I’d known her from way back in my patrol days, and had learned a lot from her. I paid her back for her shared wisdom by training with her in the gym, pushing her, keeping her at a physical peak as she went into her late thirties. When I lived alone in a cheap studio in Seven Corners, Genevieve used to invite me to dinner from time to time at her place in St. Paul.

It might have been the happiest day of my life when I got my shield and went to work with her. She was a good teacher and mentor, but more than that, she was fun to work with.

We used to get coffee in the skyways, the interconnected second-story warren of shops, restaurants, and newsstands that served the businesspeople of Minneapolis. She’d stop sometimes in one of the glassed-in passageways, usually on a morning when the weather was at least ten degrees below zero. Holding her paper cup of French roast in both hands, she’d look out at the city beyond, where white steam escaped from every building vent and the sunlight bounced with deceptive brightness off every heap of snow and icy surface.

“Today’s the day, kiddo,” she’d say. “We’re going to turn the radio off and drive south until we get to New Orleans. We’re going to sit in the sun and eat beignets.” Sometimes, for variety, she’d say we were going to San Francisco instead, to drink Irish coffee by the Bay.

But she was never serious. After more than a decade of police work, she still loved the job.

Then her only child, her daughter, Kamareia, was raped and murdered.

I’d known Kamareia since she was a child, from the early days of my career when Genevieve had first begun inviting me home for dinner. Born of Gen’s early, interracial marriage to a law student during her college days, Kamareia had been mature beyond her years, generally supportive of her mother’s demanding job.