Tearing his eyes away from the suspect, Coletti looked over his shoulder.

“It’s all right,” he said, his voice raised slightly. “Let the doctor in. Mr. Robinson’s given his statement.”

It was six twenty when Charlie Mann stepped out of internal affairs after several hours of filling out forms and answering questions. He was exhausted from everything about his ordeal. He was tired of reliving the sequence of events, tired of the gunshots reverberating in his head, tired of hearing that he’d done the right thing.

As much as he wanted to go home and lose himself in something far removed from his life as a cop, he needed the comfort of being at police headquarters.

“You’re crazy,” he said to himself as he walked toward the elevator.

A nearby clerk from the crime scene unit glanced at him as if he were just that. Then she scurried down the hall in an effort to avoid him.

He smiled uneasily and tried to think happy thoughts. The first one that came to mind was Sandy. He conjured an image of her waiting for him, her body slick with bath oils and her lips wet with anticipation. He knew that she could help him wind down, but in a strange sense, he didn’t want to. Even as he tried to put her out of his mind, however, the halls of police headquarters were abuzz with her name.

“I heard Sandy ran him down,” a corporal from the fingerprint unit told a patrolman near the elevator. “Chased him from Fifth Street to Twelfth like she was on skates.”

“Yeah, that Sergeant Jackson is something,” the patrolman said. “Who would’ve thought a woman that fine could run that fast?”

When they saw Mann approaching the two men grew quiet. They knew, just like everyone else, that Sandy Jackson and Charlie Mann were an item. And Mann knew, just like any man with a beautiful woman, that there were countless others waiting to take his place.

The elevator came and he waved them on. Then he took out his cell phone and dialed her number. She answered on the third ring.

“What’s this I hear about you chasing people?” he asked playfully. “What are you doing, riding around looking for trouble?”

“No,” she said with a smile in her voice. “I was going back to the Ninth from that art gallery assist, and this guy ran past. You know I don’t like people trying to outrun me.”

“You think you’re still running the hundred meters for Spelman College, don’t you?”

“Not the way my legs feel right now,” she said. “For me to get out of this car before my shift ends at eleven thirty, all hell would have to break loose. Enough about me, though. How did it go at internal affairs?”