Officer Moore was coming through the sliding double doors, carrying clothes on a plastic hanger in one hand and boots in her other.

“You’re going to be at the same phone number, the same motel, right?” I asked Ainsley quickly. “I’m going to have to touch base with you later.”

“I’ll be at the same place,” Ainsley said. “And… thank you,” she added quietly.

I met Officer Moore halfway across the room and cleared my throat. “Thanks,” I said awkwardly. I hadn’t been a detective very long, and I felt uncomfortable having a patrolwoman run this kind of errand for me.

“Sure,” she responded as I took my things from her. “You were Genevieve Brown’s partner, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I still am.”

“How is she?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t talked to her recently.”

“Well, a lot of us miss her.”

“She’s coming back,” I told her quickly.

“Really? When?”

I had to backpedal. “She hasn’t mentioned a date yet. I just meant, it’s compassionate leave. She’ll be back.”

Moore shook her head. “Sure, it’ll take time. It was just awful, what happened.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It was.”

Genevieve Brown had been my first friend in the Twin

Cities. I wasn’t surprised that Officer Moore had known her; Genevieve knew everyone.

Her roots were in the Cities, and she’d spent her entire career with the Sheriff’s Department: first on patrol, then in community relations, and now in the detective division. Her real strength was interrogation. Genevieve could talk to anyone.

No criminal ever really feared her: She was short and not imposing, with a low voice soft as suede. She was logical, educated, reasonable; before the perpetrators knew it, they were telling her things they wouldn’t have told the guys. A few of the detectives called her the Human Polygraph.