Police Procedural

     The call about the barber came at seven-thirty in the morning from Lawson.  The Knoxes were having breakfast.

     “Not just any barber,” Lawson said. “The guy who’s running for mayor.  Tony Nomellini.  The kid who opens up in the morning found him.  It’s a Sweeney Todd sort of thing.  He was sitting in one of the barber chairs with his throat cut.”   

     Knox was buttering toast.  Vera was scrambling eggs.

     “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

     Ten minutes later Vera was helping him on with his sport coat.

     “Will you be home for lunch, dear?”

     “Probably not, but I’ll call you.”

*****

    

     No fog that morning.  A slight chill.  The man on the corner across the street was clipping something.  Knox never saw the man in the mornings.  Rarely saw him at all, even when he wasn’t clipping or watering.  The man had lived there five years, but they might not recognize each other on the street.  Knox just heard him behind the thick hedge that surrounded his yard.  Clipping or watering.  It would not be the same, Knox thought, the walk to work, without the clipping or watering.

     He never tired of seeing the ocean on a clear day.  He’d lived in this town nearly his whole life, but he never got tired of the view.  It was one of the reasons he chose to walk to work every morning.  The view from the hill, the clear morning  light all around and the cool air off the water, was usually enough to put him in a decent mood, or at least nudge him in that direction, regardless of the problems he knew he’d be facing that day. 

     Most of the time those problems were relatively minor.  No barbers with their throats cut.  Very few homicides at all.  If it weren’t for the barber, top on his agenda today would have been to arrest a teenager for selling marijuana to his friends.  They’d warned him enough, but the kid was thick-headed beyond belief, and God only knows what his father, a prominent car dealer, would do to him.  That was really the only reason they’d let him go this long.  The father had a reputation, an ex-Marine who’d parlayed being an extra smart mechanic into owning a dealership, and who’d punched out his help and a few customers along the way, a real hothead, but still, they couldn’t just let the kid go on forever.  Just a few joints here and there to a small circle of friends, but he’d gotten careless and a teacher or two had seen transactions in the school parking lot.  They couldn’t ignore that.  If they didn’t act soon it would come around and bite them on the ass.  A parent vigilante committee or some such thing.  They were gathering evidence, that was the ready made excuse, but it was wearing thin.  Maybe, despite the barber, he could send a uniformed officer around today to make the arrest.     

    

*****

     The barber shop was on a side street about a half a block up from the main street of town, Front Street, which ran parallel to the water.  It had been there when Knox was a boy, run then by Tony’s father and uncle.  It was set up like any other old-fashioned barber shop.  Three barber chairs on one side, chairs for waiting customers on the other, mirrors competely covering both walls.  Knox assumed that most of the clientele, certainly those who didn’t use the famously incompetent Tony as their barber, came to the shop either from nostalgia or because they were too set in their masculine ways to imagine ever having a cut from a stylist.  In the old days, there’d been a poster on the back wall of dogs playing poker.  There’d also been a “shoeshine boy” named Raymond, a man so old by now, no doubt, that Knox assumed he couldn’t be the “kid” that Lawson had referred to.  What had happened to Raymond?  Knox had no idea.  He couldn’t stand being around Tony for more than half a minute and he couldn’t remembeer when he’d last set foot in the barber shop.

     Lawson was outside on the sidewalk talking to Bradford, the uniformed officer with the downtown beat, when Knox arrived.

     “The kid’s over there,” he said, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder. 

     It really was a kid.  Couldn’t be more than fourteen, and he looked scared. 

     “And the other barber, Burt, is over there.” 

     He gestured in a different direction. 

     “Want to talk to them?” 

     Burt looked nervous and impatient.

     “In a minute.  Let’s take a look first.  What time did the kid get here?”

     “He says six.  He always arrives at six.  Always the first one here.  Gives him time to make sure everything is perfect before seven, he says, when they open for business.  Looking for stray hairs I guess.  A pair of scissors out of place.  Tuesday through Saturday.  They’re closed Sunday and Monday.”

     The body was still in the chair.  He remembered Tony as a boy.  He hadn’t liked him much, no one had.  Big for his age, a bully when he thought he could get away with it.  The apeish build Knox remembered had turned to fat.  The face, even in death, had the same smug stupidity that had always annoyed him, and Tony’s father in part had shared the same look, but the Nomellinis, Tony’s father and uncle, had the deserved reputation at the time of being the best barbers in town.  The other barber shop had gone out of business in the seventies.  Tony’s was the last traditional barber shop in town.

     There was lots of blood, a ton of it all the way down the front of Tony’s body.  He wore no barber’s apron, just a pair of green shorts and a maroon t-shirt, both a tight fit, now covered in blood.  He thought it was a USC t-shirt, but Knox couldn’t see enough of the white lettering to really tell.  He just knew the USC colors.  There was also blood on the chair, both the seat and the arms.  He wore no socks, just white running shoes, and even they had a few spots of blood.

     “You wouldn’t start a shave with a razor in your hand, would you?” Knox asked Lawson.  “You’d soap up his face first?”

     “Yeah, it can be quite a ritual.  You’ve got it right, boss.  First a hot towel on the face, then cold water to get the pores open, lather up the soap with a warm brush.”

     Burt gave Lawson a shave every Saturday.  He was a bachelor who liked to pamper himself, and the barber shaves were only the tip of iceberg.  He also treated himself to regular manicures and pedicures, quite an indulgence for a cop, and not the only one for Lawson.  Knox hoped that his sports coats and shirts and ties were not as expensive as they looked.  At first he worried about how Lawson could afford his wardrobe, but Vera assured him that there were ways to cut corners.  Besides, he had few if any opportunities to be dishonest.  No big drug busts.  And too, Lawson was single and had no kids.  Still, Knox didn’t approve.  He thought of Lawson’s fashion sense as frivolous, and a far too expensive hobby for a small town cop, even if he did cut corners.  He suspected that it kept the younger detective permanently in debt, his credit cards maxed out, no savings, which made Knox nervous.  As far as he knew, Lawson was perfectly honest, and Knox thought he would have heard about it if he wasn’t, but it wasn’t smart to tempt fate, nor did it look good.  

     Knox said, “No way to sneak up on him.  Not in here, all these mirrors.  There’s no trail of blood out the door.  Looks like Tony let the killer approach him, then afterwards the killer washed up, including the blade apparently, in one of the  sinks there.  Did a thorough job too.  All the blood’s on the chair or the body.”

     Knox looked around for a minute, letting his childhood memory of the place mesh with what he saw.  Nothing different really, except it all looked smaller and the dogs playing poker calendar was gone, replaced by a poster for a hair product.  It was still an old-fashioned barber shop, not that much different from when he was a kid.  The barber chairs may have been the original ones from the twenties.  Popular Science and Field and Stream dominated the magazine rack.  And it was spotless.  Not a speck of hair anywhere and the old tile floor, tiny black and white diamonds, was shining as if it had just been polished.  The mirrors all around were without a smudge.  The kid did a good job.

     Even the chairs for waiting customers were in good shape and comfortable looking.  Not plush, but a red plastic with some sort of thin padding.  When he was a kid, Knox had hated the place.  It wasn’t Tony back then.  Tony’s father had no tolernace for head movements.  The first time he’d let the father cut his hair, he’d grab Knox’s head in a hold like a vice and jerked it hard.  He’d told his father what happened, and they immediately went to another shop.  The haircuts weren’t as good, but the barber was a nice man. 

     Knox told Lawson to let the camera guy and the ME do their work.  That’s about all the regular help they had for a murder.  One photographer, a squirrelly little guy who also freelanced for the newspaper and never said a word to anyone, and a washed up over-the-hill family doctor who needed something to do besides drink.  But it was good to have them around.  They showed up fast and would do anything Knox asked them to do.  For something this big, though, they’d have to call in a forensics team from the county.  Full time pros. 

     “That been done?” Knox asked.

     “On their way.”   

    

*****

     “What’s the kid’s name?”

     According to Lawson, the kid was Raymond’s grandson.  He sat sideways on the back seat of a patrol car, half in and half out, and looked scared.  His name was William.

     “Was Tony ever already in the shop when you opened up?” Knox asked him.

     “No, sir.”

     “Was anybody?”

     “No, sir.  It was always just me until seven.  That’s when Burt come.  No tellin’ when Mr. Tony would make it in.  He had his own hours.”

     “You called him Mr. Tony?” Lawson asked.

     William shrugged

     “It’s what he liked.”

     “What did you do during that hour?”

     “Mopped the floor, did the mirrors, made sure it was spotless and everything was arranged right.”

     “You could do all that in an hour?”

     “You do a little every day it’s not so hard.  Besides, it was mostly Burt who noticed.”

     “Tony wasn’t very observant about things like that?”
     “No.  But I thought Burt was right.  It was kind of neat, working in such a clean shipshape place.  Keeping up tradition, Burt said, and both Sam and my grandfather agreed with him.”

     “How is your grandfather?” Knox asked.

     “You know him?”

     “Just from when I was a kid.”

     “He’s been kind of sickly last two years.”

     “Sorry to hear it.”

     “He’s pretty old.”

     The kid seemed to have calmed down a little.  His breathing was more normal.  His voice wasn’t so high-pitched.

     “Yeah.  So tell me what happened this morning.  You opened the door as usual?”

     “I saw him before I opened the door but I figured he was asleep.”

     “That ever happen before?”

     “No sir, but it’s what it looked like from the outside.  And I wouldn’t be thinking he was dead.”

     “Was the door locked?”

     “Yes, sir.”

     “So you unlocked the door and walked in?  You’re sure the door was locked?”

     “Yes, sir.  It was locked, and that’s when I saw all the blood and about peed in my pants.”

     “And then?”

     “Then I run down to the little store.  I knew it was the only thing open and had a phone.  Can I go home now?”

     He was getting excited again.

     “What time did Tony usually arrive?”

     “Like I said, there was no telling about him.  Sometimes early, sometimes late.  Can I go home?”

     “Why aren’t you in school?”

     “I don’t like it.”

     “You have to be sixteen before you can quit school.  Did you know that?”

     “I am sixteen.”

     Knox knew about the required age because these days they spent a lot of time dealing with truancy.  He was tempted to ask him to prove his age, but didn’t want to get too far off track.

     “They don’t care if it’s a black kid,” William said.

     Knox hoped that wasn’t true, but feared that it might be.

     “You should be in school.”

     He told Lawson to let the boy go and made a note to himself to find out why the kid wasn’t in school.

*****

     Burt was leaning against a nearby building, smoking a long thin cigarette.  All he needed was a holder.  He apparently wanted to look like Ronald Coleman or Errol Flynn, and he did a fairly good job of it.  Thin mustache.  Shiny black hair combed straight back.  Thin lips and aristocratic nose.  It was almost like he was wearing a costume, but why, Knox wondered, was it one from several decades back?  Maybe it appealed to the type of woman he attracted, or wanted to attract.  The kind who would go to South American theme night dances at the National Guard Armory.  Burt wore slacks that he pulled all the way up to his waist.  His short sleeve jersey looked like it had been bought at K-Mart.    

     “I don’t know anything,” he said as Knox walked up to him.

     “When was the last time you saw Tony?”

     “Last night.  We close at six, settle up, and I leave.”

     “Tony pays you in cash every night?”

     “I’m an independent businessman.  I just use the facilities.”

     “Are you the only one to use the facilities?”

     “An old guy named Sam comes in on Saturdays.  And sometimes during the week to fill in for Tony, but not often.”

     “Do we know who Sam is?” Knox asked Lawson.

     “Yes, boss.”

     “Was there anything different about Tony last night?”

     “No.”

     It was clear that Burt wanted to say more about how Tony usually was, but he didn’t.

     “Did you two get along?”

     “Not particularly.”

     “Why not?”

     Burt shrugged.  Clearly, he’d counseled himself that the less said, the better, and he was working hard at following his own advice.  His eyes kept moving, surveying the scene, never settling on anything, especially either detective’s face.

     “We stuck to business,” he finally answered, grinning.  It was a condescending grin.  It invited everyone to share in Burt’s superiority.   

     “How long have you worked here?” Knox asked.

     “Three years.”

     “That’s a long time not to get along with somebody.”

     “The money was good.”

     “What did you think about Tony running for mayor?”

     “None of my business.”

     “Tony have any arguments lately with anybody?”

     “No more than usual.”

     “Not easy to get along with, was he?”

     Burt shrugged and grinned again.

     “He owe anybody money?”

     “None of my business.”

     “Where’d you live before?  Where are you from?”

     “Back east.  Jersey”

     “What brought you out here?”

     “My sister and the sunshine.”

     “You have a sister here?”

     “L.A.”

     “And then you just drifted north until you got here?”

     “That’s pretty much it.”

     “Where were you last night?”

     “Out dancing til 2, then home in bed.”

     “Don’t go anywhere for a few days.  We may want to talk to you again.”

     “When can I go in the shop?  All my things are in there.”

     “Probably tomorrow by noon.  Call me then and I’ll fix it..”

    

*****

     Knox walked off a ways with Lawson.

     “This guys gives you a haircut and a shave every week?”

     “Yeah.”

     “What’s your take on him?”

     “He’s okay.  What he’s holding back is that he and Tony never spoke.  Must have been some showdown in the past.”

     “Par for the course with Tony, but we can talk to him about that later.  You think he’d run?”

     Lawson shrugged.

     “Let’s give him a chance.  Put one uniform at the bus station, another at his house.  That’s two more than I can spare, so let’s get back to him early this afternoon.  See if you can confirm his alibi before then.  Right now, about the murder weapon.  Can we assume it was a razor he kept here?”

     “I don’t know.  The kid would know where he kept them and if one was missing.”

     “So would Burt.  Let’s find out.  Wife been notified?”

     “Yes.”

     “Make sure she’s home in about an hour.  No kids, right?”

     “Right.”

     “And the mayor’s race.  Anyone backing him besides Barney Coehlo?”

     “I don’t know.  My guess is no.”

     “Find out for sure, then line up Coehlo for later in the morning.  Say eleven.  And Burt, the kid and Sam.  See if we have anything on them.  Anything else?”

     “No.”

     “Okay.  Hang out here til forensics arrives, make sure it stays clean.  Bradford at the door should be enough.  Then come by the office, and we’ll go see the widow.”

     Knox thought of something.

     “The back door.”

     “Locked.  Just like the front.”

     “You check it yourself?”

     Lawson nodded.

     “It was locked.”

     “So Tony let the killer in.”

     “Or they both came in at the same time.”

     “Or the killer had his own key.”

2.

     From his office window, Knox could always smell breakfast from Sally’s Diner across the street.  It was actually an old-fashioned railroad car diner, manufactured back east in Worcester, Massachusetts and brought west for reasons long forgotten by everyone.  The food was okay if a little predictable, breakfast being the specialty with a strong emphasis on omelettes.  The smell was tempting at times, but not so much that it really bothered him.  Unfortunately for Knox’s peace of mind, however, the owner’s daughter had recently decided to start making donuts.  That development created a daily challenge. Knox was very vain and careful about his waistline.  He spent a lot of time every day thinking about calories, and for the most part, he was tough on himself.  He did exercises every day that kept his stomach in form.  His body was very slim and tight for a sixty year old man, but the daily baking smell from across the street drove him nuts. At times he was tempted to call it torture.

     After mentioning it to Mrs. Knox, and getting her approval, he allowed himself, no more than twice a week, half a chocolate covered donut.  He split it with Lawson, who, being single, was probably more fanatic about his waistline than Knox.  So twice a week, on days when it wasn’t very busy and all he had to think about was his appetite, he’d spring for a dozen donuts, enough for everybody, but the instructions were clear:  not more than one donut was ever to be brought into his office, and Lawson had to be nearby to share it with him.

     That morning was fairly eventful, even without the murder.  It was easy to not think about a donut.  In addition to the dope-selling teenager and the transient families out at the Bluebird, some kids had tossed eggs at cars, and a hardware store had been broken into.  He had to let the uniforms handle those problems, which pretty much took everyone off the beats.  Bradford, the downtown officer at Tony’s would have to guard the barber shop by himself.  He took Kirby off the desk and told him to investigate the hardware store break-in.  He gave the egg tossings to O’Hara, the only woman on the force, and he took Smith, the youngest, off of watching Burt’s house and sent him out to the Bluebird to make sure the two families weren’t being tossed out forcibly.

     The dope dealer would have to wait.  There was no one free to arrest him.  But before he got too busy, he called his friend at the Salvation Army and explained the Bluebird situation.  There were no beds at the SA, but after a little arm twisting, the friend agreed to go pick up the families and bring them into the shelter.  Maybe something would open up during the day, either there or at one of the county shelters, they could find cots or make pallets on the floor.  That’s what that the friend was best at.  Concocting makeshift solutions, and now at least it got the families away from the pressure of being evicted.     

