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

“So,” he said. “What arewe looking for? Anything in particular?”


“I’m not sure,” I said. “But maybe something hewrote in—a journal or something.”


We got to work, starting from opposite ends of the shelving. After several minutes Horst gave a cry of surprised satisfaction.


I turned and saw he was holding up a large, hardbound volume with leather covers, the sort used by people who kept serious journals, like research scientists. I took the volume from him.


“There are a bunch of them,” he said, pointing to the shelf.


I saw the gap where he had pulled this volume from. It was third from last. Opening the front cover, I saw two dates, and examined the first page of notes and the last page, and saw that the dates on the title page were those of the first and last entry made. These were from over two years ago.


Chapter 27