Scratch the Surface

aspects of her plan, : Felicity was free to concentrate on fulfilling a secondary goal, which was the gathering of material for her next book. Mindful of certain critics’ unkind remarks about the fanciful nature of her “crime“ novels, she now resolved to take careful note of police procedure at the scene of a real crime. Eager to dress for her part, she put on a black trench coat and, stashing her keys in one of its pockets, set forth to present herself in a Prissy-like way while collecting useful details about official vehicles, law enforcement jargon, and other matters that she had often found herself glossing over or simply inventing.
    To Felicity’s satisfaction, three official vehicles drove up: a cruiser, an emergency medical van the size of a large delivery truck, and a sort of medical Jeep, as Felicity thought of it, a white sport-utility vehicle reminiscent of her neighbors’ BMW and Lexus SUVs, their Lincoln Navigators, and, indeed, the late Uncle Bob’s defunct Cadillac Escalade, but smaller than the recreational models and undoubtedly lacking such amenities as real leather upholstery and heated seats. ; In Felicity’s books, political correctness dictated that there be at least one woman and one person of color among the officials at such a scene. Furthermore, the Fat Is Beautiful movement or whatever it called itself demanded that any character who weighed more than deemed ideal in the medical height-weight charts be a good guy; obese villains drew angry letters from readers, and, to play it safe, Felicity kept all of her characters lean or described them as appealingly heavyset or attractively plump rather than as overweight or just plain fat. To Felicity’s annoyance, the police and EMTs who’d arrived were in blatant violation of her literary rules. The two police officers were male, the only people of color in sight were the Wangs, and the EMT who stood just outside her vestibule was a man who weighed more than she could begin to guess. There were apparently two or three other EMTs in the vestibule. She hoped that they were especially dark-skinned African-American women of inoffensively medium weight or, if heavy, gorgeous, charming, and medically heroic.
    The main source of Felicity’s dissatisfaction with the reality of her very own crime scene was, however, the absence of anyone of obvious importance. Ideally, there’d be a police chief remarkably like the one who confided his findings to Prissy LaChatte and solicited her assistance in solving cases that baffled him. Too bad about the “all but in Newton.” The City of Newton just might be in the habit of dispatching its police chief to murder scenes, but Boston assuredly was not. Felicity’s knowledge of police hierarchies beneath the level of chief was vague. What’s more, her great and happy familiarity with British mysteries meant that she understood the titles and responsibilities of detective chief inspectors, superintendents, constables, and such far better than she understood anything about the ranks within American forces. Still, she knew a pooh-bah when she saw one, and there was, alas, none in view.
    Prominently in sight and sound were a uniformed police officer of some sort and Felicity’s trash-fussy Russian neighbor, Mr. Trotsky, who was shouting at the officer even more angrily than he’d ever shouted at Felicity about allowing her recycling bin to trespass on what was, in fact, condo association property. The object of Mr. Trotsky’s rage was the police cruiser, which had two of its wheels on his lawn. Its front doors were open, its lights were flashing, and its siren was still screaming.
    Undeterred, Mr. Trotsky was shaking a fist at the officer—I constable? sergeant?—and yelling in accented but fluent English, “You know what my lawn service costs me? You wanna take a guess?” Answering his own question rather anticlimactically, he finished, “Plenty, that’s what.”
    Mr. Trotsky looked nothing like the Trotsky of revolution and assassination. Rather, he bore what Felicity found to be an alarming resemblance to Joseph Stalin. He had the same heavy features, the same thick, dark hair combed straight back from his face, and the same oversized moustache. Felicity was certain that he cultivated the likeness as a way to intimidate people.
    The policeman was apparently unintimidated. At any rate, he didn’t move the cruiser.
    “This is private property!” Mr. Trotsky hollered. “It’s not a public