"This acquaintance?" Cord asked, looking up from his notebook and its seemingly illegible scrawl. He wrote only to look official in the presence of someone he found unacceptably disconcerting. It was more than Morgan being gay. If Morgan were gay. Cord was unable to find anyone to verify that on a first-hand basis, although the handsome and successful writer was always mentioned in any who's-who-within-the-gay-community conversations.

"I'm reluctant to give you a name," Morgan said with a wide smile that dimpled his cheeks; those attractive concaves perfectly offset the small cleft couched in his chin, "because his comment was one anyone might have deduced from the evidence. By now, even you must have enough of an overview of Horton Lendland's life-style to be less than shocked by his manner of dying."

Whether Cord was shocked or not, he was interested in anyone who could read aloud the writing on the wall as early as two years before. "I would like to know who said it," he persisted, remaining embarrassedly distracted by this man whom, at close to forty years of age, looked no more than twenty-five. Morgan either had a body miraculously resistant to the wear and tear of middle age, or he had one he was able to camouflage perfectly within the expensively cut pewter-grey Brioni.

"Gary Green," Morgan said finally, Cord having almost forgotten the triggering question, "but you'll be wasting your time. Gary and Horton only met a few times in passing. They certainly didn't run in the same social circles, as enemies, friends, lovers, or tricks. Gary wasn't Horton's type and vice versa."

"That's Gary Green, the schoolteacher?" Cord asked. He'd always been acutely aware of any gay-oriented news breaking within the Seattle area. Gary Green, schoolteacher, had received more than his fair share of press.

"One and the same," Morgan confirmed. "Gary Green, molester of young boys, the greedy gobbler of adolescent dick." Morgan's boyish good looks (God, how did the man manage to look boyish at forty!?), seemed out of place with his x-rated comments. But Cord had it from those who professed to know that it had been just Morgan's devil-angelic paradox, complete with wit and intellect, which had been his entrée into mansions and back rooms, his key to acceptance by kinks, socialites, and literary scions alike. On his terms, not theirs. "Although I would be careful about accusing Gary of his misdeeds in any public forum," Morgan added, "in the face of his total acquittal, I mean."

"You're the one who's calling him a pederast," Cord reminded defensively.

"Am I?" Morgan asked, all practiced innocence that came across surprisingly unaffected. "Surely not! Gary is a dear friend, as I'm sure he'll be the very first to tell you."

Cord's uncomfortable feeling of being mind-fucked by a pro seemed to be confirmed by Morgan's radiated sense of amusement at finding himself in the presence of the young policeman whose muscles and guts, at twenty-six, obviously needed far more attention than Detective Cord Maxwell had recently been able to give them. "Do you really find this as amusing as you're coming across?" Cord accused. "I find it unusual from someone purporting to have been Horton Lendland's friend-if not his best friend."

"Am I purporting to have been Horton's best friend?" Morgan asked, his accompanying laugh refusing any chastisement. "Funny, but I don't recall purporting any such thing."

"He left you over one-hundred-thousand dollars worth of paintings," Cord said, consciously willing himself to stay calm and cool. He suspected Morgan was baiting him, and he refused to play faggot games. Goddamn it, he was a police officer on an official investigation of a man brutally murdered and burned to a fucking crisp, and there was nothing even vaguely amusing about it.

"Haven't you heard? My so-called inheritance went up in the same smoke Horton did," Morgan reminded, pouring himself another drink. On the lake behind him, a yacht jockeyed for mooring, masts bedecked with glimmering lights like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

"Which doesn't negate the fact of his leaving them to you," Cord rebutted.

"It does remove any motive for murder, though, doesn't it?" Morgan reasoned. "Not that I knew he was planning on leaving me such a bonanza. When he made me executor of his will, I assumed the fees he knew I'd milk from my executorship would be adequate compensation. Disappointed?"

The question took Cord by surprise. "Disappointed?" he echoed.

"About my motive for murder having been flushed down the toilet?" Morgan elucidated. He cocked his head, his silky black hair moving in an hypnotically fluid motion. He had a scar almost lost within the arch of his left eyebrow. "Although that's possibly not an apropos analogy," he said, "considering we're talking fire here. Gone up in a puff of smoke might be better. Yes?"