"Come in here," she said, leading me into the bedroom.

The other cops stared at us but little Bethann was made from stern stuff. She wasn't intimidated by the men she worked with.

THE BEDROOM WAS SLOPPY the way some young women are. There were clothes everywhere. Pastel-colored thong panties and stockings and shoes were scattered across the floor. The bed itself was unmade. Open makeup containers were spread across the vanity.

"There's a standing order to bring you in if there's ever a chance to do so," Bethann said to me when we were out of earshot of the rest of New York's finest.

"If you say so."

"Why is that?"

"Haven't they told you?"

"I'm asking you."

I looked at the thirty-something officer, wondering about the possibilities for, and ramifications of, truth.

"THE TRUTH," MY IDEOLOGUE father once told me, "changes according to what point of view is beholding it."

"What does that mean?" I must have been about twelve because not too long after that Tolstoy was gone forever. My mother soon followed him the only way she could-in a casket.

"A dictator sees the truth as a matter of will," he said. "Anything he says or dreams is the absolute truth and soon the people are forced to go along with him. For the so-called democrat, the truth is the will of the people. Whatever the majority says is the law and that law becomes truth for the people.

"But for men like us," my father said, "the only truth is the truth of the tree."

"What tree?" I asked.

"All trees," Tolstoy McGill proclaimed. "Because the truth of the tree is its roots in the ground, and the wind blowing, and the rain falling. The sun is a tree's truth, and even if he's cut down his seed will scatter and those roots will once again take hold."