The recipient of Adoni Rex's one phone call was a man named Dexter Mars.

Dexter had worked with Athena Rex for two decades. As her campaign manager, and a dedicated one at that, he had followed her back to San Francisco when she left Sacramento. He had bought a house bordering the panhandle and spent most days begging her to forget the mob presence and return to the State Legislature where she belonged.

Criminy, did that woman have a hero complex!

It was almost one a.m., and Dexter was an early to bed, late to rise kind of man. He didn't appreciate his phone rattling its way over his bedside table just as he'd drifted off to beauty sleep. His girth wasn't unsubstantial. Although it was probably half muscle and half lipid, hauling himself upright from a near-sleep state was an affair that took a few rings — or vibrates as the case may be.

He pulled himself together and said, "Hello?"

"Dexter, it's Adoni." Adoni's speech was muffled and slow. "Come down to the police station." He gasped into the line and then heaved a sob. "I've been arrested." It was a good thing he didn't have a lot to say because he said it in halts and starts.

Dexter had questions. "What? Arrested?"

A rustling pause came from the speaker as if the phone were spinning on the surface of a desk. The sound could have had some other cause beyond Dexter's imagining. Or a howling exhale, perhaps? Then, "Please come," said Adoni.

"You're going to have to tell me a little bit more, Mr. Rex. Why have you been arrested?"

Adoni wasn't listening but continued to yowl into the phone over Dexter's inquiries.

Dexter waited for Adoni quiet, whether or not that was evidence he was listening, and said, "Do I . . . have to come to the police station?"

"Please, please," Adoni howled.

It hit Dexter as he started to get out of bed and think about pants and where was the car parked and what was the best route at this hour to get to . . . he didn't know where the man was being held. "Where are you, Mr. Rex? Where's the police station?"

It was useless. Adoni kept crying. Dexter put the phone on speaker in case Adoni said anything useful and asked again as he pulled on socks and pants one-handed, then searched 'police department' on Google maps. "On Bryant street?" he asked hopefully. More cries came with unintelligible words that didn't sound like 'yes' or 'no.'

"It looks like that one's closed. Does the police department close locations? Did they move it?" Dexter asked, contemplating how to get his shirt on and realizing he might as well throw the phone on the bed to get dressed the rest of the way.

That's when Adoni began to shout loudly and intelligibly, "She's dead, Athena's dead! He's killed her, she's dead." If Dexter hadn't already dropped the phone, he would have dropped it now. He didn't question the sobbing voice that devolved back into muddy utterings but sat straight down on the carpeted floor beneath him, letting gravity do most of the work.

Athena Rex, dead. Poop. Now what was he doing with his life?

Dexter Mars wasn't built for emergencies. He was built for routine. The kind of routine that created comfort, that meant you got to bed on time each night in a warm, dark, quiet room and woke each morning feeling invigorated and ready to face the day. Routine meant success; it meant feeling good; it meant a vibrant complexion and a clear head for whatever crises came his way by the light of day.

The last thing he wanted to do was go out into the cold San Francisco night — which the weather forecast had oddly predicted to be a wet one — and stay out until who knows what hour in the morning listening to Adoni Rex speak nonsense and mourn with every fiber of his being the wife he had so jealously coveted every moment she had drawn breath.

Athena was dead. Well, jeepers. Going to the police department wouldn't bring her back to life.

Dexter needed to think about what tomorrow would bring. What was he going to do? Who was going to hire him? Sure, plenty of candidates; he came highly recommended. His reputation, however, had suffered Athena's strange and erratic moves this year. While drawing breath, she had still been willing to pay his almost seven-digit salary, but who was going to now? It had been a gamble to stay with her during her insanity, but he had convinced himself that surely she wasn't going to get herself killed.

Sure, Mayor Banakis had been killed, and interim Mayor Pavlou had been killed. But Athena, she was tough, and she was smart, and she was too big a target. Plus, he, Dexter Mars, needed her, so she simply couldn't be killed.

All the spirit went out of Dexter, and he had to roll forward on all fours and use his strong arms to get upright. The call had disconnected while he wallowed. Adoni Rex had been arrested. Surely not for Athena's murder?

Dexter sighed. He wouldn't be able to sleep tonight whether he went out to his car and rescued Adoni from the clinker or not.

(A voice in his head said, just lie down, breathe deeply, and get your sleep. Put your body first. There's nothing you can do for Athena. It's not worth losing sleep over. Literally.)

His jacket hung on a hook by the front door. Just as he put it on and opened the door, a thought occurred to him.

He didn't need to go anywhere. It wasn't his job. There was someone he could send to take care of Adoni Rex, take care of everything. All it would take was a very reasonable sum of cash.

With luck, he even had the number in his contacts. Sitting down on a kitchen chair chosen for its supportive back and armrests, uncommon in kitchen furniture lines, he relaxed and dialed Malyssa Alafogiannis, Private Investigator.

At two a.m., Detective Fog was sitting in police custody with handcuffs on when Cassandra Aniston arrived.

A veil of tears covered the girl's face; the police had informed her that her husband was dead. The inconsolable new widow ran right past a small army of officers in uniform to get to Malyssa and give her a piece of her mind.

"You! This happened because of you!" she yelled. Her arms flew, and so did some spittle. "He was alive when you arrived. I don't understand why all of this is revolving around you. Did they do it to taunt you, just to send you a message like with the dead senator in your office? What does the mafia have to say to you, what did you do to them? Why did they wait for you to show up before they . . . they killed . . . P-Paul!"

She had a good point. All of those were the questions a good detective would ask. Malyssa had been asking herself why they had waited for her to arrive before they killed Paul. Why not kill him hours ago?

Then Cassandra Aniston surprised the tired, overworked cops, covering the rest of the distance to Malyssa in the blink of an eye and a single bound like a highly trained athlete. An open palm slapped Malyssa in the face.

A phone began to ring. Cher's 'Believe' echoed down the hall. It was Detective Fog's. Inspector Prince brought the phone to her, and since she was handcuffed, he entered her pin and answered on the cracked screen, holding it to her ear. "Hello?" said Detective Fog.

"Detective Alafogiannis? I've been trying to reach you for three hours. Has your phone been off? It's Dexter Mars calling; I need to hire you. Athena Rex has been murdered. Her husband, Adoni, is in custody. Please take the case and get poor Adoni off the hook. Whatever the cost, do you understand? You need to solve this case."

With almost prescient assurance, Detective Fog saw through the phone a man in his pajamas half-asleep on top of the comforter, delivering a speech that he had been practicing for several hours.

"That's going to be a little bit tough," said Detective Fog. "I've been arrested on homicide charges."

Wa waaaa. Thank you for reading Detective Fog. The story continues right now! Please leave a star if you're enjoying the mystery.