What was I going to tell them, that I was kind of happy that things were all broken? That when I woke up this morning and looked at the folders scattered over the floor, and the drawers pulled out and strewn across the room, that I was secretly thrilled about it?

I had to stop myself from smiling. You see, I thrive on this kind of thing. In fact, I had almost forgotten how much I missed this feeling, so that when I woke up and beheld the wreck that was my living room, I almost laughed out loud. Something was finally happening. Good! Let some nameless thief in the night come and put all my documents into disarray, since I was too chicken to do it. At least there was something to do today, instead of my boring old schedule. It was a strange, sick little thought, I admit it. But I was happy. Not frightened, not angry. Grateful. It was an omen.

I guided them inside the house again and they did the same thing: looked here and there, their hands in their pockets. The second detective was… interesting. Very interesting. In addition to trying not to smile, I tried not to stare. Most interesting of all, though, was that I soon discovered he was staring at me. I coolly took a cigarette from the case and lit it. There’s no emotion you can’t hide behind a cigarette, trust me, I’ve been doing it for years. The trick is you have to put all your attention into smoking it, like nothing else in the world exists in that moment.

“You live alone?” said the man who had been introduced to me as detective O’Connor.

I nodded once.

“My husband passed away two years ago,” I said behind my armor of smoke.

When Andre was alive, I had to assert constantly how I would never be a housekeeper, never clean up after him or fuss over cushions. The irony was that now, that’s exactly what I did. He left it all to me, and it was a terrible, terrible burden. So, I admit I was a little glad to see it roughed up a little. Like I had woken up in my jail cell to find that mysterious creatures had come to nibble at the bars a little while I slept.

“Can you please tell me again exactly what was taken?” he said. I could tell he was eyeing the silver streak in my hair. I don’t care how intimidating it made me look, I loved it.

“A folder of photographs,” I said calmly.

He was handsome. A little roughed up, but this morning, I was enjoying things that seemed a little scuffed, a little chaotic. He wasn’t like the other detective. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but he was looking at the house so much more than the other one was. A lot of people come into this home and only see money. They see the expensive Italian jacquard sofas and the solid marble on the floors. They see how clean it all is, how polished. But he seemed to be looking beyond all that. I wondered if he could guess at how awful it had been to live here…

He walked around, carefully tiptoeing over the strewn folders and papers. The other detective had gone outside again.

“Photographs…” he said.

I followed him casually.

“Photographs,” I said. Maybe I’d make this morning more interesting by being a little obtuse.

“Photographs of… you?” he asked and turned to look at me. It was fantastic, the way he was looking at me. I knew what he saw. Sordid rich people business: affairs, blackmail, dirty little scandals and money somehow. I smiled and drew it out.

“No. Not of me.”

“Tell me about these photographs.”

“Can you guess?” I said and blew a milky white band of smoke aside. His eyebrow lifted and smiled. I could see that he was enjoying this too. He wasn’t flirting exactly. But he might be.

“Well, let’s see. A nice lady such as yourself… a widow, I should say. What photographs could she possibly have that someone would want so badly? The person obviously didn’t want any of…” here he looked around the rest of the house. “This,” he said. “It must have been something else. Perhaps, photographs of a …sensitive nature.”

This was amazing. I felt like the lead role in a femme fatale tale in the 50s. I took a deep drag of my cigarette and smiled.

“You’re not a very good detective,” I said at last. His eyebrows went up again. I wondered if he was wondering what I looked like naked. They didn’t make men like him anymore. They didn’t make men at all. Just women, it seemed, and angry boys. This Detective O’Connor was a different breed, that much was clear already.

He shrugged and smiled.

“Could well be. Put me right then, what are the photographs?”

I flicked my ash into a pretty art deco ashtray that Andre had brought me back from one his many trips to Belgium.

“Before I married, I was a journalist. An independent war correspondent. The file came from a secure safe of material I gathered for an old case,” I said nonchalantly. This seemed to really catch his attention.

“Oh? Color me surprised,” he said and looked around the house again.

“Do you know who would have wanted to—”

“The photos are worthless now in any case,” I said and shrugged.

I love watching men recalibrate their assumptions about me. I know I only weigh 95 pounds soaking wet and look like a brittle society lady who knew nothing of the world. I have the look of a fashion designer who lives off a trust fund. I look foreign, wherever I am. Someone once called me a real life Cruella de Ville, and they said it with awe in their voice.

“So, these photos were…”

“Well, they were sensitive alright. Soldiers behaving badly, you know, but then again they always do, don’t they? I’d like to see anyone try to do something useful with those pictures. They can have them as far as I’m concerned” I said. I saw the confusion on his face and added, “I took those pictures. I was a foreign correspondent investigating our occupation in Afghanistan.”

“Afghanistan…” he said quietly.

I watched him thinking about something.

“You know, I was stationed in Afghanistan at one point.”

Oh boy. So that was it. That’s what I was seeing in him that was so out of place here. An old vet – it all made sense now.

“What were you doing there?” I asked. I followed him towards the entrance of the house again.

He smiled at me.

“Oh, behaving badly, you know,” he said and flashed me a smile that made me feel like I needed another cigarette.

I cleared my throat and squirmed by gaze away from his.

“What happens now?” I said.

“Well, you’ve made your statement, we’ll be in touch with any progress we make, but as you say, nothing of value was taken. We’ll keep our eyes peeled. I can give you the number of a good locksmith to fix that,” he said and gestured towards my destroyed front door.

“I’d rather have your number,” I said quickly. Now, I couldn’t help but smile.

A boy will get too excited too quickly. A boy will want to rush, to boast, to be too rash. But a man? You can always tell a man by how measured his response is, to everything. How calm. I guess you could say that I evolved as the woman I am precisely because it helped me sort out the men from the boys. A boy freaks out when a woman acts like I do. But a man is the best thing a man can be: unflappable.

After giving me a long, cryptic look, he calmly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. He gave it to me with a half-smile.

“Call me if you have any questions. Or… for anything else.”

We both stood there together, in my perfect house that was torn to shreds around me. I carefully took the card from him, making sure my fingers brushed against his as I did.