Who Censored Roger Rabbit? (28 page)

“And I took you on as my partner. I thought we had two murders to solve, but you knew we only had one. That’s why you weren’t particularly diligent in tracking down clues in the DeGreasy case. Because you knew they’d all lead straight back to you.”

Roger swallowed hard enough to dislodge his Adam’s apple. It fell to the floor and disintegrated. “I don’t regret it,” he said in words strained to slivers through badly cracked lips. “Rocco had it coming to him. He was nasty, through and through. A regular viper. He deserved to die.”

“And I deserved to take the rap?”

“You tire me.” The rabbit crinkled his forehead and lost one of his eyebrows in the process. “Oh, how you tire me. If you knew, why didn’t you turn me over to Hudson?”

My turn to crinkle my brow. “What would I get out of it? A few Brownie points? They wouldn’t last a week. Don’t be too sure I’m the louse I’m supposed to be.”

“So while I played dumb with you, you played the sap for me.” The rabbit uncorked a smile, but I’d seen better on a dead dog. “You’re a decent human being, Eddie. What is it you private eyes call it? A stand-up guy.” He reached out his paw to shake, but it dissolved on the way. He reached”out his other one, but it went likewise.

He winked an eye instead, and the rest of him crumbled to dust.

I opened my apartment window and let the draft have Roger’s remains.

I looked up at the sky. It was one of those rare days when the Earth revolves a little faster and shoos away the smog. You could see a long way, but not half as far as Roger had gone.