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

“And this,” I added, pointing with my pen to the comma between the two letters on the Post-it. “I wasn’t sure what that was there for. But then I remembered. It wasn’t a comma, just a jotted number, part of a formula: N2O—nitrous oxide; laughing gas, which you have stored uprightnext to the oxygen in the dock area.”


The man had turned white now. He was staring at me in something approaching horror.


“Now, the cylinder,” I continued. “It has none of your prints on it. I imagine you wiped them off, or perhaps you wear gloves when doing a delivery.” Without waiting for a response, I added, “But the oxygen label—I have to admit, you did a good job with the gluing there. It’s just the same as the other cylinders. I haven’t removed it, but I imagine if I do, I might find the nitrous oxide label underneath. What do you think?”


He looked at me now with something like pleading in his eyes.


“Okay,” I said. “Now that I know whatyou did, I’d like to know why?”


Chapter 35