Rules for Perfect Murders - Peter Swanson Page 0,69

the first lie that popped into my head. “Just extra tired and a little achy. Don’t know what it is.”

“Well, don’t come here and spread it all around,” Brandon said. “E and I have got it covered, don’t we, E?”

She didn’t respond but I saw Emily look up from behind the desk. The customer she’d been helping, a semiregular whose name I could never remember, but who always bought the new Michael Connelly from us, was now shuffling toward the exit.

“I have some work to do in my office, then I’m going to head back home, I promise,” I said, and made my way there as Brandon started to tell Emily how his mother had had a cold for an entire year once.

Nero was in my desk chair, curled into a circle, but he perked up when I came in, stretched his back, then leapt to the ground. I sat and turned on my computer. I was suddenly worried that I’d deleted the Duckburg bookmark—the smart thing to do, in all honesty—but once I’d gone online, there it was. I logged on, went to the section called Swaps, and did a quick perusal of the last fifty or so entries. It was the usual stuff—offers of work with the payment of either sexual favor or drugs. There were outliers, of course, a man looking to trade his wife’s entire shoe collection (“at least eight jimmy choos”) for a ticket to a sold-out Springsteen concert. I didn’t see anything that referenced Strangers on a Train. I wasn’t surprised. Charlie didn’t need to get in touch with me because he already had, in a way. He knew exactly who I was. Still, it was worth a shot to send him a message on the off chance he was watching this site.

I created a new fake identity, calling myself Farley Walker, and posted a message. Dear Strangers on a Train fan, I’d like to propose another swap. You know who you are. I stared at the message for about five minutes after I’d posted it, wondering if a reply would come through instantly, but nothing did. I logged off Duckburg and did a quick search of New Essex University to see if anything had popped up in the news. I wasn’t surprised to find nothing. Even if Nick Pruitt’s body had already been discovered, and it probably hadn’t yet, then it would hardly be newsworthy. It would look like an accidental overdose from an alcoholic who fell off the wagon. Unless Charlie had screwed up, it was a perfect murder. No one would suspect a homicide.

I did wonder how he’d done it. My best guess was that he’d gone to Pruitt’s door with the bottle of whiskey and a gun and forced him to drink. Maybe he’d drugged the whiskey, as well.

The bigger question I had was how had Charlie targeted Pruitt in the first place. The only people who knew I was interested in him were Marty Kingship and Jillian Nguyen. Of course, Pruitt was related to Norman Chaney. And if Charlie had arranged for Chaney’s death, then he’d have a connection with Pruitt as well. I suddenly remembered the book, Little Fish, and that I’d left it here at the store. Emily was now back at her own desk, dealing with online orders probably, so I went to the register. Little Fish was there, where I’d left it. I realized how incriminating it was that I had a library copy of this book and decided that the least I could do was not leave it where it was.

“You had a visitor last night,” Brandon said.

I looked up. “Oh, yeah?”

“Brian Murray’s wife—is it Tess?—was here looking for you.”

“Oh,” I said. “Did she say what she wanted?”

“Nah. She said she was just dropping by because she hadn’t been for a while, but I could tell she was a little disappointed you weren’t here. She’s not usually in Boston, is she? Not when it’s freezing cold like this, right?”

“Brian broke his arm,” I said. “I saw them two nights ago, and apparently she now has to be here to help him with everything.”

“Oh, man, that’s hilarious,” Brandon said, although I wasn’t sure it really was.

I wasn’t too surprised that Tess had stopped by the store. She had been in the book business, after all, as a publicist. And I was sure she was tired of babysitting her husband. Still, I couldn’t help thinking about the way she’d hugged me good-bye after we had drinks