     Even though they were the only two plainclothesmen on the force, he never let Lawson go off on his own when he was involved in something important.  He liked having Lawson nearby, as a sounding board, and taking notes had become a daily collaboration.  He’d always felt more comfortable when he could get a second opinion.  He wasn’t sure why.  He just knew that’s how his mind worked.  Write the notes, talk about it, compare notes, re-write the notes together.  Lawson was a good listener.  And observer.  Quite often he picked up on things that Knox missed.  After putting their heads together, Knox thought that his notes were always very thorough, and he took pains to make them so regardless of the case.

     He knew a lot of people would consider the system bascially flawed.  When it came to observing facts, most people assumed that two heads separately were better than two together.  It would be like putting witnesses together and letting them make up a version they liked.  A judge might see it that way too, so they were always careful not to mention it to judges.  They wouldn’t lie, if it ever came up, but it never did.  They kept their own separate, pre-collaboration, notes for every case.  That’s what they used for trials.  It had never come to having to use the collaboration notes to get a conviction.    

     Even after thirty years, he took every case seriously, so much so that he almost forgot to realize how unusual this case was.  Most of the bodies they found, whether or not violence was involved, were eirther bums or druggies on the beach.  Up a notch would be a domestic quarrel that went too far, or a drug deal that went wrong, most of those limited to the one rundown area of town, a dismal neighborhood of concrete block ex-naval housing called The Depot, or the nearby Bluebird Inn.  Like most people, especially the press, Knox couldn’t help but categorize murder by social class, and looked at that way, the closest thing to Tony getting his throat cut was probably five years earlier when some middle-aged guy had killed his wife of twenty years in the respectable part of town, summer people, but then the guy promptly killed himself, not two minutes after the police arrived on the scene, so it was an open and shut case.  The news channels from nearby larger towns, maybe even LA, stayed the rest of the day, reported on it briefly for a couple of days, but then dropped it.  The couple had no angle.  Both were accountants.  No kids.  The story had no legs.

     There’d been no middle-class townie murders.  A few domestic assaults, some with bad injuries, but no murders.

*****

     Lawson came in, they went over what they’d done so far, and Knox was left alone to make his notes.  Lawson then sat at his own desk and got on the phone.  Once he had the notes made, which took him about half an hour of mad scribbling, Knox didn’t even pretend to look busy.  Thoughtful, yes, but not busy.  In fact it looked at times like his thoughts were going to put him to sleep.  He stared out the window, thinking about what he knew about the victim. 

     Tony first gained a certain fame when he played middle guard for the high school football team that won state in the early sixties.  He was famous for intimidating centers so badly that they blew snaps even when the quarterbacks hands were between their legs, which was nearly all the time because there was no shotgun in those days, not in high school, just the triple option.  You could forget a clean snap on a punt if Tony was the middle guard.  He turned offensive centers into quivering masses of jelly, even knocking a couple of them unconscious.  He was all state his senior year, and he had his pick of scholarships, but that never worked out.  Even the football factories raised eyebrows at his academic record and national test scores.  Some wondered if he could even read, and a few coaches who wanted him badly nevertheless decided in the end that, if he’d never even bothered to learn to read decently, he probably couldn’t handle the complicated defenses in vogue at the time, all the stunting and adjustments to offensive formations, and he certainly wasn’t going to intimidate most college level centers.  It was a step up in class, and even if he was still able to intimidate a few, college coaches would sooner rather than later come up with ways to render a  300# rock, which is all he was, totally ineffective.  He never moved, couldn’t move as far as anyone knew.  He just fell on the center, and he did it very quickly and with amazing force.  Finally, he did land a modest scholarhip at a small religious college, but then he got busted after three weeks for having booze in his room. 

     Knox figured that Tony had never imagined himself a barber, but that was about the only opportunity left for him after washing out of college.  No one who knew him ever imagined he could last working for someone.  He’d get into a fight of some sort right away, so his father was his only recourse.  He wasn’t very patient with Tony, but he more or less forced his son to learn one haircut.  Not how to cut hair.  That was beyond Tony.  How to do one haircut, which was a kind of fifties generic cut, short on the sides, nearly shaved, parted on the left, combed straight across along the top and finished with a modest wave at the front.  Luckily, business was still very good in those days, and his father was good at steering customers to him who didn’t care or notice or dare complain about Tony’s crude cut.  Actually, there were still a lot of men in town who still wore their hair that way, and they were always the kind who wouldn’t notice if Tony’s version was cruder than his father’s.  But Tony also, surprisingly, made a lot of converts.  He turned having only one haircut in his repertoire into an asset.  It was so crude, the cut looked the same on any head, mass produced, an assembly line haircut, that it soon became known locally as the “Tony cut.”  It achieved a certain degree of local fame and was associated with extreme masculinity, the kind where vain men pretend not to care how they look, the uglier the better, they say, and by the time of Tony’s untimely death, there were men in town who wouldn’t let anyone else touch their hair.

      Before they went to visit the grieving widow, without needing a prompt, Lawson came into the office and listened to Knox’s notes and suggested a few additions and changes.  Then he took the notes and used them to make statements for the kid and Burt to sign.                  

3

          There was no way to prevent Lawson from calling Mrs. N a battle-axe behind her back.  That’s what she was to him and he never minced words.  Once he saw her, Knox thought of her more like a spider, all curled up defensively, all limbs pulled in on themselves, but ready to strike at any moment.  He saw her as intense, always on edge, an impression that was probably heightened by all the plastic surgery she’d had done.  She was a sixty year old woman and looked it, except her face had no wrinkles.  It looked as if someone had pulled back her face and taped or stapled any gathered excess at the back of her head.  She sat curled up on her couch and spoke to them with that unlikely face, with the voice of a sixty-year old woman who has smoked a lot her whole life.  She was always smiling, but without humor, and Knox couldn’t stop himself from comparing her grin with the two most recent grins of her husband.  Lawson caught his eye just at that moment, and had clearly read his mind, and Knox felt his cheeks warm up.  One of the down sides of working with someone for so long.  

     Knox looked around.  To put it generously, the little cottage was not tastefully done.  In the small front room, a black leather couch and an easy-boy recliner nearly filled it up, a huge TV taking up the rest of the space.  On the walls, nothing but depressing family pictures, depressing because nearly everyone, even the kids, were obese, and they all seemed to be eating and showing off their bellies to the camera.  But Tony and his wife had no kids, but the pictures must have been of nieces and nephews. 

     He saw an orange ceramic ashtray, overflowing with butts, that might have had some retro interest in the right setting.  Not this one. The original stucco walls had been covered with knotty pine panelling, and the floor covered with beige shag carpet..  Knox thought about hauling the grieving widow down to the station, just to get out of the house.  It was thick with smoke, and although twenty years earlier he’d have thought nothing of it, he’d put away 2 packs a day himself most of his life, today it stung his eyes, and the smell, which he still liked okay when fresh, was stale.  Very stale, which made it tempting to use any excuse to get out of there, but the detective in him resisted.  There was really no excuse for bringing her in, but that wasn’t all of it.  Here’s where the victim had lived for forty years.  Knox needed to smell it, look around, get a feel for how he lived.

     It was not a pretty picture, to think of fat Tony sprawled out in his easy boy recliner watching sports and eating jalapeno poppers and chicken wings and big bags of Doritos, things that caught Knox’s eye in the grocery store occasionally but that he never dared touch.  Of course the body had swollen some by the time he saw it, but it would have looked swollen anyway, and such obesity really did make Knox sick to his stomach.  He’d seen Tony around recently, and his body always looked swollen.  So was this his life?  Home from cutting his one hair style all day, take out for supper (he doubted if his wife cooked much), snacks, then bed time?  Actually, no.  There was a diversion, an important one.  Somewhere in there, as everyone knew, he found time for the Mexican butcher’s wife.  They needed to find out when, and what that was all about.  Surely, she got something out of it more than just Tony himself.  And the mayor’s race, only recently, but can’t forget that.  A major diversion.  How many times a week did that take him out of the house, to make a speech or a commercial?

     But those two things would have to wait.  Mrs. Nomellini came first.  She had been Janet Frost in high school.  Knox hadn’t known her very well.  She’d been famous for being statuesque and wearing sweaters that made her voluptuous figure even more prominent.  Today that was all hidden.  She was in a bathrobe and her hair needed combing.  She hadn’t done much in the way of makeup with her wrinkle-free face either.  Lawson had informed her by phone of her husband’s death perhaps a half hour earlier, and had told her they were going to visit.  She was sipping coffee and staring into space, as if in shock.  When Knox and Lawson got there, her first look told him she’d already cast him as the enemy.  That’s always interesting, since it has to be a defensive maneuver:  confuse the issue with hostility.  What did she want confused, he wondered, and why?

     “It has to be that nigger boy,” she said, before they were completely in the room.  “Have you arrested him yet?”

     “No, ma’am.”

     “Why not?”

     “No evidence.  I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

     She shrugged.  Thankfully, she seemed to lose interest in accusing the kid almost immediately.

     “Did your husband seem different lately?  Like he was worried about something?  Or even afraid?”

     “No.  In fact, it was just the opposite.  He seemed more sure than ever that he was going to win the mayor’s race.  The polls were fantastic.  He’s been very upbeat.”

     She sniffled and allowed a tear to drop into her coffee cup.  Then she looked up at Knox as if challenging him to argue with her latest pronouncement.  She certainly had a chip on her shoulder.  Was it cops she didn’t like? She’d never been pretty, just appealing in a big-breasted high school sort of way  Over the years, she’d put on some weight but not too much.  From what he could tell, under the robe she was  pleasantly plump.  He remembered the face from high school now, after seeing her new face, as plainly as if he had a picture in front of him.  Odd that even an altered face would retain her basic identity after forty years.  Aside from the eyes, he couldn’t explain it.

     “He talked to you about the polls?”

     She shook her head.

     “We never talked about anything.  I just kept up.”

     “He never talked about the race with you?”

     “Never.  I just had to read his moods and the newspaper.”

     “Did you have a happy marriage?”

     She looked at him sharply, as if he’d just stepped on her toes, deliberately.  It was a stupid question, after what she’d already just told him, but she didn’t seem to notice that angle.  The objection was on the grounds of privacy.  It was an insensitive question.

     “I don’t see the relevance of that,” she said.

     “You’re crying.  You must have had some feeling for him.”

     “We were married for forty years.”

     “Some couples use that time to learn to hate each other.”

     “Tony and I didn’t hate each other.  Not that it’s any of your business.”

     She seemed to mean it, which surprised Knox, given Tony’s reputation in general.  Surely, even if he didn’t beat her up, he was as crude to her as everyone else.  Maybe she was a good liar.

     While Knox was thinking about that, Lawson asked, “What time did Tony leave this morning?”

     “I don’t know.  I was worried, though, the minute I saw he was gone.  I always get up to make the coffee around seven, and he’s never up.  Usually on his back, snoring like a locomotive.”

     “You didn’t hear him get out of bed?”

     “I’m a very sound sleeper.”

     “So when he came home last night, the two of you had a normal evening?  Went to bed at the usual time?”

     “Yes.”

     “Which was?”

     “About eleven.”

     “Did he seem agitated?”

     “No, as I said, he was in good spirits lately.”

     “And it wasn’t a phone call that got him out of bed?  You’d have heard that.”

     “No phone call.”

     “Have you ever gotten up in the middle of the night and found him gone?”

     “No, but I never get up in the middle of the night.  I’m a very sound sleeper.”

     “Do you take sleeping pills?”

     This time the dirty look was for Lawson, but she answered him.

     “Yes.  Mild ones.  But I’d hear the phone.”

     “Doesn’t he have a cell?”

     “He turns it off every night.”

     “But he could have had it on vibrate, and you might not have heard it?”

     She shrugged.

     “It’s possible, I guess.”

     Knox picked up the questioning.

     “And he was always here at seven?”

     “Yes.  Always.  Until this morning.  Just like I said.”

     At that she choked up a little.

     “How was business at the shop?”

     “I have no idea.”

     “Did Tony have life insurance?”

     That made her look at Knox suspiciously, hostile suspicion, as if she were being unjustly accused of something, but she simply shook her head.

     “I have no idea.”

     “You’d know, I think, if he did.  You’d be beneficiary.”

     She shrugged.  Was she overdoing her lack of interest?  Strictly speaking, she wouldn’t have to know about it, even as beneficiary, and surely, a nice settlement would be welcome.

     “Who is his attorney?” asked Lawson.

     “Barney Coehlo.”

     “You should check with him about the life insurance,” Lawson said helpfully.  “Did you think about calling someone when you saw he was gone?  The cops?  A friend?”

     “Yes, but you showed up before I could make up my mind.”

     “Did you try calling him?”

     “I hadn’t yet.  He wouldn’t have liked it.”

     Knox stared at her for a minute, trying to figure out who’d been the real boss in the house.  She didn’t get hit, at least not in the face.  And the tears struck Knox as genuine.  Perhaps they’d come to some sort of understanding years ago and led completely separate lives.  Both followed the rules faithfully.  Usually, though, at least in Knox’s opinion, that almost always led to some sort of bad feeling, especially if the husband had a lover and the wife didn’t.  How could she not hate him?   

     Knox thanked her for her time, told her she’d have to come down and identify the body at some point, someone would call her to make the arrangements.  He left her a card.

*****

    

     Once outside, Lawson said,  “The kid is absolutely certain.  We let him in to look, and no razors are missing.  Tony kept five in a drawer behind his chair, it was the kid’s job to keep them polished up and sharp, and they are all there.

     “And the kid is reliable?”
     “He’s still scared to death.  Clean record, though.  A good kid, so I’d say yes.”

     “We still need to get those razors looked at.”

     “It will be done.”

     “And Burt and Sam?”

     “Burt served time for a minor robbery, a jewelry store back in Jersey.  Twenty years ago, been clean ever since.  Sam’s a model citizen.  Worked at the post office for nearly 50 years before retiring.  Does this weekend barbering for the fun of it.  Kind of like a hobby.  He’s also in a quartet.”

     “A quartet?”
     “You know.  A barbershop quartet.”

     Knox smiled and nodded.  He wanted to meet Sam.

     “What did you think of the Mrs.?”

     “A tough cookie, and she hated him.  Everyone else did, and she lived with him.  So a liar too.  Hang on, boss.”

     Lawson’s phone was ringing.  He called Knox “boss” a lot, especially in front of people.  It was some sort of formality thing.  “Sir” was too formal; nothing or just “yeah,” was too informal.  Perhaps he thought “boss” had the right mix of irony and respect.  In any case, Knox had gotten used to it. 

     He was deep in thought about Mrs. N  when he heard Lawson say, “Holy shit,” followed by “Let me see if he wants to get more bodies out there.”

     When he hung up, he said, “It’s a media circus.  Even L.A.  Throat cut, I guess, in his own barber’s chair.  I don’t know.  That and the mayor angle?”

     “Yeah, we should have guessed.  We have enough people there to keep them at bay?”

     “Two, like you told us.  Think that’s enough?”

     “It will have to be.”

     “About Mrs. N.,” said Knox.  “Besides hating him, I’m guessing she’s holding back something.  In addition to being a tough cookie, she’s smart.  Could be personal, but it could also be campaign.related, or personal finances.  Something tells me she could be pretty nosy about her husband’s business.  I wonder if she kept the books for the shop.  Tony sure didn’t.”

     He glanced at his watch. 

     “Let’s go talk to the money man, after a quick cup of coffee.”

     Lawson smiled.  He knew the coffee was all about beefing up Knox’s notes.  He also thought Knox could be pretty pre-historic at times, usually in ways that amused him.

     “It’s not nosy these days, boss.  It’s involved.”

     “Sorry.  Involved.  Thanks for keeping me up to date.”

4.

*****

     Coehlo’s office was in a forties era building of four stories, the tallest building in town, a beige brick eyesore, it stuck out like sore thumb.  It had survived only because it also happened to be a state historical monument.  A famous writer had once owned the building and had an office there.  Like the writer, Coehlo was an attorney who made more money at other things, but in Coehlo’s case, rather than from crime novels, it was as a real estate developer.  He had property all over town, including the historical monument.  He was rich, self-made for the most part, only a slight boost from his realtor father, but he was of the anti-ostentatious school of rich men, so much so that looking like a regular guy had become an affectation in itself.  Now in his early forties, Coehlo still dressed like a kid.  He wore baggy cargo pants, a loose t-shirt with Arcady displayed prominently across the front, and a baseball cap, Angels, turned backwards.  The only expensive item of his clothing was his running shoes, which looked complicated, as if they had all the bells and whistles, and therefore, Knox assumed, expensive.  He was a big man, in good shape, and handsome in a dark, square-jawed, lots of scruff showing on his chin type of way.  He also seemed genuinely shocked about Tony’s death, almost to the point of being unable to speak, even though he’d heard of it more than hour ago..

     He paced rather than sat down, stopping often to look out the window.  He hadn’t air-conditioned his office, and it made things fairly breezy during the interview, since most of his windows, he had a ton of them, faced the ocean.  A nice view.  It was almost like being outside, and Knox grudgingly gave Coehlo credit for not installing air conditioning.  Only for sissies in this climate, Knox had always believed. 

