Chapter 18
I walked back into the house and down the hall. While I was making my way around the piles on the way to the living room, my mind tossed up a joke we’d told in tenth-grade English. It begins with the wife of Dr. Samuel Johnson entering the library. There, she finds the great lexicographer making enthusiastic love to the parlor maid.
“Dr. Johnson!” Mrs. Johnson exclaims. “I am surprised!”
“Madame,” replies Johnson (doing up his pants), “will you never attend to your diction? You are astonished. I am surprised!”
I amended my reaction to the garage. Someone had surprised the Jerk. And he’d been astonished.
Back in the living room, Brewster Motley and Detectives Reilly and Blackridge were talking in low tones as they headed for the front door. From their downcast expressions, i
