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enjoying herself to notice, but sometimes he left her wondering if he hadn’t taken a course in the subject at Harvard Business School.
    Their relationship lasted for a little over a year and a half, although they never actually moved in together. And that was probably just as well. He seemed such a catch, but the distance between the places where they each lived their lives was emotional as much as geographical.
    Brad cared nothing about justice or unraveling the little mysteries of hatred, jealousy and fear that controlled so many people’s lives. If something didn’t net you an income in the high six figures or wasn’t “amusing”—one of his favorite words—he didn’t want anything to do with it.
    Sam met him once, briefly and quite by chance when she and Brad were on a date and she took the summons to an apparent drug murder in the Mission District. He wasn’t happy about it, but Brad drove her all the way across town to where the uniforms were already putting up their barriers to keep the foot traffic away.
    It was an interesting moment.
    The crime scene was an alley off Dolores Street, and they pulled up in Brad’s BMW. Ellen took her badge case out of her purse and hung it over the neckline of her black cocktail dress. The uniforms seemed to find this hysterical and Brad was embarrassed.
    Sam stepped out of the alley, took one look at Ellen and said, in a perfectly expressionless voice, “Sorry to spoil your evening. Our guest of honor is Freddy Hines—you remember him?”
    Under the circumstances, with Brad at her elbow, Ellen didn’t want to talk about Freddy Hines, whom they had dragged in for questioning the week before in connection with another murder. So she retreated into introductions, and Sam shook hands with her beau.
    â€œDo you want me to wait?” Brad volunteered.
    Sam answered for her. “This could take a while,” he said. “I’ll see that she gets home.”
    Two minutes later, Brad was gone.
    As they walked back to where Mr. Hines was lying tangled up with the garbage cans, Sam explained to her one or two curious details of the case, such as the fact that their Freddy had been shot in both knees before getting the back of his head blown out.
    â€œSomebody didn’t like him,” was Ellen’s comment. “I suppose our perp must have used a silencer.”
    â€œIt seems likely.”
    Sam never mentioned Brad, then or later, which could have meant anything or nothing. Ellen had been partnered with him for only about four months, so perhaps he felt some delicacy about commenting on her boyfriends.
    Brad was more forthcoming.
    â€œWhat a specimen,” he said on a subsequent occasion. “He looks like he should be working as a longshoreman.”
    â€œSam is the best homicide detective I’ve ever seen or ever heard about.”
    There was no response, but apparently Brad didn’t regard that as much of a distinction.
    Police work was neither highly paid nor “amusing,” you see. It might be a lifetime high point for somebody like Sam, but Ellen was part of the gentry. Therefore he tended to regard her job as some sort of neurotic obsession or, at best, a hobby.
    Also, she couldn’t control her time. Since the West Coast was three hours behind New York, Brad was in his office from five A.M. to two P.M ., Monday through Friday, and the weekends were consecrated to the Good Life.
    â€œHave lunch with me on Tuesday. There are some people I want you to meet.”
    â€œI’m working Tuesday. If I’m lucky, lunch will come out of a vending machine.”
    â€œCall in sick—what can it matter?”
    â€œIt does matter. And if I called in sick every time you wanted me to, they’d fire me.”
    Apparently, from his silence, that didn’t strike him as an adequate reason.
    There were lots of good times, so Ellen tended to regard her lover as basically a decent sort