I typed her address into the search bar for the third time.  The computer kindly offered to fill it in for me but I wouldn’t have any of it.  I had to be triply sure and I had to type it myself.  The day I could do that no-handed I’d be set for life.
   The iEgo webpage was state of the art.  It offered detailed maps of the world in both sterile drawings and satellite imagery, and could read your license plate if you parked vertically.
   I clicked on the satellite map and traced my driving path to count the stoplights to turns and the proper lanes to get into to minimize lane changing.  Once at her street I counted the blocks to her house and looked for parking areas.  
   The neighbor to her left had an affinity for old cars and not enough space for them.  I could see a classic yellow ’32 Ford (my favorite), a VW Type 2 Single Cab, a 60-something Mustang fastback, and an El Camino.  He had to park his 70’s Camaro in front of her house.  
   The neighbors to her right kept their cars off the street and apparently didn’t mind sunbathing for the camera.

   We had a great home cooked dinner, though the noisy neighbors kept it from being quiet.  We topped the evening off with a walk in the neighborhood, but one look up the street and the walk was over.
   “Too many to be a domestic fight,” said Carol.
   “Way too many,” I agreed.
   Up ahead the t-intersection was blocked by two prowl cars, their blue lights spotting the small crowd around them.  The cops stood in between the cars and the crowd, answering the questions of the curious with terse non-answers.
   I’d seen taxmen who were friendlier.
   “What’d he just say?” one of them asked.
   “Who?...oh, it’s The Defective!”
   “He’s real?  I thought he was a running joke.”
   “Night, Officers,” I said.  They called me The Defective because I narrate my life whether anyone listens or not.  Some call me Watson, because I narrate the obvious.  Either way it’s not endearing.
   I introduced Carol to the officers, and they gave a curt hello.  They didn’t take long to start elbowing her about me.

   “A mess in there,” said the first officer.  “They took the body out a short time ago.  You might even get a peek inside when they start wrapping up.”
   “Suicide?” asked Carol.
   “Anything but.  Cheating wife or jealous husband or something,” said the second officer.
   “Who’s in charge?” I asked.
   “Roller.  Krips is chipmunked and Mahler left with the mutt.”
   Roller was a meticulous guy.  Not a lawyer he met who could impeach him on the stand for sloppiness.
   “He’s slow as phuck.  The only guy slower than him would be you,” sneered the first officer.
   I could’ve told him Roller was a Detective Sergeant for more reasons than he had girth, but that would’ve been like fighting him for his donuts.  Pointless and I’d be a loser even if I won.
   “The phuck did you just say?” said the first officer, taking a step towards me.  “I can arrest you for that.”
   “You couldn’t afford the countersuit, Officer,” said Carol.  There was a dangerous glint in her eyes.
   “Take it easy, Jud,” said the second officer, putting a hand on his arm and pulling him back.
   I fished for my tobacco and rolling paper.  Maybe if I had a stick in my mouth I’d keep from talking.
   The two officers shot out raucous laughter.
   Wait, that came out wrong.  Cancer stick.  Cancer stick.
   Is that Watson over there?  Sherlock’s useless without him! said the radio.
   “Go on in,” said the second officer with a grin, nodding his head over his shoulder.  “Maybe you two could learn something about police work.”

   Carol declined to even see if she could go in with me.  Said she wanted to torment the officers a bit.  She was entering law school but carried herself like Al Pacino’s right hand man.
   On the driveway a couple of officers lounged around.  As I passed by they jeered can’t find the lid on a shut case! at me.  I stuck my hands in my pockets as I went down the porch and up to the wide open front door.
   A patrolman at the door took my information and directed me to the master bedroom.  A technician was packing items into paper bags, with a man who could’ve been the Medical Examiner watching him absentmindedly.  I carefully avoided the remaining tagged materials and found the bedroom off a small hallway opposite the kitchen.
   Roller stood a few feet into the room, back to me and completely motionless.  In his right hand was a graphing pad held in a clip board, in his left an engraved pen.  He was watching two techs as they started to process what looked like blood stains on the bed, wall, and carpet.
