William Diehl

Seven ways to die

1

Idaho-nez Perce reservation

The Boy was lost. But that was as it should be. It was part of the challenge. He stared out over the mountains and thought about what his father and the qiwn, the Old Man with Wisdom, had taught him.

His entire journey would rely on the lessons of qiwn; things he had been listening to, and learning from, since he was old enough to understand Nimiputimptki, the language of the Nez Perce. And the Old Man had been talking to him since he was in his mother’s arms, before the other elders had also passed on their knowledge, before his father returned from the service.

It was Old Man who had called him Hemene Ka-Wan, at a Name Giving Ceremony before he was old enough to walk. In American it meant Youngest Wolf and was the name of the first star in the handle of the Big Dipper which gave The Boy a mystical connection to the sky. And later, when one of the miyooxat, the religious leaders of the tribe, had seen four eagles circling over The Boy’s head, he had pronounced that Ka-Wan was blessed with Weyekin.

When he was six or seven, he asked Old Man what Weyekin meant.

Old Man just looked him in the eye. “Listen,” Old Man had said, pointing two fingers at his own eyes. “Always look at the creature who speaks to you.”

Once he was going to his grandma’s house with a rabbit he had killed for stew. It was dusk and he heard an owl in the trees and he stopped and listened and then saw the owl and looked at it in the eyes.

“Oo, oo, whoee,” it said and he mimicked it. He stood for several minutes repeating the sound of the owl and when he went inside he told his grandmother about the owl and the sound it made.

She cocked her head to one side and listened to him and then said, “It will rain soon. Tomorrow night.”

“All creatures talk to each other,” Old Man said. “The wolf howls one way and it means one thing, he howls another way and it means something else. So does the eagle and the coyote and all creatures.”

“Oh.”

“Just like people.”

Now he was in his thirteenth year. Now he would take the walk to manhood, a decision he alone had made. It was not a tradition practiced by young Nez Perce anymore so he had depended on Old Man to tell him how it worked; to describe the passage so he would do it properly.

He was dressed properly for the trek: Buckskin leggings and shirt made by his mother and grandma; his father’s gray hat which had a broad band and low, flat crown; new moccasins; and a blanket which his grandma had meticulously woven for him years before and which had served him well. His mother had braided his long, black hair into a tight ponytail.

He himself had made the bow and eight arrows with which he would hunt when he got hungry. His canteen had been his father’s in the army. His hunting knife was a birthday gift from Old Man when he was eight although his mother had felt he was too young for such a weapon.

But his father had over-ruled her and taught him how to skin an animal properly and how to throw the knife so it always stuck what he was aiming at and how to sharpen it.

“A dull knife’s about as good as a broken leg,” he told The Boy.

They were the good years before his father fell sick from the Orange Rain. His father followed the way of the Nimiipu and believed in the walabsat, the Seven Drum Religion, but he was also a Christian and went to the Catholic church with his mother. Sometimes it confused The Boy.

One night, after they had been in a sweat house, they were lying in the grass by a stream cooling down and The Boy was staring up at the stars.

Finally his father said, “You have a strong heart, Ka-Wan. You’re learning the way of our people. That was your choice and I’m very proud of you for taking the path.”

The Boy felt good about that.

When his father was too sick to do anything but huddle in his blanket on the back porch and stare into the mountains, The Boy would sit beside him dancing and singing songs he learned from the Seven Drummers, then saying a prayer that his father would get well.?

The plan was simple. The Boy and Old Man left on horseback at first light. The Boy could take only the essentials: Water, his blanket, weapons, some flint, and some medicines his grandma, who was a medicine woman, made from mother earth, from the black moss on trees and from herbs and roots which were to purify wounds or injuries if he got hurt. No food or maps. No matches. And he was blindfolded. Old Man led him up into the mountains and away from the trails.

As sunset approached they stopped near a stream and Old Man removed the blindfold. They cut the poles for a good luck wistitamo and they gathered rocks and built the fire. After the sweat house, they jumped into the stream for a few moments to wash off the sweat then wrapped themselves in their blankets. They removed the canvas and poles and Old Man cooked a meal over the fire. A stew, then some venison and finally berries, each chopped in half. They drank a lot of water.

Old Man sang a prayer for his safe passage and they went to sleep.

When he awoke, the sun was peeking over the mountain top and Old Man was gone. He had left one thing for good luck, an ‘ipetes, an eagle’s feather, which Old Man fastened to the back of the crown of his hat. He had also left the pot of uneaten stew, the rest of the venison and berries, the canvas sweat house tarp.

The Boy found a strong branch to use as a walking stick. Each morning when he woke up he would cut a notch in the handle to keep track of the days.?

He found a stick and drew a straight line through the shadow. Then he stood and looked straight down the shadow. Southwest, he thought. Then he heard a sharp screech and looked up and saw a bald eagle circling him. It was talking to him, telling him to follow the line. Then it flew off straight southwest.

“Thank you, brother eagle,” he said, gathering his meager belongings, wrapping them in his blanket, and following the eagle’s trail. He was halfway down a mountainside which still had some late spring snow capping it. He trotted through the thick woods and late in the day came to a snow stream tumbling down from the peaks. He drank the cold clear water and filled his canteen and then hopped across the stream and followed it down until he came to a boulder etched out of the mountainside. It would be a safe place to sleep, there above the stream which was widening as the snow melted.

The Boy gathered handfuls of thick pine branches and made a mattress on the flat rock. Then he bunched up a small pile of leaves a few yards away and, using his flint, struck fire into the leaves and made a small temple of sticks above the meager fire and blew softly on it until the sticks started to burn. By the time the sun slipped behind the mountains he had a good fire going. He finished off the last of the food Old Man had left him, wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down on the pine mattress.

Listen. The past will become the present and the future will unfold before your eyes. Sometimes when you are alone it is okay to think about what has gone before. In your life, I mean. To understand why the past has become the present. Sometimes it is okay to think about where the trail will lead you, and why you are following it at all.

He was hungry and needed sleep to restore his energy. His food was gone.

Tomorrow he would have to go hunting.?

He was awakened before dawn by an owl. He lay huddled in his blanket and listened as owl spoke to him from the dark. His eyesight was keen, so that people said he saw in the dark. He could see the owl as clearly as he could hear it.

“Oo oo whoee. Oo oo whoee.”

It was going to rain. During the coming night.

