He wore the same type of inexpensive white shirt and if not the same, a replica from a closet filled with many in a series of plain inexpensive suits, grey with a simple thin black tie absent a clip, and on his feet a pair of shiny black military style low-quarters.

“Have a seat.” I pointed to a chair and he walked over to it and waited until I was seated before declining to sit himself choosing instead to tower over me.

“No thanks.” He said, “This will only take a minute.”

“Have you brought Amber along for the ride?”

He laughed and his face blushed with embarrassment. “No, she was not available.” He retrieved a package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and leveraged a single white stick from the pack with the shake of his wrist. He pursed it between his lips and lit a match.

“I prefer that you don’t smoke in my house.” I smiled, this time in earnest. My stomach was still threatening to evict my breakfast, but I felt the need to establish to this want-to-be Dick Tracy that I would not be bullied. I had too much at stake.

He kept his cigarette in his mouth but waved the match about until the flame was extinguished. “I’ll get right to the point. Your wife was poisoned and I think you did it.” His eyes seemed to gauge me, scanning me for a giveaway.

“Then you think wrong.” I felt my throat swell at the blunt of his words and I resented my body for it’s’ betrayal.

“Your daughter, Sarah, right?” He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and pointed to a school photograph sitting atop the mantle,

“Is she yours?” he said as he walked over to the picture to have a closer look.

“Who else’s would she be?”

“What I mean is, did you get your wife pregnant, or did the doctor work some kind of magic?” He feigned an attempt at a conjuring wave of his hands.

“No. I got her pregnant the old fashioned way; missionary style.” I felt my face flush.

“Did you ever wonder how your wife got pregnant after all those years of trying? I mean, does that sound likely?”

“Just lucky I guess. Persistence. We fucked round the clock you know.”

“Sure you did.” He smiled. “She was a pretty girl, your wife.” He sighed as though it brought him pain to ask the next question. He forced a grimace, “Is it possible that Sarah’s father is someone other than you?”

“Fuck you.”

“What?” He stepped toward me as if to intimidate me but I stood instead and stepped toward him and poked my finger into his chest.

“Fuck you! Fuck you for asking such a question.” I gave him a little shove. “Sarah is my flesh and blood. Don’t you go trying to make this into something it’s not! The deceitful- husband approach didn’t pan out, so you’re working on the unfaithful-wife/jealous husband argument? Go fuck yourself. Sarah is my daughter.” I could feel the heat of my own breath as it reflected off of his face.

“Really?” He flared his eyebrows and cocked his head. “I got somebody who says that the kid is not yours. Uncle Henry says that he’s the proud papa.” He seemed to take sincere joy in his revelation, as though he’d solved the case.

“Then maybe he killed Catherine. Arrest him! Is Uncle Henry in the next room? …like Amber I mean?”

“No, unlike Amber, though, this guy is real.” He put the cigarette back into his mouth. “Never had a clue about ole Uncle Henry?” he smirked as he struck a match and lit his cigarette.

I stepped backwards and sat back down in my chair. My knees had grown weak.

“I don’t know an Uncle Henry.” His attempts were getting more pathetic with every pass. Sarah was my flesh and blood. The resemblance was undeniable. My wife had said so on many occasions. The good detective was fishing again, but in the wrong pond and with the wrong bait.

“Why don’t we ask Sarah?”

“Why don’t we leave my daughter out of this?” I stood up again, the blood rushing to my head and all thoughts of fear gone, replaced in the time it takes for a flame to ignite gasoline, by anger. I took a step toward him and staggered him backwards into the soft folds of the blue leather recliner. He looked up at me, cigarette smoke trailing across his face, with a mixture of fear, shock and confusion.

“I’m only suggesting that…”

“Sarah is my daughter. Anything you do to try and take her from me might result in your untimely death!”

He stared back up at me. His eyes studied my face. He looked puzzled. He couldn’t seem to figure out how our positions had reversed. He had such a perfect plan, how had it backfired, I could see him wondering? I felt completely empowered for the first time since I found myself inside of his interrogation room. He looked into my face and I could tell that he knew that I was innocent. But he didn’t like getting shown up.

“Have a seat Mr. Derrick.” He had regained his equilibrium, if not his sense of power.

I stepped backwards and sat back down on the sofa and glared at the menace who had dared to threaten my life.

“The fact remains that your wife was poisoned. Your fingerprints are on the carafe of wine where the poison was found. You’ve got some splainin to do Mr. Derrick.”

“I poured her a glass of wine. Of course my fingerprints were on the glass.” I could feel my jaw clenching, “And what sort of poison is it that you found?”

“A household product. Something you put in your car every so often.” Again he was trying to read my face. He drew a long pause, “Antifreeze.”

“Antifreeze?”

“Your fingerprints were also found on a bottle of antifreeze in the garage.”

“Yes, I’m sure they were, along with the cap to the radiator. Why don’t you dust that for prints as well?”

“What would that prove?”

“It wouldn’t prove a thing, just like my fingerprints on a carafe of wine and a wineglass doesn’t prove a God-damned thing. My prints were on the bottle as well. Did you get that too?”

“No. We couldn’t find an opened bottle of wine.”

I shook my head. I looked him in the eye. “I didn’t kill my wife. Now why don’t you get up and leave me and my daughter alone to grieve the death of my wife and go find her real killer?”

Detective Bergant pulled the half burnt cigarette he had been lipping from his mouth and he drew a deep breath. “If you’re innocent then you won’t object to a paternity test for your daughter, will you?”

“Yes, I do object! I won’t dignify your request with that option. You insult my wife’s integrity while she lies in her grave, unable to defend herself? Well who’s going to defend her if I don’t?”

“Well then, how about we start with a lie detector test then?”

I weighed the question. “I thought those tests weren’t reliable?”

“Reliable enough to get me off your ass if you pass.”

I paused, pondering the ramifications of such a test. What did I have to lose? “Then fine. I’ll take your lie detector test. But you lay off when I pass.”

“How does tomorrow at nine in the morning sound?”

“Where?”

“Down at the station.” “I’ll be there.”

As I watched the Crown Victoria pull out of my driveway I had a flash-back to an evening a few nights before Catherine died. It nearly buckled my knees. Sarah and I were in the kitchen doing a science project for her second grade class. We were testing antifreeze to see at what temperature it began to freeze. It was a simple enough project. We poured some antifreeze from the container in the garage into a coffee mug and put a small thermometer into the solution and placed it in the freezer. Then we checked on it every few minutes. The antifreeze began to freeze at minus forty-two degrees Fahrenheit. While I was pouring the antifreeze into the coffee cup Sarah asked me, “Daddy, what does that mean?” as she pointed to the skull and crossbones on the back of the container. I told her that it meant that it was poison. “If I drink it will I die?” Yes, I said. She said, “If you drink it will you die?” Yes, I said. “If mommy drinks it will she die?”