     “I just hope nothing Tony said got him killed,” Coehlo said, his voice breaking up.  “It never occurred to me that that could happen, but when you tell the truth, I guess it gets dangerous, even around here.”

     “You put him up to all of that?” asked Lawson.

     Everyone already knew that he had, but Lawson couldn’t resist twisting the knife a little.  Coehlo raised his eyebrows only a little.  He was used to fielding that type of question, and being being nice to rude, even crude, was part of his job.  In fact, it almost seemed like Lawson’s question activated some automatic response mechanism.

     “I’d rather say, I planted the seed of how he decided to take the campaign.  All I had to do was show him the way and urge him along.  I wrote all his speeches for him, and the commercials.  He already leaned that way on those issues, and it’s what the town needed, and they’ve clearly responded.  We have higher numbers and more money than I ever thought possible.  Grommett’s been sleeping through the last two decades.  Things have changed around here, all for the worst, downhill, downhill for twenty years, but before this terrible tragedy, they were going to get better again.  What a shame it won’t happen now.”  He shook his head sadly.  “We’ll be stuck with Mr. Do-nothing for two more years.”

     “What was in it for you?” asked Lawson.  He could be relentless with people he didn’t like, but Coehlo wasn’t phased by the question, didn’t even pause.

     “Nothing.  I don’t know what you mean.  A better town.  Less crime, fewer illegals, you know.  Who’s against that?”

     “Right,” said Lawson.

     He rolled his eyes so blatantly that Knox had to grin.  He was of two minds about the younger man’s indiscretions.  They both embarrassed and amused him, but he rarely took him to task for it.  Certainly not in front of anyone.  It hadn’t always been like that.  When they’d first started working together, Knox was Lawson’s age and Lawson was in his twenties, he made him tow the line, had in fact given him a few lectures on the topic of respect.  But as Knox progressively discovered how not to always be trying to save the world, once he started finding with some skill the right measure, he started finding Lawson’s rudeness and sarcasm less offensive and more funny.  In fact, he’d had to train himself not to laugh out loud at some of the things Lawson asked. 

     It was part of the process, he guessed, of taking himself less seriously.  He’d loosened up in general, a change that his daugther, now in her forties, had commented on immediately, she’d been a teenager at the time, and that his son, a few years younger, didn’t dispute.  ‘Old-fashioned’ and ‘inflexible’ were two words he heard a lot when they were growing up, even from his wife once in a while.  Sometimes, especially if the doubts came from his wife, he gave in, or compromised, and sometimes he didn’t.  He’d probably been both old-fashioned and inflexible, guilty on both counts, but he regretted very little, and he got along with both his kids now and knew that they liked him.  So he must not have been too bad, too extreme, even before his conversion.  They seemed happy.  How could he have been too wrong?  They’d noticed a change, but still, perhaps he’d found the right measure with them before that, or close enough to it, intuitively.         

     Coehlo was staring at Lawson with disdain when Knox said, “We know that this wasn’t a robbery.  I can tell you that much for sure.  So that leaves either personal or business, or in this case, more likely, politics.  We’re working on the politics theory at the moment, Mr. Coehlo, and we need your help.  Tony wasn’t the most agreeable guy around, even you’ll admit to that I’m sure, but we don’t think it was a spur of the moment thing.  In other words, he didn’t piss anyone off who lost it and banged him on the head with something or shot him, or in this case, cut his throat.  The way he was murdered suggests a degree of premeditation.  Someone had to set up the meeting, get Tony to agree to it, and bring the murder weapon along.  So, what were you two cooking up, I mean actual plans or policies, that might shed some light on this theory?”

     “I don’t understand.”

     Knox doubted that, but he explained patiently and without sarcasm.

     “Motive.  Maybe you were going to advocate a policy that would be a threat to someone, personally.”

     Coehlo rubbed his chin.    

     “Yeah, the thing is we had plenty of ideas that pissed people off, but no specific plans.  It was all headlines.  You know, get people thinking.  Get them riled up over all the un-American stuff that goes on these days.  Spirit is what we were after.  Pride.  Positive thinking about America.  Enthusiasm!”

     He’d been facing us from in front of his desk, but then he frowned suddenly and turned around to look out the windows at the ocean.    

     After a moment of silence, he said, “Actually, now that you mention it, we were going to add the schools this week.  That was our one big hole.  Education.  And there was something specific.”

     “What about the schools?  They always rate among the highest in the state, don’t they?”

     “Yeah, so the liberal test scores say, but even if they’re right, there’s always room for improvement. But never mind, that wasn’t our concern.  What we were concerned about is that teachers need background checks.  What if one of them molests a student?  You have to be checked out when you buy a gun, but what about teaching our kids?”

     Knox had no idea how thoroughly the schools already checked the teachers background.  Not that it would matter to this guy.  These days, they were probably checked a lot, and Knox wasn’t really against it.  Still, he couldn’t resist making a point.  He thought he could do that without violating the perfect measure.

     “None ever has, that I know of.”

     “What?”

     “Molested a student.”

     “Always a first time, Det. Knox.  Besides, maybe it’s happened, and we don’t know about it.”

     “Besides,” said Lawson, “it’s an independent school district, meaning independent of the town and the mayor.”

     Ignoring that, Coehlo turned around to face the detectives, and clearly warmed up to his subject.

     “You think one of those lefty teachers somehow got news of what we were about to propose, maybe one with a terrorist background, or someone in a witness protection program?  They put child molesters in there, you know, those programs, if they make a deal.  They’ll put anyone in those programs, anyone, and then they let them live right here with normal people.  Did you know that?”

     It was time to go.  Despite all the evidence of Tony’s speeches, Knox hadn’t realized until this moment how weird Coehlo was, and he felt himself in danger of losing his grip on the perfect measure.  This guy obviously lived in his own little world.  But he didn’t get Lawson’s attention soon enough.

     “No,”said Lawson, “I didn’t know that.  Who told you?  The FBI?  They say they welcome child molesters into their Witness Protection Program?  They tell you that?”

     Knox nudged Lawson and started walking towards the door.

     “I guess it would never occur to them the damage that might cause,” Lawson continued. 

     “Time for lunch,” said Knox.  “Be available in case we need to talk to  you again, Mr Coehlo.”

*****

    

     Knox sprang for  tacos for everyone.  It was one of the few regular off-diet indulgences he allowed himself, and only when it was impossible or inconvenient for one reason or another to go home for lunch.  Lawson went to pick them up.  He always volunteered because he liked to flirt with the help at the taco stand.  Not that he’d ever date anyone there.  Not his type, but he never passed up an opportunity to flirt with women, apparently not caring whether they were rich or poor, pretty or ugly, young or old, fat or skinny.  He just liked talking to women. 

      Knox always got two breakfast tacos, one with bacon and egg and one with chorizo and egg.  And a coke in a tall bottle.  He could eat them every day of the week, that’s how good they were, but of course he didn’t.

     Lawson said, biting into a potato and egg, “The wife could have hired the job done.  Her pride has to be hurt, despite how she acts.”

     “Tony’s affair with the Peruvian you mean?”

     “What else?”

     “But that’s been going on for ten years.  Why now?”

     “That’s our job, boss, to find out.”

     “Yeah, but it’s an odd method for a woman.  Too much blood.”

     “She hired a pro let’s say.”

     “Even odder.  Too theatrical.  A pro would just put a slug in the back of his head.”

     “Her orders, assuming she didn’t do it herself.  She has a flair for the dramatic.  Here’s what I think happened.  She doesn’t know Stephen Sondheim from Adam, but she’s nuts about Johnny Depp.  So she rents the movie one night, just because of this old lady’s crush, probably watches it when she knows Tony is with his Peruvian, just to have dirty thoughts about Johnny Depp, but before its over she’s thinking, Oh my god, this is something I have to do.  It’s perfect.  The perfect revenge after ten years of humiliation.”

     “So she goes out and finds her own Johnny Depp?”

     “Or she becomes Johnny Depp herself.”

     “It was the middle of the night.  Take it for granted, Tony had to be persuaded or bullied into coming down to the shop and sitting in that chair.  That’s not likely.  Either one.”

     “But somebody got him down there and in that chair.”

     Knox asked, “What do you think of Coehlo?”

     “Looney tunes.”

     “A killer?”

     “No.  Not in general, but in this case, even less likely, since he was using Tony to play out his own fantasies, so why kill him?”

     Knox used a paper napkin to wipe grease off his face and then he sprinkled a little more green salsa on his taco. 

     “At some point in the middle of the night, for the first time ever according to his wife, Tony gets up and goes to his shop.  Once there, he turns on all the lights, or someone does, takes a seat in one of his chairs.”

     “And waits to get his throat cut,” Lawson said.

     “You can conceal a straight razor pretty easy, but yeah.  It almost seems that way.  Even with the razor hidden, having someone walk up behind him was bound to feel a little odd.  We need to think about who could have gotten him there at that hour, and probably without suspicion, and then maneuvered him into the chair.  Someone he trusted, like Barney Coehlo, or the mistress.  Or even Burt or that shoeshine kid, although I don’t see them as killers.”

     “I like the wife.”

     “No,”  Knox laughed.  “You like the idea of the wife.”

     Lawson grinned.

     “A movie inspired murder,” Lawson said.  “That’s what I like.  Something about Johnny Depp appealed to her, gave her the idea or the strength, spoke to her gut or her heart, but you know she had to like the music too.  Even if she didn’t know she liked it, thought it too highbrow.  Maybe she had it blasting away on her I-phone while she did it.  That bit where the barber talks about what a shithole London is.  That’s enough to inspire anyone.”

      He made slashing motions, taco in hand, and mumbled the Johnny Depp part, the words, while doing a good job of keeping the beat..  Knox grinned and shook his head.

II

AFTERNOON

5.

          

     Knox always made Grommett nervous.  This had gone on for so long, and was so obvious, that Lawson had taken it upon himself to do a background check on the mayor, which came up empty, as Knox suspected it would.  It always came up empty, it should be said, since Lawson, a bit of a bulldog, couldn’t leave it alone.  More likely, Knox thought, G. had had a bad but not criminal experience with authority in general or cops in particular when he was growing up.  And besides, he was exaggeratedly deferential to most people, not just cops, most being potential customers of his furniture and appliance store.  G was of the solicitious to the point of groveling type of store owner, unctuous to the extreme, which manner he extended to his duties and appearances as mayor, and surprisingly, since most people laughed at or scorned him behind his back for coming on like such a jellyfish, surprisingly, it worked, or as Lawson theorized, hadn’t prevented him from making a solid success of his not so small anymore downtown business.  What had begun as an average size corner store, formerly a dry goods dealer that went broke, now took up a whole block of Commerce Street, opposite the back side of the Dyer’s department store, its location, despite being an eyesore, never challenged, since Dyer’s and the other businesses on Front Street, almost the same one’s that had been there since the fifties, knew they owed their continued existence, at least at their downtown locations, to Grommett’s.  People came from all over to shop at Grommett’s, and being nearby was all any smaller, specialty business could ask for.  It was just as good as having a Home Depot or a Walmart next door.

     But it was an eyesore because G believed in “discount” and “low overhead,” and stuck to those concepts stubbornly, without reason some believed, no compromise, and so he was afraid, not just reluctant, to make his sprawling establishment attractive from the street.  Inside was different.  In keeping with the times, he’d set up model kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, dens, even bathrooms that would have rivaled those seen in larger towns, even the big cities, or rather he’d allowed his children to set them up.  Luckily, G had spawned twins, Jack and Jill, who grew up with the business and loved designing and decorating, and what they may have lacked in formal education (they could never tear themselves away from the store for long, and so contented themselves with 2 years at the local community college) and creativity (the imitative nature of their work not really a matter of opinion when viewed alongside others in larger venues, especially trade shows), they more than made up for with exquisitely faithful imitation and attention to detail.  Especially Jack excelled in those areas and often thought of his sister as a bit careless, even slovenly, Jack always straightening corners, finding smudges, smoothing rough edges.  Jill, on the other hand, was the boss and complemented her brother’s talent with a keen eye of her own for the installations that should be imitated, not so much from an intuition about what would appeal to the locals, but from a complete awareness of what was popular nearby and nationwide, along with absolute faith in her father’s ability to sell anything she installed.  She was right, as it turned out, the old man was a genius in that way, and the store so successful that many good citizens were afraid for a while that the town was turning into one big furniture and appliance store.  But success breeds popularity, and those concerns were by most soon set aside.

     However, for a long time, Jack and Jill tried to persuade their father to do something about the exterior appearance.  It bothered them as much or more than anyone else.  Surely, it wasn’t good for business.  It wasn’t even cost efficient.  It was a nuisance, since it took two solid hours every day to get all the “stuff” in and out of the store.  And besides, the “stuff,” as the twins insisted on calling it, rather than “merchandise,” G’s preferred term, effectively blocked or camoflouged all the entrances to the store.  Out of towners and first time customers from anywhere often had to be guided to an entry door, and even then a washer or dryer sometimes had to be shoved out of the way.  Nothing, however, could sway G., so committed was he to his original concept of “discount” and “bargains,” and truth be told, his vision of how such a store should look.  Over the years guidebooks started mentioning it as “something worth seeing” if one happened to be passing through town anyway, a whole city block of washers and driers and refrigerators and stoves and easy chair and sofas and beds.  One guidebook, known for its superior narratives, suggested that the ultimate G experience would be to be “found” by old G himself as you wandered around looking for a way in.

     Knox and Lawson of course knew their way in, and also how to navigate through all the installations and what seemed acres of space devoted to single items, toilets, regfrigerators, dishwashers, etc., all lined up in neat rows, to the mayor’s office, which was actually easy for anyone to find, elevated, as it was, glass all around, and right in the center of everything.  The mayor liked to keep an eye on things, and he was always accessible to everyone.  He was never too busy, in fact was something of a busy-body, and he loved to take over and close the sale of an employee, but he never held it against them or shorted them on commission.  It was just a guilty pleasure he often couldn’t resist, and his employees soon learned to like it, since they knew he’d close the sale.

     The woman who shared his office and sat at a large complicated desk in a small area at a lower level, but completely open to G’s office, was his wife, bookkeeper and secretary of 40 plus years.  She was a middle-aged woman of extremely neat appearance, attractive, even fashionable, and unlike her husband, only marginally, begrudgingly friendly to anyone who approached her, customers and police officers alike.  She was always busy, but that was usually of no import since she rarely had an opportunity to act as a gateway to see her husband, he was so alert to anything moving nearby.  And on this occasion, as usual, he’d long since seen the cops approaching from his glass office, and he was on top of them long before they reached their destination, bowing and scraping, groveling in his own unique way, offering a limp and very moist hand to shake.

“I’ve heard, I’ve heard,” he said, wringing his hands.  “Poor Tony.  Maybe not the best barber in town or the easiest to get along with, but still, poor Tony.  And certainly our oldest barbering establishment, dating from his grandfather, a first generation Italian so I hear, we’ve lost an institution, what a shame.  What characters his father and he were, and now shuttered, no little Tony to take over, it will be forgotten by all but us old-timers who when we pass….”

     “Will think of the bastard with his throat cut,” interjected Lawson.

     But nothing stopped Grommett.  He’d have gone on in the same manner, as if Lawson hadn’t said a thing, but Lawson wouldn’t shut up either.

     “You guys were having a pretty heated raced, weren’t you?”

     Grommett stared at Lawson for a moment as if he’d just had his feelings hurt.  So shocked, so saddened, but finally he blinked a few times and recovered himself.

     “On his side it was heated.  I decided not to dignify his slurs with a reply.  All about issues irelevant to the mayor’s office anyway.  Illegal immigrants? What do I have to do with that?  And if people are so stupid as to think I don’t support our troops, they can vote for him.  I don’t want those votes.  The real issue was the sewer project, which he’s against. He thought all private homes should have septic tanks.  Reactionary in my view, environmentally unsound, even destructive.  To be against sharing the burden equally of public health and the environment is, well, it’s damn near libertarian.”

     “Sharing the burden equally?” asked Lawson, always the devil’s advocate.  “Sounds like socialism to me.”

     “When the most affluent, always homeowners, and the most able to pay without any real pain, pay the most, as they would for a sewer system through property taxes, that sounds like fair to me,” said Grommett.  “Call it what you will.”

