Byrne fixed Jessica with a look afloat somewhere between a smile and a challenge. He said: “Welcome to Homicide.”

“How do you know Vincent?” Jessica asked.

They had ridden in silence for a few blocks after pulling out of the lot. Byrne drove the standard-issue Ford Taurus. It was the same uneasy silence experienced on a blind date, which, in many ways, this was.

“A year ago we took down a dealer in Fishtown. We’d been looking at him for a long time. Liked him for the murder of one of our CIs. Real badass. Carried a hatchet on his belt.”

“Charming.”

“Oh yeah.Anyway, it was our case, but Narcotics set up a buy to draw the prick out. When it came time for entry, about five in the morning, there’s six of us, four from Homicide, two from Narcotics. We get out of the van, checking our Glocks, adjusting our vests, getting pumped for the door.You know the drill. All of a sudden, no Vincent. We look around, behind the van, under the van. Nothing. It’s quiet as hell, then all of sudden we hear ‘Get onna ground...get onna ground . . . hands behind yer back motherfucker!’ from inside the house. Turns out Vincent was off, through the door and up the guy’s ass before any of us could move.”

“Sounds like Vince,” Jessica said.

“And how many times has he seen Serpico?” Byrne asked.

“Let’s put it this way,” Jessica said. “We’ve got it on DVD and VHS.”

Byrne laughed. “He’s a piece of work.”

“He’s a piece of something.”

Over the next few minutes they went through their who-do-youknows, where-did-you-go-to-schools, who-have-you-busted repartee. All of which brought them back to their families.

“So is it true that Vincent was in the seminary once?” Byrne asked.

“For about ten minutes,” Jessica said. “You know how it is in this town. If you’re male and Italian, you’ve got three choices. The seminary, the force, or cement contracting. He has three brothers, all in the building trades.”

“If you’re Irish, it’s plumbing.”

“There ya go,” Jessica said. Although Vincent tried to posture himself as a swaggering South Philly homeboy, he had a BA from Temple with a minor in art history. On Vincent’s bookshelves, next to the PDR, Drugs in Society, and The Narc’s Game, sat a well-worn copy of H. W. Janson’s History of Art. He wasn’t all Ray Liotta and gold-plated malocchio.

“So what happened to Vince and the calling?”

“You’ve met him. Do you think he was built for a life of discipline and obedience?”

Byrne laughed. “Not to mention celibacy.”

No friggin’ comment, Jessica thought.

“So, you guys are divorced?” Byrne asked.

“Separated,” Jessica said. “You?”

“Divorced.”

It was a standard refrain for cops. If you weren’t splitsville, you were en route. Jessica could count the happily married cops on one hand, with an empty ring finger left over.

“Wow,” Byrne said.

“What?”

“I’m just thinking...two people on the job, under one roof. Damn.” “Tell me about it.”

Jessica had known all about the challenges of a two-badge marriage from the start—the egos, the hours, the pressures, the danger—but love has a way of obscuring the truth you know, and molding a truth you seek.

“Did Buchanan give you his why are you here speech?” Byrne asked.

Jessica was relieved that it wasn’t just her. “Yeah.”

“And you told him you were here because you want to make a difference, right?”

Was he baiting her? Jessica wondered. Fuck this. She glanced over, ready to reveal a few talons. He was smiling. She let it slide. “What is that, the standard?”

“Well, it beats the truth.”

“What’s the truth?”

“The real reason we became cops.”

“And what is that?”

“The big three,” Byrne said. “Free meals, no speed limits, and the license to beat the shit out of bigmouthed assholes with impunity.”

Jessica laughed. She had never heard it put quite so poetically. “Well, let’s just say I didn’t tell the truth, then.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked him if he thought he’d made a difference.”

“Oh, man,” Byrne said. “Oh man, oh man, oh man.”

“What?”

“You got in Ike’s face the first day?”

Jessica thought about it. She imagined she did. “I guess so.”

Byrne laughed, lit a cigarette. “We’re gonna get along just fine.”

The 1500 block of North Eighth Street, near Jefferson, was a blighted stretch of weed-blotted vacant lots and weather-blasted row houses—slanted porches, crumbling steps, sagging roofs. At the rooflines, the cornices wrote wavy contours of waterlogged white pine; the dentils were rotted to toothless scowls.

Two patrol cars flashed in front of the crime scene house, midblock. A pair of uniforms stood guard at the steps, both covertly cupping cigarettes in their hands, ready to flick and stomp the moment a superior officer arrived.

A light rain had begun to fall. The deep violet clouds to the west threatened storms.

Across the street from the house a trio of wide-eyed black kids hopped from one foot to the other, nervous, excited, as if they had to pee, their grandmothers hovering nearby, chatting and smoking, shaking their heads at this, yet another atrocity. To the kids, though, this was no tragedy. This was a live version of COPS, with a dose of CSI thrown in for dramatic value.

Behind them loitered a pair of Hispanic teenaged boys—matching hooded Rocawear sweatshirts, thin mustaches, spotless, unlaced Timberlands. They observed the unfolding scene with casual interest, fitting it into the stories they would pitch later that night. They stood close enough to the theatrics to observe, but far enough away to paint themselves into the backdrop of the urban canvas with a few quick strokes if it appeared they might be questioned.

Huh? What? No man, I was sleepin’.

Gunshots? No man, I had my ’phones on, wicked loud.

Like many of the houses on the street, the front of this row house had plywood nailed over the entrance and the windows, the city’s attempt at closing the house to addicts and scavengers. Jessica took out her notebook, looked at her watch, noted their time of arrival. They exited the Taurus and approached one of the uniforms, badges out, just as Ike Buchanan rolled on the scene. Whenever there was a homicide and two supervisors were on shift, one went to the crime scene, one stayed at the Roundhouse to coordinate the investigation. Although Buchanan was the ranking officer, it was Kevin Byrne’s show.