"Lieutenant," Office Markin calls over. "Can I see you a second?"

"Excuse me, Greg."

Stepping over to Markin, who's near the SUV, I slip on my shades. The sun is still eye-troublesome, when I'm facing the Fansons' vehicle.

"I spoke to the car dealer, sir," says Markin, a huge grin on her face, eyeing me like a puppy dog again, awaiting praise.

"Do you like writing parking tickets, Markin?"

"Sir?"

I bend down and lean closer to her, my large face eye-to-eye with hers. "If you don't get to the point, Markin, I'll see to it that you're ticketing senior citizens driving and making illegal turns near the mall."

"Got it, Lieutenant."

Well?"

She checks her notes. "The dealer's manager said that Betty Fanson had brought the vehicle in, because it had been bouncy on the road-whenever she had driven it over thirty miles an hour."

She closes her pad, as I ponder that truth.

"Then the dealer only needed to adjust air pressure in the tires," I reason, aloud. "I'd think an SUV like this could fill its own tires."

"How'd you know that about the air, Lieutenant?"

"Lucky guess, Markin," I say, deadpan, with a glance. "What do you think I am, an idiot?"

"Well, no, but...I hadn't thought of that."

"Of what, that I'm an idiot?"

"Oh, no, no, sir. Of course not. I meant that I don't know if I would have thought about it being the tire pressure, had I not spoken to the dealer."

"Exactly."

Officer Markin steps away, beaten. I make a motion toward her, to call her back, to tell her that I was just joshing her, but I stop after two steps. I need to teach rookies well, from the get-go. Giving Markin "the business" here, is all a part of the police-training game with me.

Walking back over to join Greg, my sole thought is: Why did you lie to me? I know that there has to be a reason-there always is, in these cases of murder.

"Something wrong, Lieutenant?" he asks.

"I can't figure it, Greg," I say straight out, scratching my head. "Dealer says the SUV's tires only needed air. No brake work."

"Brakes. Air. What's the difference? I told you, Lieutenant. My wife was the mechanical one. When she said we needed to get the wheels fixed, I just assumed it had something to do with the brakes."

His answers are so easy and smooth. In some odd way, everything that Greg is saying, fits in with my own thoughts-until I spy the SUV windshield shade again.

"The brake light, Greg? You said it came on."

"Yes."

I withdraw my pocketed notepad. "Did it?"

Greg smiles, affectionately. "Be glad to give you an autograph, Lieutenant," he says, his eyes on my pad, his words not answering my brake question.

His growing grin is just like the ones I'd seen on his face during so many of his TV interviews. It's what Hollywood taught him to do. It's what all of his fans want to see. Unfortunately, for him, though, I see through it now.

"No, Greg. I'm sorry. I was never one for autographs," I reveal.

"Really, Lieutenant?" he remarks, slyly, taking both the notepad and pen from my hand, signing a free space over my notes, then handing the items back to me. "Can we can get going now?"

I exchange a smile with Greg, then pass my look over his autograph, as I, slowly, shake my head.

"I didn't want to believe it. You don't know what your series and movies have done for me, Greg." I lift my head and look him in the eyes. "I've sat for hours, both at home and in the theatre, watching them. "Murder Comes to Town"-

"One of my early, lesser-known TV thriller series"-

"Tales about criminals attempting to disrupt law and order everywhere. I loved it," I inform.

He shifts closer to me, with genuine interest emanating from his expression and body language. "How about 'Safe,'" he asks?

"Your international spy Randall Nathan show?"

He nods, appreciatively.

"That American spy, fighting to keep law and order intact around the world, or, to bring it to where it's not?"

He smiles, broadly; he sees that I'm a true fan. "You say the movies, too, you saw?"

One of your latest, Smile, You're Dead, is my favorite."

"About a husband who kills his brother's wife," he says, trancelike, "because she won't have him."

"You're quite a filmmaking genius," I marvel. "But, Greg, can you tell me again, why you put the shade in the windshield, the moment you pulled over?"

He steps about, in contemplation.

I study him.

"That SUVs leather interior isn't standard, Lieutenant," he, suddenly, stops and says. "It's an option."