     Knox smiled.  Grommett’s articulateness and no-nonsense attitude when it came to politics never ceased to impress Knox.  Even Lawson looked at him with respect.  He still spoke in a groveling style, wringing his hands, stooped over, rarely lifting his eyes to his listener’s, but what he said was always clear and to the point and free of bullshit.  That’s not, however, what got him elected mayor year after year, or rather, every other year, for the past twenty years.  It was lack of opposition.  The incumbent’s advantage, especially when no one serious challenged him.  Usually, he was unopposed, though now and then a loony popped up, most recently a walking one man band whose main issue was to advocate free musical instruments, the type of their choice, for everyone in town, not just kids.  As the loony made his way up Front Street, blocking traffic, he annoyed everyone with a seemingly endless verson of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” sometimes broken up by a little bit of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

     But there’d been plenty of serious issues in years past, most involving capital improvements, and G had quietly pushed through the city council those he considered worthwhile, and quietly ignored the ones he didn’t like, mostly those involving new golf courses and improvements to the little municipal airport.  People were so used to this that they’d considered it natural to defer to his judgment, and it had in fact worked out splendidly for the town.  Arcady had the reputation regionally of having the best roads, street lights, public transportation, and even municipal architecture, of any nearby small city.  It had even won awards.  G had spoken at national conventions.

     “In any case,” the mayor said, “poor Tony was murdered?  No chance of suicide?”

     “No, we found no weapon.”

     “On your side it wasn’t heated?” asked Lawson, doggedly renewing that theme.

     “His tactics were annoying, I admit.  I just tried to see the humor it in, it was all so extreme and irrelevant, and besides, I’ve been mayor for a long time.  When that poll came out, I started thinking how it might be nice to not be mayor for a change.”

     “Who are the heavy players for the sewer?” Knox asked abruptly.

     G looked up quickly, a shocked expression on is face.

     “Good god,” he said, “surely no one would do this over a sewer?”

     Knox shrugged.

     “Weaver,” G said finally, slowly and quietly.  “It’s not a guarantee of course.  Low bid, but we’re not strictly bound to that anymore, and Weaver usually gets it.  Always gets the big ones.  We know he does good work, but a lot of people besides him will profit.  Sub-contractors, all the workers.  So a lot of people stand to make some money on it.”

     About that time he glanced over their shoulders as if he might have spotted a loose customer wandering around.  Talking about Weaver in this way clearly made him uncomfortable.

     “We’ll let you go,” said Knox, handing him a card.  “Call, though, if you think of anything that might help.”

    “Of course.”

 

6

   

     After Grommett, the main interviews that afternoon would be with Homero Saenz, the mistress’s husband, known all over town, affectionately, as “The Mexican Butcher,” and the mistress herself, known all over town, or at least in the Mexican community, and with no affection whatsoever, as the “Peruvian puta.”  But Knox wanted to talk to Burt and Sam first, just in case they came up with something surprising.  Nor did they expect much from Homero.  He was the type of guy everyone said would never hurt a fly, and neither detective, from what they knew about him and his reputation, was inclined to disagree.  It was the “Peruvian puta” who seemed to be the person of greatest interest, having been Tony’s mistress for ten years, so they saved her for last. 

     Sam lived with his wife in a typical stucco bungalow that he’d never be able to afford these days.  It was only a few blocks from the ocean.  It was kept up very well.  The lawn wasn’t as elaborate as that of the clip and water man across the street from Knox, but it was every bit as carefully attended and well-groomed, just in a slightly less obsessive and manicured way.  Approaching the front door, for example, was like being in a jungle briefly.  Banana trees seemed to be everywhere.  Sam was more than glad to see them.  Knox figured he was always glad to see almost anyone.

     “Boy I hope I can find another shop.  Not many left, you know.  Might have to drive a bit.  It’s only a few bucks a week, but it comes in handy, the money, and it’s something to do on Saturday.  Gets me out of the house.”

     “Maybe you should to talk to the widow about that,” said Knox.  “Keeping the shop open.  Maybe just on weekends.”

    Sam nodded as if that were a good idea.

    “How’d you get along with Tony?”  Lawson asked.

    He lifted his head, as if coming out of a reverie, and delivered his line deadpan..

    “Liked him just fine, got along great, right up til the minute I cut his throat.”

     Sam actually slapped his knee when he laughed.

     “Remember that?  That movie?  The one with Robert Blake?  Boy he was something.  Didn’t he get into trouble lately?  Always a little strange, he was, like that character he played.  In Cold Blood?  Right?”

     Lawson confirmed it, and added, “You might be a little more careful what you say, Mr. Butler.”

     “Just a joke.”

     “We know.  Still.  Not everyone might see the humor of it.”

     “That’s what my wife is always telling me.”

     Sam was about as typically middle-aged as they come.  Round, a big belly, semi-bald.  A pleasant enough face, but the mischievousness that had come out in the joke showed clearly in his eyes.  He was full of it.

     “I see why you boys have to come by, but I don’t think I know anything worth the trouble really.  Wish I did.  ”

     “How about answering the first question,” said Lawson, smiling.

     “Oh, yeah.  Yeah.  I ignored him.  He wasn’t too bad with customers.  Mostly just grunted, and the guys who came in just for him, seemed to like that fine.  He and Burt never said one word to each other.  Must have been some agreement from who knows when.  Me, he picked on.  I admit it.  According to Tony, I should wear a toupee, dye my hair, get a better shoe shine, wear nicer shirts.  He didn’t like my jokes either, which I tell to the customers, but he never stopped me from telling them.  I just shrugged it off.  Never said a word back to him, which thank goodness he didn’t mind.  He just talked, almost as if he didn’t care if you heard him.  Truth is, I liked it better when he was talking about me than about all the political stuff.  Some of it made my skin crawl.”

     “Like what?”

     “One day he said all Mexicans should wear proof of citizenship around their necks.  I’m no history buff, but I know how the Germans did the Jews, those stars of David they had to wear.”

     “You say anything to him?”

     “No.  Me say something to Tony?  You kidding?  Maybe I should have, I know.  Just easier to keep my mouth shut.”

     “What about Burt?” asked Knox.

     “No.  Burt never cared about anything, I don’t think.”

    “Anything unusual happen lately?” asked Lawson.  “That might be him riled up?”

     “He was always riled up.  But I used to love it when that crazy woman came in and shook her finger at him.  And yelled at him, like she knew all about the mayor’s race.”

     “Crazy Penny?”

     “Yeah.  That’s the one.”

     She was a sometime bag lady who liked to lecture people on just about anything.  She’d been around so long, everyone knew her.  She sometimes lived on the street, sometimes at the Bluebird Inn.

     “She have a particular cause that day?” asked Lawson.

     “Abortion.  And she had it right this time.  She accused him of being against it and of therefore being cruel to young girls.  Said she herself had been in the same boat when she was young, and old men like him were scoundrels and fools.  I’m not sure how I feel about all that, but I felt like applauding for her when she left.  Takes courage to stand up to a man like Tony, even if you’re Crazy Penny.  Didn’t applaud her of course, but Tony told me to wipe the grin off my face.”

     “You do shaves?”  Knox asked.

     “Once in a blue moon.  Not much in demand anymore, but I can do them.  Part of my training, way back when.  Don’t think they even bother teaching it anymore.  But yeah, I can do it.  Tony kept some nice but inexpensive razors in a drawer behind his chair.  I used one of those if it ever came up.  Was that what the killer used?  One of those?”

      Lawson said, “We don’t know yet.”

      “He brought in his grandfather’s collection on the days I was there, Saturdays, but they weren’t to be used.  Just admired.”

     About that time his wife called him into the other room, to open a stubborn bottle.  The detectives saw no reason to stay any longer, and as soon as he came back, said their goodbyes.

7.

    They found Burt in Al’s Bar, a semi-respectable establishment downtown.  Usually just a few barflys in the afternoon, it was packed at night and sometimes got pretty wild just before closing at two.  It had been easy OUI pickings before cabs and designated drivers caught on, and they still positioned a patrol car in plain sight at closing, just to keep everyone reminded.  It prevented a few disasters every week.  People were nabbed for weaving in the parking lot or falling down for no apparent reason before they even got to their cars.  The most dangerous people, Knox firmly believed, were also the most incorrigible.  Nothing short of being in jail, or getting nabbed before they reached the road, would stop those people from driving.

     The front door was wide open at Al’s, letting in some sunshine.  Burt had been nursing a beer at the bar, but the three of them found a booth.  Nice leather booths.  Clean floors.  After Lawson’s short whispered message to the bartender, the sound to the TV was switched off.  No one objected.  The only other customers, two old men, were deep in their own thoughts.

     “When can I get my stuff?”

     “I told you.  Tomorrow.  Probably around noon.”

     Burt looked put out.

     “What are you going to do?” asked Knox.

     “Find another shop.  What else?”

     “There’s not another in town, and the widow might want you to stay.”

     “Then she can ask me.”

     “Or you could ask her.”

     Burt shrugged.  Knox decided to stop wasting time.

     “Tony ever pick on you?”

     Burt’s eyes narrowed and he looked at both detectives, trying to figure out what if anything they knew already.  Finally, he said, “Once.  Years ago.”

     “You put a stop to it?”

     “I had a pair of scissors in my hand.  I was in the middle of cutting some guy’s hair, but I walked right up to Tony and put the scisssors at his throat and warned him.  He got the message.  Never bothered me again.  Unlike that poor sap Sam, who he never let up on.”

    “Tough guy, are you?”

    “Naw.  I just know how to handle guys like Tony.  That’s all.  I actually get picked on a lot.  Some guys don’t like the cigarette holder.  Others don’t care for the moustache.”

     “Ever been married?” asked Lawson.

     Burt looked at Larson sharply.

     “No.”

     “Me neither.  I value my privacy.  Can’t imagine sharing.”

     Burt looked at Lawson carefully for a minute, then finally decided he wasn’t being put on, or played for a fool.

     “Me neither.  Chicks want to change your life.  Even the little things, like when and what to have for breakfast.  It all bothers me.  I try always to use their place, and I’m never there when they wake up.  How about you?”

     Lawson shook his head.

     “That’s a little too cold for me,” he said, “but I see your point.”

     Knox, the old married man, feeling left out, decided to butt in.

     “Do you have an alibi for between eleven and six this morning?”

     “Actually, I think I do.  There’s a security camera outside the front door of my apartment house.  That do?”

     “Might,” said Knox, “we’ll check it out.”

     “But why would I kill Tony.  My meal ticket?”

     “Maybe you didn’t like his politics.”

     “Ha!  You never met a man more indifferent to politics than me.  Just ask anyone who knows me.  The bartender here, Sam at the shop, my tailor.”

     “Did you know Mrs. N very well?”

     Both detectives saw a brief hesitation.

     “No.  How could I?   She never came down to the shop.”

     “From the past?”

     Burt shook his head, but they’d made him nervous.

    “Best to tell us now,” said Lawson.  “You must know from cop shows that the worst thing you can do is lie to a cop.”

     Burt looked at the ceiling as if wondering what he’ done to deserve such bad luck.

     “I picked her up once, ten or so years ago, before she got that hideous face.  Good body, really stacked.”

     “How long did it last?”

     “Now this was before I was working for Tony.  I want to make that clear.”

     “Understood.”

     “A few weeks.  We met at a motel.  I never broke my rule, always gone before she got up, but for the longest time, she wanted to go again.  Finally, I thought it had gone on long enough and ignored her calls.”

     “She give you any trouble?”

     “A couple of whining messages, but that was it.”

     They walked to the butcher shop.  It was only a few blocks from Al’s.

     Lawson said, “Threatens victim, screws his wife.”

     “But not lately.”

     “True.”

     “Maybe they had a renewal of affection, and she talked him into it.”

     “Really believe that?”

     “No.”

     They walked the rest of the way to the butcher’s in silence.    

   

   8.

          

     Tony’s affair with “the Mexican butcher’s” wife was news to no one, including the butcher himself.  They’d put off visiting him because neither relished the chore, he was such a nice guy, nor did they think Homero as a suspect held much promise.  Everyone liked “the Mexican butcher,” Homero Saenz by name, although most people just said, always fondly, “the Mexican Butcher,” and everyone knew who you meant.  Which didn’t, of course, make him innocent. 

     Everyone loved Homero and hated his wife, neither of which made either one guilty or innocent, but Homero was just too nice, which was, Knox fully realized, partly a matter of heritage.  He’d learned not just manners but the ingrained courtesy that Mexicans are famous for, from his father for sure and probably from his whole family, observing formalities, knowing what to say and just when to say it.  It’s subservient flavor sometimes put people off, but in these times, when it was often hard to get a sales clerk’s attention, never mind his or her’s enthusiastic and informed help, Homero’s courtesy, coupled with a complete knowledge of what he sold, for the most part was a big hit.  And after all, like Grommett down the street from him, he was the boss, which gave the courtesy a certain dignity and pride.

     He’d probably known about the affair the whole time, five years, but had never lifted a finger against either of them.  Or even raised his voice, as far as anyone knew.  Why now?  And besides, it wasn’t Homero’s style, at least on the surface.  He was the sort of person to whom nothing bad ever happened.  It was all water off a duck’s back.  Nothing ruffled him.  As far as anyone could tell from how he acted or what he said, he hadn’t married a woman who nagged him constantly about his lack of ambition (“make the shop larger, build another store, Homero, a chain of shops”), and never stopped reminding him of the stupidity and naivete that allowed everyone who worked for him to steal and take advantage of him.  He managed to get through each day as if she didn’t exist, as if he couldn’t hear her.  He was always busy and always smiling.  Knox often wondered how much dope it took to get to that enlightened state, but he’d never seen Homero with a joint, and he’d never looked for one, and never would, no matter how bloodshot his eyes were. 

     Homero worked hard and long hours, but he knew how to pace himself.  He was cutting meat by six every morning, but he could often be seen leaning against a post outside his store smoking a cigarette, a big smile on his face, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.  His style was to never seem in a hurry.  He was always in control, and everything came easy.  He rarely cut his last piece of meat before 9 every evening.  It was just a butcher shop, just meat, not even a can or bottle of steak sauce or salsa on the premises, but it catered to more than one class of customer.  His father had served the Mexican/American community and stocked almost exclusively cheap cuts.  Every conceivable part of three animals:  steers, hogs and goats.  From head to toe, or hoof, internal organs always a specialty that were in demand and sold well.  Little Homero had been cutting up kidneys and tripas since before he started school.  He’d separated eyeballs from brains, carefully preserving both, almost before he’d started walking.  He did make a few exceptions to the “only a butcher” rule.  He made tamales for Christmas and other specialities for special occasions like quincinieros. 

     Everyone loved him.  He had good looks going for him as well as the smile and the ingrained courtesy, and to cinch things, he kept a fair price for everyone.  He was so popular that no one noticed or cared when white people started showing up in the shop to buy expensive steaks.  He’d found a reliable organic farm just outside of town and figured it would be a good way to make a little extra money.  He was right, except it was a lot of extra money.  White people started making reservations for the steaks.  It became chic to have Homero’s steaks, and he had difficulty keeping up with the demand.  What really won people’s hearts, though, in the Mexican American community, still the foundation of his business, was that he never raised the prices on the cheap cuts, even the ones like flank steak (fajita meat), that became popular with white people.     

     But why he married such a shrew continued to be a topic of conversation among the whole town for 20 years.  One thing against her, or perhaps for her in his eyes, was that she was Peruvian.  Perhaps it had made her exotic to him, back during the honeymoon, and blinded him to her true nature, which unfortunately didn’t take long to emerge.  She was incomprehensible to most people in the Mexican/American community, and not just because of her accent.  How could she be so mean to Homero, the nicest guy in the world, and cheat on him, almost from the very beginning? 

     At forty, Mercedes still had her looks and a formidable set of pointed teeth, a few of them silver, and long nails that looked dangerous even when she had her arms folded.  She’d turned herself into a fortress, perhaps from too much attention of the wrong kind from men when she was younger.  That was the generous explanation.  Her admirers, and there were a few, went so far as to say that she was able finally to defend herself, reacting as she did to advances of any kind like a feral cat, showing her teeth and claws, sometimes with only the slightest provocation.  She’d been the victim, they said, of her own good looks and sexy style, which, her defenders were quick to add, she had every right to adopt.  But those not inclined to be so generous, the vast majority, those who felt sorry for Homero, called her “a world class hard core whore,” with many creative variations.

     Homero smoked Marlboros.  The three men looked mainly at the parking lot as they talked, which Knox thought was too busy and loud.  It was a strip mall with a beauty shop and a Mexican bakery, and as soon as Homero finished his cigarette, they went to the bakery and sat at a round metal table on uncomfortable metal chairs and drank mediocre coffee.

     “You don’t have to talk to us,” said Knox.

     “But we figured you hated the guy,” said Lawson.

     “I didn’t hate him,” said Homero, matter of factly shrugging his shoulders.  “He was nobody.  Like all the rest.”

     Both detectives grinned. 

     Sensing that his audience would appreciate a little more of an explanation, Homero went on:  “Just like she’s nobody and hasn’t been for quite a while.  I’m going to level with you guys, so maybe you’ll leave me alone.  I have a girl friend, ten years now, actually my real wife, legal or not, the mother of my two kids.  That’s who exists for me.  The other one is nobody.  I don’t even say her name.  So I have no motive for killing Tony.  Whatever he was doing with that other one is none of my business.”

