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properly over his shoe. It didn’t work. In his baggy navy trousers, he looked like a Weight Watchers lecturer modeling his old clothes to display his eighty-pound loss.
    “Sam, take a long, hard look at Norman’s rap sheet. Do you see anything resembling violent behavior?” His only answer was an I-am-being-incredibly-patient inhalation followed by an exhalation between pursed lips. That pissed me off, which I guess was the point. “Norman Torkelson did
not
kill Bobette Frisch,” I told him. “Guys like Norman hate women too much to kill them. They don’t want the pain they cause to come to an end.”
    He was not moved by this dandy insight. But then, there was nothing I could say anymore that would move Sam Franklin. The thing of it was, years before, when I first came to the Nassau County D.A.’s from the Manhattan D.A.’s, we’d been buddies. He had recently joined the force after getting a master’s degree in sociology from Adelphi. He’d been handsome back then, with the pulled-tight skin and prominent cheekbones of those Calvin Klein underwear models. He looked absolutely stunning in his blue patrolman’s uniform. Sam had been the arresting officer on a robbery case assigned to me. What a cutie-pie! was my first thought. But my second was: He’s smart. I was impressed—wowed, actually—by his written report. It was so thorough, so cogent, so downright lively (and actually grammatical), I could hardly believe a cop wrote it. Anyway, we hit it off. We both loathed the D.A., loved jazz, enjoyed each other’s humor, and respected eachother’s political convictions—the last not exactly a challenge, as we were both a step and a half to the left of Democratic center.
    Also, we discovered we were united in a secret conviction that although we’d both been born and bred on Long Island, we were too big for this burg. Over biweekly melted cheese sandwiches at Bob and Cathie’s Coffee Shop, we could tell each other what we couldn’t say to our colleagues: I coulda been a contender.
    SAM: I coulda been a contender; a social worker evaluating grant applications for the Ford Foundation, but after our fourth kid, my wife was diagnosed manic-depressive and I needed bigger bucks and a better medical plan.
    ME: I coulda been a contender, one of the top litigators in New York. NBC and CNN camera crews would have dropped by my office to hear my analysis every time a celebrity got arrested on a criminal charge. Except my husband let me know, without ever saying a word, that he wanted out of Manhattan—and that our marriage depended on my following him to the suburbs.
    Two big fish in a small pond: That’s how we saw ourselves. Although to be honest, none of the other fish swimming alongside us ever suggested they felt that Sam Franklin and I were in any way exceptional. Still, we offered each other validation: Hey, you could have been great. You have it in you. However, since both of us were busy puffing ourselves up in the other’s company to show how smart we were, how uncomplaining about the hand we’d been dealt, any admission of vulnerability was unthinkable. Thus genuine closeness was impossible. But we put away a lot of melted cheese and white bread together. We probably had crushes on each other. It was a blow when I left the D.A.’s to go into private practice and our friendship died. Abruptly.
    I’d noticed small changes in Sam, but his good company and better cheekbones had kept me from seeing the truth: Five years on the force had turned him from that rarity—a do-gooder with a tough mind—into a right-wing lunkhead. To him, I was suddenly disgraceful. No, wicked. I had gone over to the other side. He stopped saying “Hi!” and took to giving me a fast, hard nod that said:
criminal
lawyer. He insinuated that the only reason individuals accused of a crime were permitted legal representation was undue pressure from the Pinko-Fruitcake Lobby. One day, I ran into Sam right before lunch. When I