I OPENED THE front door to our apartment on Lake Street and heard La Traviata, saw a leather jacket hanging on the coatrack in the hall. Joe called out to me, and Martha did her amazingly fast twenty-yard dash from the living room to the foyer, concluding with a four-point leap against my body. And then there was Joe, big, adorable, his arms open.

Tears jumped into my eyes.

I was so glad to see my husband that I was mad — you could say irrationally pissed off — that he had been away for so long when I wanted him at home.

Joe put his arms around me. I gave him a peck and struggled to get out of his embrace, but he wouldn’t let me escape.

“Hey, hey, it’s me, Linds. I’m here.”

“Damn it. My hormones are mad at you. And they’re mad at me too.”

“I know, I know.”

I gave in and hugged him so hard, Joe gasped dramatically, then laughed at me, said, “Air. I need air.”

He put an arm around my shoulder and walked me to the couch, sat down beside me, untied my shoes. He pulled my feet into his lap and began giving me a foot massage from heaven.

“Can I get you anything to eat?” he asked me.

“I had dinner.”

“How’s our kid?”

“We’re both just fabulous.”

“You were going to work less, sleep more.”

“Joe. I’m lead investigator on two black-hole cases. What do you expect me to do?”

“Talk to me.”

“When did you get home?”

“An hour ago. Talk to me, Linds.”

“I’m so frustrated I cannot express it.”

“Give it a shot.”

My husband gave me a gorgeous smile, and finally I gave it up. I told Joe about the cop killer, everything that had happened since Chaz Smith, undercover federal agent, had been killed in the men’s room of the music academy.

I told him about the three drug dealers and our working hypothesis that they had been pulled over by a cop-like man with wigwag lights and probably grille lights too who had almost certainly shot them and torched the car. That he’d used the gun that had killed Chaz Smith, which had been stolen from the property room at the Hall.

Hardly taking a breath, I filled Joe in on the shooting of Raoul Fernandez in the mall last night. “Four shots to the face in a nice tight pattern, like the guy’s mug was a target and the shooter was standing five feet away.”

I told my husband about Brady’s theory, that Jacobi was the killer.

“Jacobi? Our Jacobi? Warren Jacobi?”