Free Money & Murder by David Bishop Page B

Betty, and Brock, their eleven-year-old son, in his Little League uniform, sat on a gray soft-top table under the window. For me, the Fidgerys personified the modern Ozzie and Harriet Nelson family. I had told Fidge that once and he said the Adams Family seemed the better comparison.
    “How’re your daughters?” he asked.
    “The girls are doing great. Rose, the older one is getting married soon. You’ll get an invitation. Amy is trying to decide between an average-sized guy with a Bill Gates’ brain and a muscle-bound athlete with one earring and several tattoos, who rides a Harley.”
    Fidge smiled and shook his head. “You’ve got to be shitting bricks. I know that craziness is ahead for me and Brenda. Betty is already eyeing the men folk in her world. Last Sunday I asked God why he let hormones grow up ahead of brains. How do we get these youngsters to understand the only really important thing about high school is graduating? That the rest that they think is so important won’t mean squat in the big picture of their lives?”
    “One of life’s easy questions, with no easy answer, at least I don’t have one for you.”
    “And Helen?”
    “Ah, my ex. No easy answer there either. Last year she came close to remarrying, but didn’t. The girls are her life right now, along with keeping track of my doings. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the woman was listening to my life on the upstairs extension.”
    “Sounds like she still cares.”
    “If she did, she would have stood with me during my trial.”
    “Your attorney should have gotten her there.”
    “I told him to leave her alone, that coming or not was her decision.”
    “She was hurt. Confused. Angry. For that matter, so was I, but I also understood why you sent that guy to hell; your ex didn’t. But she ended up writing while you were inside, didn’t she?”
    “For the first couple years, she did. Then she stopped. I couldn’t figure her then. I still can’t. Hey, I feel silly sitting in your office while you stand.”
    Fidge didn’t move. After taking another drink of his coffee, he said, “You know I can’t discuss this case with you.”
    “I understand, Fidge. I just came by so we could sit and look at each other, but you aren’t even sitting. Listen, I don’t believe Clarice did it. I got nothing except instinct working here, but, like I said, unless he died of an overdose of bed banging, killing’s not her style.”
    “Oh, you got firsthand knowledge about that, Matthew?” Fidge unhooked his top button to free his moose-sized neck from his deer-sized collar.
    “You know what, Sergeant Fidgery, You’re a dirty old man.” We exchanged more grins. “I just can’t see her bumping off her old man,” I said, feeling myself slipping deeper into the brand of cop and street vernacular spoken in my modern-noir novels. “If she plugged ‘im, it woulda been in the heat of passion or anger, and she would’ve been looking him straight in the eyes. She’d have no interest in pillows to muffle the shot. She’d wanna hear it. She’d wanna smell the cordite. Even then, I can’t see her doing it.”
    Sergeant Fidgery wedged his thumbnail between his two front teeth. He must have gotten whatever he was after because his eyes crossed when he looked just before licking his nail.
    “People aren’t as predictable as the characters in your novels, Matthew. You told me once that characters have to act consistent with their personalities.”
    “Their true personalities,” I retorted, “which might be very different from the ones they show the world.”
    Fidge ignored my cleanup of his comment and continued. “That’s swell in those books of yours, but not necessarily in real life. Real folks often act outside the mainstream of their lives. They go off the deep end and kill or rob and run. Hell, you know that. You were a damn good cop long before you started writing. Bottom line: This guy Talmadge was a respected, retired businessman.