He would have to find a decent shelter. A cave, perhaps, to keep the weather at bay. He mapped the day in his head. He would kill a rabbit for food. Easier than a deer or elk unless, of course, a deer or elk presented itself. He would pick herbs, wild vegetables and roots to add taste to the rabbit. Then he would make a fire and skin the rabbit and spit it over the fire on a slant so the juices would collect in the pot Old Man had left him. Then he would add the herbs, cut some chunks from the rabbit, and put them in the pot. So then he would have three meals: The rabbit for breakfast and dinner, the stew for lunch, perhaps find some berries for dessert.

It was a good plan, he decided, and he continued to follow the stream down the mountain. His eyes moved constantly as he trotted through the woods. About mid-day he saw tracks leading away from the creek. He knelt, brushing leaves away from them. They were paw prints. Small. Two pressed hard into the ground, three hands farther there were two not so deep, three hands farther two more deep prints and then two not so deep. In his head he could see the animal hopping.

A rabbit.

This was a good sign. He followed the tracks, walking carefully. As his father once told him, “Always walk an inch off the ground so nothing will hear you.” He understood what that meant. Occasionally he notched a tree so he could find his way back to the stream. He had gone about a mile when he stopped, squatting down behind a tree. The tracks led to a hole burrowed beneath a fallen cottonwood ten yards away.

He slipped an arrow from the quiver, fitted the notch between the feathers and the bow string and waited.

Listen. Patience is the virtue of the hunter.

And so he waited while above him storm clouds were gathering. Owl was right. The Boy could smell rain in the air. And it was getting dark. But his stomach was growling.

Far off, there was a rumble of thunder. He watched the hole. Perhaps the rabbit had left his house. Perhaps he was wasting his time. Then he heard a sound and the rabbit peered over the edge of the hole. It looked around, stuck his head up a little farther.

Ka-Wan very slowly pulled the string back until the arrowhead was almost touching the bow. He sighted down the arrow, could see the rabbit’s head now clearly above the hole. He waited. A minute, two minutes passed. Then the rabbit rose up a little farther and he could see the white fur on its chest.

Now!

He moved his fingers half-an-inch off the bow string. The arrow whirred towards its target. The rabbit heard the sound, turned his head sharply, but he was too late. The arrow had found its mark and pierced the rabbit’s throat, pinning him to the ground at the edge of the hole.

Now he had to find shelter.

He made his way back to the stream and trotted down the mountainside. Ahead of him he could hear a waterfall and then through the trees he saw a band of treetops and the waterfall grew louder. He moved faster and finally came to the rim of a small cliff where the stream dropped into a pool before it continued down the mountain. He climbed down the small ravine.

The Boy was in luck. On the far side of the pool close to the waterfall he saw an opening under an overhang. It was small but large enough to crawl through so he took off his moccasins and hopped through the frigid water to the other side of the pool. He crawled to the cave and looked in, sniffing the stagnant air.

There was a feral odor inside but it was too dark to see anything. He sniffed the air again. Was it fur? A wolf perhaps, or a fox? Maybe an otter? Was he intruding on its domain?

He quickly gathered the makings and struck a fire close to the cave opening and beneath the overhang to protect it from the coming rain. He found a sturdy tree limb about three feet long, set the end afire, and crawled through the opening, following the torch light.

He lay there with his legs still outside, the torch held high, and studied the arched interior. It was four or five feet high, the sides and ceiling formed by sturdy rocks as it coursed back into the mountain and narrowed into darkness. The sandy floor was dry. It was perfect although the smell of the torch obliterated all other odors.

He decided to take a chance. He wedged his torch between some rocks, pulled his blanket and meager belongings inside and carried the pot and rabbit and the wild vegetables and berries he had gathered back outside.

He was unaware that he was being watched.

Inside the cave, a pair of narrow, black eyes followed The Boy’s every move, watched through the cave opening as he skinned the nice, plump rabbit and prepared his dinner, watched and waited as darkness fell and lightning streaked the sky and rain began to pelt the earth, watched and waited as The Boy finished his meal and extinguished his fire.

The eyes narrowed to mere slits in the flickering shadows as he returned.

The Boy crawled a little deeper into the cave, away from the acrid smell of the torch. He stretched his blanket out on the dry floor of the cave and made a bundle of the canvas tarp against the wall for a pillow.

As he settled down, pulling the blanket over him, a bolt of lightning startled him and cast a blue glow through the cave opening.

He did not see or hear the creature as it coiled on the sand, its head rising above a rock two feet away, its tongue licking the air, its eyes widening.

The Boy, his ears still ringing from the crack of lightning, was unaware of danger.

Unaware until he heard the dreadful, dry, terrifying rattle. By then it was too late.

His mouth dried up and his eyes bulged as the snake streaked out almost to its full length. Its fangs snapped like a trap, puncturing the blanket and The Boy’s leggings and piercing the inside of his left leg an inch above his ankle. It felt like he had been hit with a hammer.

He screamed, broke into a sweat, pulled his legs up against his chest, and watched terrified as the predator slithered out of the cave.

His fear was replaced almost immediately by action. He remembered the words of Old Man.

Do not panic or you will die. Be calm but do not hesitate. Move slow like the possum. But do not waver. Do what you must do before the sleep comes.

He moved resolutely but in slow motion, got his knife, cut two, short strips from the canvas tarp, pulled up his pants leg and saw the two scarlet fang marks, already beginning to swell. He leaned over, sliced an inch-long slit through the wound, pulled his leg up and bit hard over the cut and sucked the poison from it. He could taste the venom as he spat it out. He tied one strip of canvas an inch or two above the wound, tightened and knotted it, did the same below the swelling. He bit again, sucking the toxic blood into his mouth and spitting it out. He took a deep swig of water, swished it around in his mouth, spat it out. He got his grandma’s reddish ointment from his small bag of possessions and slowly smeared it into the wound. His teeth began to chatter. Pain overwhelmed him.

Then he lay back and pulled the blanket around him. He was beginning to shake and the pain began to numb his nerves so he began a Nimiipuutimpt chant to himself, slowing the chant, lowering it deep in his throat. He lay still as a sleeping cat and stared at the flickering shadows on the ceiling of the chamber and kept chanting to slow his heartbeat as the room began to tilt and spin and envelope him.

And he slipped eagerly into the void.?

Visions swept through the swirling mist of his fevered mind like the colored shards tumbling in a kaleidoscope, each fragment becoming fleeting instants from the past, nightmares he had forgotten or tried to forget colliding with moments of pure joy:

Picking huckleberries with his mother under a clear azure sky and waiting at the table while she mixed them with honey, his mouth wet with anticipation.

Ka-Wan seeing his father, Charley Wildpony, for the first time. How powerful and handsome he was in his Marine uniform, stepping off the bus as he returned from faraway battlefields, a mighty warrior with colored ribbons on his chest, each a testament to his bravery.

