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ago.”
    I don’t know what I expected, but what she said left me almost speechless.
    “Sorry, can’t help you,” she said, voice and expression dismissing me.
    It was such a complete turndown, I didn’t know how to proceed. “Do you think someone else could help me?” I asked finally.
    “No.” She turned away and spoke to a male officer.
    I waited for her to return, but she obviously thought she had done with me. “Excuse me,” I said a little loudly. “I really need some help.”
    She came back. “Ma’am, there’s no one here who was even alive forty years ago.”
    I looked around and had to agree with her. “There have to be reports, records,” I persisted. “I want to see the file.”
    She took a deep breath and exhaled to show her irritation. “Maybe the desk officer can help you.” She pointed to my right. “Ovuh theah.”
    “Thank you very much.” I smiled to show I was grateful and went to the designated desk. A police officer was sitting there, and if the woman I had just spoken to had sounded weary, this one looked on the verge of sleep. He glanced at his watch as I approached.
    “Good morning,” I said as cheerily as I could manage.
    “What can I do for you?” the officer asked.
    “My name is Christine Bennett,” I said.
    “Ah-hah,” he responded automatically.
    “And I’m looking into a murder that happened in this precinct forty years ago.”
    He practically rolled his eyes. “Ah-hah,” he said as I spoke.
    “It’s very important, Officer—” I glanced at the name tag just below his badge “—Korb.”
    “Ah-hah.”
    I was somewhat disconcerted. “The men who were thought to be guilty of the crime—”
    Officer Korb was shaking his head. “See, lady,” he said, interrupting me finally with a new syllable, “we don’t even have the records for that in this building. This building wasn’t here forty years ago.”
    “But surely those—”
    “ ’Scuse me,” a voice behind me said. “Is this something the squad can help you with?”
    I turned to see a kind of nice-looking guy about my age in a sport jacket.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Whyn’t you give it a shot, Sarge?” Officer Korb said, relief all over his tired face.
    “Hi, I’m Sergeant Brooks.” He stuck out his free right hand and we shook. “Come on upstairs.”
    We went up to a room filled with desks, mostly men and a couple of women working at them. There was an empty one at the far end, and Sergeant Brooks hung his things up, took off his jacket, and made himself comfortable at the desk, while telling me to do the same.
    “Officer Korb’s a little overworked,” he said with a grin that let me know Officer Korb had never been overworked in his life.
    “I could see that.”
    “What seems to be your problem?”
    Here we go again, I thought, psyching myself up for another try. “Believe it or not, I’m looking into a murder that happened in this precinct forty years ago, and I’d like to see whatever records the police department has on it. I can give you names and dates and—”
    I had hoped to say enough that he would be unable to turnme down flatly, but he stopped me. “Whoa, hold on.
When
did this happen?”
    “April 7, 1950. The victim’s name was Alberta Talley.”
    “Alberta Tally.” He wrote on a piece of folded paper.
    “E-Y,”
I corrected him, reading his writing upside down.
    “Oh, sorry.” He scratched it out and wrote it over. “Can I ask why you’re interested in something that happened forty years ago? Did it involve a relative of yours?”
    “No. It was a murder without a conviction, but two people have spent forty years in a prison atmosphere because it was thought that they did it. I don’t know whether they did or not, but I need to find out. Something very important depends on it.”
    “Okay, tell me about it.”
    “Now?”
    “Sure. Talk. They pay me to listen.”
    I said, “Thank you. Today you’ll earn it.”
    —
    He was a good listener, and I