Plot summary

Inspector Ferris and his team with the San Francisco Police Department are looking for Frank Johnson, who, out walking his dog Rembrandt late one evening, reported witnessing a murder from a distance, the murderer having taken a couple of shots at him in the process and may have believed he killed him as well. When Ferris told him the victim is Joe Gordon who was set to testify against gangster Smiley Freeman, Frank, an artist who works as a window dresser at Hart and Winston to pay the bills, and thus with a keen sense of the visual who could identify the murderer, ended up giving them the slip in not wanting to be involved under the circumstances. Ferris knows that Frank would have been safer under their protection than out wandering the streets. Upon learning the circumstances, also looking for Frank in feeling it her positional obligation is his wife, Eleanor Johnson, despite their four year marriage being an emotionally cold one, with their only remaining connection being Rembrandt. Under the constant watch of Ferris and his team in believing she will lead them to Frank, Eleanor, like Frank, is often able to give them the slip. The one person she can't seem to evade is Legget, a reporter with The Graphic tabloid, he who she ends up making a deal with for an exclusive in believing he may be able to help more than hurt. As Eleanor and Legget follow various leads all the while still trying to evade the police, Eleanor discovers much about her husband that she didn't know that may affect their status as Mr. and Mrs. if they are able to come out the other end of this situation alive, which she doesn't know is becoming more tenuous as the murderer is closer than they realize.—Huggo