She stayed a half hour. As she left, she gave me a perfunctory peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you later,” she promised.

“Take the chocolates,” I told her, making a desperate attempt to alleviate the tension. “Leave the Jelly Bellys.”

She snapped a smile at me and was gone.

It took me several weeks to ease back into work. As before, I turned down numerous requests for interviews or appearances, explaining this remained an open case and prosecutors had advised me against making any public comments. I wrote a long and loose story about what happened in the garage, offering few details beyond what was already publicly known: I had met a potential informant and somehow been caught up in a murder. It was not an easy piece to write, as I had to weave a duplicitous path through a maze of half-truths. I flirted with hinting at the existence of the Secrets Act, but Howie reminded me the Pro couldn’t print it and Reich warned me of the consequences.

Still, my column, “A Murder in the Garage,” was widely republished. I let other media outlets link it to the “raid on the Detroit safe house” articles; the implication was obvious. Somehow this brutal killing was involved with Detroit. My involvement in this second violent episode raised my public profile to the edge of celebrity. The media embraced the Rolling Stone image, highlighting my military record and my “futuristically enhanced wheelchair.” Within the disabled community I was hailed as a role model, or as TMZ described me, “a roll model,” although I was careful not to let anyone know the full extent of Mighty Chair’s capabilities. In fact, the only scheduled public appearance I did make was tossing up the first ball at the National Wheelchair Basketball Association championship tournament, which was being held in Washington. For several weeks I was stopped regularly on my way to work by people asking for an autograph, a selfie, or—and this was a new one on me—Mighty Chair’s treadmark: people would place a sheet of white paper under a wheel and I would roll over it, then sign it. Other people wanted to shake my hand and thank me for my service. Several pleasant strangers trying to find common ground with me told me they loved watching old episodes of Ironside on TV Land. The interruptions got so time consuming, most often I drove the van to work, although I no longer parked in that garage.

There was one significant disappointment. The homeless veteran who had saved my life was a man named Jerry Stern. I intended to find a way of repaying the debt I owed to him. I vowed to find him a safe place to live, get him the medical assistance he needed, make sure he had money in his pocket. He wasn’t interested; he refused all offers for assistance, from me as well as others, explaining he was already scheduled to fly on the first flight to Mars and thus had to remain within the boarding area until his flight was called.