     “Where were you last night between 11 and 6?”

     “Asleep in bed.  My ‘wife’ will tell you that.”

     He pulled a slip of paper out of his wallet and wrote her address and phone number on it. 

   

   

9.

     They already knew that Homero hadn’t lived with his wife for a long time.  Everyone knew that.  They had no children together.  She lived with her mother, a brother and a sister in a little bungalow that was near the water.  Homero’s father had bought it back when such houses were affordable for butchers.  Both his father and mother were deceased, and if his siblings had an issue with the shrew wife living in their parents’ house, and surely they did, it had been worked out years ago.  It was probably a matter of money, an investment, Knox guessed.  The house just kept getting more and more valuable, and perhaps all of the siblings, or the majority, were willing to wait it out.  And maybe the shrew wife paid rent to the siblings, or Homero did it for her.  That would probably smooth a lot of feathers, a sizable monthly check.

     She wasn’t as bad as they’d feared, or been led to believe.  She had the silver teeth and the long nails, but she also had a friendly smile and welcomed the two detectives as if she were glad to see them.  She had just enough of an accent to sound sexy.

     “I’ve been wondering where you guys were.  I thought the wife and mistress would be at the top of your list.”

     Over the years, Mercedes had become more but not completely anglicized in how she dressed and made herself up.  She still wore a little more makeup than most anglo women of her age and in her social class would, and the dress she was wearing might be a little more colorful and short, but Knox didn’t think either made her look cheap.  In fact, he thought it was tasteful and he admired her looks.  It was hard not to be drawn to her big black eyes.  Aside from that, her face was a seamless blend of anglo and Indian features.  A little of both in her strong but not too prominent nose.  Her hair was very conservative.  Shoulder length, a gentle wave, little streaks of gray throughout.  It was only the silver teeth and the long nails that stood out.

     Once seated in the living room, Lawson of course got right to the point.

     “How were you and Tony getting along?”

     “Same as usual.”

     “No fights lately?”

     “Nope.”

     “Can you explain to us your arrangement?”

     “Sure.  I let him fuck me for the rent money.  Once a week.  No more, no less.”

     Both men blushed but tried to hide it.  Mercedes grinned at their discomfort.

     “The rent you pay Homero for this house?  That the rent money you mean?” Lawson asked.

     “Yeah, but it’s more like I pay it to his blood sucking relatives.”

     “So now there’s a problem?  No more rent money?”

     She shrugged.

     “There’s been a problem for nearly a year.  Tony was going broke.”

     “And the arrangement?”

     “I gave him credit right up to the end.  I’m such a pushover.” 

     “Maybe you liked him.”

     “Tony?  Don’t make me laugh.  No, I just don’t like seeing a grown man beg and squeal and cry.  It’s easier just to give in.”

     “But maybe you have your limit.”

     “I reached that a long time ago, but if you think I’d cut his throat over it, you’re crazy.”

     “Homero been leaning on you for the rent?”

     “No.  I pay it.  I’d never get behind on that.  I guess you forgot my import business.  I’m not in it just for the fun.”

     Knox remembered his wife saying she had a lot of interesting tapestries and mirrors and pottery in the store.  Still, he wondered how a small town like Arcady could support such a specialized business and had always assumed it was subsidized in some way by someone.  Tony, he’d assumed, but apparently not.

     “The business is a success then?”

     “Of course it is.  I do a lot of mail order, over the internet.  And that’s actually brought people in from nearby.  From all around really, as far away as LA.  Plus my brother is an attorney and my sister is a doctor.  They contribute their share when it’s needed.  We do okay.”

     Despite his prejudices before meeting her, Knox found himself liking this woman.  Perhaps she’d mellowed since the shrew days.  He could tell that Lawson was having a hard time disliking her as well.  That, however, presented a problem.  The more he liked her the less he could imagine her with Tony.  Yet she denies nothing.  If she had her own money, why would she continue the arrangement with Tony?

     “It seems a little strange.”

     “What?  All of us in this house?  We’re Peruvian.  What can I say?  It seems natural to us.”

     “Your siblings aren’t married?”

     “Both were.  They had the same luck I did.”

     “Actually, I meant strange that you would have money, and yet continue the arrangement with Tony.”

     She looked at Knox seriously for a long time, considering how to answer.  Finally, she said, “I had my reasons.”

     “I’m sure you did.  Mind telling me what they were?”

     “This part of the investigation?”

     “Could be. Maybe you had a motive for killing Tony.”

     “So I wouldn’t have to demean myself with him anymore?”

     “Something like that.”

     “If that’s how it had been, I’d have stopped it. Just like that.”

     She snapped her fingers.

     “But the truth is, I’m going to miss him.  No one else is going to pay that kind of money for something so quick and easy.”

     The detectives glanced at each other.

     “Ever see Tony’s razor collection?” Knox asked.

     “No.  I didn’t know he had one.  You mean straight razors?”

     Lawson nodded.

     “News to me.  I never went into the shop.  That what he was killed with?  One of his own razors?”

     She let herself grin a little at that idea.

     “May I ask where you met for your assignations?”

     “Such a fancy word!”

     Lawson blushed and shrugged.

     “You mean where did we fuck?”

     Lawson grinned and nodded.

     “The Holiday Inn.  Sunday nights.  He had the next day off, and he always had to get stinking drunk before he could do it.  I’m closed Monday too, so it worked out well.”

     “Got any theories?”

     “The cops are asking me?  You must be desperate.”

     “Well?”

     “His wife.”

     “Why?  She been giving you trouble?”

     “Not me.  Him.  I don’t know what brought it on.  Just all of a sudden she decided she couldn’t take it anymore.  Me, I mean.  Told him she was going to kill herself if he didn’t stop.  That was one week.  The next week she’d leave him.  The next she’d tell the whole town, as if they didn’t already know, but you know, in such a public way it would hurt him in the mayor’s race.  This has been going on for about six months.  I think she finally just blew a gasket.”

     The shrew, as it turned out, was not that far beneath the surface.  Continuing the arrangement with Tony hurt two people, and while it lasted, she’d enjoyed every minute of it.  Her husband and Tony’s wife.  That was important to her, and getting paid was just a bonus.   

10.

     Keats sat behind his desk in a swivel chair.  Lawson sat sideways in front of the desk, leaning back precariously in a wooden chair.  They’d had to force their way into the building through cameras and microphones.  Neither one had said a word.

     As soon as they sat down, Lawson called Homero’s ‘wife’ and had his alibi confirmed.

     “Where are we?” he asked.

     “Tony Nomellini got his throat cut by somebody between the hours of eleven at night, when his wife fell asleep, and six the next morning, when the kid found him.  Maybe not with one of his own razors.  All were present and accounted for.  Still, we’re waiting for lab results on them, right?”

     “Right.”

     “Also, call somebody now and see if Tony’s keys were in his pocket.”

     Lawson picked up the phone.  A couple of minutes later, he said, “No keys.”

     “That’s odd, unless Tony just dropped them somewhere casually.”

     “Nothing odd about that.  It’s how you lose keys.  People I know who aren’t so anal rententive as me do it all the time.”

     Knox had no trouble accepting that argument.

     “So the killer took the keys with him, picked them up off a table or wherever Tony had tossed them, left the light on, either deliberately or because he was in a near panic hurry, which is not likely when we consider that he locked the door behind him.  So he or she has the keys.  Or has thrown them away.”

     “Meeting someone in the middle of the night,” said Lawson, eager to move on from the keys.  “Sounds like a date to me.”

     “Could be, but could also be some secret business.”

     “Like what?”

     “Something about the campaign.  But that leads nowhere at the moment.  My question is why lock the door on the way out?”

     “It makes a kind of weird sense.  The body can’t come after you for one thing.”

    Knox raised an eyebrow and didn’t smile.  He looked at Lawson as if to tell him to get serious.  Lawson shrugged. 

    “Okay.  How about this then.  The lights were left on.  No one’s going to stumble into or even pass by that barber shop, on a side street in a little town, in the middle of the night, but the body was sort of on display.  Don’t you think?”

     Knox nodded.

     “The lights were left on,” Lawson said.  “And the door being locked, even though it makes no sense really, is like making extra sure it won’t go anywhere.  That it will stay on display.”

     Knox nodded.

      “The killer wanted to make sure he was found just as he or she left him,” Lawson said.  “For aesthetic reasons.”

     Knox laughed.

     “You and your aesthetics.  We forgot to ask Coehlo about the life insurance.”

     Lawson got comfortable in his wooden chair and leaned over as if telling Knox something very confidential.

      “Maybe it was an old game they played, from the good old days, nothing to do with Sweeney Todd.  She’d walk up to him with it in her hand, the straight razor, a sex game.  Something they’d done many times before, but this time, premeditated or not, she couldn’t stop herself.”

     .“Before we get carried away with that theory, for which we have no evidence, we need to make one more sewer call.”

     Lawson groaned.

     “We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk to David Hogg.”

    

11.

      There was of course a sewer committee, two actually, one for and one against.  The head of the “for” committee was an engineer named David Hogg, a man in his early forties who’d always been civic-minded, especially about things on which he could lend his expertise.  In fact, more than one opponent had accused him of caring more about looking good, showing everyone how smart he was, than doing good.  But the fact is he was consistently in favor of G’s projects and was good at explaining the details to the rest of the city council (not a member, but a frequent invited guest), and at other public events, all in a way easily understood by non-engineers.  He liked people and had a surprising patience with their ignorance.  He was a good teacher.  It might even be said that he had a boyish charm, and a lot of it came from a very down to earth, we’re all in this together attitude.  Not a salesman, no arm-twisting, no anedotes or jokes, but always friendly, just a regular guy who drew his audience in by making them feel smart and in the know.  Everything was simple, in David Hogg’s world, and easy to explain and understand. 

     It’s doubtful, most agreed, that G could have had as much success without Hogg.  He was so well-liked that even his detractors often forgot to notice that he loved being the expert in the room.  Most of the experts brought in by the “against” committees, regardless of the project, roads, buildings, public parks, were unable to say anything in plain English, so Hogg didn’t have much head to head competition.  He’d just let the expert sink himself in incomprehensible jargon.  There had though over the years been exceptions, and Hogg’s reactions to articulate experts, people just like him, were mixed.  He’d never blown up, never lost his composure completely, but he’d certainly shown his annoyance more than once.  And contempt, which was worse.  It probably lost G a few battles over the years, but not enough to seriously hurt G’s overall capital improvements, nor damage Hogg’s reputation.  For some reason, the “against” committees seemed unable to consistently present their case with articulate experts.   

     Hogg commuted an hour each way to the nearby airplane factory.  He’d done this for ten years.  He told people he worked on a plane that didn’t exist, a good example of his sense of humor.  Dry, so he liked to think, and he begged off saying another word about his job, adding that he might cease to exist himself if he did.  The rest of Hogg was so ordinary that to somone like Lawson, it seemed suspicious.  “That guy’s too perfect,” Lawson said,  “One day he’ll kill his whole family and himself.”  Knox smiled.  Lawson was always saying stuff like that.  “There’s a serial killer if I ever saw one,” he might say of a perfectly ordinary guy at the counter at Sally’s.  Sometimes Knox would ask for an explanation and insist on stats, but usually he’d just change the subject.  It made him uncomfortable to talk about people sitting in the same diner not ten feet away.  He was much happier discussing the Dodgers, his only sports passion, or the latest movie that both men had watched.  Knox liked anything by Clint Eastwood and almost any message movie with corporate villians.  Lawson’s taste was more arty, and old fashioned. Woody Allen, Kurosawa, Fellini, Bergman, but he watched a lot of new independent films as well, and he tried to keep up on the latest hot directors, but he could never remember their names.  “Old age,” he told Knox.  “Watching them at home, too,” his partner said generously.

     Luckily, it was Saturday morning and Hogg was at home.  He agreed to meet them at Sally’s.

     They were discussing George Clooney when Hogg showed up, all smiles and handshaking.  He really was a likeable “kid,” Knox realized, wincing immediately at the thought that the kid was at least forty years old.  Hogg seemed to be looking for a latte for a minute, but quickly remembered where he was and got coffee with cream.  He said he liked Clooney too, at least on screen. “Might be a little too do-gooder off the screen,” he said.  “Too liberal for you?”asked L. “Maybe a little.  Pokes his nose into a lot of things.”  “A good citizen,” said Knox.  “Like you.”  “Touche.”  They laughed.  “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?  The sewer project?”  “Yep.”  “It’s very important.  We’re polluting the water table.  It’s like pissing in your own food.  Has to stop.  And I don’t mind saying that N was an ignorant obstructionist, and unpleasant about it to boot.  I think he really believed a lot of what he said, like how with the sewer system each flush would cost a dollar, as opposed to nearly nothing with septics.  Or how sewer line breaks were common and would stink up whole neighborhoods for months, even years, or how they might blow up, a phenomonen apparently most common in school yards and churches.  He was relentless, totally unscrupulous, and yes, very annoying.” 

     He stopped there and stared at the two detectives.

     “As a formality,” said Knox,”  Tell us where you were Thursday night, from about eleven til six in the morning.”  “Home, of course. but all my witnesses, like myself, were sound asleep.  I gave it some thought on the way down here, thinking I might need an alibi, and it would be very difficult to sneak out.  My wife’s a light sleeper, but there’s also the dogs who always at least growl or whine when I get up to go to the bathroom.  I’m sure they’d have raised holy hell if I’d gone downstairs, which I never do.  And finally, there’s the alarm system.  I’d have to disarm it in the dark or with a flashlight, not a routine procedure once its set for the night, and I’ve never done it before.  Chances are it would have at least beeped once or twice.”

     “We’ll need to talk to your wife,” said Lawson.  “Just to confirm.”

     “Sure, come by this afternoon if you want..”

     His life was an open book.  He probably had neighbors or friends who came into his house without knocking.  Privacy was not an issue. 

     “I’m playing golf this afternoon,” he said, “but I’ll tell her to expect you.”

     “Thanks,” said Knox.  “But we can just call her.  And by the by, how much money are we talking here?  I’m sure I’ve read it in the paper, but I forget.”

     “The sewer?  13.5 million.”

     “And who would get most of that?”

     “Weaver.  If they got the job and I’m sure they would.  They’re the best.  The subs would get their share, of course, but Weaver would really cash in.  And come by it honestly,” he added.  “He deserves every penny.  This town owes him a lot.  His company is in a class by itself as far as quality goes, and they’ve always been very honest.”

    

12.

    

    Knox walked up the hill, about a quarter mile, then jogged on the level until he reached the cliff’s edge overlooking the water.  There he walked a bit more.  It was always a lift to his spirits to be so high up, especially with surf breaking below and an expanse of beach curving away as far as the eye could see.  A small thrill that stayed with him even after he’d jogged down the stairs to the beach and glanced up at where he’d been as he alternately jogged and walked back to where he’d started.  A five mile circle he did nearly every day, as much for its beauty as for his health.

He didn’t often have cases this pressing and important to think about, so it was usually personal matters that took up his thinking time as he jogged.  It was a novelty, then, to find himself thinking about Tony, cut throat and all, blood and all.  Personally, it had nothing to do with him.  He’d known three generations of Nomellini’s, but hadn’t really known any of them.  They were just a fixture in the town, like Grommett’s, like the Dyer’s department store, like the Palace theater, like the drug store that still had a counter and sold pimiento cheese sandwiches.  Part of the town, and for that reason he was sad to see it go.  Change was always unsettling, and there was no little Nomellini waiting in the wings.  A childless marriage, none of Knox’s business why, although rumor had it that Mrs. N tested fertile years ago.  A nephew maybe?  Even a niece?  Wouldn’t matter these days, not to most people.  If so, though, he or she had yet to emerge.  Girls, evidently, still wanted to be hairdressers, a cheap way of setting up a business, lots of independence, at least that’s what his wife always said about hairdressers:  very independent.  Not intended as a compliment, he knew.  But guys?  How many guys dreamed of becoming barbers?  No, the money was in being a sylist, doing women’s hair, so that’s what they’d dream of, some no doubt as straight as Warren Beatty, though probably not most.  It would take a brave boy, straight or not, to announce to the world his ambition to be a hair stylist, as least in a small community like Arcady.

Tony, like his father and grandfather, were of the old school.  Men’s barbers.  Judging from photographs on the back wall, the appearance of the store hadn’t changed since the grandfather, who always had a rough time with English and never shaved his old-fashioned European peasant mustache, opened it in the mid-twenties.  Barber pole.  “Nomellini’s Barber Shop” painted in black in a semi-circle on the plate glass front.  Three chairs but three barbers usually just on Saturdays.  The prices for all the services, nearly anything you could think of, clearly displayed on signs between the mirrors.  Not only would Nomellini’s still give you a shave with a straight razor, but you could also get your nails filed, and not by some little foreign girl, but by Tony himself, or Burt.  Knox knew all this because Lawson would occasionally go in and get what he called “the works.”  “A man owes it to himself now and then,”he told Knox, who tended to agree but somehow never got around to it.  He had time.  Knox prided himself on always having time for anything.  It was one thing he admired about Homero, and envied, since he didn’t think he lived by the rule as strictly as the butcher did.  But on the whole, he was always resisting getting sucked into the modern world’s rush.  He’d never missed one of his son’s or daughter’s ball games, or any of their other school activities.  He’d always been home for dinner and almost always made it for lunch.  But pampering himself was different.  Embarrassing, plus he wasn’t sure he could put up with Tony for that long, however long it took.