Touché, I think.

"Do you have any idea what the sun can do to that interior, Lieutenant? My wife 'insisted' on using a sunshade."

"But the sun's rays are coming from behind the SUV-have been since we got here. Your car's windshield is facing north. The sun's not hitting it from the front; it's hitting it from the back."

Greg sways and bends, digesting my hypothesis, as he shifts and looks over the scene himself. "That doesn't prove I killed my wife, Lieutenant," he combats, lightly.

"Putting the shade in place, the second you pulled over, how'd you see the tow truck approach and park directly in front of your SUV? How were you able to describe the driver in detail, if you couldn't see him, or even got out to confront him? For, by your own words, Greg, you said that you were too scared to move."

With a deer-in-headlights look, Greg holds silent.

"I just can't figure that, Greg, and-"

"Do you have any idea what it is to be married, Lieutenant?" he says, beaten, interrupting me.

"Yes, I-"

"I mean, to be married to someone who doesn't love you?"

"No."

My flat answer stops him cold. He sends me an uncertain, sarcastic, glance and a smirk that says: "How lucky for you." Then he snarls. I sense he's setting to spit pained words through gritted teeth at me, and I stand ready, to take him down-if he decides to throw a punch my way. "Just take it easy, Greg. Nice and slow."

"Damn it, Lieutenant!" he snaps, eyeballing me, emphasizing his exclamation with a punch downward, close to his body. "Aren't you listening?" he grunts, his body shaking, his face sweating. Then, instantly, he collects himself. What am I dealing with here?

"Have you ever been married to someone whom you've given your life, Lieutenant?" he, calmly, asks.

I remain silent.

"For whom you've worked your life out, I mean," he, reflectively, continues, "and she doesn't care about you for anything other than the riches and fame that you provide?"

My silent stare is prodding his words. I don't reply.

"Makes you feel as though she's cheating on you with money," he adds, underscoring the point with his raised index finger, "as though it were her secret lover, because of how it intoxicated her, and on top of that, you sense she's having an affair?"

"No."

"Well, that was Betty," he says, shaking his head, regretfully. "They say that if you love someone, you should set them free." He looks me dead set in the eyes. "So, I did."

"By killing her."

"There was no other way, Lieutenant," he says, innocently, as though a weight lifted from his shoulders. "Not loving me back was one thing. Her being swept up in my money another. Her leaving me something I would not allow."

"Why stage it all out here?"

He shrugs. "Subliminal, maybe?"

I don't reply.

He takes a deep breath. "Because, over there, Lieutenant," he points, walking back toward the fence in Palisades Park.

I step along with him.

"Over there, down there," he continues, at the fence line, "on that beach, was where 'we first met.'"

"The Honeydrippers," I utter, without thinking, recognizing that meaningful line, where Sabrina and I were concerned.

"Yes," Greg says, quiet and withdrawn. "'Sea of Love' had been our wedding song.

"Mine and my late wife's, too."

He grins at me.

"I didn't kill 'my' wife, Greg."

"So you say."

"'Yes' I say."

He turns on his heels, and steps away.

I follow, gesturing to Officer Markin to meet up with us.

"Despite what you might think, Lieutenant," he says, in an easy, conversation-like manner, spotting Officer Markin heading our way. "I'm not a monster."

"Really?" I challenge, keeping up with his steps.

"Touché," he calmly replies.

"It's over, Lieutenant?" asks Officer Markin, coming to stand before me.

"Yes, officer, it's over," confesses Greg. "I did it."

I let Markin read Greg his rights.

"Yes," he says, acknowledging that he comprehends those rights.

I watch as Markin cuffs him.

"Understand, though, Lieutenant, the reason that I'm not a monster-"

"I'm listening, Greg," I say, as I walk away.

"Is because I loved my wife so much," he shouts after me. "I told her so, by not having killed her on the beach. Had I done that, I would have nullified our "initial" love for one another, and with that, I could not live!"

As I watch, from inside my GTO, Officer Markin drive my fallen hero away, I rev my car's engine. Cranking up the radio and speeding off, I realize just how rewarding police work is for me, and that sometimes a shining star, is too bright to "see."