Alison Crosby is a passenger on the number seven train on the elevated IRT subway line. As she stares vacantly out the window she spots a tall, muscular man holding a knife to a slim, dark-haired woman. The man lunges at the woman as the train goes into a bend. "Did you see that?" Alison asked the other passengers. But they deny seeing the man and the woman. Alison got off at the next stop and called the police. "I just saw someone get murdered!" she told the 911 operator. But when officers from the local precinct arrived Alison wasn't able to tell them where the murder took place, only that it happened in a third floor window in one of the many apartment buildings along Roosevelt Avenue. Later when precinct detectives try to blow her off she calls her uncle, retired NYPD Detective Tom Newberry who runs a private detective agency with his former NYPD partner Barry Noonan.