     Tony was a troublemaker and a bully.  His style as a middle guard, brute force, fit his personality in school perfectly.  Even through high school, he picked on smaller boys or anyone who was the slightest bit different.  Scrawny and effiminate boys gave Tony a wide berth and probably a good portion of their lunch money, some of which may have wound up in Johnny Weaver’s pockets.  That was a connection Knox had forgotten about.  Actually, it hadn’t lasted long.  Tony went too far, actually hurt people where it showed, black eyes and facial cuts, which got him into hot water with teachers and Weaver distanced himself pretty quickly.  But Knox knew what was going on.  Even then he played cop, high school cop, making it his business to know about such arrangements and doing what he could stop them, which wasn’t much in Tony’s case.  Tony was dumb, but not so dumb that he couldn’t learn fast not to try anything if Knox was around.  Already Knox was a skilled boxer, there were no martial arts classes in town or the school back then, and it only took one time and one punch to convince Tony that Knox meant business.  After the punch he spent a good fifteen minutes rolliing around on the ground whining.  Knox hoped that would put an end to the extortion racket, but his victims were too afraid to squeal on him, so it continued, and Knox finally just started ignoring it.  It was his first lesson about saving the world, and he didn’t like it.  All he knew to do at the time was to try put it out of his mind, pretend it didn’t exist. 

     But Weaver had been in on it briefly.  So briefly, and Tony got into so much trouble so many times that Knox nearly forgot about Weaver’s involvement.  Of course they knew each other, in the way everyone did in the small school, but Knox hadn’t thought until this moment about them ever really knowing each other, which was really stupid.  They were both football players!  Weaver the star quarterback, not a great passer but a wizard of the triple option.  He could get his team down the field.  And Tony was the bone crusher, the intimidator of opposing centers, making them quake in their cleated hightop shoes. 

     But so what if they’d been friends?  Weaver had certainly distanced himself, abruptly cut off contact, no doubt hurt Tony’s feelings, but that was forty years ago!  There would have to be more, and the only thing Knox could think of is that Weaver was definitely a type that Tony hated.  It could be argued that Tony’s whole campaign was aimed at Weaver’s type of person.  Upscale, liberal, sophisticated, rich.  So maybe it got personal.  Maybe Tony gave Weaver a reason to feel threatened.  Not blackmail.  Not extortion.  Just a deep hatred and Tony being Tony, he couldn’t restrain his bully tendencies, and it backfired.

13.

     “Quite a leap,” said Vera.  “Even if Tony was bullying him.”

     “I know.  We’ll talk to Weaver first thing tomorrow.  Try to get a read on him.”    

     Knox had filled her in on just about everything by the time he brought them a second glass of wine.  From their back patio they had total privacy, thanks to clever wall placement and strategically placed bougainvilla and olive trees, and they also enjoyed a nice view of the hills.  This time of day, the hills were blue, and wispy clouds sailed around and over them.  They lounged in the shade in shorts and t-shirts.  Not much wind.  The temperature was perfect.

     Mrs. Knox laughed about Lawson’s Sweeney Todd theory.

     “Not out of the question, though,” she said.  “Stranger things have happened.”

     “And he has a point about the wife’s character.  I can see her getting inspired by Johnny Depp.”

     They both laughed.

     “But,” said Knox, quickly, “I’m afraid its appeal is drawing us off the more pedestrian side of things.”

     “Sewers.”

     “Yes.  Another good reason to talk to Weaver first thing tomorrow.”

     “What if the two were combined?”

     “My creative wife.  How?”

     “I don’t know yet.  Just a thought.  But the picture of Tony sitting there all night.  No one saw him, even with the lights on, but he was still on display.  A demogogue on display.”

     “Or just a very bad man.  Why did Sweeney Todd cut his victim’s throats?”

     “In Sondheim it’s revenge.  There’s some sympathy for the demon barber.  An evil man basically steals his wife and daughter.  But in the original penny dreadful, he just likes cutting throats.”

     “God, I hope that’s not the case here.  I don’t need a psychopath.”

     “No one does.”

     “Although revenge might be just as bad.  People showing up with signs at the trial.  Yelling stupid things at lawyers and defendants. ”

     “Not your business at that point.”

     “I’d have to testify.”

     “True.”

     “There were reporters all day at the barber shop.  TV crews.  This probably isn’t going to just go away.  Why do people think they know what happened?  Just based on what they see on TV, or read in the paper?  How can they be so sure?”

     “Makes them feel better.”

     “Because they’re stupid.”

     “Now Paul.  The right measure.”

     “I know.  Sorry.”

    

II

second day.

1.

     First thing the next morning, after Knox was out of the house, Vera looked up straight razors on the internet.  She found a bewildering amount of information, none of it particularly helpful.  One thing was clear, though, aside from how lethal they could be.  A collection of straight razors was not going to be worth a fortune.  Some antiques might be worth a thousand or or more dollars, but most sold for two hundred dollars or less.  Valuable, yes, but not worth a fortune, even if you had a bunch of them.  The other clear thing was that they came in what seemed an infinite number of shapes and sizes, with different kinds of blades and handles, none of which seemed to have any bearing on murder.  It hardly mattered if it were stainless or high-carbon steel, or if the handle was ivory, mother of pearl, or Bakelite, or snakewood.  Any razor could easily kill you, no special talent required.  The talent lay at the other extreme: giving a close shave without causing even a knick.

     She thought again of her suggestion, really something that just popped up out of nowhere, that revenge and sewers might both be part of a motive.  Maybe Mrs. N had an interest in the sewer project.  Was she a secret environmentalist?  Doubtful.  An investor into something to do with the project?  More likely.  Mrs. Knox went back to the internet and googled sewers.  She settled in with a cup of coffee and wondered how much of an expert she could make herself in one morning. 

     Over coffee at Sally’s, Lawson said,  “If Tony had been swept into office with a huge majority, over 70%, you know the whole city council would have rolled over.  And maybe Weaver needed that contract.  We haven’t looked at his finances.”

     “Which would have to be voluntary at this point.  And to think he’s broke runs contrary to his reputation and the facts.  I made some calls early this morning.  He pays his bills on time.  He has excellent credit.  He contributes generously to worthy causes.”

     Lawson looked skeptical.

     “There could still be an impending crisis.  You know how these big companies are.  Smelling like a rose one day, like shit the next.”

     Knox shrugged, as if to say “and the sky might fall.”

     Lawson’s cell phone rang.  When Knox heard him say Todd, he knew it was his nephew.  The two were pretty close, the kid’s dad out of the picture.  But the conversation was brief.

     “My nephew says Weaver owns ten straight razors.”

     “How does he know that?”

     “All under glass and labeled in his den.”

     “A collector?”

     “I guess, so could even be more of them.  That’s all that Todd saw in his den, ten in a case, when he was playing with Weaver’s son.  He said he’s seen them before, but never gave it a thought until he heard how Tony died.  Then he called me straight away.”

     “Good kid.  Junior detective.”

     “Yes, he is a good kid, as a matter of fact.  When he wants to be.”

     “Are they against the law?”

     Knox always relied upon Lawson to keep him up on the finer points of the law.

     “Probably not, but we might be able to get a warrant based on something.  Not on suspicion of murder, but just to make sure the collection is housed safely or legally.  I don’t know.  The laws about knives in this state, including razors, are such a fucked up mess, no one really knows what’s legal.  We could just be making sure that all the laws are observed.”

     “Not enough, and besides, if the laws are as fucked up as you say, how would we know if they’re being observed?” Knox said.

     “You know we could think of something.  Look it up, find some detail, but I’m with you, boss.  We never bothered Tony for the five he kept in the shop, not to mention the antiques he brought out on Saturdays.  I knew he had them because I got a shave from Burt or Sam occasionally.  Would never let Tony get close to my neck with a razor, nor would anyone in his right mind.  Only Burt and Sam ever used them.  Tony knew his limitations.  But besides all that, the day I arrest a barber for owning a straight razor is the day you can ship me straight to the loony bin.  After I resign from the human race.”

     “A mental health facility.”

     “Whatever.  By the way, what about Weaver’s character?  Did your phone calls enlighten you on that any?  Not that I see how it’s relevant.” 

     “It’s not, but he’s a civic leader of the apparently bona fide type, no skeletons.  Belongs to every club and committee you can think of.  Active in kids stuff too.  Managed teen age summer leagues even when his kids didn’t play.  Teaches an adult Sunday School class.  He’s done a lot for the town.  Helped Grommett get a lot of those public works projects through. Might have been as helpful in his way as Cobb.  Knows how to pull strings, pull in favors.”

     Knox paused for a moment.    

     “So he’s the kind of guy who might get really mad when some yahoo like Tony comes along.  I remembered something this morning on my walk, and it may explain the straight razors.  Weaver and Tony briefly had an extortion racket going in high school.”

     Lawson raised two eyebrows at once.

     “A little chink in the armor,” he said, “Finally.”

     “What did it involve?”

     “Just lunch money.  Tony threatened, or more.”

     “And what did Weaver do besides collect?”

     “Nothing, and at the time it seemed natural.  Still does, really.  Weaver was the most popular guy in school.  Tony the least popular.”

     “That’s pitiful.”

     “That’s high school.”

     “I actually had a good time.  Of course I never did anything, joined no clubs, played no sports.  Played a lot of pinball.  Maybe that’s why I had such a good time.  And ping pong.  I was really good at ping pong for a while.”

     “You should write a book on how to be happy in high school.”

     “Parents would crucify me:  the secret to success?  No ambition.”

     “You did okay.”

     “Yeah, second fiddle in my home town to the second least ambitious person I know.”

     They’d had this conversation before.  Knox lifted his coffee.

     “To losers.”

     They clinked cups.

     “Let’s go see Weaver.”

     “Do we have to?”

2.

    

     “I don’t mind telling you,” Weaver said, even before they’d crossed the threshold of his front door.  “I hated him and everything he stood for. But I think he was more stupid than evil.  I really don’t think he knew the harm he was doing, and this sewer business was the last straw.  He was against everything else too, anything that raised taxes, even money for schools.  You know what he said once in a speech?  Why should I pay to educate other people’s kids?  That’s got to be the bottom as far as civic-mindedness goes, on the local level.  Why should he pay to educate other people’s kids.  He didn’t care if he lived among illiterates.  He didn’t care about roads he didn’t drive on, or buses he didn’t take himself.  In those cases, he thought the city was stealing from him, and I think he really believed it.  Had no concept of community, which made him a menace to society in my book, so I might as well admit it.  I’m not sorry that he’s dead.  The world is a better place without him.”

     They were standing in a large foyer.  Weaver lived on a winding road up in the hills.  The house was a Spanish style villa with a view of the ocean.  It could be reached only through a double wrought iron gate that opened after you told someone through a speaker who you were. 

     When Weaver came to the end of his rant, the detectives nodded soberly and Lawson asked.

    “Could we see your straight razor collection, Mr Weaver?”

     Weaver frowned at both of them in turn.  He didn’t say it was a stupid question, but he left no doubt in the way he looked at the detectives’s that that’s what he thought.  They were barking up the wrong tree.  He said nothing for the longest time.  But finally, slowly and very carefully, he asked, “How do you know I have a straight razor collection?”

     “Rather not say.”

     “I’ll show you what I have on display.”

     “That’s a good start.”

     Without comment he led them into his den.  It was decorated in a vaguely Spanish, vaguely Western style.  Not bad, meaning not too corny, Western art covered the walls.  On one wall was a collection of photographs of Indians that looked pretty interesting to Knox.  On another wall over a long low tan leather couch was a large glass case with straight razors mounted on green velvet, information about them on neatly printed cards below.  Despite the circumstances, like most enthusiastic collectors, Weaver was eager to talk about what he had, even to detectives.  And he was full of additional information, including anecdotes.  Most of the razors dated back to the nineteenth century, owned originally by famous generals or nobility. One or two had been involved in sensational crimes, but the main thrust of the stories dealt with the eccentricities of the soldiers or noblemen, not the crimes.

     “What led to this particular interest?” Knox asked, when Weaver slowed down a bit.

     “Tony,” Weaver said, without hesitation.  “When we were in high school, he took me to his father’s shop one day and showed me the collection his grandfather had.  It just fascinated me.  I don’t know why.  So I started looking into it and got hooked.”

     Knox began seeing the star quarterback in Weaver’s face.  He was just a little too handsome, or maybe pretty is the better word.  He’d put on some weight, but not too much.  He’d come down the stairs to greet them with his tennis whites on, racket in hand.

     “Use a straight razor yourself?”  Knox asked.

     “Not everyday.  Takes up too much time.  But on weekends, yes, as a matter of fact I do.  I don’t use the antiques, but what I buy for weekend use are fine blades nonetheless.”

     Then he started talking about the difference in the quality of the blades, the kind of steel used, which Knox found interesting enough but he immediately forgot it.  He was too busy trying to read Weaver’s eyes.  The man did want to impress him, but perhaps that’s how he was with everyone.  He was kind of like Grommett in that respect, but of course he wasn’t groveling.  It’s just that he wouldn’t shut up.  Once he got off on a topic, whether it be the mayor’s election or razor blades, he wouldn’t stop, and the point of every speech he made was how much he knew.    

     “How many do you have not on display?  Or elsewhere?”

     Weaver hesitated, for the first time, clearly wondering how far he should let this go.

     “Two dozen or more.  I’ve lost precise count.”

     “Can we take a look?”

     Weaver shook his head.

     “This is starting to feel like a search,” he said.  “I think I’d prefer if you had a warrant.”

     Knox was surprised, but he didn’t blame him.  Lawson was both surprised and blamed him.

     Knox said, “Never mind.  The razors might actually be a distraction from the heart of the matter.  What I really wanted to ask you is what contact if any you’ve had with Tony lately?”

     “None.  I could tolerate him for short periods in high school, but as we got older, it was hard to even be near him.  I saw him at city council meetings that had to do with the sewer project.  That was about it.”

     “He was a bully in high school.”

     Weaver nodded but looked as if he couldn’t fathom how that could be relevant to anything.

     “You didn’t mind that?”

     “He never bullied me.  We were teammates.”

     “But he bullied for you in high school, didn’t he?”

     Weaver knew better than to be too outraged.  Instead, he opted for reserved.

     “What do you mean?”

     “He stole kids lunch money for you.”

     Weaver looked blank for a moment, then what was said finally seemed to register.  He didn’t hesitate to tell the truth.

     “Yes,” he said, “and I feel guilty about it to this day.  You were a cop even then, weren’t you Paul?”

     Knox shrugged.

     “I kept my eyes open.  So there’s nothing you want to tell us about Tony and you more recently?  Something that might help us with our investigation?”

     Weaver shook his head.

     “I’m glad he’s dead.  That’s all, and I’ve already said that.  The town is better off without him.  But the truth is, even if he’d won the election, and he probably would have, the effect would have been brief.  The only town issue is the sewer.  All the rest is meaningless, show off stuff.  So maybe the project would have been put off for six months or a year, until the council got tired of being bullied, and the polls started going the other way.  That’s nothing, a few months delay.  Sooner or later we’re going to have sewers, like most of the civilized world.  It’s just a matter of time, and the only shame is that the longer we wait, the more it’s going to cost.  Actually, his untimely death does make a difference.  We’ll be able to make the deadline for federal matching grants that are on the table right now.”

     “That could be a motive,” said Lawson, almost to himself.

     “Yes,” said Weaver.  “A fifteen million dollar motive.  That’s how much money the town would have lost if Tony had won.”

     “And your company?”

     “We’d have to bid, but double that for a ballpark figure.”

     They all stood around nodding.

     “Yes,”said Weaver, looking up at the two detectives, almost defiantly.  “I had a strong motive.”

     He paused for dramatic effect.

     “If, that is, I thought I should risk everything I owned, not to mention my freedom, even my life, for $30 million.  The fact is, gentlemen, my equipment is worth more than that.  Subtract what I owe on it and it’s still worth more.  Me killing Tony would be like putting down a chip that represented my whole life at a roulette table.  Red or black.  It would be quite a thrill I admit.  Almost like Russian roulette, except I get the gas chamber not shot in the head.  And if you doubt that $30 million is a relative trifle to me, here’s the  cards of my attorney and my banker.  I’ve already told them to tell you the truth about anything you ask.”   

    

       13

     “Something about that guy,”said Lawson.

     “What?”

     “He’s too sincere.  Too good.  It feels phony.”

