XVIII

The Facts, Ma’am, Just the Facts

Detective Sergeant Ryan has not seen it all before, but he’s seen most of it. His years on the investigative end of law enforcement have inured him to the shock and outrage commonly affecting your inexperienced detective. That is, a 513 break-and-enter with a 429 grand-theft-intent, leading to a 111 assault-with-deadly-intent, compounded by a 110 rape-including-but-not-limited-to-forced-oral copulation with a woman of grandmotherly stature, vast personal wealth and a household word for a name, could not raise an eyebrow on said Detective Sergeant Ryan. Which isn’t to call it a ho-hum situation but rather to underscore Detective Ryan’s commitment to procedure, by the book. Does he sense more than meets the eye?

Indicators point to yes. He is not prone to camaraderie, Hibernian kinship or exchange of the blarney when he asks, “So you’re Big M?”

Mulroney grants the half nod, what an international celebrity and candidate for the United States Senate musters for the well intentioned at appropriate times.

Jotting details such as full name, address, phone, social, date of birth, place of employ and so on, Detective Sergeant Ryan rechecks the list and then turns to Mulroney. “What happened?” Mulroney successfully constrains the mirthless smile often afflicting those in the chagrined phase of life. He further represses his honest answer: Fuck if I know. As if gathering his thoughts, Mulroney delivers his chronological account, beginning with a blue-sky morning and excellent conditions for a walk down to the flats, moving right out to a stop at Betty Burnham’s on the way.

“Why did you stop?”

“Why did I stop?”

Detective Sargent Ryan waits, pen poised over paper.

“She’s my friend. I stopped to say hello.” She blew me a few days ago, making said friendship well established, and I stopped to see if she’d loan me a few bucks, less than a million or maybe three million but not more than that, really.

Detective Ryan takes note, as if a friend stopping to say hello is noteworthy—or possibly potentially a suspect behavior.

Never mind. Mulroney proceeds with the approach, the easy pass through the gate, leaving the perfect picket fence behind on the way to the knock, knock, the brief wait and call out: Hello! Betty! Are you home! Mulroney waited a tad longer, wondering what, thinking her gone to the Lawn & Garden or the farmers’ market, but then he rounded the corner and headed along the path between the house and side hedge to the back door for another knock, knock but saw the door ajar. He entered, to where he shrugs, because Detective Sargent Ryan, knows the rest of the story—beyond the point of Mulroney’s involvement, if you can actually call it that.

Detective Ryan jots and murmurs, and into that quiet industry Mulroney then relates what Betty shared verbally, including Juan Valdez’ in flagrante apprehension in a heist—make that a mega-heist of obscenely valuable art. She walked in on him—walked in on Juan Valdez, that is. And now poor Betty is in shock with possible traumatic residuals, as she already debriefed to her friend, Mulroney, when the action was still fresh in her mind. Mulroney cannot speculate on the dollar values of a Monet, a Manet, a Titian, a Holbein—“Or that other guy. What’s his name, Betty, does the Spanish towns that look like they’re on acid and downers …”

“El Greco,” Betty whimpers tearfully.

“Yeah, that guy. El Greco.” Mulroney nods to affirm his grasp of Spanish art, and he proceeds: Betty B had Juan V red-handed when the painting fell from his grasp, already cut from the frame and rolled up. Or maybe he dropped the frame to better take her to the mat. “You know, like to whack her in the head with it, maybe. I’m not clear on that.” Nor was Mulroney clear on the part where Juan Valdez, that son of a gun, forced his schwantz—make that his peepee or his dingdong or whatever you want to call it, you know, into her gob and flooded the pie hole with iffy lemon custard, such as it was, which was entirely too much, interfering with epiglottal function. “She choked. It ain’t rocket science. You must see it all the time, in your gay community and so on.”

“I thought you didn’t get here till he was gone.”

“That’s right.”

“So how do you know?”

“Betty told me. How else could I know? Give Betty a few minutes to gather her wits, and she’ll tell you too.”

Lying on the couch, Betty breathes deep, holding the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. The medics wait outside. Detective Sergeant Ryan takes a step toward her. “Ms. Burnham?”

