problem.” I clutched the counter, gulping air. Mercedes had stood here, only hours before, vain and scheming and alive. My newest almost-client. She would have made a glorious bride. We could have woven flowers into her hair.

“I just want to get out of here.”

But first we had a gauntlet to run: a little crowd of reporters at the building entrance, barking at us like dogs. How had they found out so quickly? There were more camera flashes, blinding in the darkness, and a dozen shouted questions.

“Who got killed?”

“Officer, can you tell us what happened?”

“Miss, did you see anything? Miss, what’s your name? Hey, Miss!”

“Hey, Stretch!”

One of the baying newshounds had a familiar face. Aaron. He reached out to me, but there was a pencil in his hand and a question on his lips. Not you, too. I turned away, disgusted. He’d always be a reporter first, and a friend—or a lover?—second. If I needed some direction about our relationship, I’d just gotten it. Marvin hustled me into Vanna and drove me home.

Home is a houseboat on Lake Union, with Made in Heaven’s two-room office on the upper floor. The houseboat itself has seen better days, but my slip is priceless: right at the end of the dock with a view of downtown Seattle to the south and Gas Works Park to the north, and a constant parade of watercraft and waterfowl in between. Renting home and office in one waterborne package had been just barely affordable when I started Made in Heaven, and now with the dock fees escalating and Vanna in need of round-the-clock nursing, I was perpetually broke. But I loved my shabby little place, and I’d never been so glad to see it as tonight.

Marvin walked me to my door, along the worn wooden planks of the dock. I assured him one last time that I didn’t need a friend to come stay with me, so he called in to the station for a pickup and went out to the parking lot to wait. Numb with exhaustion and shock, I stepped out of my gory witch’s gown and left it on the bathroom floor. With my last bit of energy, I called up to the office and left a message for Eddie to hear in the morning. Then I crawled under the covers and fell fathoms deep into dreamless sleep.

The next morning it was raining, a dense mournful rain that drummed on the wooden stairway as I trudged up to the office, and sheeted down the picture windows of Made in Heaven’s reception area. The “good room,” with its fresh paint and wicker love seats, was where I met with clients to talk cakes and bouquets. To help them daydream. The workroom, through a connecting door, was all secondhand desks and file cabinets, but boasted the same