Free Eye Sleuth by Hazel Dawkins

joke? I played it straight.
    “Hope I’m not late.”
    “We don’t give appointments,” Riley said. “You never know how long an interview will take.”
    That wasn’t reassuring news. My boss, Dr. Forrest, came out of the staff room.
    “Until the weekend, Detective Riley,” he said and the two shook hands.
    What did that mean?
    “Dr. Kamimura,” my boss said, “You’ve met Detective Riley?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll leave you in his capable hands,” and Dr. Forrest nodded pleasantly to Riley and left.
    Gloomily I followed the detective.
    “You have a great boss,” Riley said.
    “True.”
    “We were neighbors when I was growing up.”
    “I know,” I said.
    The only person inside the staff room was sitting at one of the smaller tables.
    “This is my partner, Detective Zeissing,” Riley said.
    Was this the man Allan said sounded like a Harvard professor? In contrast to Riley’s black windbreaker sporting the white New York Yankees logo over a casual red checkered shirt, open at the neck, and beige slacks––no jeans today––his partner wore an immaculate charcoal gray suit, crisp white shirt and carefully knotted pale gray silk tie. I took the chair opposite Detective Zeissing, who looked a year or two older than Riley.
    “Detective Stevens isn’t your partner?” I asked.
    “No. Detective Zeissing is my partner, but he was not available when you were at the station,” Riley said, amiably enough, then continued, “This interview is primarily to ask if you’ve remembered anything new,” and he clicked on the tape recorder. And for your partner to listen with a fresh ear.
    “If I had remembered anything, you’d be the first to know,” I said and dutifully answered the questions, hoping my responses matched those I’d given the day of the murder. I honestly couldn’t remember much about the previous interview, only that I’d felt nauseous and irritated and had come away wondering if I was a prime suspect. Riley clicked off the tape recorder, signaling we were done. Before I could stand up, his partner spoke.
    “Dr. Kamimura, I believe I have seen you before.”
    What now? What did he mean?
    “You were at Ground Zero for six weekends after the September attack.”
    I was dumbfounded. 9/11 was years ago. The guy must have an eidetic memory, a complete recall of images. Did this man store facts as well? It would be fascinating to examine his vision system for more of an understanding of his abilities, that was the sort of sleuthing I did. When behavioral optometrists examine your eyes with an ophthalmoscope, they are looking at the retina, the lining at the back of the eye. The retina is made of the same tissue as the brain and it’s possible to evaluate how the person’s brain reacts by the way the retina reacts to the ophthalmoscope’s light. A sports team manager who knew the reactions of the players’ vision systems might open a baseball game with someone with quick reactions and use a player who takes time to warm up in a later innings.
    Riley’s partner wasn’t wearing glasses and I was fairly sure he wasn’t wearing contacts. If the light is right, which it was, you can see the edge of the contact, which is positioned on the cornea, the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris and pupil. The contact overlaps the white part of the eye––the schleral conjunctiva––on the temporal side, the side away from the nose. Hard lenses are rarely worn these days but if that had been the case, I might have been able to see the round edge of the contact in front of the cornea. No, my careful scan of Zeissing’s eyes didn’t reveal contacts. Riley didn’t look surprised at the factoid his partner had produced out of thin air and way off the subject but Zeissing wasn’t finished.
    “You were most patient. You stood for hours in the dense and irritating smoke and you irrigated the eyes of first responders thoroughly and carefully.”
    His words jolted me back to the time