The older guy’s partner-a black guy, closer to my age; clean-cut, sharp dresser-said, “DNA doesn’t lie,” making his voice all deep and serious, the way the sex-crimes clown had said it to me.

“And I still didn’t start yelling for Legal Aid,” I reminded them.

“Meaning…?”

“I figured-I hoped anyway-they’d send in the A-Team sooner or later.”

“You wouldn’t be stroking us now, would you, Sugar?” the older cop said.

“I’m just saying, there’s cops and there’s cops. I mean, come on, if they really had any of that CSI stuff, they would have shown it to me by now. Waved it in my face.”

“You think that’s what we’d do?”

“No, I mean those other guys. Like I said, TV cops. But I know you couldn’t have anything-”

“You were gloved?” the black guy cut me off, like he just saw an opening and needed to move fast before it closed.

It was my turn to look disappointed. “That’s cold, Officer,” I said to him. “I thought we were going to play this straight.”

“Cheap shot,” the older guy said. A cop’s apology, sure, but I trusted it at least enough to see if I could get them to say the wrong thing.

So I baited the trap: “Something’s screwy here. Listen, I absolutely know you don’t have any of that stuff. You know why? Because I know it wasn’t me who did it.”

“Simple as that?”

“It’s the truth,” I said, dropping an even bigger hint. What I had in mind, it had to be their idea. It couldn’t come from me, or they wouldn’t trust it.

“Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right,” the older guy said. “Say we don’t have one single piece of physical evidence to tie you to the rape. That’d make it a tougher case in court, sure. But we’re still holding the ace.”

“I got picked out of a photo spread?”

“Got it in one,” he said. Smiled a little, too.