Christian Kilander fell into step beside me. He was a Hennepin County prosecutor, imposingly tall and fiercely competitive both in the courtroom and on the basketball courts where I sometimes went up against him in pickup games.

If Genevieve’s voice was suede, his was something lighter yet, like chamois. And nearly always arch, a quality that made his everyday speech sound teasing and flirtatious and his cross-examinations sound ironic and disbelieving.

Basically, I liked Kilander, but an encounter with him was never to be taken lightly.

“It’s nice to see you on dry land,” he said. “As usual, your innovative policing techniques leave us all in awe.”

“All?” I said, lengthening my stride to match his. “I only see one of you. Do you have fleas?”

He laughed immediately and generously, defusing the joke. “How is the little girl?” he asked as we came to the elevator bank.

“She’s recovering,” I said. A pair of double doors slid open to our left and we followed a pair of clerks into the car. As we did, I reflected that I’d probably heard the last of Ellie Bernhardt. I had done what I could for her; the rest of her troubles would be someone else’s to help her with, not mine. Whether those efforts were successful or not, I’d probably never know. That was the reality of being a cop. Those officers who didn’t like it quit to get degrees in social work.

The clerks got off the elevator at the fifth floor. I rubbed my left ear.

“You have water in your ear, don’t you?” Kilander said as we began ascending again.

“Yes,” I admitted. Even though I knew it was a harmless condition, I wasn’t used to it. The slight crackling of water in that ear was disconcerting.

The elevator came to a halt at my floor, and in the brief lapse between the car’s full stop and the opening of the door, Kilander gave me a thoughtful look from his six-foot-five height. Then he said, “You’re a wide-open girl, Detective Pribek. You surely are.”