The stink of the hospital in Denver.

Being swept up and held high and hearing his father’s proud laughter and his deep voice full of pride crying out, “Look at you! Boy, how I’ve waited for this time, young fella.”

The three of them together hugging each other.

A shaft of blue sunlight.

Pa teaching him to catch salmon on the big river.

Watching him rounding up and breaking wild horses on the plains of Montana’s Big Open.

Pa vomiting in the bathroom while his Ma tried to comfort him.

Old Man talking wisdom as they climbed through a canyon in the Bitterroots, all the while pointing out the flowers, the purple buds of shooting stars and the deep scarlet flowers of fairy slippers mingling in the rocks, while a crescent yellow, green and red rainbow arced the sky above them.

Pa and Old Man talking history around a campfire with their friends from the Crow tribe while a coyote wailed in the distance and the wild horses snorted restlessly in the makeshift corral.

Another shaft of blue sunlight.

Pa, his voice sounding old and worn out, telling his tribesmen and their families of battles he had fought while the Orange Death rained down on him and his comrades, killing cactus and scorpions and eventually all living things.

Virgil Red Cloud, his father’s best friend and the leading wise man of the tribe, speaking Charley Wildpony’s eulogy: “Remember the words of our great Chief Joseph. The earth was created by the assistance of the sun and should be left as it is. We and the earth are of one mind. The land is not ours to destroy and do with as we choose. The one who has the right to dispose of it is the one who created it.”

Later, sweating in the wistitamo with his father beside him clutching his hand in his own wasted fist, listening to him fighting for one final breath.

Another shaft of blue sunlight. And darkness.?

The Boy awoke. He stared at the roof of the cave. He was soaked to the skin with sweat. He held his hand in front of his face and the swelling was gone. He touched his forehead and it was cool. No fever.

Then he felt something against his leg and he looked down and his heart jumped.

He was staring into the eyes of a white wolf. The animal was settled on his haunches beside Ka-Wan’s leg, his rough tongue slowly licking the ointment off the rattlesnake wound. The wolf had torn the tourniquets off his ankle and the bleeding had stopped.

Ka-Wan felt no fear. He looked straight into the wolf’s golden eyes and stared at him and the wolf stared back and kept licking.

“Are you a gift from The Creator, Brother Wolf?” he asked. The wolf kept licking.

The Boy’s mouth was parched. He reached for the canteen, took slow sips, swished the water around and spat it out, then took a deep drink.

How long had he been in the trance? He thought about the visions conjured by the rattlesnake. Were the blue flashes passages of time? Days? No. He was weak but not that weak.

Brother wolf finished his licking. He stood up, stretched his legs and shook himself. He loped across the cavern floor, sat near the opening, and looked back at Ka-Wan. Then he put his head back and howled, a single, sustained, note. A few seconds passed and, off in the distance, his song was answered with the same call.

Talking, Ka-Wan thought. What is Brother Wolf telling me? Was the weyekin working? The wolf hunched down and went outside.

Follow me, he thought. Brother Wolf is telling me to follow him.

He struggled to his knees, gathered up his meager belongings and his walking stick and crawled outside the cave.

Thankfully, a warm day. The sun was high in the sky. Noon or thereabouts. The leaves and trees were still dripping from the rain. Perhaps the snake bite was only a superficial wound. Perhaps his vision had only lasted twelve hours or so. But it had left him weak.

He rummaged through the blanket and tarp, checked the pot, and found some chunks of rabbit, berries and roots. Still fresh. He devoured them, felt some strength coming back in his legs.

The wolf stood a dozen yards away, looking back at him. It turned, walked a few steps and looked back. The Boy bundled his belongings in the blanket and draped it over his shoulder. Using his walking stick, he pulled himself to his feet. His legs were trembling from the effort so he waited a minute or two, leaning against the ravine wall, gathering all the strength he could muster before trying a step or two.

He walked to the pool, took off his shirt, and held his head and shoulders under the ice cold waterfall, kneading his fingers through his hair, letting the shower douse his face.

There, that helped.

Brother Wolf sat and watched, bemused. He looked up at the sun, then back at The Boy and growled. Not a threatening growl, but stern.

Follow me.

And The Boy did. He quickly dried off using the tarp and, leaning on the stick, limped along behind. They went down a slope, followed a ridge for awhile, turned south into the forest again. Brother Wolf stopped, howled the same lovely note. This time the answer was closer. Ka-Wan held his hat so the shadow from the sun fell across his face and looked up.

Southwest, he figured. The eagle was right. Brother Wolf was leading him out of the wilderness, waiting when he had to stop to give his legs a rest-but not for long — before moving on, forcing him to follow.

The Boy was growing weaker. Each step was harder than the one before it. Finally he sat down on a fallen tree, his breath coming hard. The wolf growled at him.

“I’m tired,” he snapped back. The wolf’s ears perked up for a moment, then he turned and kept walking.

“Well, darn,” Ka-Wan said. Then he remembered one of the many lessons Old Man had taught him.

Never give up hope. Hope is a test. When you think all is lost, an answer will come to you.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” he yelled to the wolf and struggled back on his feet.

Occasionally the animal would call again and be answered. Each time, the answer was closer.

Then they broke out of the trees and he saw the wolf’s brother, sitting on a cliff. They yowled and barked playfully at each other. Brother Wolf turned back to The Boy and then looked across the treetops and the youth felt his breath catch in his throat. He saw a landmark: Three mountain tops close together to the north; three mountains called the Three Sisters.

He shielded his eyes and peered intently to the south and saw a few wisps of smoke rising lazily out of the trees. He was two, maybe three miles from the reservation.

“Yeah!” He cried, raising the walking stick and shaking it at the sky. “Thank you, Brother Wolf!”

But when he turned back his white friend was gone. He thought he saw a white streak, a ghost running through the trees, but he wasn’t sure.

“I hope we meet again,” he yelled but his words echoed balefully back at him and he felt a moment of deep sadness. He knew in his heart he would never see Brother Wolf again but he also knew they were bound together in their hearts forever.

Soon he would be leaving this place which he loved and which held such bittersweet memories. Soon he would start another life in another place. But now he was a man. Ka-Wan had made his journey.

Now Micah Cody was ready to face whatever map the future sketched for him.

The wind shouldered him down the mountainside toward home.

2

Manhattan-2006

It had once been a church. Now demonically, it had been transformed into a soaring, Gothic danger zone sardonically called Satan’s Sanctuary. Its rood-shaped main hall had been gutted and converted into a sprawling dance floor jammed with more than two hundred rave converts, jumping, twisting, spinning, their fists raised high, pumping the air in rhythm with the thunderous repetition of the band whose drums and bass hammered a mesmerizing beat.

