She said to the Asian detective, "He's wearing something else now. But the sergeant here can give you a description of the clothes. You should send a detail to check out the Dumpsters and the alleyways around here."

The detective frowned coolly and looked Sachs up and down. A cautionary glance from Sellitto reminded her that an important part of becoming sergeant was not acting like one until you actually were. He then authorized the search and the detective picked up his radio and called it in.

Sachs suited up in the Tyvek overalls and walked the grid in the hall and the alleyway (where she found the strangest bit of evidence she'd ever come across: a toy black cat). She then ran the gruesome scene in the young man's apartment, processed the body and assembled the evidence.

She was heading for her car when Sellitto stopped her.

"Hey, hold on, Officer." He hung up his phone, on which he'd apparently just had a difficult conversation, to judge from his scowl. "I've gotta meet with the captain and dep com about the Conjurer case. But I need you to do something for me. We're going to add somebody to the team. I want you to pick him up."

"Sure. But why somebody else?"

"'Cause we've had two bodies in four hours and there're no fucking suspects," he snapped. "And that means the brass aren't happy. And here's your first lesson about being a sergeant—when the brass ain't happy, you ain't happy."

———«»———«»———«»———

The Bridge of Sighs.

This was the aerial walkway connecting the two soaring towers of the Manhattan Detention Center on Center Street in downtown Manhattan.

The Bridge of Sighs—the route walked by the grandest Mafiosos with a hundred hired kills to their names. Walked by terrified young men who'd done nothing more than take a Sammy Sosa baseball bat to the asshole who'd knocked up their sister or cousin. By edgy cluck-heads who'd killed a tourist for forty-two dollars 'cause I needed the crack, needed the rock, needed it, man, I needed it.

Amelia Sachs crossed the bridge now, on her way to detention—technically the Bernard B. Kerik Complex but still known informally as the Tombs, a nickname inherited from the original city jail located across the street. Here, high above the governmental 'hood of the city, Sachs gave her name to a guard, surrendered her Glock (she'd left her unofficial weapon—a switchblade—in the Camaro) and entered the secure lobby on the other side of a noisy, electric door. It groaned shut.

A few minutes later the man she was here to pick up came out of a nearby prisoner interview room. Trim, in his late thirties, with thinning brown hair and a faint grin molded into his easygoing face. He wore a black sports coat over a blue dress shirt and jeans.

"Amelia, hey there," came the drawl. "So I can hitch a ride with you up to Lincoln's place?"