She lifts the mask, “Please. Call me Betty.” As the informality settles, she underscores it with a sigh and a resigned smile. “What I can tell you is that Michael is correct. All that ‘lemon custard,’ as he calls it, can indeed interfere with normal breathing function. I suppose it can kill you. Anything clogging your throat passage can. Unfortunately for Michael’s theory is that the only spermatozoa in my throat since Alfred passed has been Michael’s own. Some people might find that disgusting. They don’t love him like I do. They don’t know him like I do, for that matter.” She laughs with the sanguine insight of one who has gained perspective on life and love at last. “To say the least, and I really have no choice but to express my love. He’s such a caring man, really.”

At long last an eyebrow rises on the hitherto bored visage of the detective sergeant. Then up comes the other. “Are you saying … ?”

“I can’t say it any more clearly,” she says, just as a clatter and clamber come along the path between the side of the house and the hedge, announcing the arrival of the media, beginning with the local newshounds from the Sentinel, the Chronicle, and the Happy Daze.

“He’s such a man. Anybody can see that. But he’s unhappy in his current situation, and that’s where I come in, a friend in need and in love I might add, offering support and facilitation so that—what is it they say? So that these two people may be joined together.”

The trio in the parlor pause for a moment as a voice outside the window says in passing. “I think she said she blew Big M.”

“I thought she said they’re getting married.”

“He’s already married.”

In unison: “Oh, God …”

So in hardly half a turn of the great wide world on its axis, a second long story is made short—or shorter at any rate. The headlines say it best, or bray it most succinctly. The local daily adheres to tradition, stating the situation with no prejudice but with objective ambivalence. Vague meaning may motivate potential readers to drop quarters into the slot and buy the damn paper, to see what happened after:

PERV SAVES HEIRESS—NOT!

—Can You Hear Wedding Bells?

Also consistent with historical pattern, the Chronicle spices facts with gossip, which is more fun and entertaining, so why not:

ART HEIST GOES AWRY ON FORCED ORAL!

—Used Car Intrigue, Patrimony Not Likely, Yet!

The Happy Daze, supporting and reflecting its name, achieves bliss with minimal inhibition and journalistic aplomb:

BETTY B BLOWS BIG M BEFORE BURGLE BUNGLE!

—Who’s Your Daddy?

Not that anyone in modern California gives a snit who’s blowing whom, though this match is most amusing, given the snooty neighborhood/corporate/big-dough overlay. Most ironic is that all three print media reporters on the scene miss their deadlines, causing a two-day lag in the breaking story, which palliates personal pain on the one hand but re-opens wounds on the other.

In the meantime, the day after Betty B’s art/asphyxiation challenge, buried on Page 12, Section C, is a two-paragraph political bellwether, announcing the formation of an exploratory committee to examine candidacy viability on Michael “Big M” Mulroney relative to the United States Senate from California. Sure it would be a goof in the best of times—the M might be phoning in from Hawaii—but who wouldn’t love the action and fun?

Well, it’s a perfect example of easy come, easy go. No, wait. How about you win some, you lose some.

Things turn out as they usually do—however they need to. Despite Mulroney’s best effort at defending his personal life from public scrutiny, he has won an admirer—make that a devotee. As a consummate sales professional of stellar caliber, he does not lose sight of value relative to the many components of a complex sale.

Betty B is a goner, surrendering better judgment to the fall, head over heels, into love. She has lost her wits to that great big lug from whom she would buy any number of used cars, if only he would close each deal himself as only he can do.

She can plainly see that Mulroney’s rough and tumble relationship to society isn’t vulgar at all but simply masculine—the kind of masculinity the world misses these days. Compared to the men she’s known, he’s cock o’ the walk, and if he walks up to her place for any little thing in the world, it’ll be all right by her because a woman knows when it’s love and not another pantywaist money grubber looking for a handout. Michael Mulroney is a man—all man and what a man, and he doesn’t pussyfoot around. Betty Burnham has all the respect in the world for Allison and hopes they can work things out amicably and isn’t afraid to say as much because this is, after all, California.

Meanwhile, back at the CSI, Ms. Burnham nearly blushes a blue streak on having to review events in detail, orally, as it were. Yes, she walked right in on Juan Valdez with a Manet rolled up and tucked under his arm, and another Manet in his grasp, the second one framed in 24-karat gilt scrollwork that sold forty years ago for half a million dollars—that was for the frame! “And I can promise you: forty years ago a half mil was some real money.”

Anyway, she walked in on him. He spooked, dropped the gilt frame and lunged for the exit, knocking her down in passing, but only inadvertently, she thinks; she’s thinks herself a fair judge of character and senses a caring man, deep down inside, once she can feel his presence.

