The Executioner's Song

What an awful thing it is to happen upon the body—your friend—ID’d only by a scrap of clothing. The law alleges he jumped off the bridge—600 feet? Fell? Thrown? Racing home to the victim’s Taos adobe, you find him there and on TV being interviewed: He must sell his art, over a hundred paintings. Yet he’s famous, so why the backlog? And on the screen is your own portrait right there in the home of the NY TV host. What is going on? You need a private investigator. No need for the sheriff, he hates Indians. And sheriff is the brother of the artist’s agent.

Does the PI see a connection here? You bet, strong enough to launch a sequence of psyche stratagems to break the brothers, because the TV pitchman is really the agent, impersonating his own client. You happen to know music—you have a little band—and so does the PI, so here it comes: The brothers in the nightclub being entertained by the ballad reenact to what happened at the bridge. They scramble to the crime scene to cover up something overlooked when they murdered. The PI’s hi-tech gadgetry at the scene cuffs them.