A Body to die for

by taking the murder-knife-bundle out of my purse. I was surprised to see the stacks of hundred-dollar bills underneath it in my bag. How could I have forgotten? I snapped my bag tightly ' shut and put it on the floor, under my chair. I dropped the knife towel out on my desk and unwrapped it. The blade shined brilliantly in the office light.
    Alex began lovingly dusting my desktop as if a genie would rise from the top drawer to grant him three wishes. He asked, “The murder weapon?” I nodded. “Plunged through the heart, right?” I nodded again. “Poor bleeding bastard. Any fingerprints are long gone, right?”
    I nodded. Maybe Jack did know who owned the knife and had purposefully destroyed evidence. “No logo,” I said about the knife. Ergo, I had no way of finding out what store the knife might have come from.
    “Fuck logos,” Alex said. He stopped dusting to come inspect the knife more closely. “I think, yeah, j White wood handle. Deep seration.” Alex ran the edge across his thumb. “Sharp as the point on your head. It’s the Bjornskinki bread knife. I’ve got a whole set.”
    “The what?”
    “The Bjornskinki.From Ikea. I’d know this knife anywhere. I had to special order it from Sweden.” Ikea is a Sweden-based discount furniture/housewares chain. For some reason, New Yorkers have found the two nearby stores (one in Hicksville, Long Island, the other in Elizabeth, New Jersey) to be the new consumer-mad Meccas. I’d never been. I get most of my furniture off the street. No matter how inexpensive, Ikea can’t be cheaper than free. But millions of others go every weekend to one of the stores, via the buses out of Port Authority or the train from Penn Station. I guess I’d have to go out there to investigate this knife. I was secretly glad for the excuse. My sleuth’s curiosity made me wonder what all the hubbub was about.
    “I ordered at the Elizabeth store,” Alex announced. “I’ve be happy to go back and check this out.” He was practically panting. Alex was primarily a domestic animal. Housewares turned him on. We’d had some fun, actually, with his honey spool.
    “Do all wizard chefs do things like special order bread knives from Sweden?” I asked.
    “They do if they’re serious about slicing bread,” he responded.
    “And if I said that you can seriously slice bread with a two-dollar knife from the neighborhood hardware store, you’d probably tell me I just don’t understand.”
    “Why even have these conversations, Wanda?” he asked.
    “Maybe the killer special ordered the knife for the sole purpose of slicing Barney.”
    “The killer would have been better off with a two-dollar blade from the hardware store.”
    “Unless the killer stole it from someone,” I suggested.
    “A frame?” he asked.
    “No, a knife.”
    The phone rang. I cradled the receiver on my shoulder and said, “Do It Right Detectives. If you’ve got the dime, we’ve got the ear.” Alex took the opportunity to polish the answering machine.
    It was Jack. “Wanda—I’ve been arrested. You’ve got to help me.”
    I stood up. Not sure why, I sat back down. “Take it easy, Jack. Where are you?”
    “In prison.In Brooklyn Heights.”
    There was no prison in Brooklyn Heights. A holding tank or two, sure. But if you want prison, you’ll have to venture to other boroughs. Queens, for example, had Rikers Island. Manhattan had the floating prison barge on the East River. “Did they take you to the courts?” I asked. The court building for all of Brooklyn was at Town Hall right on Cadman Plaza in the Heights. It was in those courtrooms that John Gotti was sentenced to life.
    “Yes, yes, you’ve got to get over here,” Jack cried. “And bring the money.”
    I hung up. Alex had a questioning look in his eye. I said, “Our client has been arrested for murder and he wants me to bring his money back.”
    “Does he know we don’t give refunds?” Alex asked, as aghast as I,
    “I guess not.” I bit a pencil. I usually think better with things in my mouth. “Alex, as a man who cheats regularly on his girlfriends, do you ever have any feelings of remorse?”
    Alex said, “I’d rather talk about the money.”
    “Spare me a quarter.”
    “I never cheated on you.”
    I scoífed. “I know for a fact that you cheated on me at least once.”
    “Is that a Wanda fact, or an actual fact?” he asked. “No, let me answer. It’s a Wanda fact which means true as long as you think it’s true. My