     “Not to most people, but I know what you mean.  You like a little irony in people.  Weaver is missing that, or at least I would have said that before that last diatribe.  That was a pretty elaborate metaphor.”

     Lawson shrugged.

     “Elaborate but not ironic.”

     “I’d have to hear it again, but in any case, you have what’s called a hunch,” said Knox. 

     “You agree with me?”

     “That he has no irony, yes.  That doesn’t make him a killer.”

     “But he’s our best suspect.  Those razors.  The sewer thing.”

     “I’m not even sure we can count the sewer thing as a motive.”

     “It’s money.  You heard him.  Fifteen million.  Not just principle.”

     “He lives in a different world, financially speaking.”

     They’d left the property and Knox was winding his way down the hill.  A clear day, the ocean was pretty.
     After a minute or two, Knox said, “By the way, where are grandpa Nomellini’s blades?”

     Lawson hit the dashboard with his fist.

     “How stupid can we be?”

     Knox shrugged.

     There’d been a thorough search of the barber shop.  The five blades the kid had told them about had been just where he said they’d be, and they were as clean as a whistle.  Nothing unusual about that.  State law, since the seventies, had required a sterilization between cuts, so no one’s blood was found, never mind Tony’s.  Even the fingerprints on the handles had been washed or rubbed off. 

     But they had no idea where the antique collection was.  Tony’s house had been searched top to bottom, but neither Lawson nor Knox had thought to make the antique razors a priority in the search.

     “They’d have told us if they’d found straight razors.”

     “Better call to make sure.”

     Lawson got on the phone immediately.  No straight razors was confirmed in less than half an hour.  By that time, they were back at the station.

      

3

     They didn’t call to let her know they were coming.  She was feeling no pain when they got there and wearing more less what she’d had on the previous morning.

     “You searched this place from stem to stern,” she said.

     “And the barber shop.  Yet we know it exists.  Or did.”

     “So now you think it was me, and I’m hiding the murder weapon.  Or tossed it.  I want my lawyer.”

     But she made no move to pick up the phone.

     “Just show us the collection, and we will leave you alone.”

     “I suppose you’d want to take it.”

     “For analysis.”

     “How long would that take?”

     “A day or two.”

     “Listen, boys, Tony was broke.  More than broke.  I might lose this house.  I hid anything of value when your guys searched the place.  I know they’re cops, but you never know.”

  .  “You never know.”

     “We have to go to the bank.  They’re in a safety deposit box.”

    At the bank, in the safe deposit room, neither Lawson or Knox knew what they were looking at.  They looked handsome enough, all placed individually in a pocket of a fold around a cloth holder much like the plastic pockets for tools.  But this cloth was black and thick, the material of exceptional quality, like something you might make a suit out of.  Grandpa knew he had something special.

     “Tony kept these at home,” she said.  “He took them down to show them off every Saturday, but said they were too valuable to leave in the shop.”

     “How valuable.  Did he say?”

     “No.  He’d never tell me, but I’ve looked it up.  I’d sneak them out when he was at work, and I’d find an approximate value from articles on the Internet.  Not a fortune, I can tell you that.  One of these might be worth two thousand.  A couple more a thousand each.  So something, not peanuts, but not a fortune.  A few months mortgage payments, but won’t save the house in the long run, I’m afraid.”

     “No life insurance?” asked Knox.

     “Ha!  Are you kidding.  I called Barney, like you said, and he laughed at me.  Money burned a hole in Tony’s pocket.  Think he’d buy life insurance?”

     They left the razors with forensics.  The county report of the murder scene had come up with a couple of things.  Fiber, a cotton blend, not anything Tony was wearing but could have come from any sort of garment.  So useless until they had a suspect.  And several strands of hair, all different, hardly unusual in a barber shop, so probably useless as well.  Still, if they ever came up with a suspect, those things might prove useful. 

     “What about a kickback?” said Lawson.

     “From Weaver?”

     “Who else?”

     “To get Tony to switch sides?”

     “Yes.  His wife just told us he was in financial trouble.”

     “And Tony, being Tony, somehow screwed it up.  Asked for more.  Threatened to tell.  It would be just like him.”

     “And our un-ironic friend loses his temper.”

     “And just happens to have one of his fancy razors with him?”

     “He already knew Tony was being difficult.  They agreed to meet in the shop after hours, and Weaver, knowing how volatile Tony could be, brought a razor as a last resort.”

     Knox thought about it for a minute.

     “Not bad.  Now you think it’s Weaver and not the wife?”

     “I’m entitled to change my mind.”

     “Especially since we have no evidence either way.”

 

4.

     Mrs. N’s lawyer was a nice young man who sat there and let her say anything she wanted.  It wasn’t his fault.  She’d made it clear from the beginning that she’d come in to spill her guts, not be clever about what she did and didn’t say.  She’d done up her face, combed her hair carefully, and wore a conservative dark blue pants suit.  She might have passed for a real estate agent.  This was her moment, and she meant to squeeze every bit of good out of it she could.

     They’d found a trace of blood on one of the antique razors in the bank, and her fingerprints on the handle.  They’d found Sweeney Todd on her I-pod.  That’s what broke her, if that’s the right word for it.  She’d been told to come in, but clearly she had confesssing in mind from the start, and once Sweeney Todd came up, she did so immediately and tearfully.  They were in Knox’s office.  She and the lawyer sat next to each other in front of Knox’s desk, and Lawson made her listen to the music for a minute.  As he was always prone to do with suspects, he hovered behind her.  She didn’t start off with “I did it.”   

     She said, “He’d never been romantic,” taking the earphones off, “but he was so shy that it was kind of sweet.  Plus he worshipped me.  He didn’t know about opening doors and such, always forgot birthdays and anniversaries, but the way he touched me it was like I was made of glass, like he was afraid I’d break.  So gentle.  At least until he got excited, and then, well, it was the other extreme, which I liked too.  A raging bull.”

     Knox cleared his throat.

     “Did you murder you husband, Mrs N?”

     “Yes.  I cut his throat with a straight razor.”

     She almost came out of her chair when she said it, she seemed to enjoy it so much.  In fact, she repeated it.

     “I cut his throat with a straight razor!!”

     Knox was afraid she was going to burst into song.

     “Perhaps we could move on to that night,” he suggested.  “How did you get him to the shop?”

    “Sex of course.  And not just any sex.  When we were younger, we’d played around with his straight razors.  I actually shaved him a few times.  He taught me how and it was fun, and then afterwards we’d do it in the chair.  He even shaved me once or twice, you know. down there.  Then he’d remark on how smooth it was.”

     “Wasn’t he surprised, though, after all this time, at the suggestion?  That you would want to?  Just out of the blue?”

     “At first he laughed, thought I was joking, even ridiculed me, in Tony’s special way, wouldn’t touch an old bag like me, but I didn’t quit, and the more I talked about it, I could tell I was getting to him.”

     “And you had cutting his throat in mind the whole time?”

     “Yes.  It’s all I had in mind, believe me.  I never let that dirty cock in me after he started screwing that Peruvian slut.  Makes me sick to think about it.  God knows what sort of foreign diseases she has.”

     “So once you talked him into it, it was easy?  He was never suspicious?”

     “That bozo?  You really don’t know, do you, how thick he really was.  No, he thought he was going to get his cock sucked and then rode, and since it had been so long, from me I mean, I guess it seemed like a novelty to him.  He got really excited.”

     “So you went down there together and he voluntarily sat in the chair.”

     “Yes.  Eagerly sat in the chair.  A lamb to slaughter.  He never suspected a thing.  The first stage of a shave would be to warm his face with towels, but I had no time for that.  I just pulled the razor out of my purse and walked up behind him and presto, it was done.  I guess I did a good job.  I never saw so much blood in my life.  Spurted it out like a broken water main.  He twitched once or twice.  That was it.”

      Lawson said, “Feel any remorse, Mrs. N?”

      “No, I feel proud, and I don’t even mind getting caught.  Gas me.  See if I care.  The sooner, the better.  What’s important is that people know now that I decided not to take it anymore and did something about it.  I’m proud of that.  I’m not his fucking doormat.  The shame was all before.  Now I feel clean.”

     “With all due respect,” said Lawson, “you did take it for a long time.”

     Knox frowned at him.  He saw no reason to rain on her parade.

     “I know, I know, and like my father used to say was the only correct answer in the service:  no excuse, sir.  I did a great job of fooling myself.  I kept thinking he’d get tired of her.  See the error of his ways.  Apologize.  But then I heard he had other ones.  That’s what finally did it for me.  Made me realize what a fool I was being.  So I stand by my first answer:  no excuse, sir.”

      She suddenly threw up her hands and said, “I hated that Peruvian bitch.  Wish I could do her too.”

     “Other ones?” asked Lawson

     “Just one night stands.  Whores.  Not all cheap, but all whores.  And on top of the disrespect, we were broke!!  He spent what little we had on strange pussy.  It was just too much.”

     “Were you afraid he might hire done what you proposed?”

     “No.  And it wasn’t to save money either.  He was nostalgic.  Nothing could be better than my mouth and my pussy.  Not in the chair.”

     “The broke part was a fairly recent development?”

     “Yes and no.  Money always burned a hole in his pocket.  We were always borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.  It’s just that lately it was harder to keep up.  I tried for a while to keep his spending under control, I paid the bills, did our taxes, and we kept our heads above water, at least until he started running for mayor.  That’s when it all changed.  He was good about letting me pay the mortage first and the rent on the shop, and giving me enough above that for essentials.  Water, garbage, phones.  At least he was until about six months ago.”

     “About the time the campaign started.”

     “Yes.  I don’t know this for a fact, but I think Coehlo guaranteed whatever he bought.”

     “Like what?”

     “A new car.  A boat.  Those whores.  And to make it worse, he wasn’t cutting as much hair.  Took time off for his public appearances, and god knows what else.  Scared me to death.  All those new things, but less money coming in.  I never got any bills, but how was I to know I wouldn’t be seeing them sooner or later?”

     “So you think Coehlo was encouraging him with all the purchases as well as the campaign?”

     “Who else could it be?  I just know it scared me half to death.  Thought we’d lose the house.”

     “Why?  Weren’t you in charge of that payment?”

     “But in the last six months we didn’t bring in enough to pay it.”

     Knox and Lawson looked at each other.

     “How did you get the money from the shop?”

     Mrs. N’s look immediately changed from anger to complete despair.

     “The bastard was stealing.  From himself and from me.”

     “We’ve been told you’ve been acting erratically lately, towards Tony.  Threatened to kill yourself, leave him.”

      She nodded.

     “Because you knew he was holding back?”

     “Yes.  And I was helpless to do anything about it.  I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen.  The other tactics, threats and so on, didn’t phase him either.”

     “There’s one thing missing,” said Knox.  “Did you know that Tony was paying Mercedes’s rent?”

     “I was paying it.”

     “Seems like a heavy burden for a barber.”

     “We usually had the cash.  Business was good.  But you’re right.  We couldn’t really afford it.  I worked at Dyer’s for a long time, to help make up the difference.  The truth is, I don’t know how we did it, but every check I wrote for that whore’s house, made me hate him a little more.  Finally, these last six months, I just stopped paying.”   

     “How did Tony react to that?”

    “He didn’t seem to notice.  I was waiting for him to blow up, but he never did.” 

    “Given all this,” said Lawson, “How did you talk him into meeting you at the shop?  In the middle of the night?”

     “Sex.”

     She looked at each of the men in turn.

     “You don’t believe me?”

     “You’ll need to elaborate.”    

     “I already told you how thick-headed he was, but you know that already.  Everybody does.  All my tirades just slipped right by him.  Didn’t mean a thing.  It was like I didn’t exist, except for one thing.   I could still suck his cock.”

     They both nodded but didn’t look very convinced.

     “It had been five years.  Back then I told him it gagged me to think of putting something in my mouth that had been in the Peruvian whore’s pussy, never mind anywhere else in me, given all the foreign diseases she probably had.  But once I changed my tune, he was a pushover.  In the old days, we’d fucked at the shop a lot, often with all the lights on, in those barber chairs.  I didn’t even have to say why I’d changed my tune.  Tony never looked a gift horse in the mouth.  I’d made up some excuse about being horny and the mayor’s race, but I didn’t need it.  I was offering him virtually new pussy, hadn’t had any of it in five years, and he fell for it, just like I knew he would.” 

     

5

     “Sorry we didn’t get the sewer into it.”

     “You’re sure it’s not?”
     Knox scratched his right eyebrow, a habit he’d developed over the years when his wife made him nervous.

     “She confessed.”

     “And I don’t doubt her confession.”

     “So how would the sewer come in?”

     Knox took a sip of his chardonnay.

     “Mrs N doesn’t care about sewers,” he said.

     “But maybe someone who does had influence over her.  And him.  You said they both changed the last six months?”

      “Yeah.”

      “So what changed them?”

     “The mayor’s race and all the goodies he was getting on the side.”

      “Who stood the most to gain from the sewer?”

     “Weaver.  Maybe Cobb too, but not for the money.  Pride.”

     “Barney Coehlo?”

     “I don’t know.”

    

     “When did Mrs N add Sweeney Todd to her I-pod.”

     “I have no idea.”

     “How did she add it?  From the I-pod store or from a CD?”

     “No idea.  But what are you getting at?”

     “I just wonder how she knew about it.  Doesn’t seem the Broadway type to me, especially of the Sondheim variety.”

     “We think it was Johnny Depp.”

     “That’s more likely, but still not very.  Or did she know her movie stars?”

     Knox stared at the blue hills for a few minutes.  Mrs. Knox was silent.

     “So someone,” said Knox slowly, “brainwashed Mrs N.  Probably Weaver.  That the bottom line here?”

     “Just an idea.”

     Knox tried to think like Lawson for a minute, but he came away disappointed.  Even through Lawson’s eyes, it didn’t seem like such a crazy idea.  Unprovable, no doubt.  Maybe not even legally relevant if provable.  It would be a job for Sam Waterston on an old Law and Order.  Some crazy stretch, a clear but very thin line of culpability.  Knox shook his head and told his wife what he’d been thinking.

     “I’m sorry I brought it up,” she said, meaning it.  “Now it will bother you.”

     “I can check into the I-pod thing.  If it was a CD, I might even be able to figure out where it came from.  Maybe Mrs. N will just tell me.  It does make sense that a guy with a collection of straight razors would be very aware of Sweeney Todd.”

      

    

    

 

 

 

       

       

          

               

 

Of course Kirby, the only genuine old-timer and reactionary on the force, would have busted the kid a week ago, and he’d have already solved the other issue that had dominated Knox’s agenda, the motel for transients out on the LA highway.  Pressured by a recently passed ordinance, newspaper coverage and the health inspector, the motel owners were kicking out all the transients, mostly families, who paid by the week, and no one seemed to care much where they went.  The health inspector was all over his ass about it, but so far they still had two families they hadn’t been able to place.  “Not your job,” the health inspector told him, “and not mine either.”  He was new on the job and determined to toe the line.  The social services woman meant well, but she wasn’t the most resourceful person Knox had ever met.  She went through the motions.  Knox had a friend at the Salvation Army he’d told her to call, but she hadn’t because he wasn’t on her list, or she hadn’t been able to reach him during the day, or some such excuse that confirmed for him what he’d thought of her all along.    He needed to find time today to contact his friend.  The friend was good at making things happen.   

     Knowing people like that was one thing that kept the city council off his ass.  The main thing, though was that they didn’t want to get on his bad side.  Everyone called him Detective, but he’d been Chief for several years.  The city council had come begging after being burned a couple of times by younger men with fancy credentials who stayed a couple of years and then moved on when something better came along.  Young turks, arrogant, insisting on changes that didn’t matter and then leaving soon after.  The council didn’t like that any better than Knox and the rest of the force. Of course, the rest of the force, numbers-wise, didn’t amount to much.  He was chief over Lawson and four uniformed officers, all of whom were Arcady natives and had been local cops, like Knox, nearly their whole careers.  Under Knox, they had “beats” that made sense, at least to him.  One stayed at a desk, one patrolled the beach area, one downtown, and one the slummier part of town.  He moved them around periodically, just to be fair and keep everyone honest, he hoped.

     The one exception he made to the beat rotation was Kirby.  He kept Kirby on the desk as much as possible, which he didn’t seem to mind.  As the oldest and the most conservative officer on the force, he’d still knock heads at the drop of a hat, and he had only a vague notion of suspects’ rights, but with age he’d mellowed a little, become less aggressive.  Still stubborn, though.  He was the only one who ignored Knox’s order not to talk about “good guys and “bad guys.”  Knox thought the habit fed the assumption that the “bad guys” were all known in advance.  Some people were guilty until proven innocent.  It even helped create a barrier between the police and public, good guys included.  “We’re all just citizens until convicted,” he told his crew constantly, and while the others just shrugged their shoulders and went along with it, grudgingly in some cases, only Kirby openly defied him.  He even told anyone who would listen that Knox was a “do-gooder,” a serious accusation to Kirby’s way of thinking.   

