Pain, as from a couple dozen ice picks, twisted along my spine. The agony increased, and I remembered one of Gambino’s henchmen, the three-hundred-pounder, had body-slammed me beside the road. The space between my shoulder blades tightened, like my muscles were pinched in a washing-machine wringer. Unable to move, I lay on my back, beside Laura, thinking about the jam I’d gotten us in. The cops had fingered me as a suspect when Eric Carville’s body wasn’t even cold. As crazy as it still seemed, I was LAPD’s only suspect. My publishing contract and Laura’s career were as fragile as a skyscraper built with toothpicks. I’d spent the past few days ignoring the screenplay I was supposed to be polishing and the novel Mildred expected to see when she arrived. I had to solve the murder, but the list of suspects was growing, not getting shorter. I wasn’t any closer to solving the crime than I was the day before. If that wasn’t enough, Mildred would be arriving the day after the funeral.
