Page 85 of Near Miss

“What you see now,” Carly replied. “That’s it.”

The cop looked for a more responsive customer, and an old lady accommodated him, talking rapidly.

Carly turned and walked away. She reached into the bag and pulled out a donut and took a big bite. Ahead of her, a woman got out of a cab, and Carly got in.

“The Strand Bookstore,” she said and gave the address on Broadway and East Twelfth Street.

Shortly, the cab stopped, Carly got out, leaving the Krispy Kremes behind, and Billy got in, giving the driver an uptown address. Carly walked into the huge bookstore and shopped around, choosing two biographies, Eleanor Roosevelt and Kate Lee. She paid in cash and left the store, having shed her raincoat, and with a new shopping bag.

Stone watched the TV intently and saw Carly go into the Strand, then lost her. Somebody got into her cab and drove away. There was nothing else to see.

Ten minutes later, there was a tap on the rear street entrance to Stone’s office, and he let in Billy Barnett, who was, somehow, dressed differently than when he had departed an hour ago.

“Did you see everything?” Billy asked.

“No,” Stone said honestly, “just a shot of Carly getting out of a cab at the Strand, and you getting in.”

“Then you missed all the action,” Billy said. He picked up a remote control and rewound the video, then played it in slow motion.

“I still missed most of it,” Stone said.

“Then so will the police,” Billy said, holding out a shopping bag. “Krispy Kreme?”

Stone looked into the bag and saw donuts, but didn’t take one. “I’m confused,” he said.

“And that’s a good thing,” Billy said.

Shortly, Carly entered the house and flopped down in a chair. “Got another Krispy Kreme?” she asked, and Billy offered her one. She chewed reflectively for a moment. “Well?” she asked nobody in particular.

Everybody stared at Carly.

“Well, what?” Stone asked.

“That’s the best question you could have asked,” Billy said. He played the recording again, then recordings of two television stations.

“I see nothing,” Stone said, “except the back of Carly’s head, once or twice.”

“And nobody’s looking for the back of Carly’s head,” Billy said.

“It’s all too obvious to believe,” Stone said.

“Correct.”

“And I did what Billy said,” Carly remarked. “I learned a lot.”

“What did you learn?”

She held up her Krispy Kreme. “I learned that nobody cares about a lady buying donuts. And that, if you just do what you would normally do in the circumstances, you’re not a suspect.”

“Well,” Stone said, “in many years of trying to solve homicides, I didn’t look for ordinary people doing what they did. I looked for obvious suspects, and usually, I found them.”

“That’s because the perpetrators were influenced by their own actions,” Billy said. “They were furtive because they knew they were guilty, or were going to be. If you’re going to commit a murder, state of mind is everything.”

“You didn’t explain that before,” Stone said.

“No, and that’s because an explanation would have altered your state of mind, and you would have been looking for missteps, instead of overlooking them.” Billy set the remote control down. “I have a plane to catch, but keep me updated on any developments, Stone. Let’s stay in close touch.” He nodded at Carly and headed for the door.

Dino sat and watched the videos of the murder from neighborhood security cameras. He thought he caught sight of Carly’s head once, but then he lost her. He saw two women carrying shopping bags from Krispy Kreme, but what the hell, it was right there on the corner, and that would have been entirely acceptable and actionless. Who cared who bought donuts? And he would expect that, if questioned, Carly would have had an ironclad alibi: she was buying donuts on a whim.

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