Just after breakfast on Halloween, Judy Cassidy hears a knock at the door. One of her neighbors has noticed something peculiar in a house a few doors down and wants to find out if there's any "police activity." Cops and firefighters populate the whole Northeast. Judy's husband, an officer in the 35th District, is this street's resident protector.

She calls Chuck to see if he can find out what's happening. Maybe he knows someone working in their neighborhood today.

A few weeks earlier, she wouldn't have been able to reach him. For years, he refused to own a cell phone, insisting that he communicated just fine with police radios and land lines. He relented finally when she brought one home, telling him it came free when she renewed the contract for her own phone.

She'd lied, a small one. Looking back, she doesn't regret it. If not for the cell phone, they wouldn't have had that last conversation. And she would have had fewer of his precious words.

"Are you busy?" she asks. She knows he doesn't like to be bothered at work. She tells him about their neighbor, and they talk briefly.

"I'm getting ready to go to a plaque dedication," he says. It will be held at an elementary school in West Oak Lane, honoring two officers killed 30 years ago.

"Good," she thinks. "A plaque ceremony. He'll be safe."

The night before, an officer had been shot in the shoulder, and Chuck had joined the search for the suspect. When Judy told her younger sister, Sue, about the incident, Sue had said, "Well, at least he always wears his bulletproof vest."

"Yeah," Judy had said. "But God forbid if they go for his head."

Now Chuck says, "I've got to go."

"Just be careful," she tells him. "I'll see you later."

A man of respect

They'd started dating in the fall of 1969. Chuck played football, and she served on student council. While other boys grew their hair long and wore bell-bottoms, Chuck dressed for the revolution in a preppy trench coat, khakis, and penny loafers.

Even then, Judy recalls, "Chuck was all about respect."

In 25 years on the police force, he never fired his weapon, she says, except at the practice range. "He knew how to talk to people."

She and Chuck fell in love fast, but spent 12 years together before getting married. She had worked at a bank, then at NFL Films. Harry Kalas attended their wedding, July 4, 1983. The Cassidy children have been good kids - the girls, Colby and Kate, now in college, John with one more year of high school.

The family photos and videos show Chuck carrying them on his broad shoulders. Holding them up to put the star on top of the Christmas tree. Coaching soccer and softball and basketball. Standing beside them before their proms, in awe of their adolescent poise and beauty.

They've lived in the same house, a small single-family with a basement and patch of backyard, for 24 years.

"Chuck hated bills," Judy says. "He hated credit cards. He worked so much overtime, we hardly saw him. He wouldn't take vacation." She begged him to get some rest.

"I will," he told her. "As soon as we're finished with tuition."