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“She quit drugs and now she’s an organist for a church.”

“A church? Really? I guess you can never tell. How’s she doin’?”

“Better, now she knows you’re alive.”

The chanteuse’s face hardened a little.

“She set me up.”

“And has spent the rest of her life regretting it.”

“I don’t see how that matters. She still almost killed me.”

For some reason I knew that her anger would be the key I needed.

“Tell me what you’re not tellin’ me about Melton,” I insisted.

“Because you think I have a secret like Minnie does?”

“Yes.”

Another long pause in the winding path of that investigation.

“Okay,” she said at last.

I slept that night in one of the stone cells and in the morning I made my way to uptown Manhattan, on the East Side.

At the desk sergeant’s post sat a woman of some color, in full uniform and definitely feeling in charge.

“May I help you?” the fortyish woman asked when I walked up to the desk.

“Lookin’ for Gladstone Palmer.”

“And you are?”

“Joe Oliver.”

“May I see some identification?”

“If I didn’t have ID would I be unable to see your dispatch sergeant?” I asked while already handing over my driver’s license.

Looking down at my information, her eyes furrowed.

Then she looked up and asked, “Do I know you?”

“Probably.”

Realizing that I wasn’t there to jaw, Sergeant Nancy Satterberg picked up the phone, pressed a button on her desk, and then said, “A Joe Oliver for you.”

She put the phone back in its cradle and said, “I remember now. You’re the guy they drummed out because you raped that woman.”

“I was exonerated.”

“You were still guilty.”

“I was not. And if you feel you can run me down like that in a public place, I urge you to talk to Sergeant Palmer about it. He knows the truth.”

Sneering uncertainly, she asked, “Do you know the way?”