I was struggling to keep my composure at this point, but I had no reason to disagree with that point.
"Why don't we talk about THESE pictures?" I suggested. "Let's focus on finding this woman. Who shot these photos?"
"Professionals isolate their subjects," I explained. "They're trained to look at the entire frame.
"Look, I have no idea why the dame stopped by so early. I was focused on my work, I was nearly exhausted, I didn't think to ask."
"She just shows up, and you didn't ask why?" asked Harris incredulously.
"She told me why," I said. "She wanted me to help expose some nasty business that she thought that her husband was into."
"And why would she do that?" Mazzano asked.
"Leverage in case of divorce," I explained. "At least, that's what she claimed. It seems to be my most popular product as of late."
"You're sure that's what she wanted?" Harris asked.
"Look, I'm no expert on what dames want," I said. "Who knows why women do what they do? They get angry, they want to see their man destroyed. They start feeling sentimental, they want to kiss and make it all better.
"Maybe Pemberton did something to make his wife sore. She wanted revenge, so she hired me to dig up some dirt and create a scandal. If she's laying low, maybe it's her way of teaching him a lesson. Or maybe she really is afraid of him. All I have to go on is what she told me, and until I learn more, I'm not sure whether to believe her story or not."
"What were you working on that night?" Mazzano asked.
"Something for a client. Completely unrelated," I assured them. "I hadn't even met the dame yet."
Detective Mazzano took one more attempt at a fact check. "So some nice lady from way out in Brownewood drives into the city at sunrise just to hire you to find dirt on her husband? You can see how that sounds a little thin, right?"
"Well, I don't know where she drove in from," I argued. "Maybe she was here already visiting someone."
"Like you?" Harris didn't want to let it go.
"Maybe she dropped someone off at the airport," I suggested. "Or maybe the husband's a late riser, and she wanted to get out ahead of him."
"That's all conjecture," Mazzano argued.
"It's all I know at this point," I said. "I'm still researching Pemberton. I can let you know what I find."
Harris: "So you stand by your story that Mrs. Pemberton did NOT spend the night at your place?"
"She arrived at 6:45, left at 7, and I have no idea what she was doing before she got there or where she went after she left."
"The pictures don't look good, Mike," Mazzano said.
"Maybe you should try to figure out where these pictures came from," I suggested.
"Following people and taking their picture," Harris interjected, "that sort of behavior bothers you, does it?"
I knew that the conversation would lead to that point, eventually. While shooting video of a drug bust one night, I captured footage of Harris beating a suspect. The dealers were convicted, but some snitch in the department used the video to damage Harris' reputation. Harris blamed me for not redacting that part of the footage.
"We can't reveal our source," Mazzano explained.
"Of course you can't," I said sarcastically. "But that didn't stop you from accusing me of sleeping with a client."
The door opened quickly and a powerful baritone voice burst into the room.
"Well, well, well! Look who's sitting here up to his eyeballs in shit!"
I didn't need to look up. I recognized the voice. "Hello, Sergeant," I muttered.
"That's Detective Sergeant, asshole!" the voice scolded.
"Hello, Detective Sergeant Asshole."
"Oh, funny guy!" the voice boomed. "You just keep cracking jokes there, handsome! This dame turns up with so much as a hickey on her tatas, and we're gonna put your sorry ass away."
"For giving her a hickey on her tatas?" I asked incredulously. I could never stand this belligerent nutcase.
"We got this, Gerry," Mazzano interrupted.
"Yeah, you got a pile of shit here that needs to be taugh some manners."
Detective Sergeant Gerard G. Gordon. Rumor had it that the middle 'G' stood for 'gluttony'. His description added up to a worst case scenario for the human form, bald, bug-eyed, morbidly obese with a napoleonic stature and the narcissistic personality to match. The department must have assigned him to some special health category. There's no way that his toadly body would ever pass a physical.
Personally, I felt sorry for the man. At one point or another, he had failed at just about everything that he'd attempted in life. The job was all that he had left. But I felt even more sorry for the stiffs who had to deal with this miserable SOB day in and day out. I even felt sorry for Harris.
"What's this?" I asked desperate to change the subject.
"What's what?" Gordon grunted.
"This!" I pointed to the lower right corner of the photo.
"It's a car," Mazzano said flippantly.
"It's the hood of a car," I clarified. "The hood of a late model blue Chevrolet, tag number P75-23J."
Gordon smirked and shook his fat head. "How did you figure all of that out?"
"The person who took this photo was an amateur. To him its a photo of Mrs. Pemberton leaving my building. But look at all of this extra information - the blue car, for instance. The shooter was standing beside his own car when he took the shot. He probably stepped out to take a smoke.."
"You think they're cops?" Mazzano asked.
"Ex-cops, maybe. They're definitely not feds - too slovenly." I explained. "They're not wise guys, but they could be on the payroll."
"This is crazy," Mazzano declared. He seemed unimpressed.
"But he captured something else," I continued. "His reflection - right here in the window across the street."
They gathered to examine the photo more closely.
"You should be looking for a middle aged white guy, somewhat portly, and he smokes a lot." I added, "And you can't see him here, but his partner is Black. I know that because I saw these clowns staking out the Pembertons' house. And by their appearance, I think you might be looking for a couple of cops."
"You think they're cops?" Mazzano asked.
"Ex-cops, maybe. They're definitely not feds - too slovenly." I explained. "They're not wise guys, but they could be on the payroll."
I slid the photo back across the table. The three of them looked it over closely.
"And please don't beat yourselves up about missing the reflection," I urged them. "It's not like you're detectives or anything."
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