Detective Weltmeister came onto the scene, a ratty one bedroom apartment with a dead mendicant and a silent, broken accordion.

I stood at the door. A first year uniformed flatfoot. I’d knocked on the old guy’s door to offer him some date nut bread from my wife. Looked in. Saw the mayhem, and called the precinct and detective.

The accordion was in a distended, immodest state, bellows stretched. The detective, with grace, picked up the shambles, set it aside, and covered it with a small towel. It let out one last wheeze. An F sharp, I think. Like a death rattle.

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