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don’t have to search too hard for witnesses,” he said. “How many people we got in the field, Jim?”
    Dunphy closed his eyes for a moment. This was his case—his and Miranda’s—and they were working with Homicide. It was his first homicide in many years. When he was transferred from downtown Brooklyn to Forest Hills, his job had changed drastically. He had to get back into gear.
    “We got eight squad members—nine, what’s-his-name is back from vacation; he’s fielding the phones. And Homicide has a crew. And we’ve got about six uniforms doing interviews.”
    “This guy had a regular audience,” O’Connor said. Dunphy shook his head in disgust. Torres did not react in any way. “Their statements are pretty consistent, too. Just slight differences depending on the perspective. Jeez, this one takes the all-time cake, doesn’t it? The mother.”
    They let it sit there for a moment. There was genuine hostility coming from Dunphy. He still wasn’t sure how the hell Torres had gotten to the mother before anyone else had. Along with Mike Stein. What the hell was that connection, anyway?
    There wasn’t too much to say about a mother whose daughter was being murdered right outside her window. She hadn’t denied knowledge of the fact: just of the identity of the victim.
    And no one had called 911. No one had done anything at all. They had just watched.
    O’Connor flipped through the report, ran his finger quickly, then held it under the words he had been seeking.
    “What’s this about ‘I thought it was the Spanish girl’?” he asked Torres, as though she would understand and have an explanation.
    “According to several other witnesses, besides the mother, there was an assumption that the victim was a young Hispanic woman who lives on the top floor of the corner building.”
    “So then we have a possible mistaken identity,” O’Connor said. That was a starting point. “You checking her out?”
    Dunphy answered. “I’ve got a meet with the manager of the building. In about an hour. Torres and I—Miranda and I are splitting up interviews. Doubling back. You know, clarity with the light of day.”
    “Yeah, well, here’s a little fog on your clarity.” O’Connor searched through the collection of papers on his desk, then pulled out a telephone message slip. He glanced at it, then leaned forward. “Detective Torres, do you know Mike Stein?”
    “I’ve read his work. I didn’t know who he was last night. He acted like brass, and so I...” She stopped, shrugged.
    “Acted like brass. Yeah, he’s got some brass, all right,” O’Connor said. “You don’t know him, then?”
    Dunphy turned toward his partner. There was an accusation in the captain’s question. He had worked with Torres long enough to catch the stiffening of her spine, the movement along her jaw as she clenched her teeth.
    “Is there some question you want to ask me, Captain? Some specific question?”
    There was a sharp tense silence in the room as the men exchanged glances. There was a mixture of anger, tempered by respect. This girl didn’t pull her punches, and she either didn’t have the slightest trace of common sense or felt so protected that she didn’t bother with games.
    “I just asked you a specific question, Detective Torres.”
    Dunphy was an interested observer. Despite twenty years of friendship, he never crossed the official lines of O’Connor’s authority. It was one of the unwritten rules: the boss was, after all, the boss.
    It wasn’t really that Torres was challenging the captain, although it seemed that way. It was more a let’s cut the crap and ask me what you want to ask me. Which took guts, no matter who was in her corner.
    “I never met Mr. Stein before last night, Captain. When I went with him to Mrs. Hynes’s apartment, I had assumed he was a superior officer. He didn’t actually say that, but he... acted in a certain way. I did not know he was a journalist until later on. When my partner