How to handle the next few hours, the next few days as the cops investigated the murder of Dr. Wren Denniston and found themselves someone to pin it on, was the question plaguing me. And the answer, I knew, hinged on Julia. Was she the love of my life, a savior who had returned to rescue me from an increasingly dismal existence? If so, then I needed to do all I could to protect her. What false story wouldn’t we concoct for true love? What crime wouldn’t we commit? And hadn’t the two of us agreed, in my apartment, to trust one another, not to turn each on the other, and, at least for the moment, to keep our mouths shut?

On the other hand, if Julia had opened our rapprochement for the sole purpose of using me as a lifeline out of a brutal crime she planned to commit, then she was nothing but a manipulative psychopath set on endangering both my physical and emotional well-being. Of course, what else could one expect from an old girlfriend, and about par for the course in my relationships, but something to avoid nonetheless. And the easiest way to avoid it was to sing like a rock star and wash my hands of the whole foul mess.

The problem was, I couldn’t figure out who she was, which I suppose was a clue right there. I mean, what kind of relationship was possible if I was unsure of the basic psychological makeup of the object of my affection? She could be just a messed-up girl or a dark-hearted murderess? Either way I was in for trouble.

And I couldn’t help but wonder why she had finally come back to me, and why now? I thought about the letters Julia had shown me. “SLUT. WHORE. WITCH’S CUNT. FAT SLOB. SLAGHEAP. BANGSTER. YOU GREEDY BITCH.” Something about the letters seemed to be the clue to everything. It was the letters, she said, that had caused her to call. If she had written them herself, she couldn’t have found a sweeter opening. And who says she didn’t? Write the notes, stuff them in plain envelopes, drop them into the mailing slot to set up the old lover to take her fall. Even finding her fingerprints on the letters would tell us nothing. Mine were now on them, too. If she had sent the letters herself, then she had been setting me up from the start. But then again, if someone else had sent the letters, maybe the sender should be the prime suspect.