Seeing Red · Detective Steve Smiley Mystery

Houston cop Steve Smiley, is working a routine call out of the stolen cars division. This car seems different. An old school white VW bug backed into a handicap spot. Not many handicap people back in to a spot nor do they abandon their vehicles. While he’s walking around the car, looking for clues, he speaks the owner’s name. The car turns red, then back to white. Steve rubs his eyes. Maybe Maggie was right. He needed a break from this dead-end job. His wife however, doesn’t settle for so simple an explanation. Her psychiatrist friend explains about a condition called associative chromysthesia, seeing a film of color in certain situations. In Smiley’s case the color was red, the situation was homicide. What did it all mean? And in the meantime, he still needed to find the missing owner.

The missing high school French teacher does turn up…dead. His body washes out of a culvert after a heavy rain. Smiley sees his big chance to get out of stolen cars and into homicide. He goes to the homicide sergeant with the info he collected on the dead man and convinces him he would be an asset to help solve this case. The grizzly sergeant very grudgingly agrees, but quickly assures Smiley he will be back in stolen cars if he can’t solve it.

All evidence and witness statements point to three brothers. Smiley isn’t convinced. Can he prove the brothers are innocent before they are railroaded to prison? Will his unorthodox plan to prove their innocence really unearth the killer? Or will Smiley spend his whole career in stolen cars?