"Certainly."

"Good. Well, I'm Ellen. I'm a freelance writer, doing this piece, as you know, for USA Lawyer's Digest. I'm very familiar with your work read all the pieces about you and your unit in the Times and all the women's magazines.

I've covered a variety of issues, but I concentrate mostly on law, lawyers, business that sort of thing. If it would help you to see the kind of stories I've done I can bring a few back tomorrow. I'm sure you've read some of them without knowing it's my byline."

"That's not necessary. I'm sure I have seen some of them."

It would have made more sense for me to have learned if she had an ax to grind or a point of view, but it was too late for that now and I supposed that the Public Relations Office had vetted her before granting the interview. I didn't have time this week to read puff pieces about corporate rainmakers and their golden parachutes or women at midtown law firms making six times my salary but whining about breaking the glass ceiling.

"I won't waste your time," she went on.

"If the details on your curriculum vitae are accurate and the articles Laura faxed me have correct background, we won't have to rehash that."

I smiled in approval. She was obviously a pro, and an intelligent one at that. It was always aggravating to sit for a profile when the questioner spent the first hour asking what schools I had attended, how long I had worked in Battaglia's office, and whether I liked my job.

"Is it all right with you if we start with some information about the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit?"

"I'd like that," I replied.

"Do you mind if I use a tape recorder? It's so much easier than taking notes."

"Not at all." I launched into a narrative about how the unit was set up in the mid-seventies, as our archaic laws based on medieval English concepts began to change and modernize. Although I had not even been to law school at the time it was founded, my name was now the one most closely associated with the work because Battaglia had given me the scope and support to undertake aggressive investigations into these previously unprovable crimes. A few innovative probes which led to convictions in high-profile cases, a gradually emerging view in the victim-advocate community that law enforcement response to these issues was improving, and the unit had become the darling of the criminal justice system. We now had more than twenty senior prosecutors handling the bizarre range of matters that came over the transom daily, and Battaglia had even spun off related models to hand lethe connected specialties of family violence and child abuse.

"It's not hard to get you talking about this work, is it, Alex? I assume that you've stayed in the office because you love what you do, not because you couldn't get a job in the private sector. I know you've had lots of offers."

"I know that most people think this is a very grim job, Ellen, but it really isn't. My work is on the side of the angels, if you will, with the good guys. The uniformed cops who respond to all calls, the Emergency Room workers, they're the ones that have a much harder job than we do. They see the victims in much greater distress, even closer to the time of the crime than an assistant district attorney. By the time we're in the picture, even if it's the next day, the process of recovering is underway. I spend my days with the victims I don't have to deal with the rapists much at all, and that's the way I like it. The emotional rewards of this work are enormous. Victims still don't expect it to work for them, and when it does with more and more frequency they're surprised and gratified. It can be very cathartic for them to confront their attackers in a courtroom, and to win. It's a great part of the recovery process."

Maybe Goldman was just humoring me it was too soon to tell but she seemed genuinely interested in our unit's work. We had talked about legislative reform and the history of the movement that led to the police and prosecutorial strategies of the seventies. By four-thirty I told her that I needed to stop for the day. I was tired of talking and wanted to see a couple of the lawyers who were on trial to help them prepare for tomorrow.

She turned off her tape machine and we both stood to stretch.

"What are you changing into for tonight?" she asked, and I immediately bristled at the crossover of the questioning into my personal life. How did she know I was going out tonight? I must have glared as I turned to look back at her, but Ellen was quick to spot my reaction and put me at ease.

"I mean, I see you have a garment bag hanging on your coat rack, so I just figured you were going somewhere festive after work."

Never snap at the interviewer, I reminded myself. I was too sensitive after the events of the last week, and it took me a second to realize that Ellen hadn't been spying on me she'd simply made a logical assumption from a glance around the room.

"Sorry, Ellen. Yeah, I'm going to a formal dinner tonight."

"I was just curious about what you've got in the bag for me, not for the article. I know you've been described as a clotheshorse in some of the other interviews."

I laughed at the description.

"I do love beautiful clothes." I had no problem discussing designer labels that anyone with a good eye could recognize by looking at me if it diverted Ellen from details of my social life that I really didn't want to see in print.

"If I remember correctly, Glamour said you favored Calvin Klein, Dana Buchman, and Escada for your business wardrobe."

She had done her homework.

"Not exactly the kind of things a girl can shop for on a public servant's salary, but then I've also read about your family background, too."

Time to turn the tables for a minute and see how she liked getting personal.

"Well, since you know so much about me, Ellen, when do you start to tell me a bit about yourself?"

"What is it you'd like to know? I'm a sabra, Alex.

Israeli-born, to an Israeli mother and an American father.

My father was West Point a missile expert. He met my mother when he was working on a United Nations project in the Middle East. I grew up like an Army brat, on bases around the world, but did my high school and college, as well as my military service, in Israel. But I've always been fascinated by the States, so I spend a lot of time here, even though my family is all abroad."

"That's an interesting background."

"People's lives always seem more interesting to those who didn't live them. It wasn't a very stable upbringing, Alex. The constant moves throughout my childhood, never staying in one place long enough to develop relationships that outlasted the posting. In and out of new schools, having to prove each time that you were capable of doing well.

And a father in the service. Let me tell you, no matter how brilliant I knew he was, it's not a profession that enjoys great respect in this country. I suppose some of that is why I spend so much time examining the lives of successful people, to see what makes them achievers and to see whether that brings happiness."

I had no glib response. I thought to myself that my only comment had been, "That's interesting." I didn't intend to unleash Ellen Goldman's inner torment, but now I knew more than I needed to know. Maybe it was just easier to go back to the benign inquiry she had made.

"Well, to answer your original question, Ellen, the dress in the bag is a very elegant navy blue Calvin Klein sheath.

It should do just fine at what I imagine will be a boring testimonial dinner to a boring gentleman I barely know."

"Someone in your business?"

"No, actually, the boss of a friend of mine. Anyway, if we're going to continue this interview tomorrow, why don't you just meet me across the street in Part 53, Judge Hadleigh's courtroom. I have a sentence there in the morning which you might want to see. Then we can come back here and go on with what you need, okay?"

"That's fine. Alex, before I leave, I wouldn't be a good journalist if I didn't ask about Isabella Lascar and her murder. Are there any leads yet, anything you can tell me about?"

I caught myself again. Goldman had resisted asking the question for more than two hours better than I would have guessed and I almost had her out the door.

"Nothing at all, Ellen. Keep in mind, I'm not working on the case."

And you must really think I'm an idiot, I thought to myself, if you think I would tell some stranger I just met about suspects in a murder investigation. Well, these are the professionals who hold a camera in front of a hysterical woman's face and ask how it felt to have watched a grizzly bear eat her three children while camping in Yosemite. It's a job.

Ellen left and I dialed Jed's number.

"Shall I have a car pick you up at the apartment?"

"No. I knew I couldn't get out early. I've got all my things here, so I'll shower and change and meet you at the Plaza."

"Well, please try and get there in time for some of the cocktail hour.

Andersen's anxious to see you, and we'll never get a chance to talk to him once we're all seated and the banquet begins."

Anderson Warmack was Jed' sboss and the dinner tonight was in his honor.

"This must be something new. He blew me off at the summer picnic didn't seem too anxious to meet anyone except the bartender and the twenty-year-old bimbo who was with his son that afternoon at the club."

"Sweetheart, he didn't know who you were then. Now he's heard all about you. He was a huge fan of Isabella's, and once he found out you were her friend and that we had actually taken her to dinner one night, he's got a million things to ask you."