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About the Author: Joseph D'Agnese is a journalist, author and ghostwriter who has written for both adults and children alike. He has won a Derringer Award for his short mystery fiction, and one of his stories appeared in the Best American Mystery Stories 2015 anthology, guest-edited by author James Patterson. D'Agnese lives with his wife in North Carolina.
Scarpone stood on the sidewalk after his session checking his phone when Coen exited his apartment building to shyly ask if they might grab a coffee together. “There is a small, ah, potentially criminal matter that I wish to discuss,” Coen said. “If you do not mind. If it is not inappropriate.”
It was completely inappropriate, considering their relationship.
Coen was Scarpone’s senior by some decades, with the requisite beard of his profession and an orange cardigan that Scarpone had never seen him without. He wore a pair of spectacles on a thin chain that made him look like one of the archivists Scarpone had come to know during his time working in the antiquities branch of the carabinieri. Coen’s round frames were thick acrylic, in a similar shade as his cardigan, and they bestowed upon Coen an appearance that might be more suited to a fashion designer or a yoga guru than what he was—one of the force’s approved state psychologists.
Scarpone was new to this business of head-shrinking. His period of mourning was still quite fresh and the wounds he had suffered in the automobile accident not yet healed. But the older gentleman’s manner had piqued his interest so sufficiently that he did not bother to question the issue of propriety. To his mind, crime—theoretical or all too painfully real—was a most welcome topic of conversation.
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