   He turned around to look at me, nodded his head, and turned completely back before saying, “Evening.”
   “Evening, Detective,” I said, tipping my hat to his back.
   Roller pauses before he ever says anything, a pause that’s a breath too long to be comfortable.  
   “Would appreciate a second set of eyes.  Thanks for keeping your hands in your pockets.  Got your Reporter’s Pass with you?”
   “In my coat pocket.  What happened?” I asked as I stepped to a couple feet behind his right shoulder.
   He jabbed his pencil at the near edge of the bed, then up toward blood stains at the head against the opposite wall.  “Wife was here, backed up there where her husband reached her.  Multiple knife wounds, fatal one probably in the lungs.”
   The blood stains were a hideous storyteller.  The top cover had already been removed and the blood that seeped under still spoke.  There was a pool where the body had been.  The headboard and wall had angled splatter on it and a fine red mist seemed to coat it.  
   “There were stains from defensive wounds starting at the edge and going all the way back.  And that red mist made a halo by the body.”
   The blood splatter, not mention the range of it, indicated a crime of passion.
   The Detective nodded his head a bit, grinned and said, “Looks that way.  The first responder found the husband covered in blood laughing his head off.”
   “So what’s bothering you?”
   The two techs glanced at each other, then me, as I waited for him to speak.
   “He didn’t go psycho.  His computer was on the desk over there, turned on with the lid closed.  His bags were laid out side by side in the living room.  The drawers in the kitchen where the knives are were all closed.  Hell, we think he and not the wife dialed 911.”
   “Maybe she said something that lit him off?”
   He shrugged his shoulders.  “Could be.  Goddammit, I want a motive.”
   “How much you got?”
   He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, then let it drop.  “Not a damn thing.  So long as he keeps laughing I may get nothing.”
   One of the Techs turned up his radio.  Jesus H. Christ it muttered.  Got a real bozo here.
  A harness cop poked his head into the hallway.  “Guy outside says he knows someone here.”
   Roller snapped around 180 degrees.  I backed into the hall and followed him out the front door.
   Out on the driveway two cops had a guy pinned down to the ground, both arms chickenwinged.  Both cops were agreeing how stupid the guy was and the guy was agreeing and pleading to see Brianna inside.  A few other cops stood over the three, looking down with hard glares.  When they saw Roller they drifted away.
   Roller held a hand up after the handcuffs were on.  “Let him up easy,” he said.
   The two officers got off of the man’s back and picked him up by the armpits.
   Roller placed his notepad on his clipboard and clicked his pen.  “What’s your name?”
   “Shane.”
   Roller didn’t write anything.  He looked at the blank paper, then said: “Full name.”
   “Is that guy okay?” said Shane, looking at me with one eyebrow in the way.
   One of the cops cranked Shane’s wrists.  He shot up onto his toes.
   “Bastard,” he said, then looked at Roller.  “Shane Fuller.”
   Roller interviewed the man as though in mellow contemplation.  Fuller was 35, a contractor by profession, and a resident of Marina Del Ray for the past three years.  He had driven to town to make a surprise visit to his old high school friend Brianna.  
   “I got a bunch of gifts in the car.  We were supposed to have a belated housewarming tomorrow.  I wanted to surprise her a night early.”
   Roller looked at one of the officers for a brief moment before looking at his notes.  The officer peeled off from the group and sauntered out to the street.  “They just move in?”
   “Not really, last year, but I hadn’t been able to visit.”
   Roller looked up.  “Good friends?”
   “Yes,” said Shane, “of course.”  He wasn’t liking the direction of the questions.    
   Roller didn’t seem to care.  “Here to see both of them?”
   “What the hell is that supposed to mean?  We were good friends and that was it.”  Shane pasted a dirty look on his face.  
   Roller motioned forward with his pen.  “‘We’ as in the both of them?”
   “I didn’t know her husband that well, but we were nice enough to each other.”
   Roller nodded his head but wasn’t agreeing with anything.  “Where are you staying?”
