“I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding,” Gus said.

“More like blatant misrepresentation,” the woman snapped. “Are you or are you not Hawk?”

“My name is Burton Guster. Most people call me Gus.”

“Which is a kind of hawk,” Shawn said.

“It is not,” Gus said.

“Gus the Hawk. I remember you showed it to me on some flag when you thought you wanted to be a flexitriloquist.”

“First of all, the bird on the flag of the Azores is the Goshawk, not Gus the Hawk,” Gus said. “And a scholar who studies flags is a vexillologist.”

“Then what’s a flexitriloquist?” Shawn said.

“There’s no such thing. You just made it up.”

“I’m pretty certain I saw an ad for it on Craigslist,” Shawn said. “Are you sure it isn’t someone who can throw her voice while she does Pilates?”

Ellen Svaco let out the kind of sigh that could paralyze a class of second-graders within seconds. “But you’re Spenser?” she said to Shawn.

“With a ‘c,’ like the shell,” Shawn said. “Or should that be like the saw?”

The woman breathed silently for a moment, and Gus had the sudden desire to find the nearest elementary school so he could report to the principal’s office.

“I can’t believe that policeman lied to me,” she finally said. “He said this Spenser was America’s finest detective, his street-smart sidekick was as lethal as he was loyal, and for proof I had to look no further than a seemingly endless series of fictionalized accounts of their cases.”

For the first time, Shawn looked interested. “And how exactly did this come up in conversation?”

“I went in to see the police about a very serious matter,” she said. “It was serious to me, in any case. Apparently the detective in charge thought it was some kind of joke.”

“Did this detective have a handlebar mustache, thick glasses, and eyeballs on stalks protruding from his head?” Shawn said.