The Broken Window

there.”
    Whitcomb laughed. “Father Albright.”
    “Ooooo, yeah, he’s the one.”
    “My brother—he’s a cop in Philly—he decided that all you had to do if you wanted a murderer to confess is to put him in a room with Father Albright. Five minutes and he’ll confess to anything.”
    “Your brother’s a cop?” Pulaski asked, laughing.
    “Narcotics task force.”
    “Detective?”
    “Yeah.”
    Pulaski said, “My brother’s in Patrol, Sixth Precinct, down in the Village.”
    “That’s too funny. Both our brothers . . . So you went in together?”
    “Yeah, we’ve kind of done everything together. We’re twins.”
    “Interesting. My brother’s three years older. He’s a lot bigger than I am. I might be able to pass the physical but I wouldn’t want to have to tackle a mugger.”
    “We don’t do much tackling. It’s mostly reasoning with the bad guys. Probably what you do in the Compliance Department.”
    Whitcomb laughed. “Yeah, pretty much.”
    “I guess that—”
    “Hey, look who it is! Sergeant Friday.”
    Pulaski’s gut thudded as he looked up to see slick, handsome Sean Cassel and his sidekick, the too-hip technical director, Wayne Gillespie, who joined the act by saying, “Back to get more facts, ma’am? Just the facts.” He gave a salute.
    Since he’d been talking to Whitcomb about church, the moment took Pulaski right back to the Catholic high school where he and his brother had been continually at war with the boys from Forest Hills. Richer, better clothes, smarter. And fast with the cruel snipes. (“Hey, it’s the mutant brothers!”) A nightmare. Pulaski sometimes wondered if he’d gone into police work simply for the respect a uniform and gun would bring him.
    Whitcomb’s lips tightened.
    “Hey, Mark,” Gillespie said.
    “How’s it going, Sergeant?” Cassel asked the officer.
    Pulaski had been glared at on the street, been sworn at, dodged spit and bricks, and sometimes hadn’t dodged so well. None of those incidents had upset him as much as the sly words slung around like this. Smiling and playful. But playful the way a shark teases its meal before he devours it. Pulaski had looked up “Sergeant Friday” on Google on his BlackBerry and learned this was a character from an old TV show called Dragnet . Even though Friday was the hero, he was considered a “square,” which apparently meant a straight arrow, somebody extremely uncool.
    Pulaski’s ears had burned as he read the information on the tiny screen, realizing only then that Cassel had been insulting him.
    “Here you go.” Cassel handed Pulaski a CD in a jewel box. “Hope it helps, Sarge.”
    “What’s this?”
    “The list of clients who’ve downloaded information about your victims. You wanted it, remember?”
    “Oh. I was expecting Mr. Sterling.”
    “Well, Andrew’s a busy man. He asked me to deliver it.”
    “Well, thanks.”
    Gillespie said, “You’ve got your work cut out for you. Over three hundred clients in the area. And none of them got less than two hundred mailing lists.”
    “That’s what I was telling you,” Cassel said. “You’re gonna be burning the midnight oil. So do we get junior G-man badges?”
    Sergeant Friday was often mocked by the people he interviewed. . . .
    Pulaski was grinning, though he didn’t want to.
    “Come on, guys.”
    “Chill, Whitcomb,” Cassel said. “We’re joking around. Jesus. Don’t be so uptight.”
    “What’re you doing down here, Mark?” Gillespie asked. “Shouldn’t you be looking for more laws we’re breaking?”
    Whitcomb rolled his eyes and gave a sour grin, though Pulaski saw he too was embarrassed—and hurt.
    The officer said, “You mind if I look it over here? In case I have some questions?”
    “You go right ahead.” Cassel walked him to the computer in the corner and logged on. He put the CD in the tray, loaded it and stepped back, as Pulaski sat. The message on the screen asked what he wanted to do. Flustered, he found himself with a number of choices; he didn’t recognize any of them.
    Cassel stood over his shoulder. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
    “Sure. Just wondering what program’s best?”
    “You don’t have many options,” Cassel said, laughing, as if this were obvious. “Excel.”
    “X-L?” Pulaski asked. He knew his ears were red. Hated it. Just hated it.
    “The spreadsheet,” Whitcomb offered helpfully, though to Pulaski that was no help whatsoever.
    “You don’t know