I don’t suppose Wally could hear me but I was sitting on my bedroom floor, crying as he finished his story.

“We had a call during the evening to go up to the Patterson house, out your way. My boys found the body – couldn’t tell much about anything from looking at her and she didn’t have no ID. They called in the license plate and found that the Mustang had been rented in your name. Hell, it was your driveway, a rented car, and a girl with a similar build and size – it made sense that it was you.”

“I guess so,” I whimpered back to him.

“Well, I’m glad it’s not you, Alex. Everyone will be glad to know it’s not you. I figured the investigation would be a monster, tryin‘ to track down every pervert and madman you’ve sent to jail. That’s why I called in the FBI – figured we’d be hunting’ all over the place.”

Wally actually laughed a few times at that point.

“It’s a relief, really. I guess the off-island papers won’t even bother with us now.”

The chief had no idea how wrong he was and how bad this was going to be for that tranquil little island.

“Can you help us, Alex? Can you give us her name and who to notify?”

I mumbled the name into the phone, but Wally heard it loud and clear.

“Isabella Lascar.”

The news wires were about to explode with the information that the face of the dazzlingly beautiful actress and film star, Isabella Lascar, had been obliterated, and that what was left of her body lay in the tiny Vineyard morgue, with a toe tag mislabeled in the name of Alexandra Cooper.

Mike waited in the den, surfing the TV channels for clips about the murder, while I showered and dressed to go down to my office in the criminal courthouse. There wasn’t enough makeup in Manhattan to conceal the puffy circles beneath my eyes, so I just rolled on some lipstick and grabbed my sunglasses from the bedside table.

“You look like shit, blondie,” Mike offered as I headed for the front door.“Very bad for my image – doorman thinks I spent the night with a broad who looks like that.”