The two famous case solvers were perceived as comers, and now it seemed that every few days they were invited to some Department function they couldn't avoid. April's shyness fell away with the higher expectations for her, and she was thriving in her new identity. Tonight she'd looked good with her sleek longer hair and silk wrap dress. Classy, and no longer afraid to show off her figure a little. She had been talking easily with Inspector Poppy Bellaqua.

Mike liked that. He never hung by her side, but he enjoyed watching her negotiate the new territory. Not that socializing with the chief of detectives was exactly old hat to him, either. He'd been a street kid from the Bronx who'd run with a gang and could have gone either way. In fact, it had been a young cop who'd turned him around after stopping a knife fight in which he had participated. The scars from it would stay with him forever.

"Yes, sir," he responded when his boss gave him a look.

Chief Avise was nursing a diet Coke and brooding about old times. "Back in the day" was always a big topic of conversation at retirement parties. And this was their third retirement party in ten days. March and April were bad months this year. It seemed as if good people like Bernardino were throwing in the towel every day. Even before 9/11, things had been bad. Experienced bosses with more than twenty years in had been falling away like hair on a cancer patient. Bye-bye to grubby precincts, bad guys, frustrations of the job. Bye-bye to risking their lives in the toughest neighborhoods.

The accrued overtime of 9/11 and the huge shakeup of a new mayor after eight years of triumphs in law enforcement with the last one brought about even greater upheaval and defections. The Department was still reeling from its losses. The new commissioner brought in retired CIA terrorist experts to reinvent security in New York. And comers in the middle ranks, like Mike and April, were moving up to fill the gaps.