Private investigator Ian visits his friend unannounced, only to discover the man lying in bed, not asleep but dead. Ian resolves to find out how his friend died and, if he was murdered, to bring the killer to justice. But the details of the case are bizarre: the door of the condo unit is locked and the only other occupant is a bodybuilder, Horst, found sitting on the living room couch, half asleep or drugged. Ian calls 911 and the cops, when video footage showing no one entered or left the condo around the time of death, fixate on Horst as the most likely suspect. Ian is convinced Horst is innocent and offers his services to help the police solve the mystery of his friend’s death. But the situation is complicated, not only by the self-contradictory nature of the physical evidence, but by the fact that Ian increasingly finds himself drawn to Horst. Worse, the lead police detective shows increasing signs of interest in Ian himself. Love and death become strangely intertwined, their resolution not easily discovered. Is Horst as innocent as Ian believes? Can Ian help solve the locked-room mystery?

Bliss

We had our coffee in companionable silence after that. Just being around Horst made my sense of well-being increase. I wondered if he felt the same way about me.


During relaxation the unconscious mind turns over elements of unsolved problems—as Jung suggested occurred during sleep. Right now, the automatic gears of my mind clicked and produced a thought about something that had been bothering me.


“You said he called his bedroom his inner sanctum.”


We looked at each other, then I got up.


“Come on,” I said. “I want to explore this inner sanctum.”


We went into Quentin’s bedroom and stood near the window. I looked around, and noticed that Horst was glancing uneasily towards the bed.


Does that mean anything?I wondered. Culpability, or just imagination?


“The thing is,” I said, gesturing to the entire room, “there really isn’t much here.”


Chapter 20