3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany by Jim Stevens Page B

on the case.
    Is it any wonder I hate my job?
    ---
    The drug store is located on the north side of Howard Street, which is the southern border of Evanston, and the northern border of Chicago. Pretty much a lower-middle-class workers’ neighborhood--which most workers would like to move out of. It used to be the territory of the Insane Unknowns street gang, but with the shifting population trends it’s now ruled by the Latin Kings. I sincerely doubt if the change in street gang affiliation has changed the property values in the area. The large sign across the front of the store reads Evanscago Drugs. Beneath Evanscago it lists drugs, liquor, and sundries as its main stock in trade. I’ve often wondered what sundries are. I never hear people say, “I have to go to the store to pick up some sundries,” or “Honey, we’re all out of sundries,” or “There’s a sale on sundries this week at Osco.” Maybe I’ll investigate sundries while I’m investigating the store.
    I find a parking spot about a half block away; no parking karma today. I sit and watch. Between nine and ten a.m. only two customers enter the store. By their attire, their demeanor, and their inability to walk a straight line, it’s a good bet they’re buying the second item listed on the Evanscago sign.
    There's a very small parking lot adjacent to the store, room for maybe six cars. Two of the spots are filled, one by a Lexus and one by a Mercedes. Each was there before I arrived. At a few minutes before eleven, a third Lexus enters the lot and parks. The customer gets out and enters the store. I can’t believe it. What the heck is Tiffany doing, shopping here?
    I get out of my Toyota, walk up Howard Street and wait two doors down. When she emerges, I call out, “Tiffany…”
    “Oh, Mr. Sherlock,” she says and hurries over.
    “What are you doing here, buying some sundries?”
    “What are sundries?”
    “I don’t know,” I tell her.
    “Then why’d you ask me?” She pulls me aside. “I had to see you,” she tells me.
    “How’d you know I was here?”
    “Daddy told me.”
    “You were in his office this morning bothering him?”
    “How’d you know?”
    “I’m a detective.”
    “Mr. Sherlock, there’s something we have to talk about,” she tells me.
    I look up the block and see four or five customers enter the drug store. “Tiffany, I can’t talk right now, I’m working.”
    “Doing what?”
    “I’m on a stakeout.”
    “Oh, I’ve done those,” she says with a downward wave of her hand. The only thing stakeouts are good for is a snappy-nap.”
    “We have to get off the sidewalk,” I tell her, leading her to my car.
    “Oh, no, I can’t get into your car. I might get a rash.”
    “We can’t stay out here,” I tell her. “I don’t want to be seen.”
    “If I were you,” she says, “I’d rather be seen out here than in that crummy car of yours.”
    “I don’t have a choice. I’m incognito.”
    She looks at me with her You’re telling me something I don’t want to know look. “Are you wearing Depends?” she asks.
    “No, Tiffany, I’m incognito, not incontinent.”
    “Oh, that’s right,” she says. “Incontinent sounds very Parisian .”
    “If you say so, Tiffany.”
    America’s private educational system is failing its youth almost as badly as the public one is.
    “Tell you what,” she says. “Since I’m already here, I’ll go undercover into the store. What do you want me to do?”
    There’s no getting rid of her. “Buy some sundries.”
    I get back in my car. Tiffany goes shopping. Three minutes later, a mid-sized bus with markings I can’t read pulls up in front of the store. I count at least thirty Asian individuals as one by one they slowly file out of it; all of them clearly senior citizens, none of them especially healthy. They enter the store very orderly and methodically, just as if they have done this many times before. No sooner has the last one entered than Tiffany comes bounding