Later, but only by an hour or two, the perp—make that person of interest—swears he wouldn’t hurt a flea, much less an old lady. This oath occurs down at the station, where the balance of the interview reveals that the rolled Manet canvas was actually painted by Juan Valdez, who happens to be John Waldon, former Avon-Award-winning thespian of critical acclaim but paltry income. John Waldon is also a forgery swashbuckler known in the curator underground as the Artful Pimpernel, an art restoration expert of global renown whose skill and lust for forgery have kept him on the lam. And for what, with poverty an uninvited guest who won’t take a hint.

Alas, thirty grand or fifty might seem like a big ticket on a single project, but artistic integrity requires six months on a single restoration, and that’s working solo. And what kind of studio backup are you going to find in a one-tractor burg like Watsonville? You call a hundred grand big dough? You ever try to live on a hundred grand a year? Go fish.

Viewing the daily paper for leads on wealthy people collecting valuable art for purposes of prideful possession and social position, John Waldon came upon billionairess Betty Burnham’s bio and sidebars, telling all, on the life and times of the reluctant mink and dry goods magnate. Recently migrated to the suburban south, Betty Burnham had joined that richest of regional traditions, the downsize flight of fancy, except of course for her art collection. It could only be called fabulous—make that amazingly fabulous, and what could she do? Leave it behind? Sell it? For what, more money? Betty Burnham, herself, responded to that rhetorical affront: “Do you mind?” Such news felt like fertile fields for a billionairess seeking growth. Just add simplicity.

Prospects improved on the third jump in the story, where the lengthy narrative got bumped to Section E by a last-minute double-truck special from none other than Burnham’s, for every woman’s needs.

The exhaustive tale of mind-numbing wealth with a syrupy overflow of humility was past the point of nodding off, by the time it got to Section E. Saving the sordid detail of a woman with neck-snapping skills was perhaps an effort to bury the harsh truth, yet that final leg of the long journey got crowded with iota that could hardly be called sundry. That is, rather than bury the lead, the journalist penning the narrative had participated in covering up the difficulties, some of which remained unresolved. To whit: deep in Section E came a brief reference to “youthful indiscretion” and a “blessed event” demurring obscurely on fading tracks to a bastard child.

We have germination and growth.

Sleuthing is naturally akin to acting and artistic replication, with overlapping intuition on cryptic data. Though this supposition may seem presumptive, any deductive arts practitioner will know the correlation is real. John Waldon ruminates reflectively, and Detective Sergeant Ryan comprehends with a nod.

Indeed deductive skills will overlap from one arena to the next. But how did John Waldon discover Betty Burnham’s long, lost daughter, Rose Berry? It wasn’t easy, till it was.

Step by step, John Waldon narrowed the range on the year of birth to a three-year period, then honed the place of birth to a regional radius and honed it finer on sheer logic and went to work. Birth records were converted to data files long ago in most places, except for those records still decomposing as microfiche—such as those in the basement archives of St. Chris Deaconess Hospital in South San Francisco, where, alas, a girl child was born unto one Elizabeth Smith in 1972—Bingo!

Maybe. Now what? For starters came the annotation that crumbled in his hands as he viewed it, near the lower edge reading: A@B. It could have meant anything. Adopted at Birth? Well, maybe. Who knew? The reference number following the notation could have been more than eight digits, but only eight remained. Nobody at St. Chris could ascertain the reference of the digits, but one Sarah Livingston, an elderly nurse and third generation St. Chris staffer, in the tradition of her mother and grandmother, called Waldon back. Over dinner with her nonagenarian mother, Sarah Livingston, had shared the story of the fellow looking for his long lost sister. Sarah Livingston’s mother filled in the blanks: “The first three numbers are St. Chris. The second three are the adoption agency. And the third three are the parental file,” old Mom said.

“Gosh,” the Pimpernel rhapsodizes in the tenuous space between Detective Sergeant Ryan and himself. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have an heir to whom the very essence of your soul might be passed along?” He didn’t wait for Detective Sergeant Ryan’s response but felt confident that he’d successfully planted another seed. Then again, he couldn’t be too confident, and so he spelled it out, “I saw potential for personal gain in re-uniting a very wealthy woman with her daughter. Don’t ask me how. My spécialité is improv. It worked out. Who could have scripted it better? But I … digress …” The Pimpernel seeks comprehension in the detective sergeant’s eyes, but here again, faith is required.