What had once been an altar was now a stage ringed with fire pots to keep the dancers at bay while the band, a bizarre, tattooed, shirtless, Mohawk-shorn group called The Frisian Freaks, played a wild dirge called “Welcome to Hell,” repeating the frantic theme endlessly, like an old 78 rpm record stuck in a single groove:

Boom bata boom, thump, thump…boom bata boom, thump, thump…while the voices of the revelers added to the chaos:

“Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah…”

Torches lined the enormous dance floor sporadically erupting into geysers of flame while strobe lights randomly etched the faces of the bizarre crowd, undulating, hunching, swiveling, jumping, rocking. Pupils fixed or dilated by ecstasy or meth of whatever drug enhanced the mood, the crazed crowd created an epidemic of eccentric frenzy beyond reason or self control. And the blazing strobes briefly revealed an extravagant phenomenon, an accoutre revolution.

They wore jeans, suspender slacks, mini-skirts, shorts, and combat fatigues; t-shirts, tank tops, sequined brassieres, and thong bikinis; the colors stark Gothic black, the color of the night, punctuated with splashes of yellow, pink, chartreuse, and Halloween orange.

Bobbing up and down in the throng were bald heads, crew cuts, corn rows, shoulder length ringlets with dyed strips of green, purple or scarlet; grotesque tattoos, weird masks, black lipstick and glitter-bathed cheeks.

And there were rings. Rings everywhere, piercing everything: nipples, noses, belly buttons, ear lobes, tongues, and regions hidden beyond the eye.

In this demonic atmosphere where madness was common and attitude was everything, one girl was different.

It was not her clothing, which was relatively normal, considering her surroundings: a black and white checkered tutu and ballet slippers. But her shoulder-length green hair was curled around a porcelain-delicate face with eyes as innocent as those of a puppy.

Melinda was indifferent to the advances of both men and women who were attracted to her dancing and her stunning figure.

She was tall, which added to the allure as she kicked up her long, sinewy legs like a showgirl and twirled on her toes through the crowd, a beautiful young woman absorbed by her own talent. She spun to the edge of the dance floor near the bar and stopped, distracted for a moment by a figure in the flash of a strobe. Not by the girl, naked from the waist up except for a combat helmet on her head, sitting on the shoulders of a man with a bat tattooed on one cheek and his teeth painted black. But beyond them, at a strikingly handsome man dressed in a tuxedo and a black Halloween mask.

A normal black tuxedo. He was leering at her beneath the mask and then he was gone.

She dabbed her face with a linen handkerchief and pop! She saw him again, staring through the ravers. Then again, when the torches flared, and she glanced back before the crowd engulfed him.

What game was he playing now? she wondered. What else in this temple of games?

She pirouetted back into the wilding throng, spinning through the madhouse, past a girl in a white thong and spiked thigh high boots with an aqua cobra tattooed around her belly button and the guy with black spiked hair wearing only a garish red jock strap. She was obsessed by the man who had glared at her, rising another inch on her toes so she could see over the crowd as she searched for a face in the momentary bursts of light and fire. But to no avail.

Finally, exhausted, she left the floor and walked on her toes to the bar. As she sat down, she noticed a matchbook pyramided beside her champagne glass. She picked it up and flipped the lid open. On the inside was written: “Ray 555 932 1685.”

She shivered. She looked around but there was no one else at the bar. A quick perusal of the mob on the dance floor once again proved futile.

The bartender strolled down from the other end of the bar and took her empty glass.

“How about another one?” he asked.

She held up the matchbook. “See who left this by my glass?”

“Sorry,” he answered. “You know how it is, they come, they go.”

She looked at her watch for the bartender’s benefit. It was after midnight. She shook her head.

“Time’s up, Arnie,” she said. “Cinderella has to work tomorrow.”

“What a shame,” he said, sliding the tab in front of her. She paid up and left a ten dollar tip.?

There was a cab at the curb when she left the club and she crawled in and leaned back with a sigh, giving the cabbie an address in the upper sixties on the West Side.

She was feeling a little giddy from the three champagne cocktails when she entered her apartment which was on the twelfth floor with a view of the Park. She had left the sliding glass doors open onto her small balcony and a warm breeze fluttered through the curtains. A table lamp formed a discreet pool of light on a desk near the balcony.

She went into the kitchenette, poured herself a glass of red wine, whipped off the green wig and tossed it over her shoulder, performing a little strip tease as she shagged to the shower. She had a dancer’s figure, lithe and graceful, molded by vigorous training and hard work.

She showered and strolled naked into the living room, a towel dragging the floor from one hand, sipping her wine with the other as she stood at the opening to the balcony, letting the breeze dry her off.

She took the matchbook from her purse and looked at the name and phone number, and closed her eyes, briefly thinking about the man in the tux. The son of a bitch, she thought with a smile.

So he changed his phone number. Wanted her to call him. Well, he could go screw himself.

The wind briefly wrapped the curtain around her before she brushed it away.

She went back to her desk and put the matchbook book down.

Then she noticed that her laptop was on. The screen was lowered but she could see the light from the screen between the cover and the keyboard. She thought she’d hibernated the machine when she’d finished the review.

She reached over and lifted the screen. There was a letter on the screen which began: “Dear Raymond…”

And the fear choked her.

Before she could react she felt a warm breath on the nape of her neck. A plastic bag whished as it snapped over her head.

The opening was twisted tight.

The bag became a deadly trap.

A strong arm pinned both her arms to her sides and lifted her off the floor. Her screams were muffled by the bag, her muscular legs flailing helplessly as she fought for a breath.

She was frantic, staring out across the Park through the gauzy container. Her attempts to breathe merely sucked the plastic into her mouth and popped it back again.

Just one breath, she thought.

But it was denied. The strong arm jerked hard on her abdomen, emptying her lungs.

The struggle lasted four minutes before she went limp.

Her killer was relentless, holding her in the vice, waiting until the lovely dancer certainly was dead.

The plastic bag was pulled off her head. Her chin fell to her chest. The killer moved the free hand and fondled her tight breast, moved down between her legs and then, in one swift move, lifted and shoved her lifeless body through the door.

She flipped over the balcony, plunged fifteen floors, and splattered on the sidewalk below.

While she was still falling, well-manicured fingers Melinda never saw finished typing the artfully ambivalent email that would be accepted as a suicide note.?

