Dasani, Please

Detective Horn smiles appreciatively into the coffee, a saucer balanced on his knee. The sofa he's sitting on in the type that would engulf his small frame if he sat back too far, so he stays perched on the edge like a bird.

Victory coffee. Hot, bitter victory coffee out of a mug that says Denver Believes! This is why he does what he does, so at the end of it all he can be thanked the thanks of little old ladies with perfect droplets of tears welling up in their pink eyes.

Normally after one cup, Horn would show himself out, with "Just doing my job, ma'am," to serve as his goodbye. But this was his second cup, and the little old lady was put to bed twenty minutes ago by her attractive granddaughter.

She now sat across from him in the tight little living room, mirroring his sitting on the edge on the opposite sofa.

"I just can't thank you enough for what you did for my grandmother. Not a lot of people would have gone through that much trouble."

This is the part where he usually says the thing about his job, but it sticks wooden in his mouth and so he just smiles again.

"We just...I feel so foolish. To believe a man like that! I can't stand to think what would have happened if I hadn't made the call. We could have lost everything. It was really...close," she trails off.

"Professionals like that are hard to pin down, ma'am. Let's just be thankful you did the right thing and you did make that call to the department."

"I really feel like if it hadn't been you, things could have gone differently."

At this Detective Horn blushes and tries to hide it in his coffee, "We have an excellent staff, it's just hard-boiled police work that cracks these types of cases."

"But you said he was good? This man."

"Yes, ma'am. He was good. That's why it took so long to cuff him."

"Was there ever a time you thought he was...,"

"Legit?"

"Yes. It all just sounded too good to be true. I mean, I felt bad even calling. My grandmother was so happy just to have the attention, I think."

"I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, ma'am, but,-"

"Sandy, please."

He clears his throat, "Sandy. But once someone, you, make the call based on your own reservations, the department tends to turn a critical eye toward the subject." He places the mug and saucer on the coffee table and allows himself to lean back a little more on the sofa. "But all in all, this conman was a small fry."

Sandy starts to say something and then doesn't.

"What I mean by that, well. To be sure, had he been successful in swindling your family, it would have been his biggest score so far. But now, that fish doesn't have the chance to get any bigger."

"You say that like you knew it all along...," she leans forward.

"Maybe not all along, but I had my suspicions."

"But he was so...he did everything right. I mean, I feel like I would know a 'small fry' if I saw one. He was telling my grandmother about the architecture of her house! He was ordering in French! You were there."

Detective Horn allows himself a smile and leans back a little farther, "That's what did it, Sandy. All that stuff is studied. It's nice and eloquent, sure...but when it's polished like that? When it comes off as clean as a three-night-a-week performance? It usually is. But I didn't know, even then." It was true, he was relishing the feeling of drawing this woman in probably too much, and wondered if this was how a conman felt. With that thought he sat up a little straighter on the sofa.

"How close did we come? If you still didn't know, how close did we come to losing everything?"

His guilt from baiting her, even just a little, lent to his frankness now, taking a breath, "I still didn't have him when we went to dinner. I was prepared to let him walk...I didn't have enough to nail him. I was starting to believe him. I'm still not comfortable...I didn't even put that much in my report, ma'am."

Sandy's mouth is open in disbelief and the room is still.

Horn goes on hurriedly, "But I had one last trick up my sleeve. Remember I excused myself, before your grandmother was supposed to sign the papers?"

"Y-yes."

"What I really did was find our server and ordered a few drinks for the table."

"I remember. Well, I just thought it was strange that we were brought water after we were finished eating."

"I was counting on him being thirsty. Dry mouth is a common side effect of lying."

"Detective, you can't expect me to believe you cracked this thing because our 'investor' had a drink of the water that was brought to the table."

Again, Horn smiles, "No, you're right. That wasn't it, but you're getting close. I was watching him very closely at that point. You see, when he took that first sip, it was hard to see, but he winced."

"Winced? Why? What did you do to the water? How could you be sure he would drink out of the right glass? My grandmother...,"

"Sandy," Detective Horn leveled, "I didn't do anything to the water. Not one thing."

"Then why-"

"Think. You keep saying 'water'. What was it really? Think."

Sandy pauses and then finds it, "It was Pellegrino, so?"

"Sandy, you kept referring to it as water because you thought it tasted ok, right?"

"I'm not following you."

"I was watching him drink because I thought I knew the reaction I would get, and I did. You see, Sandy, San Pellegrino only tastes good to a small minority of people. Now, don't take this the wrong way, but it can only be called 'good' by the so called 'privileged'."

"What...do you mean?"

"What I mean, ma'am, is that a person has to make at the very least 60K a year just to swallow that swill. The fact that our investor didn't choke on it was a surprise to me. But the wince? That was enough. He was good, but as my initial gut feeling proved, he was a small fry."

When Detective Horn was shown to the door he was not afforded the chance to use the line about just doing his job.