The adoption agency refused disclosure of identity on adoptive parents unless the claimant could prove kinship. That was easy enough: John Waldon proved sibling status with a birth certificate showing that the Rose Berry in question and he shared the same mother. Documentation is a perfunctory challenge, after all, after replicating the Masters. The adoption agency accepted the proof and gave meaning as well to the final digit, leading to the Berry file, Harry and Betty. “Harry and Betty Berry?” the Pimpernel asked.

“We’ve seen worse,” replied the adoption officer. “Apparently, rather than change the kid’s name to Smith, like some parents giving babies up at birth want to do, Betty changed her own name from Berry to Smith. While preserving the baby’s last name, it also preserved the path by which biological parentage could be traced. What Betty Berry-Smith did after that, we don’t know.”

Not to worry; John Waldon knew.

The rest was cake, except for working the stakeout and pickup on the long lost daughter. That was delicate and demanding. Rose’s entry on the scene and into the truck was not planned or necessary. It was serendipitous and beyond that, a pain in the neck. The kid and his dog were a nuisance, but they could entertain each other, and what could Waldon do with them otherwise, leave them on the curb? No, he could not, even though the curb would have been the best launching pad to the ins and outs of life on the street, which is what every man and dog need to learn sooner or later. But leaving kids on the street can come back in all manner of criminal violations. So the kid and dog had to tag along.

The long lost daughter climbing into the truck felt like an omen, a good one. Dramatic conveyance was building, and a true thespian senses denouement in the making. The very best tension leads to a point. Rose’s introduction to the scene felt like pure gravy till about forty miles out when it turned to shit.

Where did the kid and dog come from? Never mind, they squirmed and whined as a kid and dog will do—and barked. But they also turned, deftly as a plot point, from nuisance to linchpin players.

That is, John Waldon’s sister, a three-time rehab dropout, needed help. Any kid is trouble. At least this kid—her kid—could keep his mouth shut at regular intervals, and he had a dog to keep him company. Besides, a man in a leading role chiefly characterized as swarthy and macho needs a dog or a kid. A dog craps outside, and that’s tough to beat. But the kid was available, then he was a good match for the capricious daughter, who seemed receptive to a stint as a surrogate mother figure. It could round out her experiential resume if nothing else. So the extended family went down to Mexico North, California style. Unloading at Uncle John’s new place—make that Uncle Juan’s new place—felt crazy with the paintings and toasters and blenders and junk furniture. And the kid. Call him, uh … what was it? Panchito?

Fine, some kids and dogs can work into a scene, if they’re smart, playing in the trees and dirt and ditches—like kids and dogs used to do in the used-to-be world, which appeared to be the mise-en-scène. The setup was good, except for getting her to shut up. She droned like an oscillating fan on love and life and money and money and life and love and loss, loss, loss, oh, my darling. Her script needed editing. Meanwhile, the paintings moved through the process steady as widgets on an assembly line, or maybe more like so-called art in your less sophisticated galleries, where the curators/experts got their degrees online.

But the real beauty of art replication is not so much selling fakes but in selling fakes as originals at a fraction of real value—how many hillbilly art galleries are willing to buy hot art? None is your short answer; and why sell them originals anyway when they’ll buy fakes represented as legally acquired and the real McCoy? The discount is commonly called HUUUGE, so it’s another win-win all the way around.

Your hot original market is a fraction thereof, comprised of very few galleries in the world—that would be gallery operators who know what they’re getting and what the market will bear—and for that matter, who the market might be. Never mind which galleries are responsive to the live market; let’s just say ninety percent of them are more than three thousand miles away from the source—any source. But hillbillies abound; movie stars, swimming pools.

The real payout is in originals taken from residential use and easily replaced by replicas. Maybe the change-out does not come easily, but the task fits into a dynamic cost-benefit paradigm, once labor and risk are factored against return. A seasoned marketeer then has original art to sell far closer to value with no theft report and more dough on one sale than a dozen fakes. At least that’s the theory. Scoping takes time.

“Wait a minute.” Detective Sergeant Ryan hates to interrupt, especially when a person of extreme interest is flowing forth. But it doesn’t add up, so he has to ask, “You know this art game. So why would you take on a potential kidnapping and sexual assault rap on top of grand theft? Who needs the baggage, if you get my drift?”

