Free Prime Witness by Steve Martini

see this for the bureau-babble it is. And as for Overroy, there aren’t enough locks in the free world to keep him from my office.
    “What does your schedule look like?” I’m looking at Goya.
    “Why?”
    “We need to talk about the felony calendar,” I tell her.
    She looks at her little day-planner. Lawyers now carry these to every event and occasion like Baptist ministers with their Bibles.
    “I’ve got time Monday morning,” she says, “before court call, at nine. My office or yours?”
    “Yours.” I will concede a little turf, an effort to bring her on board.
    “Why don’t I join you.” It’s Roland trying to horn in. If he’s going to climb back into the saddle of authority he knows it’s now or never.
    “I don’t think we need to take Roland’s time, do you?” I look to Goya.
    Her answer is a flat, unaffected “no.” I think this woman does not suffer fools lightly.
    Roland is crestfallen, little squints of acid at Lenore Goya. But this is only fleeting. He puts a face on it. “It’s true,” he says, “I am pretty busy.”
    People are getting out of their chairs, milling toward the door.
    “Oh, one question.” It’s Overroy. He is smiling again.
    “If they catch him, who’s gonna do ‘Shiska Bob’?”
    I look at him, a question mark.
    “The Putah Creek thing,” he says. “Who’s gonna get the case?”
    I can’t tell if he actually believes I would consider him for the assignment, or if he’s just stirring dissension in the office, his way of getting the juices going in Goya.
    “What did you call it?” I say.
    He’s all smiles. “Hmm?” A quizzical look. “Oh that.
    ‘Shiska Bob,’” he says.
    I nod.
    “One of the guys at sheriff’s homicide,” he says. “When you work there for a while you get a funny sense of humor.” He says this with familiarity, fostering an image. Roland, I think, would like us to conjure the picture, he and his redneck buddies from homicide lapping up brew together, talking about the inside stuff, the hard core cases, the real dirt.
    I shudder to think what Feretti might have thought of this headline “Shiska Bob,” blazing above the fold from the little local newspaper, the Journal , what Mario called the “Davenport Urinal.”
    “I don’t care where it came from,” I tell him. “I don’t want to hear it again.” There’s stone-deaf silence in the room.
    “You might pass the word to the hot shot in homicide.
    I’ll talk to the sheriff myself. We have families of the victims to deal with. We don’t need to inflict any more pain. They will be angry enough if we don’t come up with some answers soon.”
    “I will,” he says. “Sure.” The smile is gone from Roland’s face.
    For the moment I have side-stepped the question of who will get the nod on the Putah Creek cases, but Goya is looking at me. True to form, Overroy has opened the furrow and planted the seed of dissension.
    My daughter is to be a rose petal, as distinguished from the shy violets, the seven- and eight-year-olds, in their hues of purple.
    Sarah is dressed in a pink tutu, a rigid skirt that sticks out like the whirling rotors of a helicopter from her hipless little form. She wears this outfit over chartreuse tights so petite I could not fit one forearm into them. Yet even these form wrinkles like the skin of an old apple on Sarah’s spindly legs.
    Nikki is busy with the camera, taking still shots of tripping pirouettes, poses by the fireplace in the living room, while I dress. Tonight is the capstone of a half year of lessons and a month of rehearsals, a cast of hundreds. The children’s dance workshop presents “Alice in Wonderland.” For this, the studio owner has rented the high school auditorium. It is the only place in town large enough to seat the legion of proud parents, and grandparents, siblings, and cousins, who will be on hand for this event.
    As I look down the hall I see the litter of last night’s gathering. We’d entertained, and our guests