Okay, here's another snippet from my story A Uniform Shade of Red

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“There were witnesses? Theodore, are you telling me people actually saw you do this…this g?” He was beginning to wheeze and I was getting worried that he could have a heart attack, or something worse, maybe. It also bothered me that he hadn’t read the report.

“Sure there were witnesses, Berni. It was in the Tribune’s main office in the middle of the afternoon. That’s a morning paper, Berni. Deadlines, you know. There might have been thirty…maybe forty people in there at the time.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Forty people saw you? Actually saw you…do it? This is incredible! How can I possibly offer up a reasonable defense?” He stopped, dropped into a chair and began king. I knew he was king hard because he has a habit of sticking his pencil in his nose when deep in thought. It’s disgusting, I know, but that’s Berni.

I explained to him that they hadn’t actually seen me do it because the door was closed, but they saw me go into the office and the results when I’d finished.

He looked horribly perplexed, then, after a few minutes of maneuvering the eraser around in his nostrils, he slammed the pencil down on the table and announced, “I’ve got it! This case is so absolutely, utterly, totaly absurd—I know it’ll work.”

“What’s that, Berni? What will work?” I asked.

“You, Ted.” I felt better because he called me Ted and that meant he was calming down. “You—you’re incompetent, Ted.”

“I beg your pardon?” I couldn’t believe Berni would actually try to hurt my feelings, so I hoped he would explain that remark.

“Meny incompetent, Ted. You know very well what I mean. You…you ed out. Something snapped in your mind. In a moment of heated passion—rage—you committed the crime and now…now you can’t remember anyg. You got that? You can’t remember anything between the time you entered the Tribune’s office and this morning. It’s all a blank. Just tell them you don’t remember anyg. Can you do that for me, Ted?”

“Sure I can, Berni.”

Berni sighed and his body slumped back down in the chair. He looked…relieved.

“That’s my man, Ted,” he said, then called for Belmont.

“But I won’t.”

I couldn’t fight him off because of the chains and Berni was doing a good job of strangling the life out of me when Belmont pulled him away. I don’t know what got into him to cause him to do such a g. A brief struggle ensued between Berni and Lieutenant Belmont. They scuffled for a minute or two, then the detective pushed Berni out into the hall. I think I remember Berni crying out something like, “The man’s insane and I’m going to kill-l-l-l him-m-m-m. Kill-l-l-l him-m-m-m.”

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So it goes. (Sound familiar?)