          

    

       

     Knox ate most of his meals at home.  Vera was his diet guru.  She schooled him on how to count calories and planned his weekly menu.  She knew for every day meals he liked consistency, not variety, that once he found something he liked, he liked having it every day, so she always served him the same thing on weekdays.  The same breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Vera was good about keeping him honest without being obnoxious about it.  She was slim and tight herself, which gave her credibility.  She did vary the evening meal a little.  It was either frozen diet meals or something low-cal she came up with herself. 

     Only on the weekends did they loosen up, but in a controlled way.  Friday was pizza night, and on Saturday morning he added two slices of bacon to his usual scrambled eggs, and on Sunday they ate pancakes and sausage together, the big splurge of the week, which he cooked himself.  Vera liked to sleep in on Sundays, and he liked cooking for her.  Also, every other weekend, on  Saturday night, he cooked a special meal, not always gourmet, but special.  Other than those two occasions, Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, she didn’t like him in the kitchen doing things.  It was her space.  He stayed out of the way and let her concoct during the week her own low calorie inventions, which were always quite good.  He could sit at the counter and visit all he wanted, keep her company, but that was all.  And every other Saturday night, they took turns, she would make him something special, which was usually one of the best things he ever ate. 

      

As always, Vera allowed herself almost no reaction.  A brief smile when he said yes; nothing when he said no.  Usually he said yes.  It was still a small town, not much happened.  Certainly not much that couldn’t wait.  He hadn’t said what the big rush was, usually he took more time over breakfast, and almost never was it interrupted by a phone call from his partner.  Very unusual, but she would have to resign herself to being curious all day.  Her own personal briefing would come that evening as they shared a bottle of wine. 

     She was so glad he was not a big city cop like you see on television.  All that stress.  All those temptations.  Their lives were as regular as clockwork and always had been, even when the kids were little.  They’d both insisted on that.  And then when she retired early from teaching, life hadn’t changed much.  Not as much as she’d wanted it to, actually, or not in the direction she’d hoped for.  For a while she worked part time in a small book store, but all that got her were lectures from insufferable bores, or unbelievably ignorant questions, and she was relieved when it folded.  She’d hoped to meet someone she could talk books with, but that hadn’t happened.  The tastes she encountered were either too pretentious, the often unintelligible opinions accompanied by a hard to bear snootiness, or too popular, the books and opinions about them so thin and bland that it embarrassed her to be having the conversations.

     When the book store closed, she started selling books on the internet, and thought of it mostly as a hobby, although it did bring in a little money.  Mainly, though, it was something to keep her busy, but it had proved a lot more hectic and stressful than she’d thought it would.  In fact, she was thinking about stopping it.  She liked going to the used book sales at the libraries and the yard sales, and she liked clearing enough every month to make the two car payments.  Add that to what they drew from her retirement, and she was almost making the same as her salary when she retired.  That made it worth the cold shoulders she got from the old-timers, bookmen (and nearly all were men) who’d spent their lives learning the value of used and rare books and had a perfectly understandable resentment of those upstart newcomers the Internet had spawned.  They could be annoying, even rude, but she didn’t care.  She had some sympathy for them,  given all the years the men had invested in learning what amounted to a craft, the knowledge they’d acquired now easily accessible with a couple of mouse clicks, but times change and it doesn’t pay to fight it.  Besides, she had every right to go to the sales and compete right alongside the old geezers, and most were old, especially, not that it really mattered, since she was usually not looking for the same titles anyway.  She was looking for something she could buy for a dollar and sell for five, she didn’t care what it was, whereas the bookmen, for the most part, were looking for something special, rare gems.  She felt no guilt.  If she quit, it would be the obligation of doing it regularly, the more you went out the more money you made, and that always hanging over her head was starting to get old. 

     Another possibility, considering how comfortable they were financially, was writing.  She’d always thought about writing something, fiction of some sort, and maybe she was missing her chance.  The problem was that the stories that appealed to her, all about other people, mostly based on things that really happened, would be too embarrassing to show people.  Actually, she’d already written some of them, had been writing at them, toying with them, her whole life.  She just couldn’t bring herself to show them to anyone, partly because of the embarrassment, what it would reveal about her own thoughts, but of course she was also worried about their quality.  She couldn’t even tell her husband about it, much less show him anything.  And certainly not  her kids.  Everyone knew she looked at things a little differently, in fact it created a distance between her and most people, including her kids, certainly most of her students, but perhaps the stories might reveal a wider gap than anyone had ever imagined, even herself.  That’s what made her hesitate to submit the stories to magazines, even under a pseudonym.  Yes, just writing the stories had given her a secret life of sorts, but if one happened to be published, even just on-line and under a different name, it would be like stepping into another world, taking the plunge, and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to do that.  At least not alone, which brought up a question that usually put an end to this line of thought.  Why couldn’t she tell her husband what she was doing and wanted to do?  She kept almost nothing from  him.  In fact, this was the only really big thing, and the odd thing was, that of all the people she could think of, he would be the hardest to tell.    

      

    

    

Knox had to admit, though, that Lawson’s taste in fine clothes didn’t really make him stand out in a way that drew too much attention.  It wasn’t flashy. Most people might not even notice.  He wore what Knox wore, sometimes even more casual.  A sport coat, jeans or khakis, a polo or buttoned up shirt, and running shoes.  It was just that everything was top of the line and fit him perfectly.  He must have had even the pants altered.  The only showy extravagences, potentially, was his Rolex and a late ‘50’s model Austin-Healey, red with wire wheels, neither of which did he ever brinkg to work.  Like Knox, he walked to work, but Knox had to admit that in his aviator sunglasses, the few times he’d seen him, he looked pretty good in the Healey. 

     In his early forties now, he still had most of his hair, straight, thin and light blonde.  Cut very short now to minimize his baldness, it had actually receded only enough to make him look more distinguished.  In his youth, his appeal was a shaggy blonde, blue-eyed boyishness, all innocent vulnerability, but his strong dimpled chin and straight thin nose had enabled him grow gracefully into looking strong and mature.  What shocked  and sometimes amused Knox was that Lawson had never really grown up.  Not only did he indulge himself in outrageously expensive clothes and accessories, his social life, in its own way, was similarly irresponsible.  He had no male friends and no passtimes other than shopping.  Someone who knew nothing else about him might jump to the conclusion that he was gay, but Knox knew that he spent almost all his free time trolling for women.  That’s what he called it:  trolling for women.  And Knox soon realized that it was just another form of shopping. 

     Only worse, but there was one redeeming factor to it.  Over the years, Lawson had refined his “trolling” to where he was likely to pick up only the most interesting women.  Not the most beautiful.  Not the most likely to sleep with someone.  The most interesting.  He confined his searches to libraries and coffee shops, and while the few women he introduced Knox to were never unattractive, they weren’t great beauties either, and he seemed more interested in getting them to say something smart than showing them off physcially.   The problem was that that never stopped him from discarding them as soon as he saw any signs of wear.  Not physical wear.  They’d had serious discussions about this.  When Lawson first met a woman he liked, someone he wanted to date, she was perfect, she could do no wrong, he always fell madly in love, head over heels, but sooner or later,  it might take weeks, months, or in rare cases, even years, he began to detect flaws, as if a jacket was getting thin from wear, or a shirt frayed around the collar, and when the flaws got to a certain level, he simply dropped the woman.

     Knox had no patience for that.  It was the one thing about Lawson he tried not to think about.  It infuriated him so much that he often had to remind himself of the perfect measure, especially after Lawson broke up with a woman he’d met and liked.  But it wasn’t smart to make too much of it, since otherwise he and Lawson were good friends, certainly a good team at work, and besides, it wasn’t any of his business.  What if Lawson started giving him a hard time about being with the same woman, and only that woman, for over thirty years?  It was best to let sleeing dogs lie.                 

    

     Barney Coehlo was Tony’s lawyer, campaign manager and main financial donor.  There were radio ads on the local station all day long and big ads in the paper.  A blitz, one that the incumbent mayor hadn’t been able to match.  A poll commissioned by the paper, taken by a reputable firm, showed Nomellini ahead with 70% of the vote.  It was an impressive lead, but if it was a result of the ads, as everyone assumed it was, it had nothing to do with anything a mayor could do anything about.  Tony talked about crime, unemployment, supporting the troops, illegal immigrants, gay marriage, abortion.  None of it the business of a small town mayor, and besides crime and unemployment hardly existed in Arcady, but Tony never relied on facts.  Facts were his worst enemy.  His own murder was the first one in Arcady in four years, and the nearby airplane factory, still doing great business after twenty years, kept most people employed at union wages.  Grommett, the current mayor, never said he didn’t support the troops, but he never said he did either, and Tony seized on the silence and made an issue of it.  As to illegal immigrants, there was already such a sizable percentage of ethnic Mexicans in town, many of them going back several generations further than most of the white people, that a few more illegals was hardly noticable to anyone, not until Tony brought it up.  Gay marriage?  No gay people had tried to get married in Arcady as far as Knox knew, ever, and that would be a county and state thing anyway.  As was whatever Planned Parenthood, which had an office on Front Street, did about abortions.  Knox didn’t know, and didn’t really want to know.

     Grommett was not unpopular, just dull by comparison once Nomellini started getting warmed up.  Ordinarily, Knox wouldn’t care what Nomellini did.  He voted but he tried to stay detached.  Informed, mainly through the Arcady Echo, which he read every morning at breakfast and had good coverage of just about everything local.  He was informed, then, but he tried to keep his opinions to himself, and he tried  to keep them rational.  However, in this election some of the mud-slinging and name calling had been so outrageous that he caught himself losing his temper, and he’d been avoiding the radio and even the newspaper the last few days.  Especially the radio ads, with their bogus facts and innuendos, made him angry.  The implication in general was that Grommett didn’t care about crime or the unemployed, that he was unpatriotic, welcomed hordes of illegal immigrants, was wildly in favor of gay marriage and abortion.

     If Nomellini really had 70% of the vote, and the poll, as reluctant as Knox was to admit it was probably accurate, it just confirmed the wisdom of a promise Knox made himself years ago, mostly in regard to police work, during his first police job as an MP in Germany, but it could apply to politics as well.  The promise was to forget about trying to save the world.  Not only was it impossible in police work, but trying made you crazy with constant frustration.  It was probably counter-productive, even in the short un.  Indifference, which he’d lapsed into for a while in self-defense, was seductive, but it was going too far the other way, as he learned when he began to feel himself wanting to be cruel.  Without caring, without a reason to care, there was no reason to have anything but contempt for most of the sorry losers he had to deal with every day.  And most were repeat offenders, men who just caused misery and never did a bit of good for anyone, which led quickly, too quickly, to the conclusion that the world would be better off without them.   

     That scared him and made him wonder if he should be doing police work at all.  Would he wind up just wanting to kill all those sorry bastards?  Or lock them up, whether or not it was something they actually did?  And would he start doing it when he could get away with it?  It was so easy to do, and a couple of times before leaving Germany, he’d given in to the tempation, about which he’d never felt too bad.  The guys deserved what they got.  No reason to let his conscience get in the way, but he came home from Germany with the indifference still eating away at him, and although the old chief, a friend of his father’s, had held a job open for him on the force, he hesitated to take it.  In fact, very aware that his indifference could lead to far worse abuses of his power than he’d exercised as an MP, he’d just about decided to turn the job down and go look for something else, when Vera changed his mind.  They were dating, had been sweethearts in high school and simply took up where they’d left off when he got back from Germany, and the first thing she said, when he expressed his doubts, was that she thought he’d been born to be a cop.  “Yes,” she said, “You could be obnoxious the way you ordered people around sometimes, but you always had a sense of humor about it, and always, never an exception, the order you were trying to create was really needed.  I remember you keeping the bully’s out of the front of the lunch line.  In fact, you took up for a lot of people, even girls who weren’t pretty or popular.  Now that was heroic, I thought.”  “I’m just not sure I can control myself,” he said.  “I get too emotionally involved.  It’s like I’m tempted now to beat all those bullies to a pulp, or even worse.”  “What you need,” she said, without  hesitating, “is the right measure.”  At first he thought she was joking, it seemed so obvious.  The golden mean.  Of course.  So easy to say, so difficult to pull off.  Maybe she was making fun of him, it wouldn’t be the first time, but no, she was serious.  She went on to explain.  What she was suggesting came from a novel she’d read called “The Honorary Consul.”  The consul was an alcoholic, but he told himself that if he was always careful with every drink to give himself just “the right measure,” he would never get drunk.  Or not too drunk, at any rate.   Just drunk enough, always his goal, and that’s what she was suggesting to Knox.  Don’t go overboard one way or another.  Don’t care too much or too little.  Find the right measure, get involved just enough to get the job done.       

     That was one of the things that confirmed for Knox that he and Vera were meant for each other.   He liked that kind of cleverness, both the humor and wisdom of it, and it didn’t take him long to apply the lesson  to things in general.  It was like a revelation, not something he had to think about too much, excpt in its application.  Don’t overdo it.  Putting it that way, it made a lot of things clear for him.  He wasn’t even sure why, but ever since Vera had told him about it, he’d done better at keeping himself on an even keel.  He began thinking of extreme reactions as failure, as falling off the wagon, and as each year passed, his  experience made him better at it, keeping his cool, even to the point of deciding when to take on something and when to just let it go.  It had helped his marriage too:  the right measure. 

     This Nomellini thing, though, his run for mayor, had been a unique challenge.  It threatened to throw off balance everything he’d assumed to be stable and decent about Arcady.  Once he learned how the citizens of Arcady reacted to Tony’s horseshit, adopting the right measure about the mayor’s race was very difficult.  The whole situation made you think long and hard about democracy.  In fact, once it was over, it was tempting to think that someone had used the straight razor to do democracy a favor in Arcady, a horrible thought, yes, and he wouldn’t even share it with Lawson.  Vera, perhaps, after a glass or two of wine.  There wasn’t much he didn’t share with her, and she could probably help him deal with the overreaction he was having.  She’d undersand how difficult it was in this case to keep the right measure.  Why was it difficult?  Because he saw clearly how one overbearing bigot could ruin everything.  The institutions in Arcady, especially the city council, which he’d always taken for granted as strong, seemed weak now.  Tony wasn’t even a good speaker, he was totally ignorant, but people seemed to love every word that came out of his mouth, all of it written by someone else, much of it clearly beyond Tony’s reading abilities, never mind writing.  In the face of that, the poll results for such a moron, wouldn’t it make sense to just throw up your hands and admit that the world was going hell and most people were idiots? 

     Then, as was his habit now, he talked with Vera and gave how he felt a lot of thought, looking desperately for the right measure.  As usual the key came from Vera.  She pointed out that if Tony won the election by a landslide, the city council, the whole town, would be eating out of his hands for a while, but it wouldn’t last forever.  People get excited, knock over good things, ruin years of careful constructive work in fits of paranoia and patriotism, of selfishnesss and greed, all true enough, but it never lasts forever.  Pretty soon a correction sets in, and people realize that the bigot, in this case Tony, was just full of hot air.  The council might pass all sorts of reactionary resolutions that meant absolutely nothing.  Gay bashing, anti-illegal immigrants,  anti-abortion, but all would be totally unenforceable, since none of it was legally city business.  Tony could hurl insults all he wanted, but getting changes at the county or state level from the mayor’s office was an impossible task and an absurd goal.  Pretty soon people would have had to see that.  Wouldn’t they?  Tony for what he was.  All bluster, all show and no go, the usual phony wizard.  Well, maybe.  At least that thought had worked for Knox as a foothold.  It gave him just the right measure for being able to care about what happened without making himself sick over it or harrassing Tony.  It would been easy to look for technicalties to disprut his campaign.  Permits.  But Knox never did that.      

     Now the threat was over, but besides a murder investigation, he now had to deal with.  He was thrown into the middle of a circus, the center of which, as they approached Coehlo’s office, it was clear that they’d just missed.  Coehlo had just given a press conference, and the last of the tv crews were packing up when Lawson and Knox arrived on the scene.  They were able to walk right by without attracting attention.  By the time someone thought to ask who they were, they were safely inside the building.  One reporter pushed his way in, the local guy, but Knox kind of liked him and made an appointment for later in the day.  Better for everyone, since they’d know more by then.

     The job here with Coehlo was to figure out if Tony’s mud-slinging harangues had anything to do with his murder.  He hoped not and was inclined to think not.  His sense of things, based on nothing solid, and perhaps even a prejudice, told him that most such political killings come from the right, but if Tony’s murder had been politically motivated, the only logical suspect, barring a total nut job, would be some radical for left wing causes.  Not impossible, but wasn’t that rare?  Anecdotally, it seemed so to Knox, which gave him hope.  This would be so much easier as a domestic homicide, wife or mistress or mistress’s husband.  Wrap it up fast and send the media home.  Let them start working on the 48 hour mystery version of it.