I was called out to a murder last night. Sally Martinez was charged with killing her brother Carlos. Carlos was a mean-ass drunk who had just gotten out of prison for sodomizing a 90 year old retired piano teacher at gunpoint.

I drove in to town and met the police at Sally's mobile home, located in a trailer park across the street from the rendering plant.

I got down from my truck and walked over to Prosecutor Bitchy and Detective Anthony Lovato. I liked Tony, he's a good cop. If he told me it was snowing outside in the middle of July I wouldn't have to peak out the window to know it was the God's Honest Truth.

As I approached the two, I caught a look inside the door to Sally's trailer. Carlos was lying on the floor just inside the door, a black knife handle sticking out his chest. There were EMTs and uniformed cops standing around chatting, killing boredom until the medical investigator came to take the body away.

"Sally did this?" I asked Bitchy. I wondered briefly if she too had been interrupted during a bout of sinful pleasure to deal with this sin of a higher order. I looked for tell-tale handcuff marks on her wrists but the long overcoat she was wearing went down too far and she was grasping the cuffs of the jacket in her hands.

She nodded. "We're charging her with an open count of murder right now. That may change after we get her side of the story but she lawyered up when Tony started asking her questions."

Tony nodded towards an unmarked unit. "She's in the back of my car. I'll take you over so you can chat with her." We started walking. There was a large, construction-worker grade thermos on the trunk of his car. "Coffee?"

I accepted and he poured some in a small white insulated cup.

"I usually put on a pot before I go to bed on nights I'm on call. You never know."

"What happened here?"

"We don't know much at this point. She was standing over him when the EMTs got here, screaming 'Fucking bastard! He had it coming!'" the detective told me. "Which he damned sure did. Carlos Martinez was the meanest, sorriest excuse for a human being that ever set foot in this town. I'm sure most of the guys in the department would vote right now to award Sally a medal for taking out that piece of shit. We were hoping to find a knife or a gun on him when we rolled him over but it looks like he was empty-handed. She was asking for you when I got here."

I had represented Sally before, on some worthless checks and a possession of marijuana charge. She was a good woman, raising three kids on her own on a supermarket check-out girl's salary. She was not a violent woman by any means. But Carlos could bring out the worst in people.

"Let me talk to her," I said, crushing my empty cup.

Tony opened the back door of his unit. "Your lawyer's here Sally." I slid in next to her and Tony shut the door. There was a strong smell of alcohol inside the car.

"Sally I'm not sure you should tell me what happened here yet and I don't think you should talk to the police unless you've got a good self-defense claim." I was trying to give her a hint.

"Fuckin' Terry Bradshaw, my ass!" Sally said.

"Excuse me?"

"Carlos was over here drinking with me, being an asshole as usual. I kept telling him to go home but then he starts in on that whole 'Bradshaw is the greatest quarterback ever' bullshit. Fucking asshole. I told him that Bradshaw wasn't even the best of his era. Roger Staubach was ten times the quarterback of that bald Cajun hillbilly."

"Well Bradshaw did beat Staubach in those Super Bowls," I pointed out.

"Fucking dropped pass. That ball was so there. One fucking dropped pass, that's not Roger's fault. My grandmother could have caught that ball. Shit, greatest of all time? When there's Montana, Unitas, Aikman, even fucking Dan Marino? Put Marino on that Steelers team and they win eight or nine Super Bowls in a row."

"So you guys were arguing?"

"Yes, and I told that asshole to get out of my house right now. I held up the knife to show him I was serious."

"Where did the knife come from?"

"Fucking knife we were using to cut up the limes, for the Tecate."

It's always the lime-cutting knife. I've represented six murderers here in Fiction Town. Four of them involved lime-cutting knives as the instruments of death.

"What did he do?"

"Fucking asshole wouldn't leave. He just jumped up off the couch and rushed me. It was just instinct or something. Next thing I know he's stumbling back looking at me like I'm a crazy bitch or something. The knife was sticking in his chest. I don't even remember doing it." She started crying. Deep sobs with snot bubbles and all.

"Sally, you're still in shock over your brother's death. I don't want you talking to anyone until I see you again first thing Monday morning, promise?"

She promised.

On the long drive back out to Harry's ranch I mulled the whole incident over. A man was killed. His good-hearted sister was going to jail, maybe for life. Fratricide. All over a football squabble.

I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around it.

Maybe she was right. If Staubach's on a team with the Steel Curtain Defense, perhaps he wins four or five rings easy.

Still, Bradshaw had a knack for making exactly the right play when it was needed.

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