“I’m sorry?” I said.

“Gray Diaz,” Stone said. “I know who he is. Don’t let him get to you.”

The correct response, if there was one, wouldn’t come to me.

“Detective Pribek… may I call you Sarah?” he asked, solicitous. “I just wanted to tell you that a lot of us are behind you,” he said.

“Behind me on what?” I said.

“What you did in Blue Earth,” he said.

“I didn’t do anything in Blue Earth,” I said. “Whatever you heard, you heard wrong.”

“Royce Stewart needed to take a dirt nap,” he said. His voice sounded extremely reasonable. “That a guy like Diaz would try to come up here and further his career on it, at your expense- Sarah, that’s reprehensible to a lot of us.”

“I don’t think you heard me,” I said. “I didn’t do anything in Blue Earth.”

“I know,” Stone said, his expression saying we both knew better. “Keep your head up.”

I stayed in the shower and the locker room as long as possible, and then left as quickly as I could. I’d had enough of running into co-workers for one night.

That wasn’t, though, how it worked out.

I drove to Surdyk’s, a liquor store in the East Hennepin district, where I aimlessly cruised the aisles until I decided on a marked-down Australian cabernet. It was when I was walking back through the parking lot that Christian Kilander stepped out between two parked cars and into my path.

“Detective Pribek,” he said, recovering smoothly from the surprise.

It occurred to me that I’d never seen him off duty before, not like this. He wore good suits to work, and tank shirts and shorts to the basketball courts, but tonight he was wearing slightly faded jeans and a cream-colored shirt.

“How have you been?” I said awkwardly.

“Pretty well, thanks,” he said. “And you?”

“Fine,” I said. “You know, I saw you the other day.”

“You did?” he said.

“With Gray Diaz.”

I didn’t know exactly why I was bringing it up. Perhaps it stung just a little, imagining Kilander to be friendly with this man who’d come to the Cities to nail me for something I didn’t do.

“I know him,” Kilander acknowledged.

“He’s a friend of yours?” I asked.

Kilander held up a palm. “I don’t think I want to be in this conversation.” He started moving away from the gleaming black hindquarter of his BMW and toward the store.

“What?” I said blankly. “Chris.”

He turned, or half turned, to face me.

“You can’t seriously think I was working up to asking for inside information. Do you?” I demanded.

He said nothing.

“For God’s sake, I didn’t seek you out last winter. It was you who came to me, to tell me I was a suspect.”

“Yes, I did.” Kilander’s eyes, so often amused and ironic, were serious. “And I expected you to deny being the person responsible for Stewart’s death. You never did.” He turned away.

“I didn’t think I had to,” I said, to his retreating form.

Back in my car, I sat for a moment, looking out at the post-sunset sky. I’d been trying to ask Kilander how he knew Diaz, that was all. I wouldn’t have asked for inside information. Would I?

I realized that I couldn’t say for sure. I was more afraid of Gray Diaz than I had been letting on, even to myself.

How could Kilander think I was guilty of Royce Stewart’s murder? Jason Stone was one thing, but Kilander’s words had hurt.

Go home, Sarah. Have a glass of wine, go to sleep early.

Instead I rummaged in my bag for my cell phone, dialed 411.

“What listing, please?”

“ Cicero Ruiz.”

Get real. He’s a reclusive guy deeply involved in a highly illegal activity. He’s not going to have a listed phone number.

“I have a C. Ruiz,” the operator said.

Unlikely. “Go ahead, give it to me,” I said.

I would call and stumble through a conversation with a stranger in my rusty Spanish. Lo siento. Sorry to bother you.

Cicero picked up on the third ring.

“It’s me,” I said.

“Sarah,” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m all right,” I said. “I’m not sick. My ear is fine.”

“That’s good,” he said.

“And I… I can’t sleep with you again,” I said. “Because of my husband.”

“You called to tell me that?” Cicero asked.

“No,” I said.

“What, then?”

“Can I come see you anyway?” I said.

Through the open window I could see Venus just starting to pierce the fading light of the sky.

“I can’t think why not,” Cicero said.

An hour later I was standing on the roof of Cicero ’s building, looking up at the light-bleached sky over Minneapolis; only a few constellations were distinguishable. The real astronomy lay twenty-six stories below: the industrial-tangerine grid of city streets, the ascension and declination of the world most of us knew.

Behind me, Cicero lay on his back on a blanket we’d brought up, arms crossed behind his head in the traditional stargazer’s position, wine in a chipped eight-ounce glass within arm’s reach. His wheelchair nowhere in sight, he looked very much able-bodied, like a hiker at rest.

He was a very discreet person, Cicero. After our brief exchange on the phone, he hadn’t asked me anything more about why I wouldn’t sleep with him again. Which was good, because I wasn’t sure I could explain it. I’d crossed a line, both in personal morals and professional ethics, and that couldn’t just be erased. But I think my desire to go back over to the right side of that line was rooted in my unease with how easily I’d crossed it in the first place. Sometimes I wondered if there were a hidden moral flaw inside me, one that had driven me into the line of work I did, where right and wrong were so clearly delineated.

But when I’d arrived, Cicero had merely looked over the Australian wine I’d brought and asked me how I was. I’d said I was fine, and he’d said he was fine, and then a small discomfort had descended on the conversation. Cicero broke the silence by asking me if I wanted to go up on the roof.

I’d thought it was a joke, but he’d explained how it was possible. We’d parked his wheelchair and set the brake at the foot of the emergency stairwell that led to the roof. When Cicero was seated on the lowest stair, I’d taken his lower legs just under the knee, and Cicero had raised his upper body off the stairs, weight on the heels of his hands. His method wasn’t, I saw, unlike the triceps exercise I sometimes did at the gym, lowering myself from a weight bench. But Cicero was ascending, going up the stairs literally on his arms. Supporting his legs and following, I was still assuming less than a third of his body weight. It couldn’t have been easy, and I understood then the importance of the hand weights I’d seen under his bed.

“That wasn’t pretty, and it was slow,” Cicero had said when we were up, “but it got the job done.”

I’d poured wine into the mismatched glasses I’d carried up in advance, along with the blanket.

“You know what the most difficult part was?” he asked.

“What?” I said.

“Letting a woman help me with it,” he said. “With the guys down the hall, it’s different.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Several times,” he said, accepting the wine. “I need fresh air every once in a while.”

Now, standing at the rooftop’s edge, cupping my wine in my hands, I thought about that. Wouldn’t it simply be easier for Cicero to get in the elevator and go downstairs and outside for air? “ Cicero,” I began, “I know what you said the other night, but are you agoraphobic? It’s no big deal to me if you are.”

He laughed. “No, I’m really not agoraphobic.”

“Then why don’t you ever go out?” As soon as I’d said them, I regretted the words. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me-”