Cereal Killer

said, pointing to the obvious.
    He reached into the back seat and rummaged through the debris until he produced a police ID plaque, which he propped on the dashboard, “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “If the park catches on fire, I’ll move the car, Miss Goody Two-shoes.”
    She muttered an abbreviated speech about “being a good example to young people” under her breath as they strolled to the nearest picnic table and found a seagull poop-free spot to spread their lunch and sit down. There was no point in muttering her character improvement speeches aloud; she had been trying to civilize Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter for years. She’d had about as much luck at that as she had at dieting away those pesky extra thirty pounds, organizing her kitchen cupboards, and halting the depletion of the ozone layer.
    The older she got, the smarter she got, and the more carefully she picked her battles. Now solidly into her forties, Savannah had learned the value of conserving life energy. Once a tireless perfectionist, she had recently decided to live by a new motto: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And if you still can ’t pull it off, give up. There's no point in being a damned fool about it.
    They were golden words to live by. She considered having them tattooed on her left buttock. Heaven knows, there is plenty of room back there—something else that might have caused her a great deal of angst a decade ' ago. But no more.
    Savannah liked herself, her life, and her butt... all of it. And now that she wasn’t sitting in his dirty car, she even liked Dirk. With the Southern California sunshine in her face, the ocean breeze in her hair, and a chili cheeseburger in her mouth, she was a happy kid.
    ‘You got any jobs lately?” Dirk asked between chews. Her spirits plummeted.
    Motto number two: Happiness is short-lived. Enjoy it while you’ve got it. Something to tattoo on her right buttock for balance.
    “No. Nada. Zilch. Not one ka-ching in the old cash register in over a month now,” she admitted. “Private detecting may pay more than being a cop did, but work’s spotty.”
    “Maybe you oughta drop your standards a little, start taking on those wayward hubby spying jobs. You must get a call a day for those.”
    “Try two or three a day. If I wanted to hang around outside quickie motels and take amateur porno pictures with zoom lenses, I’d be rollin’ in the dough.”
    “So?”
    “So what? There has to be a more noble way to pay the bills than providing evidence for wives who probably knew they should leave their scumbag husbands years ago.”
    ‘You could still be a cop, rousting druggies and getting stuck with dirty needles, frisking scanky hookers and chasing scrawny crack heads through back alleys, get-tin’ your favorite T-shirts bled on.... Now that’s noble.” Savannah looked across the picnic table at her comrade-in-arms who, in spite of the additional wrinkles and crow’s-feet and the slightly thinner hairline, still had a wicked gleam in his eye when he talked about being a cop. There was still plenty of life in the old dog, and she wasn’t exactly ready to lie down, roll over, and play dead either.
    Besides, Dirk was never happier than when he had something to piss and moan about. He lived to gripe.
    Savannah glanced around the park, enjoying the rare moment of relaxation with her old friend. Dirk seldom took a day off, and when he did, he usually spent it fishing off the end of the city pier. But the tide and the winds were high this morning, and the pier had been closed, spoiling Dirk’s recreational plans and dashing his hopes of snagging a free dinner.
    Hence, Savannah had been graced with the pleasure of his company. And even though his disposition might not be the rosiest or his conversation the most scintillating, Dirk was as comfortable and well worn as her blue terry-cloth bathrobe. And she loved both him and the robe, whether she would have admitted it or not.
    In the middle of her savor-the-moment reverie, she heard a mild disturbance on the other side of the park, near the sandbox where the children were playing. A couple of grungy, street-worn guys were standing nose to nose, fists clenched, arguing about something. Because of the proximity of the children, Savannah studied the situation with the eye of a former peace officer. Dirk, too, had laid down his burger and was listening with grudging interest as the argument escalated to a shouting match.
    More than one