For the second night in a row, Cohen dreamt about his mother’s death. In the dream, he sat on one side of the bed and his father on the other. Wearing a nightgown that looked two sizes too large for her gaunt frame, his mom lay motionless under a pale blue down quilt. Cohen couldn’t tell if she was comatose or dead. In the dream, Cohen was his present age, but his dad was much younger—the robust woodworker of Seth’s childhood, not the old man now crippled by rheumatoid arthritis and embittered by loss who lived in the basement of Seth’s house. His dad never spoke a word throughout the dream, but a stream of tears ran down his cheeks and onto the quilt. Then, a moment before Seth awoke, his mom’s eyes snapped open, and she turned to her husband, terror-stricken. “Please don’t leave me!” Her voice quavered in the exact same way Carol’s had before she slipped into her terminal coma in the ER.

Rising from his bed, Cohen wondered why an intravenous drug user he had barely known kept evoking memories of his elegant mother. Apart from their deaths, he could fathom no connection between the two women. Stepping into the shower, he realized he did not want to delve into the matter too deeply. He preferred not to know what Freudian turmoil raged in his subconscious.

After the shower, Cohen changed into a gray sports jacket and light blue shirt, deciding to forgo the tie. Firing up the espresso machine, he steamed some milk and then drank down the large latté that usually sufficed as breakfast. As he was contemplating a second cup, the steady tapping of a horn drew his attention from outside the kitchen window.

He locked his door, picked up the newspaper on the stoop, and headed down the front stairs. Stopping outside his father’s suite, he dropped the paper in front of the basement door, knowing his dad would have finished both crosswords by the time he got home.

“Morning, KC,” Leetch said warmly as Cohen slid into the passenger’s seat of his partner’s prized’97 Cadillac sedan. “Hey, how’s the pappy doing?”

“About the same,” Cohen said. “Still having trouble getting around with those arthritic knees of his. Still embarrassed that his son is a cop,” he sighed. This ground was too familiar for both of them.

“Can’t blame him on that one.” Leetch chuckled. “Frankly, you’re a disgrace to your whole family.”

“Hmmm,” Cohen agreed. “Since the day I enrolled in the academy, I’ve been hearing how Jews weren’t meant to be in law enforcement.”

“Very true.” Leetch chuckled. “And I personally know a bunch of convicted murderers who strongly feel the same way.”

Cohen nodded his thanks for the compliment.