They had on the same winter-weight wool sport coats they wore the last time I’d seen them. Same color shirts. Same ties.

“Dragnet called,” I said. “They’d like their wardrobe back.”

Windhauser grunted.

“We spoke to your ex-wife,” Czarnek said. “She confirmed you were quite upset with Mr. Echevarria as far as the two of them getting, you know, romantically involved.”

“Guilty as charged.”

The two detectives looked at each other. This was starting out better than they’d planned.

“So, you’re saying you did do him?” Windhauser said.

“I’m saying I was upset. I didn’t say I killed him — not that I didn’t frequently consider it.”

Another look between them.

“Lemme spell it out for you,” Windhauser said. “We got a warrant to search for the murder weapon. So we’re gonna toss this place — I mean, rip it the fuck up. We don’t find the weapon here, we’re gonna toss your apartment cuz we got a warrant for it, too, OK? And if we don’t find it there, we’re gonna rip up your airplane. Then we’re gonna rip up your truck. We don’t find the gun by then, we’re gonna come back and start all over again. So why don’t you just do yourself and everybody else a favor and tell us where it’s at.”

“You guys need some new threads,” I said. “I mean, tweed is so three years ago.”

Windhauser exhaled. He got up, took a couple of steps toward the door, then turned and pointed a finger at me. “You think you’re so fucking smart. Lemme tell you something, chuck wagon, this is gonna go south on you in a hurry unless you start singing another tune.”

“Did you just call me chuck wagon?”

The SWAT sergeant stepped in. “We found this on him,” he said, showing Windhauser my little revolver. “Bad boy was fully loaded.”

Freckles and his sergeant shared a celebratory fist bump. The murder weapon had been recovered. Case closed.

“It’s Miller time,” Freckles said.

Windhauser stared up at the ceiling and rubbed the vein in his forehead.

“Maybe if you morons had bothered to read the warrant, you’d know the weapon is a .40-cal semi-auto, not some fucking wheel gun! I don’t even know why we even bothered calling you people in to assist. I mean, Jesus Christ!” He shouldered past Freckles and out of the hangar.

The Rancho Bonita sergeant looked forlorn enough at having been put in his place by the big city detective that for a moment I thought he might start crying. He handed my revolver to Czarnek who tucked it in his sport coat, dug a fresh toothpick out of the breast pocket of his shirt and began picking his teeth.

“We checked with your landlady,” he said. “She confirmed you and her have dinner Monday nights during football season. Only she has no specific recollection of the night Echevarria was killed.”

“We had pot roast with carrots and potatoes. The gravy was excellent. No lumps.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure it was delicious but, see, here’s the deal: if the old lady can’t remember eating with you that night, and you got no other alibi, then we got no choice but to start looking for that semi-auto. Unless you want to tell us where it is.”

“Look in the desk.”

Czarnek cocked his head and his eyebrow, intrigued. “It can’t be that easy.” He pulled open a side drawer and started tearing through it like a kid opening a present on Christmas Day.

“Belly drawer,” I said.

He shut the drawer he was rummaging through and opened the one I’d told him to check. Inside were mostly aircraft maintenance records and FAA paperwork. Czarnek found the photo of Echevarria and me, posing with the dead Arab.

“Your ex-wife showed us this picture,” he said. “You Photoshop this?”

“Photoshop. Right. I’m still trying to figure out how to retrieve email.”

Czarnek set the picture aside and dug deeper through the drawer.

“No gun,” he said when he was finished.

“Never said there was a gun.”

“Then what the hell was I just looking for?”

“Receipt.”

“A receipt?”

“One pint of vanilla ice cream, one frozen apple pie, and, if I recall correctly, six cans of Fancy Feast cat food.”

Czarnek spit his gum into my trash can. “OK,” he said. “I’ll bite.”

“Mrs. Schmulowitz forgot dessert that night,” I said. “She sent me out at halftime — which, according to your records, would’ve been just about when Echevarria got shot. I walked over to the Portola Street Market, a couple blocks from my apartment. Owner’s name is Kang. Good guy, except he’s an Oakland Raider fan. Kang’ll remember me being there that night. He remembers everything.”

Czarnek looked at me questioningly, then went back through the belly drawer to find the computerized cash register receipt. The date and time stamp confirmed that I’d made my purchase within five minutes of when Echevarria’s neighbors began calling 911 to report gunshots.

“Without traffic, Echevarria’s house is a good hour and a half drive from Rancho Bonita,” I said. “Even if I’d flown there that night, I would’ve had to land at Van Nuys, then rent a car or take a taxi. There’s no way I could’ve been there and at Kang’s market within a span of five minutes. Unless, of course, I was Carlos Castaneda.”

“Who’s Carlos Castaneda?”

“The whole Mesoamerican, shamanism thing, being in two places at once?”

Czarnek gazed at me blankly.

“Forget it,” I said.

He conceded that there was no way any prosecutor would ever file murder charges against me, not with the receipt he had in his hand, and not after Kang, the owner of the market, vouched for my whereabouts that night.

“I do find it a little strange, you keeping receipts from the corner grocery store,” Czarnek said.

“My landlady’s thinking of taking flying lessons. As a prospective student, the pie and ice cream are legitimate business expenses.”

Czarnek glanced at the receipt. “What about the cat food?”

“Cat’s narcoleptic, not to mention the fact he has the IQ of a houseplant. I’m fairly confident the FAA would never issue him a pilot’s license.”

Czarnek probably would’ve laughed if the LAPD didn’t have an image to maintain. He tucked the receipt back in the belly drawer of my desk. Then he unhooked the cuffs.

Windhauser wasn’t happy about his partner wanting to cut me loose. He theorized that I could’ve cooked up a cover story by having somebody go to Kang’s market and get a time-stamped receipt for me, while I was really down in LA, murdering Echevarria. Windhauser even insisted that Czarnek drive us over to the Portola Street Market so that he could personally question Kang. I waited unobserved in the backseat of the detectives’ Crown Vic, the windows rolled down, and enjoyed the show.

Kang stood behind his cash register, arms folded, answering Windhauser’s questions while watching a strung-out speed freak in a hooded sweatshirt prowling the bread and donut aisle. Kang was a stout hardhead with shifting slits for eyes that missed nothing. He’d been a martial arts instructor in the South Korean Army. No would-be shoplifter ever made it out the door at Kang’s market on Portola Street in one piece. Ever.

He told Windhauser he was “100 percent positive” he’d seen me the night of the murder.

“Logan give me crap at halftime for being Raider fan. He funny dude. Good customer.”

“How can you be so sure it was halftime when he came in,” Windhauser said.

“Halftime, we talk. Game, I watch. No talking.”

“How do I know you’re not covering for him?”

Kang’s eye slits shifted from the meth head to Windhauser like the detective’s question was delivered in a foreign language.

“Maybe he calls in,” Windhauser speculated. “Maybe he says, ‘Hey, Kang, old buddy, do me a favor and ring me up some pie and whatnot and I’ll be by in a couple hours to pick it up.’ You figure the request is a little weird, but what the hell? The guy’s a good customer. Isn’t that what you just told me?”