“Before I close this series,” said N.Y.P.D. Max Wolfsheim, who had narrated this unsolved case at his regular NYU Graduate Center class on Crime in the City, “I have been given his permission to recognize our auditor, who’s faithfully attended this forensics series. He’s the author of a dozen bestselling books on famous crimes.”

The crime writer, white-suited Ward Lee Hamilton, received a polite hand from the graduate students.

“What will your next book be?” a brave student asked him.

“I never discuss my next work,” Hamilton replied smugly. “Ernest Hemingway once said, ‘I’ve talked away more books over a cup of coffee than I’ve ever written.”

At this the class again applauded.

3

Manhattan- Friday, October 26, 2008

Waldo Madigan stared out the window of his diner just as the jogger and his dog, a big white German Shepherd, turned onto Walker Street. He looked up at the Seth Thomas clock on the wall and shook his head.

“There he is,” he said, half-aloud. “Right on time. Six twenty-five. Not six twenty-four, not six twenty-six. Six twenty-five on the dot. I think he waits on Church Street until it’s exactly six twenty-five before he comes around the corner. The man never wears a watch.”

“Mornin', Cap,” Waldo said to Cody as he unlocked the door and held it wide. The dog charged in first. “And same to you, Charley.” The big shepherd wagged his tail and sat, eagerly looking past him at the large stainless steel refrigerator.

“Thanks, getting cold out there,” the captain said. “How’s tricks, Waldo? Still talking to yourself?”

“I ain’t had no trick since I was seventy-five,” the big black man answered. “And most nobody else’ll talk to me.”

Waldo opened the stainless door to the fridge and took out three hot dogs which he laid in a row on the cutting table. He cut them in two and picked up one of the pieces.

“How about it?” Waldo asked. Charley looked at him with gold-flecked eyes, his tail dusting the floor, and rolled his lips back over his teeth in what might be considered a smile.

“Good boy,” said Waldo, tossing the piece which Charley caught in his mouth.

Cody ate his breakfast in silence, throwing Waldo a nod of approval, while Waldo tossed frankfurter slices to Charley.

Two burly-looking men entered the diner. They were dressed for hard work and one had a stevedore’s hook hanging over his shoulder. He looked at Charley through puffy, hangover eyes. “Dogs ain’t allowed in restaurants,” he said harshly.

“What’s the matter,” the captain answered pleasantly. “You don’t like dogs?”

“No. One bit me once when I was a kid. I still got the scar on my leg.”

“Dogs are like people. Some bite and some don’t.”

“He still don’t belong in here.”

“He’s a seeing eye dog,” Cody said with a trace of smile.

“Oh yeah? You don’t look blind to me,” the stevedore snapped back.

“It’s his day off. We always have breakfast together on his day off.” Cody paid the check and they left.

The stevedore watched them through the window and mumbled, “Dumb mutt.”

Waldo stared at the stevedore for a moment and closed the conversation. “He’s smarter than most people I know,” Waldo said. “He was one of the first rescue dogs at Ground Zero on 9/11.”?

By seven-five, his morning ritual over, the captain was back at his apartment, had showered, and was toweling off when his cell phone buzzed.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Cal. Looks like we got one.”

“Where?”

“East side. Seventy-third between 3 ^ rd and Lex. Rizzo should be out front as we speak.”

“You there?”

“Already started the drill.”

“On my way.”

He looked out the window just as the black Ford pulled in front.

Cody dressed quickly in dark gray slacks and a brown turtle neck, slipped on his shoulder holster, a black sports jacket; and pulled on a pair of black Bally boots, then reached for his hunting knife, checked its blade, and tucked it into the holster. His briefcase was sitting beside the door-an old-fashioned, weathered-leather satchel like doctors once carried when they made house calls. He grabbed it on the way out.

“Stay, Charley, I’ll be back later,” he said. The dog stared after him for a few moments then wandered into the corner of the living room, stretched out on a large fleece mat, and dozed off.

The captain moved quickly down the stairs to the door and raced to the car. Rizzo swung the door open and he jumped in.

“Morning, Frank,” he said, slamming the door behind him.

“And a good morning to you, Micah,” Rizzo answered.

He put the big car in gear and they took off.?

Rizzo was a big man, his craggy face a map of thirty years on the NYPD. He was over six-feet tall, muscular, with white hair and a handlebar mustache to match. He had a barbed wire sense of humor which masked a sentimental side that was unusual for a cop of his experience who had lost his wife to cancer a few years earlier. Years of routine dictated his appearance. Dark suit, starched button-down shirt, silk tie, shoes agleam. His alert blue eyes were always on the rove. He didn’t miss a thing. After ten years in homicide he was getting bored with the routine and was considering early retirement when Cody asked him to lunch one day. Over hamburgers and a beer at P. J. Clark’s, Cody proposed.

“I’d like you to be my number one in a new outfit we’re putting together, Sergeant,” Cody said.

“What do I do?” Sergeant Rizzo asked

“Teach me what you know and keep me out of trouble,” Cody answered with a casual smile.

Rizzo knew about Cody, admired his free-wheeling M.O. and his reputation as a tough, intuitive, wily detective with a unique approach to a crime scene and a legendary record for solving tough homicides. Cody was also known as an introspective cop who avoided headlines, preferring to let others take the glory. He was

in his thirties at the time he made captain, unheard of in the ranks of the PD.

“What’s this outfit called?” Rizzo asked.

“The Tactical Assistance Squad.”

Rizzo had no idea at the time what the TAZ, an acronym for which it would become known in the PD, was all about. He didn’t care either. He liked Micah Cody instantly.

“What the hell,” he said, “you’re on.”

Cody reached in his pocket, took out a gold badge and slid it across the table.

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” he said.

It was a marriage made in heaven. They had put together a hand-picked crew of mostly young men and women who fit their own peculiar, sometimes eccentric, way of approaching homicides. They were not disenchanted by long days, hard work, and sporadic disappointments. The mentoring of Cody and Rizzo fueled it. Respect for each other’s sometimes wildly divergent ideas and intuitions energized it. Challenge kept it focused.

The final member of the TAZ was a loner. A free lancer. The forensic pathologist named Max Wolfsheim whom Cody and Rizzo had lured from retirement with a promise that he could do things his own way, taking on cases that would add new glory to an already legendary resume. Wolfsheim had not been disappointed. He was also keenly aware that life in the TAZ had kept him from a slow descent into bootless old age. He was a garrulous, often impatient and worrisome genius.

“I just felt the earth tremble, Wolf must be on his way,” Rizzo had once told a young member of the crew. It was an aphorism well-earned.?

Rizzo was the best driver in the squad. He sped across town to Third Avenue and grabbed a left, alternately pumping brake and gas pedal, weaving through the early morning traffic like an old-timer qualifying at the Brickyard. He filled in Cody on the run, never taking his eyes off the street.

