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a week or if I have a problem.”
    I asked a dozen more questions while my coffee grew cold, but the answers were generally the same and all unhelpful. Whatever else he had done, Danny Garcia had shielded his wife from his work. He could’ve been an astronaut for all she knew. I don’t know if it was part of the Latin culture, or just an iron-clad policy Danny had made for his own family, but there seemed to have been no questioning the issue. No friends on the force, no favorite cop bars, no other cops’ wives to share the burden and the anxiety with. No diaries, no shaky midnight pillow talk, no marital blowups about the life of the law enforcement family, like the one that had ended my own marriage. There was Danny Garcia, undercover narc, and Danny Garcia, devoted husband and father, and never the twain did meet.
    I thanked her and put my mug down on an end table. “Would you mind if I came back and talked to Paul?”
    She shrugged and seemed more likely than ever to go to sleep on me. I had the impression she would probably crawl back onto the couch after I left. Some of the memories had been kind to her—she had smiled once or twice—but overall, the grief had robbed her of essence. I hated to call it the will to live, but that’s what it felt like. I jotted my number on the back of an old MPDC card, handed it to her, then stood. She walked me to the door, where I shook her hand.
    I said, “I know this is very hard. There might not be anything harder in the world. I’ve been through this before. If you need anything, please call.”
    She nodded, but said nothing, and quietly closed the door.

 
     
    Chapter Five
     
     
     
    I was at Restaurant Nora on Florida Avenue, trapped in a tipsy debate between Amanda on one side and Jay on the other with their friend Zenny chiming in whenever she felt like it. The topic, not unexpectedly, was the state of career options for post-graduates in Gender Studies. I had less to contribute to the discussion than if I’d been asked to describe the inner workings of the digestive organs of a Maryland Blue Crab. Then again, that’s what was on my plate with a side of wild mushroom risotto, so I could probably have gotten somewhere on that question by poking around with my fork. I felt a small twinge of guilt that I wasn’t out there, chasing down more leads for Bloch, but I’d done what I could to this point and I told myself I had to eat sometime.
    “But what I’m saying is, there are real needs right now in community centers and shelters and counseling practices,” Amanda said. “It’s fine to talk about higher academics and pushing the borders of the field, but there are practical applications to what we’ve studied. You can’t say that about all liberal arts.”
    “None of them, actually,” Zenny quipped. She was a tall, slim brunette model masquerading as a graduate student. She slung back half her glass of Riesling.
    “Sure, but that’s stuff that can be handled by people with a certificate from a community college,” Jay said. “You just walked out with a master’s degree from one of the most prestigious non-Ivies in the country. You could do more with it, is all.”
    “Don’t qualify GW like that just because you went to Princeton for undergrad,” Amanda said, picking up her fork and jabbing it at Jay with each word. He flinched as though she might stab him. “And don’t belittle my degree just because you’re in for the whole ball of wax and are scared you won’t get tenure somewhere.”
    “I’m not belittling your degree,” he said, a little desperately. “I’m lauding it.” His turned to me for support.
    “Speaking of lauding, how’s everyone’s moderately expensive dinner?” I asked.
    Since I was talking to three graduate students who had subsisted primarily on boxed macaroni-and-cheese for several years and since we were at one of the best restaurants in DC and—most importantly—because I was paying, my question deftly steered the