“MRS. JENKINS?” LACROIX moved past the two patrol officers to the distraught woman sitting at her kitchen table.
“Yes, officer?”
“We’re about to take the suspect away. He wanted to say something to you. Is that all right? You can totally refuse if you don’t want to speak with him.”
“It’s all right, officer. Please show him in.”
Lacroix led me to the table and shoved me down in a chair opposite Beverly Jenkins, an elderly lady who had called the police on me while I was in her neighbor’s house, investigating a suspicious death. Lacroix grabbed my wrists and slammed them down on the table to show her I was handcuffed and posed no threat.
“Well, what is it?” she asked. “Mister … Virtue, was it?”
“That’s correct, ma’am. I just wanted to apologize for my behavior earlier, in front of the police.”
“That’s okay. No harm done, I suppose.”
I caught the hint of a smile in her eyes, but the rest of her face remained stoic.
“You just about done?” asked Lacroix, before cuffing me across the back of my head.
“Ow! Geez, cut it out!”
“Giving me trouble, eh? Come on, let’s go.” He dragged me up out of my chair and started marching me back through the living room.
This would either work immediately, or …
“Mr. Virtue?”
Lacroix stopped me and spun me around. I was much stronger and taller than he was, but I went with it.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You were saying before …”
“Yes?”
“About how you learned a valuable lesson from a case? About the embezzler who murdered his wife?”
“I remember.”
“What was the lesson?”
I shrugged. “It was a tough lesson to learn. Tougher than any villain I’ve had to face.”
Lacroix chuckled. “Villain?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I looked back at the grey-haired woman on the other end of the table. “What I mean to say is, I’m never the smartest guy in the room. But I’ve learned to deal with my limitations—I know when I don’t have all the info. People go through life thinking they have it all figured out, but they’re really only seeing a small piece of the puzzle.”
“Is that so?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. “You can’t judge a book by its cover. I mean, most people do. Yeah, it’s an easy way to decide if you want a book, but the cover rarely shows what’s inside. You’ve got to open the book and read it. Read deeper. Peel back the layers of the iceberg—”
“Onion, you idiot! It’s an onion.” Lacroix hit me again.
“Ow, hey, come on! I was about to say iceberg lettuce. There’s layers in that.”
“Sure, pal.” Lacroix sneered at me.
Beverly Jenkins smiled a sardonic smile. I think Lacroix caught it.
“It’s a terrible metaphor,” she said, “but a wise lesson. Don’t be too hard on yourself, dear. The important thing is that you learned something.”
“Oh, that’s not the lesson I learned from this story.”
“It’s not?”
“No. As I said, I’ve learned to deal with my limitations. But I still try to go it alone. Read the book by myself. And that’s dangerous. You end up in situations like this, with the cops taking you into custody. You know that guy in my story? This outside auditor I brought in uncovered the financial crime. But I found out he murdered his wife. We both helped bring him in.”
“I see.” She seemed uninterested in my lesson plan.
“So the actual lesson I learned was to always have more than one set of eyes on a case. For this case, the real teaching moment was when I realized that despite all your criminal planning, no matter how detailed you make it, or how much time you put into it—sometimes it’s all tripped up by one or two tiny mistakes.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, minor details, like having your victim record your conversation, or save a voicemail. Or perhaps you carelessly call from your home phone.”
Ms. Jenkins’ eyes grew wide. “Really?” She looked nervously at Lacroix.
“That’s right. So I always try to bring others into the case before something stupid happens to me.” I held my cuffed hands up to the side of my mouth. “Because something stupid always happens.”
“That’s for sure,” said Lacroix.
“But I have a pretty decent track record for catching murderers.”
“Eh, it’s okay,” said Lacroix, as he took the handcuffs off. “Remember the art gallery?”
“Which art gallery? There have been so many.”
“With the billionaire.”
“You’d think that’d narrow it down, but no.”