“Cal fields a 911 to NYPD at six-fifty-eight. A housekeeper on her cell phone. She’s pretty hysterical. Says somebody killed the man she works for and gives the address. Cal calls central and tells them he’s on it, then he calls the Loft and Hue answers and passes the call to me. Cal gets to the address and luckily finds a place to park. It’s a brownstone, second floor. He’s there now, calming the woman down. Left the front unlocked. Says nobody is wise yet and the scene is clean.”

“That’s a break. Can we keep it that way?”

“I called Stinelli and told him we had what appears to be a homicide, that Bergman is at the scene, and we’re on the way. He’s cool with that.”

“That’s Rick McKeown’s turf.”

“Yeah.”

“Stinelli will deal with Rick if it’s something we should handle. Rick loves it when we do his work for him.”

“Yup,” Rizzo said, turning onto East 73 ^ rd Street. “On the left, two doors off Lex.”

It was a tree-lined street of brownstones, empty except for a man in a hooded jacket walking his dog.

“Nice and quiet, so far.”

“Seven-thirty,” was all Rizzo said.

He stopped and Cody grabbed his satchel and got out while Rizzo stayed on the move, circling the block and waiting for instructions. Cody entered the narrow, three-story brownstone squeezed between two taller buildings.

It had a cramped hallway, like most brownstones, but pale green Berber carpeting and pastel yellow walls brightened the gloomy atmosphere often found in these older buildings. Stairs on the left. Apartments on both sides of the hall. A private elevator at end of the hall. So quiet you could hear a mouse snore except for the muffled sobs coming from above.

Cody followed the sound to the second floor and faced a small, pleasant sitting room at the end of the hallway. Cal Bergman was waiting for him, comforting a woman seated on a couch nestled between two ficus trees under a bank of soft grow lights. The hallway was dark except for a faux Tiffany lamp on an end table beside the sofa.

The woman looked terrified, close to shock, and was clutching a bottle of spring water in one hand while Bergman held her other hand. She looked up wide-eyed and gasped as Cody reached the top of the stairs.

Bergman quickly reassured her.

“Mrs. Kearney, this is Captain of Detectives Cody,” he said. Cal Bergman was six feet tall, making him two inches taller than Cody, a lean blonde in his early thirties wearing a dark blue suit.

“Mrs. Kearney,” Cody said in a soft pleasant voice as he walked over to them. “Inspector Bergman has filled me in a bit. I understood you’ve had a terrible experience here this morning.”

Her eyes welled with tears and she began to shake. Cody squatted down in front of her, staring straight into her eyes. She was about fifty, a bit on the heavy side, dressed in slacks, a sweater and Nike sneakers. Her brown eyes were tear-streaked, her hair close cropped and turning gray. Her strong face had seen better days.

“It’s gonna be alright,” Cody said. “Take a deep breath and swallow, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. I know Cal, here, has talked to you but I’d like you to answer a few questions for me.”

She nodded.

“What’s your first name?”

“Wilma,” she stammered.

“Okay if I call you Wilma?”

She tried a smile. “Oh, yes,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Are you married, Wilma?

“I’m a widow. My husband worked for the Transit. He had a heart attack five years ago.”

“And what’s your employer’s name?”

She sucked in her breath. Veins stood out on her forehead. Her throat bobbed with sorrow.

“Take a drink of water, it’ll help.”

She took a sip and then the dam broke: “Raymond Handley. He’s such a nice young man, a stock broker, a very successful stock broker with Marx, Stembler and, uh…”

“Trexler?” Bergman offered.

“Thank you. Mister Handley is a vice president and he’s only, like, thirty-nine. He’s engaged to Linda Stembler, Mister Stembler’s daughter.” Her voice cracked, and she had to take another sip of water. “She goes to college in Boston. She comes down on weekends sometimes and sometimes he visits her up there. He’s very kind, pays well, and he’s very neat.” The tears started again. “A very neat young man. He works very hard.”

“I’m sure he does,” Cody said, keeping her as calm as possible. “How long have you worked for him?”

“Three years-ever since he moved in. I answered an ad in the Times. I work three days a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday and sometimes he’ll call and ask me to come in extra and dust off the apartment.”

“Dust off the apartment?”

“Like last night. He was out of town and he called and asked if I would come in and straighten up a bit and vacuum. I guess he was having guests. So that’s what I did. I come over before my three o’clock and picked up the bathroom, dusted, and vacuumed the floor. I was here about an hour. Got home about five. I have an apartment on Avenue B.”

“And then you came in again this morning?”

Bergman was taking notes in shorthand as she rambled on.

“It’s my regular day and it’s pay day. I usually come in about seven. He works out early, then gets a massage. I fix breakfast for him and he reads The Wall Street Journal while he eats. Sometimes makes phone calls. Leaves for work about eight. He likes to get in early. Gets a leg up, as he says.”

“Uh huh. Now, Wilma, I’d like you to describe the apartment for me. How is the place laid out?”

“Well, when you go in there’s a big living room on the right. Goes all the way to the front of the building. Then the bedroom is beside the living room also facing 73 ^ rd Street. Then there’s his bathroom. A large bathroom. And beside it is a little half bath for guests. Then there’s the kitchen.”

“Does the back door lead off the kitchen?

“Yes. There are fire stairs to the ground floor.”

“Okay. What else?”

“And…and…” she began.

“Take it easy, Wilma, you’re doing just fine.”

“On the left when you go in, there’s a closet. And…and…then the entranceway to the library.”

“How many feet would you say it is into the library?”

“Six maybe. The closet is about that deep. It’s where I keep the vacuum cleaner.”

“Then walking straight ahead what’s next?”

“Another door to the library before you get to the kitchen.

“So there are two doors into the library?”

She nodded. Bergman was making a rough sketch of the interior as she described it.

“You have your own keys?” Cody asked.

She nodded. “Front door and the apartment.”

“So what happened this morning?”

She was shaking now and Cody took her hands in his.

“Just tell me exactly what happened.”

Her voice raised an octave. “I went in. And turned on the lights and…and I looked in the library and, Sweet Jesus! It was awful.” She shook her head back and forth. “Awful, awful, awful. I can’t get it out of my head. I was so afraid. I was scared to death.”

“Just tell me what you saw.”

Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I…can’t t-t-talk about it. It’s s-s-sickening…I said, ‘Mister Handley?’ But I knew he was dead. I just knew he was dead. I’ve never smelled anything like that before. And I was so afraid that maybe whoever did it…” her voice began to rise, “was there in the apartment! And I just ran out.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. She started crying again. “It’s okay, Wilma.” He reached over and took her in his arms and her voice choked off.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I just ran out. Ran out and locked the door behind me and dialed 911 on my cell phone and…and I just stared at that door and next thing I knew this nice young man ran up the stairs.”

Cody looked at Bergman.

“You didn’t go in, right?” he asked Bergman.

Cal shook his head. “Followed procedure.”

“Good. How about his parents, Wilma?”

“His father was killed in an accident when he was six years old. His mother died in California years ago. I think he had a sister.”

“You wouldn’t have her number?”

She shook her head. “It’s probably in his book. He has this book with everything in it. Addresses, appointments, you know?”

“That’s very good, Wilma. Now we’re going to take you home, okay?”

“I can go home, then?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“Cal, take Mrs. Kearney downstairs. Frank’ll be waiting.”

“Right.”

“I’m so sorry,” Wilma said and began to sob again.

“I know,” Cody reassured her. “It’s not your fault, Wilma. Lieutenant Frank Rizzo is waiting downstairs. He’ll drive you.”

“Thank you. I’m so sorry.”

Bergman took Wilma Kearney by the arm and helped her down the stairs.

Cody punched in Rizzo’s secured cell number.

“Hey,” he answered.

“Where are you?”

“Half a block away.”

“We got a beaut. The housekeeper’s really spooked. Cal’s bringing her down. Run her home. Turn on the charm. Let her talk and run the recorder. She didn’t tell us much. She was about to go operatic on me and I don’t want to wake up the whole neighborhood. All we know is she thinks her boss is inside the apartment dead and I’m inclined to take her word for it.”

“Suicide?”

“We’ll soon know. Cal and I will make the entry. I wanted to get her out of here before we go in.”

“Gotcha.”

“Stay with her, Frank. I don’t know what’s in there, but right now she’s the only witness we got. Might be a good idea to give her a sedative.”

“Right. She married?”

“Widow.”

“Where’s she live?”

“Avenue B.”

“Here they are,” Rizzo said.

“Have fun.”

“Oh, sure. You know me, I love to baby sit hysterical widows.”

Cody snapped the cell phone shut, looked over his shoulder and took a momentary sideways glance at apartment three, which was directly across the hall from Handley’s, and reached for his satchel.

He knelt down and snapped open the bag. Arranged in the bag were latex gloves, surgeon’s scrubs, a Streamlight Stinger flashlight, a digital camera, laptop, note pads, several Post-it pads in different colors, lock needles, several vials of chemicals including one labeled “black moss,” needle nose pliers, wire cutters, a portable blue light blood scanner, a. 25 caliber S amp;W-which he’d never used in the line of duty-a radio headset attached to a small tape recorder, and a myriad of other tools of his trade neatly arranged in specially made pockets.

He took out the flashlight and bathed the lock to apartment four with light, checking it for telltale scratches, leaned closer and sniffed the area.

Cal Bergman came up the stairs two at a time, carrying an aluminum case.

“You get lost?” Cody said without looking at him.

“Had to get my case from the car. I got the keys from Wilma.” He stooped over and whispered in Cody’s ear: “We got company in number three.”

“Yeah. I noticed movement behind the peephole.”

“Her name’s Amelie Cluett. Masseuse.”

“Interesting. So you did get something out of Wilma,” Cody said with a smile.

“I tried to keep her talking so she wouldn’t get too wacky before you got here.”

“Very good. Let’s suit up.”

“Aren’t we waiting for back-up?”

“There’s nobody else in there. You got a cold?”

Cal shook his head, looking at Cody with a question on his face.

“Get close to the door and take a whiff.”

Cal leaned close to the door jamb, sniffed hard and his head jerked back.

“Handley’s been dead awhile,” Cody said. “I doubt anybody’s sitting shiva with him. We’ve got a virgin crime scene here, let’s work it before anybody else shows up and contaminates it.”

“You got a nose like a bloodhound,” Cal said, opening his case and getting his scrubs and flashlight. “No normal human being can smell a thing.” They both put on scrub booties, caps and latex gloves. Bergman drew his. 38 and held it against his leg as Cody put on his headset and recorder and unlocked the door. He slowly pushed it open about a foot. Cody’s nose wrinkled. Cal laughed.

“Wilma left a light on,” said Cal.

“Yeah, she was in one big hurry.”

Cody looked down and smiled. He reached in and flicked off the light. While Bergman scanned the apartment with his flashlight, Cody squatted down, reached around the partially open door and studied the carpeting with his Stinger.

“Well, look what we got,” he said with delight. He reached in with his free hand and lovingly stroked the top of the thick, plush floor covering. “Shag carpeting.”

He edged the door open another six inches, got on his knees and held his light close to the floor letting the beam skim back and forth across the tufted floor.

“You a hunter, Cal?”

“Never could get into it.”

“First thing a good hunter looks for is paw prints. And we got a lot of ‘em. Put your gun up, pal. The only thing living in here is probably flies.”

Cody turned on the tape recorder and started dictating all his remarks into the headset mike.

“This is Captain Micah Cody of the TAZ accompanied by detective Calvin Bergman. It is…8:01 a.m., October 26th, 2008…We are about to make entry into Apartment Four at 981 East 73rd Street which we have been informed is the residence of a Raymond Handley who has been reported DOA by his housekeeper, Wilma Kearney.” He pushed the pause button.

“Cal, let’s see if we can run a timeline on all these prints. Remember what Wilma said about vacuuming?”

“Yeah. She vacuumed the carpet yesterday afternoon.”

“Where is the vacuum cleaner stored?”

“In a closet to the left of the front door.”

“Remember what kind of shoes she was wearing today?”

“Nikes.

“Good, we’ll label these Subject A and we will mark them with Post-its and arrows indicating the direction in which they are going.”

Cody swept the light beam across the floor, leaned around the front door and flashed it at the foot of the closet door.

“We got a pair of Nikes going from the closet door out the front door. Partially obliterated by the arc the closet door and front door made opening and closing but still visible. So we can assume these were made yesterday afternoon after Subject A vacuumed and put the cleaner back in the closet and left. You buy that?”

“Reasonable.”

He swung the beam to his left.

“And here they are again, going in the front door,” he swung the beam into the room, “toward the entranceway to the library, stopping, and then coming back out. That would have been Subject A coming in this morning, seeing Handley, and splitting in one helluva hurry.”

“How about these others?”

“We’ll get to those. Right now we have Wilma coming out yesterday and going in and out this morning.”