“Please, Detective. Be careful. My lawyer is sitting right here, as you can see. If you want to charge me with kidnapping and sexual assault, that’s your decision, but you must charge me first if you want to suggest such a thing. She got in the car. She came on to me. I knew her background. The end. Except for living happily ever after, on which we will soon raise the curtain. Surely you’ve heard. We’re engaged to be married. Meanwhile, I also plan to be out of here in a few minutes, willing to forgive your confusion. I paid my future mother-in-law a surprise visit. Once again I’ll remind you: the end. Do you think Betty will say otherwise and jeopardize her daughter’s matrimonial prospects? Hasn’t she caused enough damage already? Isn’t it time for some support and understanding?

“Besides, the art rap would carry twenty to fifty. The other would carry life, but sometimes you need to take on a little risk to gain some insurance. Capiche? Reuniting mother and daughter was my plan and not for the money. I would have done it for love.”

Detective Sergeant Ryan’s face screws to the center at this juncture. He will not play into such a lame premise, so John Waldon explains that anyone who doesn’t believe in purity and its motivational power might call him a gigolo, or a fortune hunter, or an opportunist, which behaviors, as far as he knows, are not addressed by the revised statutes of any legal code.

Then John Waldon sits back, hardly smug; he’s merely finished, move to you.

Detective Sergeant Ryan suspects that John Waldon planned to ransom the artwork back to the old lady, but he can’t quite form the question without incriminating the witness, which would preclude an answer. So he merely asks, “How did you plan to get the money from the old lady, so the grand reunion could begin?”

John Waldon asks back with a smirk, “How do you link irreplaceable value with mere money? Do you think a million dollars could replace a daughter given up for adoption? Maybe it could, but then a billion is a thousand million, and a loving daughter is once in a lifetime, so maybe two million would be a better exchange rate. Don’t you think? Two million sounds better. It feels better. But that’s between you and me. I’m sure Mrs. Burnham is already feeling very happy to have found her daughter, and now there’s a wedding to plan.”

Detective Sergeant Ryan looks down at his file, a tell that only the seasoned person of interest can read, indicating that the detective thinks the suspect is good, very, very good. You can’t blame a detective for not wanting to compliment the slippery skills of the suspect before him, or not wanting to show admiration in any way. So he only murmurs, “Don’t leave town. We’ll be in touch.”

So begins that most awkward social transition, in which one suspect/lawyer pair trades places with the next suspect/lawyer pair, and so face off, in transit between the waiting room and the interrogation room in the middle of a lazy afternoon. Again, with timing and panache the seasoned thespian among them lifts the scene from humdrum dregs to dramatic heights, where human emotion is succinctly tapped. John Waldon takes Rose Berry by the shoulders and murmurs at the perfect range of audience comprehension, I love you. From the first minute I saw you, I knew …

She chokes back sobs that may be tears of joy; in any event, John Waldon offers parting grist for the investigative mill, turning, profile left, with a parting line. “You know, Detective, a hundred dollars buys a couple bags of groceries and is nothing to sneeze at for poor people who work the earth. Your Big M is the real culprit here, trying to cheat a woman out of the hundred dollars he owes her for a massage.”

“Thank you, Mr. Waldon. We’ll look into that.”

Rose sputters that it’s true, wailing that he—the old guy on the bicycle—beat her and stole her money. She means beat her in business, but she said beat her. John Waldon rolls his eyes. She takes the gesture for support on the woman-beating issue as she hugs her multi-faceted fiancé around the torso, inhaling his essence deeply, just like when what’s-her-name hugged Sal Mineo in Exodus when the bad guys wanted to separate them forever, no matter how deep their love.

Wait. That was Paul Newman.

Fuck it—John Waldon explains that a man who beats a woman in business is no different than a man who beats a woman up. Rose Berry takes it on cue, underscoring the debilitating nature of her suffering, babbling that “hee-ee mm-mm-mmaadde mm-mme jj-jjj- jjjjjack him off and th-th-thennn he wou-wou-wouldn’t pp-p-ppay me. A hundred bucks.”

The balance of Rose Berry’s interview is blessedly brief, and though she’s been apprised of her maternal linkage to millions that she’s somehow always known were hers by rights, she is having a hard time making the leap—to billions. But a girl from the hardscrabble streets is no less compelled to collect her hundred bucks. She’s been there—without the C-note. She won’t pursue this to the bitter end, unless she does.

