Captain Lowe's "Crazy Love" book with corrected names.

From Neill Lowe's fictional book "Crazy Love"—with correct names.

Courtney shrugged. "I had no idea who he was or what he's up to now. I had my executive assistant call around town when Kurt went missing, find a private detective for me. For all I know, Grant might've been the only one who answered his phone Easter morning."

Tanner sat back and stared at the ceiling a moment, and then he nodded. "This Detective Grant is the one who flew up here and came to your house, but he couldn't find Kurt-and that might've been the same night Kurt died?"

Courtney closed her eyes and ran her tongue across her lower lip. She nodded.

"So, Grant knocked at the entry door and rang the bell," said Tanner, indicating with a nod the door they had entered. "Was that all he did?"

Courtney nodded once as if distracted and then shook her head. "He hooked up with Dylan Carlson first, rang the bell, and then climbed inside the house, while the nanny was away with his girlfriend and Robbie. Grant said he gave the house a sweep and checked through everything while he was here.

"So, nobody was home when they were here?" asked Tanner, "or at least that's what he says—but then he didn't bother to check the potting shed which is right above the garage and hard to miss, did he?"

Courtney shook her head. “He said something about not wanting the neighbors to see him lurking about the place, mistaking him for a prowler, but come on -he's got a fucking badge from a Cracker Jack box and his Junior Dick Tracy credentials he could've shown the cops, if they asked to see something. What the hell was I paying him for but to find Kurt before he shot himself. For all anyone knows, Kurt still could've been alive while incompetent Grant was busy doing the Inspector Clouseau routine."

"And if Grant had walked around and checked the grounds,” said Tanner, "assuming now that Kurt was already dead at this point, he should've climbed the steps to the loft, looked through the glass, and seen Kurt's body on the floor with the shotgun on top of him."

"That's right," said Courtney, "and we wouldn't be having this conversation, because I was still down in LA, worried sick about Kurt. They hospitalized me for two days because, uhm, I was so distracted...um...distraught-yeah that's it -that I took an overdose of medications -because I was worried sick-literally. But I don't get any sympathy for that- or for all the worrying and caring I do. Nobody sees that side of me, but maybe that's my fault for keeping my emotions bottled up. And so, no one cares about how I felt, afraid I was losing my husband and all. They only cared if I had an alibi which showed I wasn't in Seattle at the time, but even the smartest math nerd could've figured there was no time for me to get my butt on a plane, fly up here, find Kurt's drugged-out ass, kill him, and then fly back to LA and pretend I wasn't up here, while fooling all my friends down there. Come on...that's ridiculous..."

"That's an awful lot to assume," said Tanner.

"But since Grant didn't do any of what I asked him to do, there's now a three-day gap until the electrical fix-it- guy spotted the body. So, if a wire guy could find the body on a routine installation, people naturally wonder: Why not Courtney's for-hire detective? How come? Somehow, in their minds this equates to me being intimate with Grant, flying up here with him to do the murderous deed, making sure the coast was clear, and then me flying back to LA. In that scenario, Grant hangs around and tries to look as inept as a private dick possibly can, before he caught a commercial flight home, after the body's found."

"But that should mean he would've had to have flown up on a separate commercial flight," said Dixon, "so then he would have left a traceable record, right? He couldn't just fly one leg of the round trip commercial, he'd have to ride them both, because those facts can be checked."

"Yeah," said Courtney, nodding her head. "Unless he flew up under an alias, so he wouldn't leave a trail. Madonna and Cher fly that way all the time."

"Do people think there was something going on between you and Grant?" asked Dixon. "Is that another rumor we're hearing?"

Courtney eyed Dixon a long moment, and then she patted the far end of the couch. “Take a load off Marine. Have a seat over here. Despite what Gabe's told you, I don't bite."

Dixon came away from the window and took the opposite end of the couch, keeping a cushion open between her and Courtney.

After taking another drag from her cigarette, Courtney shook her head.

"Grant figures he's a regular Magnum PI. He's trying to grow a Tom Selleck mustache, but he's an imposter there, too. He colors it in to make it look dark and hide the gray. Looks more like a porn star than a dream boat. We didn't connect. But the theory is something must've gone sideways between us romantically, so he turns around and blames me for Kurt, because he's trying to hurt me. Supposedly he's mad because he won't get any more of Kurt's money, which he demanded for his part in this phony scheme, a large cut at that. So now, it's like if people start focusing on me, they'll forget he was the one up here during the time Kurt shot himself, not me. Maybe he could've prevented it, if he wasn't such an incompetent dip shit."

Courtney rolled her eyes and gazed at the ceiling, lost in thought. "And what was I supposedly doing during the three days I was waiting to hear whether Kurt was dead or alive? Was I racking up frequent flyer miles on Alaska Airlines, catching the red eye, back and forth between Seattle and LA?"

"I haven't heard anyone say they saw you on an airline," said Barnett.

"Exactly my point," Courtney shot back. "I was in a treatment center, like I said."