She nodded but I wondered if she believed me. I assumed she would check with Glenn. Her eyes returned to her yellow pad.

"What I'm looking for is any national statistics on occurrence, any stats on the rate of cop suicide compared to other jobs and the population as a whole, and any mention of think tanks or government agencies that might have studied this. Uh, let's see, what else ... oh, and anything anecdotal."

"Anecdotal?"

"You know, any clips on cop suicides that have run.

Let's go back five years. I'm looking for examples."

"Like your ...

She realized what she was saying.

Yes, like my brother."

"It's a shame."

She didn't say anything more. I let the silence hang between us for a few moments and then asked her how long she thought the computer search would take. My requests were often given a low priority since I was not a deadline writer.

"Well, it's really a shotgun search, nothing specific. I'm going to have to spend some time on it and you know I'll get pulled when the dailies start coming in. But I'll try.

How about late this afternoon, that be okay?"

"Perfect." As I went back into the newsroom I checked the overhead clock and saw it was half past eleven. The timing was good for what I needed to do. At my desk I made a call to a source at the cop shop.

"Hey, Skipper, you going to be there?"

"When?"

"During lunch. I might need something. I probably will.

"Shit. Okay. I'm here. Hey, when'd you get back?"

"Today. Talk to you."

I hung up, then I put on my long coat and headed out of the newsroom. I walked the two blocks over to the Denver Police Department headquarters, flipped my press pass at the front counter to a cop who didn't bother to look up from his Post and went on up to the SIU offices on the fourth floor.

"I've got one question," Detective Robert Scalari said after I told him what I wanted. "Are you here as a brother or as a reporter?"

"Both."

"Sit down."

Scalari leaned across his desk, maybe, I guessed, so I could appreciate the intricate hair-weaving job he had done to hide his bald spot.

"Listen, Jack," he said. "I have a problem with that."

"What problem?"

"Look, if you were coming to me as a brother who wanted to know why, that would be one thing and I would probably tell you what I know. But if what I tell you is going to end up in the RocAy Mountain News, I'm not interested. I've got too much respect for your brother to let what happened to him help sell newspapers. Even if you don't."

We were alone in a small office with four desks in it.

Scalari's words made me angry but I swallowed it back. I leaned toward him so he could see my healthy, full head of hair.

"Let me ask you something, Detective Scalari. Was my brother murdered?"