unfinished
The commissioner declared the cheese "rather strong". Those assembled clapped politely at his remark. DeLintz stood towards the back with his hat pulled down low and grumbled to himself: all the criminals are running free in this town an he's complementing a cheese..." And it was true - the commissioner was strong as well, and to most folks it seemed appropriate for him to be standing next to that cheese.
What they didn't know about the cheese was that it was key evidence in one of the most troublesome, unsolved murder cases of our time. But the commissioner knew. He picked up the knife with a placid smile and sliced cleanly thru the small block. "No one can make me pay for my crime now" he gloated inwardly. "Destroying evidence - ha! Can they prosecute my stomach acid? Not likely!"
DeLintz suspected, but he didn't know. The crime was so rampant in this city, the commissioner had to be on the take - or delusionally negligent - It had been a problem he had shoved to the back burner for months, with the divorce and all, but now, the recent vandalism of shops in the SE dairy district had brought the curds floating to the top ... as it were.
You could do wonderful things with cheese nowadays. Cranberries and orange peel aged in cheese is considered gourmet, now. Feta cheese with pepperoni bits or pickled egg is a specialty food. Something new in cheese is met with curiosity and interest. But when the first consumer bit into a wedding ring, alarm was slow to spread.
He moved forward thru the restless crowd with his eyes cast downward. He circled slowly around and approached the podium non-chalantly, trying to look as if he were merely scoping for a better view of the speaker. When no one was looking he snaked out a hand and snatched the knife the commissioner had used a minute ago. It disappeared into a pocket of his trenchcoat and he soon thereafter disappeared into the crowd. The crowd, however, did not disappear, and thus he did not notice the red-haired woman in the trenchcoat following him. Hired henchwoman Helga and her two hamsters were feared, feared and dreaded throughout the underground crime syndicate. They were the cream of the crop. Helga's primary method of torture was