   “Motel 6 out on Camden Avenue.”
   After writing that down Roller said, “Don’t leave the area.  I’ll be calling you in for a more formal interview.”  Roller got the man’s cell number, information off the driver’s license, and his car’s license plate number.
   As Shane was escorted down the driveway the officer who left earlier walked up it.  Roller got the license plate number and VIN number from him.  The license matched what Shane had said.
   “Got a beaut of a Trans-Am there.  Nice rake and judging by the sound of it he’s got a mean cam.”
   The car was too loud for the noise laws but no one was going to stop him.  Shane roared off, with barred tail lights burning into the distance.
   “Gifts in the car?”
   “Yeah, bunch of food and wine in the back seat.  Had a gift wrapped box on the passenger seat.”
   When Roller finished writing he said, “How’d he approach the scene?”
   “He skidded to a stop right in front of us then ran around the side lawn.”
   Roller blinked his eyes sleepily.  “How’d he drive and which road did he come in on?”
   The cop scratched a scar on his jaw.  “Heard him come in from the direction of Latimer, but I didn’t notice until he gunned it.”  Anticipating the next question he added: “He gunned it right at the bend in the road over there.”
   Roller didn’t show that he cared either way, but it was impossible to tell when something was catching his attention.  He thanked the officer and walked back toward the house.
   “Need a few details for your article?”
   “Would be much obliged if you could.”

   On the walk back to Carol’s place I found out what she’d been doing while I was away.  
   “You’re going for a ride-along?”
   “Yeah, they gave me a number for the officer in charge of the program.”
   “Oh?  You wanna be a cop some day?” I leered.
   “Ha.  Try DA, honey.  Why crack skulls when someone can do it for me?”
   “You’d crack plenty of your own as DA.”
   “That’s ball-busting, dear.  Two separate things.”
   “Eh?”
   “Yes.  Subtle differences.  Shall I explain?”
   “Please do.”
   “Skull-cracking usually involves someone who is able to mount a defense.  Say, if someone is resisting arrest or stonewalling any attempt at compromise.  By necessity you must therefore crack their skull open to subdue them.”
   “I see.”
   “Ball-busting is employed when said person has no means of resisting or otherwise enforcing their position.  In court, the defendant cannot say or do anything.  If he does during the course of my ball-busting, a bailiff will commence with the skull-cracking.”
   “What about when they just wrestle?”
   “Manhandling.  Subset of skull-cracking.  Usually reserved for situations when eyes are prying.”
   “Nice setup.  They deliver a stoolie and your hands stay clean.”
   “The two are not always mutually exclusive.  A prime suspect broken down in an interrogation is a perfect example.  The suspect is systematically and verbally broken down but at the same time the totalitarianism of the surroundings and the dominance of the interrogators subdues and diminishes them.”
   “Never thought of it that way.”
   “You fail to see how it applies right now.  I could crack your skull for not understanding what I’m saying and the righteousness of my position would repress you beyond belief.”
   “...”
   “Don’t worry.  You’re cute and I like keeping you around.”
   I slipped my arm around her waist as we walked.  We ended up going past her house and continuing down the street, as if to continue what we had started hours before.
   Her neighbor had his garage open and was putting two of his cars away.  As we passed we could see him getting out of the Ford, the yellow ’32, just like it rolled out of American Graffiti.  The Mustang was next in the queue, a ’68 in green.  The VW and El Camino were parked on the street, impeccably kept as well.  
   We rounded the corner and took the street all the way up to the shopping mall at the end.  There was a chain bookstore there with a chain coffee shop chained to its side.  We stopped in for some decaf and perused the periodicals.
   I flipped through the car magazines, where Hot Rod and Mustang Monthly caught my.  I was looking at a picture of a beauty of a Camaro when Carol peered over my shoulder.
   “Nice car.”
   “Oh yeah.  I’ve wanted one of these for a long time.”
   “What year is that?”
   “1970.  What year does your neighbor have?”
   “Bob?  He doesn’t have one of those.”
   “Did he sell it?”
   “He hasn’t had one as long as I can remember.”
