Her partner was a nine-year vet and a family man. Day shift suited his lifestyle and his biorhythms. Petra had been a nighthawk from childhood, before the deep blue midnights of her artist days, when lying awake at night had been inspirational.

Well before her marriage, when listening to Nick's breathing had lulled her to sleep.

She lived alone now, loved the black of night more than ever. Black was her favorite color; as a teenager she'd worn nothing but. So wasn't it odd that she'd never asked for nighttime assignments since graduating the academy?

It was adherence to duty that brought about the temporary switch.

Wayne Carlos Freshwater crawled out at night, scoring weed and crack and pills on Hollywood side streets, killing prostitutes. No way was he going to be found when the sun shone.

Over a six-month period, he'd strangled four streetgirls that Petra and Stu knew about, the last one a sixteen-year-old runaway from Idaho who he'd tossed in an alley Dumpster near Selma and Franklin. No cutting, but a pocketknife found at the scene yielded prints and led to a search for Freshwater.

Incredibly stupid, dropping the blade, but no big surprise. Freshwater's file said his IQ had been tested twice by the state: 83 and 91. Not that it had stopped him from eluding them.

Male black, thirty-six years old, five-foot-seven, 140, multiple arrests and convictions over the last twenty years, the last for an ag assault/attempted rape that sent him to Soledad for ten years- cut down, of course, to four.

The usual sullen mug shot; bored with the process.

Even when they caught him, he looked bored. No sudden moves, no attempt at escape, just standing there in a rancid hallway, pupils dilated, faking cool. But after the cuffs went on, he switched to wide-eyed surprise.

Whud I do, Officer?