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‘What comes out shows the quality of what went in.’”
    “Ma, Uncle Harvey had dementia. That’s what comes from obsessing about BMs.”
    “Don’t be so full of yourself! I’m your mother, and I have a right to know these things.”
    “My BMs are fine, okay? Peachy! Daily and… fine.”
    “Not too hard?”
    “Ma!”
    “If they get too hard, you’re not eating enough fiber. Are you eating plenty of vegetables? And bread. But not that white crap—sourdough, like I make. You should find a good Italian bakery there.”
    “How’re the grandkids?” Tony asked in a desperate attempt to direct the conversation away from his daily offerings to the porcelain gods.
    His mother chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry. I have a list. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first I wanna know about you.”
    Tony’s head flopped back on the driver’s head rest. Attempted redirect number two.
    “Work is good. I’m working on a new case. There’s a young woman who died, and her parents, you know, suspect foul play.”
    “You’re chasing a murderer,” his mother said in a flat voice.
    “You would have liked her, Ma,” Tony said softly. “Her name was Marilyn. She was twenty-seven.”
    His mother was silent for a good bit. Tony could practically hear the gears turning in her head. Finding a young woman’s killer? Good. Going after a murderer who could be dangerous? Bad. At least it had quieted her down.
    “You told me your work was ninety-five percent paper trail,” she said, a soft, hurt-laced accusation.
    “It is, Ma. Honest.”
    “And you don’t plan to confront this killer when you find him, right? You turn his name in to the police, e finito .”
    “Basically, yeah.”
    “Of course, you told me you were fine, too, just before you got your leg shot and could have died.” Her voice laid the blame for that fiasco straight at his door.
    Yeah, Ma, what the hell was I thinking?
    “I left the police force,” Tony said wearily. “I happen to like living.”
    “Good. You catch the man who hurt this Marilyn,” she said with more than a little pride in her voice. “I’m sure her parents must be out of their minds. I can’t imagine. God forbid.”
    “Yeah,” Tony said, remembering Mrs. White’s face.
    “Speaking of nice girls who are twenty-seven, are you dating anyone?”
    Tony groaned inwardly. His mother could turn any conversation to the girls he should be dating in two consecutive turns or less. It was like that whole degrees of separation thing. Bowel movements? Genital area, women. NASA shuttle? Deep space, the future of the species, women. Vampires? Neck sucking, women. It was a genetic gift.
    “No, Ma. I’m not seeing anyone right now.”
    “Have your eye on someone, maybe?” Her questioning lilt was hopeful.
    Tony opened his mouth to answer no, but a different answer came out. “Uh… maybe.”
    “Oh? Tell me about her?” Ma’s voice was as eager as a hell hound that had picked up the scent of a virgin.
    Shit. Why, in the name of all that was holy, had he said that? Now he’d be hearing about it until his seventieth birthday. Remember that time you said there might be somebody? It was August 10, 2012. Remember? But he found he wasn’t annoyed, not really. He just didn’t want to jinx it.
    “Not now, Ma,” he said gently. “It’s probably not going to go anywhere.”
    “Why? She married?”
    “No. I wouldn’t do that.”
    “Well, sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants.”
    “Ya got that right,” Tony said with a sigh.
    “And you need to smack it upside the head if it should know better. So why isn’t it going anywhere? Is she blind? My son is gorgeous!”
    “Look, I don’t really know her that well yet, okay? If it goes anywhere, you’ll be the first to know.”
    His mother sighed. “I have ten girls—beautiful, nice, Italian girls—I could set you up with, but I can’t. Do you know why?”
    “I’m not in Brooklyn.”
    “Right! You’re not here. Tony, baby, will