Dames come and dames go, but only one grabbed my heart and wouldn’t let go. (Cue sultry ’50s film noir music.)

It was last night when I first saw her. I turned a corner outside the old engineering building and there she was, a silhouette penetrating the midnight fog. The neon lights above her flashed “”Love”” and “”Hate.”” Knowing the women I come across, she’d be full of one or the other.

She looked like she was waiting for somebody. Heck, I was somebody. Maybe it was me.

“”Mind if I smoke?”” I asked her with a wink in my voice.

Her hand struck my face so hard my mother could feel it. Apparently she did mind.

“”Don’t you know, Detective? You’ve got to stay 20 feet away. It’s the law.”” With that, she disappeared into the fog, the sound of her heels fading slowly.

Something fishy was going on here. I didn’t know it yet, but I was about to uncover the biggest double-cross of my career. It was the Case of the Murdered Liberty, and Sam Skinner, P.I., was going to crack it wide open.

The next day, I returned to the scene of the crime. I grabbed a local rag from a paper boy, and there was my first clue in black and white. The story said that in 2003, state bureaucrats banned smoking within 20 feet of the main entrance, exit or window of any public building. I nearly lost my breakfast when it hit me: That’s every single building on campus.

It was a cold smack in the face, the kind you get from an Atlantic Cod that’s had just about enough of your sass.

I rounded up the usual suspects, starting with Jimmy “”Bad Science”” Biscotti. He squealed that in a 2001 study, Japanese researchers put 30 men, 15 smokers and 15 nonsmokers, in a hospital’s smoking room. Before they went in, only the smokers had low arterial blood flow and high oxidative stress, two risk factors for the hardening of arteries. But after 30 minutes in the smoke-filled room, nonsmokers had similar levels of both. That study provided justification for the 20-foot law, Jimmy said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. The study had more holes than the hunk of Swiss cheese I use for target practice.

For starters, it only looked at 15 nonsmokers – all men, all of the same race. Yet the bureaucrats acted like it proved the danger of smoke to everyone. You can’t draw conclusions so broad with a brush so narrow.

Then you’ve got the location. The men in the study experienced the ill effects in a sealed, indoor smoking room. How you go from that to an outdoor excommunication of 20 feet beats the hell out of me.

Finally, after the 30-minute tests were done, the researchers packed up and went home. They didn’t study when the adverse effects dissipated, leaving people to assume the damage was permanent. But let’s get real. If you see a bruise, you assume it’ll heal soon. Without any evidence, how can John Law argue that 30-minute smoking effects are any different?

Selective disclosure, that’s how.

Take the words from the big cheese himself, the surgeon general: “”There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke,”” he said in a report last year. “”Even brief secondhand smoke exposure can cause immediate harm.””

Ah ha! Irrefutable proof that the 20-foot rule is necessary!

Yes, but only if you stop reading before the next sentence.

“”The only way to protect nonsmokers from the dangerous chemicals in secondhand smoke is to eliminate smoking indoors.””

The only way! There is no other way! Distancing outdoor smokers? Not a way!

With that, I had the case wrapped up tighter than an overcooked salami. I found the dame outside the same building the next night, and I put it all on the table.

“”Smoke is dangerous in high doses,”” I admitted to her. “”But so are cheeseburgers, pills and Sam Skinner, P.I. There just isn’t any evidence that a few moments of outdoor secondhand smoke does any serious or irreparable damage. Yes, there are 4,700 deaths in California each year attributed to secondhand smoke, but they’re from constant indoor exposure, not brief outdoor exposure.””

“”Seems you’ve done your homework, Sam,”” she replied. “”Still, I hate it when I have to breathe even a little smoke. I don’t want to have to walk through it to get inside.””

“”Sorry, sweetheart, you can’t use the law to force your preferences on society,”” I said. “”Sometimes in life you’ve got to suck up your discomfort and get through it. This is one of those times. You have rights and smokers have rights. Both deserve respect.””

Solid as my case was, it didn’t change the law. Sam Skinner, P.I., upholds the law; he never breaks it. I had no choice but to take a few steps back before pulling out my cigarette. I hoped she would step back with me. She never did.

Dames come and dames go, but liberty is forever.