“How many cars do you and your husband own, Mrs. Osbourne?” I asked.

“Three,” she said in a reedy, masculine voice. “There is the station wagon.”

“That’s a Volvo, right?”

“Right,” she said. “It is a Volvo. Then there is the blue sedan.”

“A BMW?”

“From your tone of voice it sounds like a crime, Mr. Carl.”

“And the other?” I asked.

“A vintage car my husband maintains. His toy, really, but quite valuable. It was his father’s.”

“A Duesenberg.”

“Yes, that’s right. We have an old Lincoln, for transporting our dogs to the shows, but that’s hardly worth anything anymore. It’s almost four years old.”

“So that makes four cars total.”

“Yes, I suppose,” said Mrs. Osbourne.

“And in whose names are the titles to these cars?”

“Mine and my husband’s.”

“Even the Duesenberg?”

“Yes, Mr. Carl,” she said, confidently stroking her pearls. “Everything is in both of our names and, as you know, I’ve signed nothing.”

I knew that, yes I did. In Pennsylvania, property owned by a husband and wife together cannot be grabbed to satisfy the individual debts of either, so long as they remain married. Mrs. Osbourne, as best as I could determine, owed nothing to no one, not even to American Express. She had not guaranteed the loan and therefore all property she owned jointly with her husband was safely hidden from my grasp, so long as they remained married. And everything Winston Osbourne owned, his house, his cars, his bank accounts, even his damn Rolex, everything he owned he owned jointly with his wife. Well, almost everything.

“You own a house in Gladwyne, Mrs. Osbourne, is that right?”

“Yes. The title is in both of our names.”

“Has the house been appraised?”