Pandey wasn’t just out the fifty bucks. He was also out forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes when his extrapregnant wife was waiting for him, wondering why he hadn’t come home. She knew Pandey’s reason for lying, and she had the piece of paper that would persuade him to come clean.

The photograph of Sandra Carr, the woman whom Pandey had driven to the Bronx as his last fare, had been taken courtesy of the New York Police Department after Carr was busted for solicitation a year earlier. Pandey’s face fell when he saw the picture slip to the table from Ellie’s fingertips.

“Forty-five minutes,” Ellie said to her robbery victim. “You were missing the cash from your fare and the next forty-five minutes.”

“Please do not tell my wife,” he said. “It is our first child. I have never done such a thing until today. I almost made it. Just one more week for the baby, then the doctor says we must wait six weeks after that. When I went upstairs with the lady, I could not even-”

Pandey pushed the photograph away, and Ellie thought she heard a sniffle. She understood why he was here. A few lies – even the self-inflicted head injury – were to this man a small price to pay to put this morning’s activities in the past.

“Mr. Pandey, I think we can mark your report as unlikely to be solved if you can behave yourself for the next seven weeks. I hear you’ve got a little girl on the way.”

The driver was still thanking Ellie as he walked out of the station with his wife.

“HATCHER. GET YOUR ass in here.” Jenkins had stepped from his office doorway into the detectives’ room.

“The interview went a little long, boss. Sorry.” Ellie followed Jenkins into his office and rested a hip against a two-drawer file cabinet.

“Seems to happen to you a lot. You ought to be careful about that curiosity,” he warned. “You’re either going to wind up a hero, or dead.”