Lucy considered this. “So there’s more to you two than just being, what would you say, colleagues?”

“That’s right,” Sachs said.

“Thought that might be the case.” Then she laughed. “Hey, you’re a tough cop from the big city…. How do you feel about children?”

“I’d like some. Pop—my father—wanted grandkids. He was a cop too. Liked the idea of three generations on the force. Thought People magazine might do a story on us or something. He loved People.”

“Past tense?”

“Died a few years ago.”

“Killed on his beat?”

Sachs debated but finally answered, “Cancer.”

Lucy said nothing for a moment. Looked at Sachs in profile, back to the lockup. “Can he have children? Lincoln?”

The foam was down in the cup of beer and she sipped in earnest. “Theoretically, yes.”

And chose not to tell Lucy that this morning, when they were at the Neurologic Research Institute in Avery, the reason that Sachs had slipped out of the room with Dr. Weaver was to ask if the operation would affect Rhyme’s chances of having children. The doctor had said that it wouldn’t and had started to explain about the intervention necessary that would enable her to get pregnant. But just then Jim Bell had showed up with his plea for help.

Nor did she tell the deputy that Rhyme had deflected the subject of children every time it came up and she was left to speculate why he was so reluctant to consider the matter. It could have been any number of reasons, of course: his fear that having a family might interfere with his practice of criminalistics, which he needed to keep his sanity. Or his knowledge that quadriplegics, statistically at least, have a shorter life span than the nondisabled. Or maybe he wanted to have the freedom to wake up one day and decide that he’d had enough and that he didn’t want to live any longer. Perhaps it was all of these, coupled with the belief that he and Sachs would hardly be the most normal of parents (though she would have countered: And what exactly is normal nowadays?).

Lucy mused, “I always wondered if I had kids would I keep working? How ’bout you?”

“I carry a weapon but I’m mostly crime scene. I’d cut out the risky stuff. Have to drive slower too. I’ve got a Camaro that’ll churn three hundred sixty horses sitting in my garage in Brooklyn right now. Can’t really see having one of those baby seats in it.” A laugh. “I guess I’d have to learn how to drive a Volvo station wagon with an automatic. Maybe I could take lessons.”

“I can see you laying rubber pulling out of the Food Lion parking lot.”

Silence fell between them, that odd silence of strangers who’ve shared complicated secrets and realize they can go no further with them.