Sarah always prided herself on being far too tough to cry, but the past two days – since she’d told the world she believed in Graham – she’d felt like it often enough.

It wasn’t just her partner. She’d worked hard for some grudging acceptance among the men in the detail and thought she’d made inroads. Now all of that had vanished.

After ‘The “Yes” Heard Round the City,’ as Jeff Elliot had called it in ‘CityTalk,’ Sarah got called into Glitsky’s office. He appeared to listen to everything she had to say, though it ran counter to the company line.

She told him she’d come to the conclusion that while Sal had been murdered, it hadn’t been his son who’d done it. She admitted that she had talked to him personally – the softball connection, the Time magazine moment in his apartment – and thought she had some sense of who he was.

All of Graham’s lies, she explained, misguided as they might have been, were reducible to one impulse and then, as lies will, they’d had to multiply to cover each other. He hadn’t killed Sal. Somebody else had.

Glitsky had sat back slumped, elbows resting on the arms of his chair. He spoke so quietly, she could barely hear him. ‘If this turns personal, Sergeant, or is personal, and anybody finds out, you realize you screw your partner, me, the whole department. You know that?’

Sarah had felt sick. Glitsky knew. She was dead meat. But he didn’t go that way. Instead, he drew a deep breath and sat himself up. ‘Okay, you want to find your killer?’

If she did, he’d turn her loose on it.

Glitsky had approved hours for Sarah on the Russo case, though they would be billed to administration. Now at least she was getting paid for what she’d been doing anyway.

But her lieutenant had severely restricted her movements. Glitsky wasn’t about to get his rear end put in a wringer by Dean Powell’s troops if word got out that now, with the trial almost concluded, the police were checking witnesses, maybe looking for another suspect.

She started with George Russo. When she’d first revealed herself to Hardy and begun helping him, she’d gone to George’s Bush Street Victorian half a dozen times, on random nights. George, she’d concluded, had no life. It might be that he was genetically wired for rage at his natural father. He could have rushed out at lunch one day and killed Sal over the imagined slight to the honor or peace of mind of his mother. That, Sarah thought, was in the realm of the possible.

But whatever else might be going on, George kept his nose clean. He was the heir apparent to a banking empire, and his role transcribed his life. He did not party with anyone outside of his ordered little universe. Stalking him, she was convinced, was a waste of time, and she’d stopped.

But tonight, with nothing else substantive to pursue, she was going to try again. Marcel had been only too happy to dump her off early at the Hall, and she’d taken her own car up to Baywest Bank on Market Street and waited.

As always, George was a dream to tail. He was big and dressed handsomely. In spite of the relative warmth of these September evenings, he sported what she thought was an enormously affected homburg over a cashmere overcoat.

At a little after six he had left the bank on foot. Hands in pockets, he’d strolled purposefully a few blocks, never slowing or looking behind him, through the Tenderloin district – pimps and whores and derelicts. She wondered about the route – this wasn’t George’s turf by any stretch – but the question resolved itself when he turned into a small, expensive French restaurant on Polk, where he sat in the window and ate his dinner, alone.

There was nothing for her to do but wait for him to come out and see what he did next.

Now it was almost eight-thirty and she was sitting in her car alone and suddenly the tears threatened. Exhaustion was killing her. She hadn’t been alone with Graham in over three months. She hadn’t had time for any exercise. She’d almost forgotten the physical connection between her and Graham. Had it been as real as it felt? Or would all this have been for nothing? Would their love still exist when he got out? If he got out…

This was the specter that haunted, that she tried to ignore. Graham might not get out, not ever. Hardy and Freeman and -admit it – she herself might fail him.

Graham had a very real opportunity to spend the rest of his life in jail. And then what of her? How could she continue to be a cop, knowing that the system she was sworn to uphold had ruined her life? Glitsky hadn’t told her anything she didn’t already know: she was way over the line. And if she couldn’t be a cop, what would she become?

She was saved from further introspection when George exited the restaurant and walked by his earlier route to Baywest, where he retrieved his car in the parking lot. Sarah was ready to follow him back to his home, when he turned right off Market, surprising her, back into the lower Tenderloin.

By now it was full dusk. The few streetlights that still worked in this part of town had come on. George drove slowly up Eddy to Polk, hung a right, then another one, and started back uptown. He turned right again. And again. Going in a circle.

Suddenly, her pulse beginning to race, Sarah knew what George was doing. He was cruising.

Reaching for her handheld, she put in a call to her dispatcher. ‘I need an Adam unit’ – a black-and-white patrol car – ‘ASAP for backup at…’

When George pulled over and the woman got into his car, she was ready. She waited until he had pulled into an alley, then told her Adam to roll.

She was right behind the squad car and so had a bird’s-eye view as the two uniformed officers came up to George’s car and knocked on the windows, one on either side, shining their flashlights down, illuminating what was going on inside.

Finally, a wedge.

The two uniformed officers took the prostitute over to the black-and-white car, fifty feet up the street. Sarah kept George back by his car. It was doubtful he would have recognized her in any event, but clearly now, in darkness and in terror, he didn’t know who she was except trouble. He’d taken off his coat for the business and now he was visibly freezing in the wind. She thought it was good for him.

Sarah had his wallet in her hands, was ostensibly checking over his ID. ‘George Russo. Do you know it’s illegal to traffic in prostitution?’

He decided to try a ridiculous bluff. ‘I don’t-’ Stopping. ‘She’s a friend of mine.’

Sarah smiled at him and yelled up the street. ‘Hey, guys! This John says he and the girl are friends. Ask her if she knows his name.’ She turned back to him. ‘I’m betting not, George. You know her name?’

George had the eyes of a spooked horse. He glanced out behind Sarah as though searching for something – salvation, maybe. Sarah gazed levelly at him. ‘Linda, Julie, what?’

From the other car one of the officers called down. ‘She says he can go to hell. She doesn’t know him.’

‘Look at that,’ Sarah said. ‘I won my bet.’

‘All right, so what now? I pay some fine? What?’

Sarah could waste a lot of time putting him through hoops, but she knew exactly what she wanted, and the best way to get it. She told him a lie. ‘You know we’ve got a new program to cut down on this vice traffic, George. It’s really getting out of hand, and you Johns tend to just walk away. So you know what we’re doing now? We’re putting names and pictures in the paper.’

‘You don’t do that.’

She nodded. ‘We do now. It’s a new program. Didn’t I say that?’

‘I can’t have that.’

‘You don’t get to choose.’ She hardened up her voice, put her hand on her gun. ‘All right, come on along with me.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To my car. I’m parked right behind my friends there. Then we all go downtown. Where do you think?’