All of which gives the detective sergeant a splitter, nearly driving him to ask for a brief rub on the temples; it hurts so bad. He won’t ask. He’ll stew over grand larceny, kidnapping, and sexual assault, also briefly, and he’ll wonder what’s left, which appears to be very little, except perhaps for the load o’ love honey in Betty Burnham’s airway that she claims was not Michael Mulroney’s but could have been, which compounds the headache and raises further questions.

Michael Mulroney concedes that he’s only human, and yes, he did squirt pecker juice down Betty Burnham’s gullet, because a guy at his age still riding long miles and also suffering fan fatigue and showbiz burnout knows he’ll be found out sooner or later, especially with news dogs on the prowl and the odd couple ever willing to spew gossip. “They peeped through the window of a private residence, I might add.”

But it wasn’t yesterday that she blew him, and they both consented as adults when it did occur, and it wasn’t a crime, and he hasn’t done anything wrong, and in fact, he’s being considered for candidacy to the United States Senate. As they speak.

Detective Sergeant Ryan is so stuck at this juncture that he stares off, envisioning four-wheel drive, compound low, some mongo fuckin knobbies all punching through on ten cylinders of turbo-diesel power. Now let’s see who takes any shit from a motherfucking mud bog in a State motherfucking park—“What? Oh, no. Just thinking.”

The detective sergeant is just thinking that he has few options remaining if he hopes to collar a perp on this one, and he’s not looking forward to the damning testimony of Ms. Burnham, who happens to be in the waiting room. Herself is getting to know her daughter and her daughter’s beau—and the beau’s nephew and the nephew’s dog, who will be like a son and a son’s dog to them and, in the best possible world, a grandson and dog to her, someone to whom she can pass on the values and tenets held dear by this great country we love so much. Hearts and flowers never opened so brightly. The kid appears eager to learn.

Meanwhile, Betty takes a lead from Juan, make that John, and presses her front side affectionately against Michael Mulroney’s on passing, assuring him that, “I love you. Since the first time I saw you on your bicycle and thought you were Billy Bob. But more than that: Michael, you saved my ass. Pardon me, but that’s how I feel, and nothing will ever change it.”

Mulroney returns a polite smile, wondering where life might have led if he hadn’t walked around the corner and up the road bent on grant funding. The actual grant application was what, about one minute all told? And for what? So far it’s for nothing but a heaping baggage cart, teetering precipitously with a steamer trunk full of guilt and a double duffle of poor Allison, not to mention an oversized bag bulging with Allison’s revenge. That doesn’t count the sheer peace of mind that went out the window on some brief flexing and wincing, followed by a messy aftermath any man would hope to avoid. The fuck. Mulroney is depressed, which shapes up as the moment, bloody and bowed, when a true player at the pro global level squints at his corner man’s mug and gets the message: “These are the championship rounds.”

In a mere matter of minutes, the incident is over—not exactly over, but resolved on criminal charges. Case closed. Detective Sergeant Ryan nearly bangs the gavel on this one; so urgent is his need for dismissal. And so it is, hardly a moment after Betty B says, “Oh, no! I didn’t mean that Michael, you know, emitted his seed down my throat this morning! That was last week! I mean it seems like yesterday, but it wasn’t. I was choking on yogurt. I always have a yogurt in the morning for my regularity, you know. I carry it in the car if I go out early. I have a little cooler for it, in case I’m going to be out past eight. So I was having my yogurt on the way home, like I sometimes do, and I walked in on John and … we were both frightened, and I choked. Michael guessed correctly; it was lemon yogurt. Some people don’t like lemon, but I do. I like meringue too, in case you’d like to know. Michael thought it was the other, you know, spermatozoa, because I’d cleaned my shoes out back. Remember, I had dog dukey on them. Well, the only thing out there was a bottle of Clorox bleach, which I would never use, because it eats away the fabric. But the Lysol is under the sink, and I didn’t want to take my shoes off, but I would have, but then I heard the commotion inside and ended up tracking dog poop inside anyway. And I already had the bleach soaked into a rag and on my fingers, and I must have touched my neck, which is what Michael smelled. You do know, Officer, that Clorox smells like splooge? Oh, dear,” she titters. “That word makes me laugh. It’s Michael’s word, you know. He is so funny.”

Leaving Detective Sergeant Ryan to repress his own assessment, eyes down yet again, not to hide his admiration for a slick witness but to rub his temples and summarize, “Oy vey.”