Secondhand Stiff by Sue Ann Jaffarian

with fear more than defiance.
    â€œMrs. Bruce, please.” Whitman said the words like an invitation to a root canal.
    With great reluctance, Ina handed the bag over to Detective Whitman, who promptly started pawing through it like he was looking for loose change. A few seconds later, he slowly withdrew his hand, bringing with it a handgun, holding it with one gloved finger through the trigger opening.
    â€œYou have a permit for this?” he asked Ina. She said nothing.
    â€œDon’t tell me,” Whitman persisted, his voice heavy with sarcasm, “you’ve never seen this before in your life, and you have no idea how it got in your bag.”
    â€œIt’s…it’s …,” Ina stammered. She cleared her throat and lifted her chin higher. “The gun is mine, and no, I don’t have a permit for it.” The words shot out of her mouth fast and challenging. “We’d had some trouble at the store recently, so I started carrying it.”
    â€œTrouble at the store, huh?” Whitman prodded with a straight, serious face. “And where did you get it?”
    â€œWe had it in the store. Tom got it. I don’t know where.”
    The detective sniffed the gun. “Did you use it to kill your husband?”
    â€œOf course not!” Ina insisted. “I’ve never fired that thing. Not ever!”
    â€œBut you admit you don’t have a permit for it.”
    â€œHold on,” I interrupted. “I don’t think Ina should be saying anything else until she has a lawyer present.”
    A small, tight-lipped smile, cynical and mean in nature, crossed Whitman’s lips. Without looking away from Ina, he called out, “Hey Fehring, look what I found.”

five
    Fehring?
    No.
    It couldn’t be.
    I closed my eyes, then slowly opened one—my left. One eye could be mistaken, but not two. And I was praying for a mistake—a case of mistaken identity. According to my left eye, a trim woman dressed in a plain black pantsuit with a light blue blouse was coming our way. The eyelid dropped quickly, like blinds with a snapped cord. Slowly, I opened both eyes and worked my mouth into something resembling a smile of hesitant recognition.
    â€œDetective Fehring,” I said though semi-clamped lips. “How nice to see you again.”
    â€œSave it, Odelia,” the lady detective said, recovering quickly from her own surprise. “You’re not a good liar.”
    Detective Whitman’s small eyes looked from me to Andrea Fehring with suspicion—mostly of me. “You two know each other?” Next to me, Ina was also a study in curiosity. The cop on her other side was staying close, with one hand on Ina’s arm, but his eyes and ears were drinking in the encounter.
    â€œYes,” Fehring admitted. “This is Odelia Grey, a civilian with a nose for murder.” Fehring turned to fully face me, hands on hips. “How do you do it, Odelia? Do you have some special olfactory gift like those pigs that smell out truffles?”
    â€œIt…it just happens,” I stammered. “I thought you were working in Newport Beach.” Last I’d seen Andrea Fehring, she had been a detective in Newport Beach, working with my good friend Dev Frye.
    â€œThat was temporary. I transferred to Long Beach a few months ago.” She looked me up and down. She looked Ina up and down.
    Fehring turned to Whitman. “What do we have here, Detective?”
    Whitman held up the gun. “Concealed with no permit.”
    The news surprised the usually stony Fehring. “I thought you were smarter than that, Odelia.”
    â€œIt’s not her bag,” Whitman corrected. “It belongs to this woman, Ina Bruce, wife of the deceased.”
    Fehring turned to the cop holding Ina. “Cuff her and take her in.”
    â€œBut I didn’t kill Tom!” Ina screamed as the cop read her her rights and cuffed her.
    By now my mother and