It was the first time he had heard anyone use the word. Triumphs.

“You know, like”-lowering her voice to sound masculine-“ ‘Well, we closed another case, dear. Let’s have a drink.’ But what about your resentments, all the annoying, picky things that’re part of your job?”

Raymond nodded, picturing the scene. “Okay, I come home, my wife says, ‘How’d it go today, dear?’ I say, ‘Oh, not too bad, honey. I got something I want to share with you.’ ”

The girl from the News was staring at him, a little hurt or maybe resigned. “I was hoping we could keep it serious.”

“I’m serious. You’re the wife. You say, ‘Hi, honey. Have anything you’d like to share with me?’ And I say, ‘As a matter of fact, honey, I want to tell you something I learned today about sharing, as a matter of fact.’ ”

The girl from the News was suspicious, but said, “All right, what?”

“Well, a young woman was murdered,” Raymond said solemnly. “Cause of death strangulation, asphyxia due to mechanical compression, traces of seminal fluid in mouth, vagina and rectum-”

The girl from the News said, “God.”

“So today we talk to a couple of suspects and one of them agrees to cop if we’ll trade off with nothing heavier than manslaughter. We dicker around, offer him second degree and finally he says okay. He says actually it was his buddy that killed her. His buddy’s fresh out of the joint and very horny. See, what happened, they met the girl in a bar and the guy making the statement says she was all over him. So they take her out in a field and after the first guy’s done he lets his buddy have seconds.”

“Lieutenant-”

“That’s what he said, let his buddy have seconds. Well, the buddy gets in there and won’t stop. I mean he just keeps, you know, going. Make a long story short, the girl starts screaming and the buddy panics and strangles her to shut her up. But, he’s not sure she’s dead. What if she comes to and identifies them in a lineup? So, they find this big chunk of concrete that’d been used to anchor a fence post-weighed about a hundred pounds-and they pick it up and drop it on the girl’s face. Pick it up, drop it on her face again.”