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knocked.
    There was no immediate answer, so I had time to admire the newly mown grass, the clean windows, the swept front porch. My expectations tapered off as I waited some more. The third knock was a formality, just to say I tried, and I was already half turning to leave when the door opened. Good things happen in threes.
    A petite Hispanic woman answered the door. She was a well-kept forty-five or six, with poker-straight brown hair down to her shoulders and a hint of makeup, but her eyes were hollow and hovering at half-mast, like she might fall asleep where she stood. She wore a pink polo shirt with the collar turned up, like kids did in the eighties. She spoke to me through the screen, holding on to the inner door for support.
    “Yes?” She said it like Jes .
    “Mrs. Garcia? Libney Garcia?”
    “Yes?”
    I introduced myself and gave her a brief and heavily sanitized version of what Bloch had asked me to do. The drive over had given me time to think through how I wanted to position myself to the people I’d have to talk to. Almost all of them would be cops, or related to cops, and they weren’t going to be awed or blown away by the words “police investigation” like John Q. Public might be. They’d ask hard questions and want straight answers. I had to give them most of the truth without actually letting the cat out of the bag or having the door shut in my face.
    “You are with the police?” she asked.
    “Not anymore, Ms. Garcia,” I said. “But Danny’s supervisor asked me to look into his death personally. I’m happy to have him call you, if you’d like confirmation.”
    She shook her head, too weary to question it. “What is it you want?”
    “Just a couple minutes of your time,” I said. “I know it must be hard to talk about your husband so soon after his death. But any little bit might help catch whoever killed him. You never know what might be useful.”
    She waved her hand in a languid sweep, as if to say she didn’t care, but opened the screen door. I went into the house. She shut the door and led me to the living room. The furniture was of the Swedish outlet, put-it-together-yourself variety, but still clean and smart-looking. The floor was hardwood and half of it had been sanded down, giving the room a two-tone cast. Pictures in little easel frames crowded together on top of a TV cabinet. A couch with a plaid throw bunched up at one end held down one corner of the room. I sat in a chair with rounded plywood arms that looked a lot more comfortable than it was.
    “You want coffee?” she asked.
    I hesitated, then said yes. She left the room and came back five minutes later with two steaming cups.
    “I’m sorry. Is instant,” she said, handing me the mug. It said World’s Greatest Dad on the side. I cupped my hand around the lettering to cover it. She sat on the couch across from me, absentmindedly straightening the throw as she did so.
    “This is fine,” I said, taking a sip. It tasted like burnt cardboard water. I took a deep breath.
    “Thank you. You want to know about Danny?”
    “Yes.”
    She hesitated. “I don’t know about his police work. He never want to talk about it.”
    “That’s alright. Just tell me about him. As a person.”
    She was quiet. I thought I’d said exactly the wrong thing, but she was only getting her thoughts together. “He was a beautiful man, very passionate. He never did nothing part way. When we first met, he wouldn’t stop calling me. Call me every night ’til my mother took the phone away. He would say poetry to my window, throw flowers on the front porch. Like in a song. My father threatened to shoot him, he caught him, but Danny would sneak into the yard anyway and whisper to me through the window. We got married a year after we met, but is like he never stop trying to…to…”
    “Court you?”
    She smiled. “Yes, to court me. He go after everything the same. No half way.”
    “Was he born here?”
    “In the States? No. He was born