“It hasn’t come up.”

“You haven’t brought it up. What are you worried about? Your mother’s much more liberal than I am.”

“I’m not worried, Dad. I just want to see how it goes before I even bother.” We both knew I was stalling. I checked my watch. “So I guess I’m off to serve and protect and look for David Tyler.”

“Any leads at all with him?”

“Goose egg. For all I know, he may be dead. Sarah Sanders did say he wasn’t moving when she left the bathroom.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. David could be dead, but I doubt if he was dead from the assault. Cindy, the City changes the trash. People do use the john in the park. If there had been a dead body in it, someone would have noticed.”

“Unless the boys killed him, then came back to take him away and dump him in a less obvious spot.”

“I don’t think so, Cindy. It would draw way too much attention. This sounds like an impulsive type of rape. Why hassle with coming back? All it could do is screw them up.”

“Because David could identify them.”

“He’s mentally disabled. How much credibility would he have even if he could identify the perps? And that’s a big if.”

I saw his point.

Dad said, “I know you’re working your way through the decidedly unglamorous part of detective work: the shelters, halfway houses, drug rehab, missions, Salvation Army, other areas that have homeless. It’s a tedious chore, but it’s your best bet right now.”

There was a knock on the door and in walked Oliver. He was holding up my tie. It was a nice one—a gold-and-sky-blue Mimi Fong print that I had gotten at deep discount. Furthermore, it went with the navy suit he was wearing.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“It’s beautiful, Cin. Something I would have picked out. What is it? Battle pay?”

“You might say that.”

My father’s face held a sour look. “You bought him a tie?”

“Yes, I bought him a tie when I bought Koby a shirt.”

“You bought Oliver a tie and Koby a shirt, but your father gets nothing.”

I got up and hugged him around the neck. “Daddy, you’ll always be my number one guy.”

“You’re choking me,” Dad grumped.

Oliver said, “So you and the guy are back together?”

“For the time being, and the guy—like you, Scott—has a name.”

“Yeah, he’s got a name. The black guy. Or if I feel like being politically correct, the African American guy.”

“If you want to get technical, then he’d be just the African guy. Or the Asian guy, because I think he’s an Israeli citizen. Now if he were an American citizen, then you’d have to call him African Asian American guy. So that’s why it’s much more convenient to call him Yaakov.”

“You call him Koby.”

“That’s reserved for friends, Oliver.”

He smiled. Dad drummed his fingers on his desktop. “Anything official you need to talk to me about, Detective?”