"So...let me get this straight," I begin, slowly, as I spy the coroner workers transfer Betty's body from the roadside into their car's back bay. "You're driving and the brake pedal—"

"T-That's right," Greg interrupts, switching his eye focus to me, after having had it locked on his wife's bagged body, prior to the coroner's car driving it away. "The pedal. Yes. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention. Images were flashing through my mind."

I would think such a terse way of speaking, combined with a sudden switch of eye focus, strange—had the words come from someone other than Greg Fanson. My idol, though, deserves some leeway.

"The brake kept going to the floor," he adds, wearily. "My wife just had the car in the shop, too," he marvels. "They're supposed to make sure things like that don't happen! When the brake light came on, though, I knew something was wrong. So, I pulled over, put the windshield shade in place, and before I could call for help, Betty was out the door, and in front of the SUV."

"Quite a busy intersection here, Greg. No one stopped to help?"

He ponders. "'Fraid not," he says, through a simple shrug.

"And your wife got out to check the engine?"

"Yes." 

I send Greg a weak smile. I can't help it. Call it male chauvinism, but I never knew a woman to work on a car—especially a rich-society woman—on the side of the road, if her husband was in the car with her. I'm from the old school: the car breaks down, the guy gets out to push it, to fix it, or, to kick it—not the woman. Thinking about that, I wonder if Greg's words hold a clue of some kind, as the sun's glare blinds my eyes again.

I turn a bit from the glare of the sun, to better see my idol. "Where were you heading, Greg?"

He sighs. His squirming facial expression says that he doesn't want to answer my question, but he does, anyway.

"A divorce lawyer," he utters, flippantly, pocketing his hands, slumping his shoulders. "We were having some trouble," he adds, then kicks a pebble away from being before the tip of his highly-polished, leather shoe. He turns away from me, and, with a thousand-yard stare, gazes more into the Palisades Park—toward the ocean that we can't see from where we're standing. Taking off—in an instant—with a brisk walk forward, he steps further into the park.

I follow.

"Betty and I made love for the first time on that beach down there," he reveals, deeply reflecting on that memory, pointing, as we stand, side-by-side, at the fence line of this section of the park.

Looking toward the area he indicates, I think about having exchanged wedding vows with Sabrina on that beach.

"It had been at a nighttime party," he continues. "Closer to the pier's Ferris Wheel than here. A number of years ago. We met, and somehow found ourselves together that way." He takes a deep breath. "God, I loved that woman."

I think the same about Sabrina, and my gut wrenches, as I focus back on Greg.

He looks up at the sky, then turns back to me and says, "I told her that all the time. That I loved her."

I don't know what to say to that remark. Sabrina and I never said those words to one another on a regular basis. Both of us always knew, though, that we loved each other. A "different strokes, for different folks" kind of a thing, I guess, between Greg and me there.

All I can think of now is to give Greg space again here—for him to reflect and gather himself. He doesn't have to say anymore to me, where his love for his wife is concerned. From the tabloids, I knew everything about his shaky marriage, and of Betty's supposed affairs; of the time that she had left Greg for three months, and about how crushed he'd been during her absence. I'd read all about that in the papers. Every tiny detail about the Fanson's life, love, happiness, and woes, had been a part of my life for years.

Still, I have a job to do here for Greg.

"Your wife knew cars, Greg?" I, timidly, ask, trying to break our brief silence with some tact.

"She liked to tinker," he replies, as he wipes a tear from his eye, and strolls along.

I follow.

"If the problem were simple enough, she could get it going," he adds, through a quivering, budding smile, as he stops, and twists to face me.

My silent squint at him, is an underscore to the fact that I'd known all about Betty and her "car ability." The tabloids more than revealed that part of her life.

"Hey, Lieutenant," Officer Markin calls, standing near the front of the Fanson's SUV. "Can you come here for a second?"

"Excuse me, Greg," I say, and step over to the patrolwoman.

"It must be bone dry, Lieutenant."

"What must be?"

"No brake fluid. Look...." Officer Markin points down to an oily substance on the road. "Must be from the Fanson's car."

I call over to a CSI agent, "Did you photograph and collect this?"

"All of the SUV and the road stain, yes. All clear, Lieutenant," the agent yells back.

I grin. Glad to see that my team is superfast. I still reach out and grab a pair of protective gloves, though, from the box that Markin holds out for me again. She knows that I feel you can never be too safe. I'm impressed that she remembers how I operate.

I pull the gloves onto my hands, bend down, and finger swipe the dark, red-oily road-spattered street substance. Was Officer Markin correct? Is it brake fluid? I wave my fingers before my nose and sniff.

"A cut in the line, maybe?" Officer Markin remarks, an uncertain cadence radiating through her words.

I stand again without a reply.

"Master Cylinder problems, perhaps?"

I raise my brow in surprise, as I remove my gloves. "A little deductive reasoning, huh, Markin?"

"I hope to be a detective, one day, Lieutenant," she replies, holding open that biohazard-labeled bag again.

I smile, simply, dropping my gloves into the bag.

"Like you," she states.

Now the rookie is pushing it. I can tolerate Markin's praise for every "Lieutenant" in the department, who'd earned that title, but I can't tolerate her brownnosing here.

"Pop the hood, Markin," I say, flatly. "I want to take a look at it."

Before doing so, Markin slips her hands into a pair a gloves, then hands me another set.

Taught well, I think, mentally patting myself on the back, pulling the gloves onto my hands.

As I wait for the officer to do what I asked, I stand facing the Fanson's SUV. The glare of the sun, from behind it, stings my eyes again, and sends my attention back to Greg, who's to the left and in the distance, in the park. Squinting his way, computing the scene, I think about what a tragedy this has been for the Fansons.

The hood pops and the cushioned release sound of its latch snaps my attention back to it. Before I lift the hood, though, my eyes lock on the windshield shade for the briefest second.

"Uh, Greg?" I call his way, lifting the hood, looking over the immaculate 4.7 V-8 bi-turbo engine.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" he shouts back.

"You have any recent brake work done at the service station?"

"All four of 'em," he hollers in reply, through cupped hands, without hesitation. "New," he continues, unfazed. "My mechanic said the old pads were down to I think they're called the...rotors? Why?"

Greg's quick-changing demeanor, from teary-eyed husband, to nonchalant friend of mine, doesn't sit well with me—especially because of what I'm seeing under the SUV's hood, where the brake fluid is concerned. None had been lost, I gather, by the sight of the sparkling-clean engine before me. 

Balancing myself with the placing of my hand on the front end of the SUV, I bend down, not touching the ground, and crane my neck to look under the car. Everything on the vehicle's underside and the road beneath it are completely dry.

I bark back to Greg, pointing to the oil in the street, "I had thought the trail of that liquid substance, meant the brake fluid was all gone in your SUV. But everything's fine here."

I stand back up and close the hood of the vehicle. Turning to my left, toward the park, I see Greg making his way toward me.

"Really, Lieutenant?" asks Officer Markin, in a whisper. "It's full?"

Switching my attention back to Markin, I say, "That oil's not from this car."

"Then that stain's just a coincidence on the road?"

"Yes. Sometimes, things are not what they seem, Markin," I reply, spotting a CSI agent bagging a tire iron, that he'd picked up from the roadside, not far away. I step to the agent.

Markin follows me.

"That's what did it?" I ask.

"We'll know for sure soon, Lieutenant."

Eyeing the tire iron, I state, "Fresh blood on it."

The agent shakes his head.

It's hers, I think, taking off my gloves with a snap sound, and dropping them into Markin's biohazard plastic bag.