   “That’s odd.”
   I told her about the satellite picture where there was clearly a Camaro parked behind one of his cars.  
   “Show me when we get back,” she said.
   And I did.  
   “Hum.  No, that isn’t his.  It is peculiar though…”
   I waited for Carol to look away from the screen.  And waited.  And waited.
   “You have the number for that Detective you know?  They called him ‘Sherlock.’”
   “Roller?  Should be able to reach him through the Homicide Detail number.”
   Carol hit the web and found the number easily.  She wouldn’t let me listen to what she had to say, just to “wait and see what jumps out of the box.”

   “…Cracked him like a nut,” said Roller.
   “What’d he say?”
   “…Been cheating with her every other week almost.”
   “That’s a long distance to go for cheating.”
   “Since when do guys make sense?”
   “True.”
   “…Makes perfect sense.  He’s getting it, isn’t he?”
   “True as well.”
   “How about cluing me into the ‘how you know’?”
   “We already told you.”
   “You gave me hints.”
   “That’s as good as telling you.”
   “No it isn’t.  Now how bout it?”
   “…Impatient.”
   “Tell me about it.”
   I hated to fight dirty, but…
   “Depending on what you want to hear while we’re eating, you’ll tell me.  I just finished a plugged drain case.”
   “…Damn.”
   “I hate it when he does that.”
   We were in the downtown, getting food before the trial started.  We sat in a pho restaurant a few blocks from Superior Court.  The inside was alive with as many people as were outside.  It was a miracle we had seats.  
   “You know that Camaro you saw in the satellite picture?  The one that didn’t belong to my neighbor?  It’s a Firebird Trans-Am.  You can see the vents on the front fenders,” said Carol, before slurping up some noodles.
   I didn’t eat anything.  My mind could only chew one thing at a time.
   “And you can see damage to the rear quarter panel,” she continued.  “I saw it when he pulled up in front of the house.”
   Roller took a sip of cold tea.  “Not conclusive but it was enough to sweat Shane.  Wanna bet who that was sunbathing in the picture?”
   “Your dice don’t have spots on ‘em.”
   Roller rolled his eyes at that.
   “That’s motive, but how did you prove the husband knew?”
   A hint of a smile appeared.  “The husband’s laptop was up and running in the bedroom.  Search engine was the last page he’d visited it.  Over on the map page I just hit the first number of his house address and out popped the complete thing.”
   “The auto fill-in.”
   He nodded slightly, picking up his chopsticks again.  “The Trekkie went in and found the map image in the temp files.  He’ll swear in court it was the last page the computer accessed.”
   “So he was going to a conference, right?  He checks the map to find his route home, decides to see the satellite image, sees the sunbathing and the car parked next door, and snaps?”
   Roller picked up some more noodles.  “That’s about the size of it.”
   I grinned.  “Now that you have the motive, how well you gonna sleep?”
   “…All damn day.”

   We went to see the trial, as often as we could.  Carol had to clamp her hand over my mouth the whole time to keep us from getting 86ed.  
   It was nothing like Perry Mason, but it wasn’t so completely dull either.  The prosecutor ball-busted the defendant witness after witness.  The computer was most damning of all, and the orderliness of the husband’s return filled in the details.
   The defendant tried to play up his insanity, muttering to himself obsessively.  His lawyer seemed to be taking it easy, probably waiting with a string of psycho-ology guys in the wings.
   We were all floored when Shane took the stand.  He unloaded that he had heard the murder—in the other room.  Even the judge was surprised, and up to that moment he’d seemed like an old pro with the objections.
   Shane had been there with Brianna when the husband drove up.  He’d ducked into the guest bedroom and had managed to get the screen out of the window when the wife started raising her voice.  He waited, listening to the encounter.  When the short screams happened he’d grabbed the phone and dialed 911.  He’d had enough sense to use his shirt over his hands, and left the phone on the dresser to dead air.
   The lawyers and the judge exited to the chambers, leaving the crowd to speculate amongst themselves.  Roller was going to be pissed he’d missed that one.