Cody reached into his satchel and took out three different colored pads of Post-its. He pointed to another set of footprints in the soft shag carpet. They led into the entranceway to the library. “Subject A is labeled in red.

“There is a second set of prints which we will mark Subject B. These prints partly overlay those made yesterday afternoon by Subject A which indicates that these were made after the housekeeper left yesterday. What d’they look like to you, Cal?”

The young cop looked down at his own feet.

“Surgical booties?”

“Could be.” He moved the light beam to a similar set a few inches away. “These same prints also were made coming back from the library entranceway to the front door. Subject B’s prints seem to be partially obliterated by the prints made this morning by Subject A. They are a man’s size eight and a half, indicating a relatively diminutive stature. Our assumption is that whoever made these prints arrived after Mrs. Kearney vacuumed yesterday afternoon and left before she came in this morning. Anything to add, Cal?”

“There’s a third set of prints.”

“Correct. These appear to be made by a man’s shoes and we’ll label them Subject C. Subject B will be labeled in white. And C’s prints partly obscure the prints of Subject A made yesterday afternoon and the entry prints made by Subject B late yesterday. These prints also were made after Wilma Kearney left yesterday and the entry prints made by Subject B but not the exit prints made by Subject B.

“Conclusion: Wilma Kearney vacuumed this area about three p.m., Thursday, the 25th. Sometime after that, Subject B entered the apartment and went into the library. Then they were followed by Subject C, whom we will assume for the moment was Raymond Handley, who went toward the bedroom. Subject B then left the library and exited the apartment before Mrs. Kearney arrived this morning. Subject C, we are assuming, is still in the apartment.”

Cody marked the various sets of footprints with different colored Post-its and Bergman took pictures of them.

“Okay,” Cody said to Bergman, “let’s get to the main event.”

They entered the apartment and switched on the lights. As they entered the small foyer leading into the library Bergman fell back two or three steps, looking like he had been slapped in the face. “Oh my God!” he gasped.

Cody’s expression never changed. He squatted down Indian-style, resting one arm across his knees.

“Hello, Raymond,” he said quietly, reaching for his cell phone. “I have a feeling we’re going to get to know you real well.”

4

As was his custom, Max Wolfsheim sat in his favorite easy chair sipping his morning cup of coffee. The New York Times was spread out on the ottoman in front of him and he leaned forward, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, his pudgy fingers scanning each page as he speed-read every article. Heavy-set and bald, he was huddled in an old bathrobe, his feet stuffed into a pair of fleece-lined slippers, waiting for the place to heat up.

It was a comfortable though sparsely furnished room. The furniture was old and worn. A large Peruvian rug covered the hardwood floors. A waist high bookcase ran the length of one wall, stuffed haphazardly with books and magazines. Except for a 42-inch flat-screen TV in one corner, it was the kind of room one might expect of an old bachelor: small, utile, and unimpressive.

Except for the wall behind him. A wall that changed the character of the room.

Instead of paintings or artwork, the wall was decorated with framed objects, all different sizes, carefully mounted, each with a small label in the right hand corner describing the object and a date. All were morbid trophies Max Wolfsheim had gathered in his forty years as an internationally known forensic pathologist. They helped abolish the nightmares that sometimes accompanied the most heinous of the crimes he had investigated. He rarely looked at them but each was peculiarly personal. Like panaceas for a bad disease, each was a reminder that there are human beings among us who are capable of the most malevolent acts against humanity:

A clod of soil from the unearthed grave of a nun in Central America who had been buried alive. May 12, 1992.

The gas mask he had worn while investigating a sabotage gas leak in Bhopal, India, which had unleashed a deadly cloud of methyl isocyonate gas that killed more than 4,000 people as they slept. December 2, 1984.

Part of a note written by a madman who had started a club called “Cannibals Anonymous,” had killed more than a dozen youngsters, sodomized and dismembered them, pickled their flesh, and later had eaten them. 1984–1992.

A hat abandoned in the chaotic aftermath of a gas attack in a Tokyo subway that killed a dozen and left thousands to suffer permanent flashbacks. March 20, 1995.

One of eighteen Barbie dolls with their heads twisted backwards and left in the arms of the victims of a predator who called himself “Freaky Freddie.” 1982–1996.

These were just a few of the displays that had earned a place on Max Wolfsheim’s wall of shame, having pierced his calm, normally impenetrable, exterior and struck a blow to his heart.

In the center of the display was a framed motto printed on rice paper by a calligrapher:

A cop needs a good pathologist to do his job, just as a pathologist needs a good cop to complete his. Max Wolfsheim

It was the only place his name appeared. There were no references to the work he had done on these cases, no scrapbooks filled with articles about him, not a single photograph of him anywhere in the apartment. The furniture, such as it was, faced away from the wall.

The adjoining room, his bedroom, was as modest: a bed, a night table and reading lamp, and a desk in one corner with a laptop computer and a 120 gigabyte external hard drive on which was stored all the research materials and photos he had gathered through the years.

At 8:20 Max’s phone rang. He looked up and scowled, then went back to his reading. On the fourth ring the answering machine clicked on. It was Cody’s voice.

“Answer the phone, Old Man. I need you.”

He reached over to an end table and snatched up the phone.

“This better be good, Kid,” he growled. “I got a nine-thirty lecture at NYU.”

“Reschedule.”

Cody was still squatting as he described the scene:

Raymond Handley was seated in an antique chair which was in the center of the room. There was a table next to the chair with an old-fashioned glass half full of an amber-colored liquid. Cody judged him to be between five-nine and six-feet, his body well-toned. He had once been handsome. Now his body was gray and his head was leaning slightly forward and cocked to one side. His eyes were slits, staring sightlessly at some fixed point on the floor.

He was stark naked.

There was a deep, open gash running from under his right jaw to just under his left ear and a towel tied around his neck hanging loosely under the wound. There was also a small rubber handball stuffed in his mouth, tightly tied in place with a white cloth.

Each of his hands was handcuffed at the wrists to separate arms of the chair. And each of his legs was cuffed to separate legs of the chair.

“And here’s the kicker,” Cody said.

“There’s a kicker?” Wolfsheim said with surprise.

“Except for a couple of spots on the towel under his chin, there’s no blood.”

“No blood?”

A few moments of silence.

“Okay, Kid, we’re in business.”

“I just saved myself a grand,” Cody said with a laugh.

“And cost me one,” Wolfsheim answered and hung up.

From the bedroom door, Bergman said, “Cap? I think you ought to take a look at this before you go.”

Cody walked carefully on an angle to the bedroom door, putting one foot in front of the other beside Bergman’s tracks. The room was painted pale blue and everything in the room was expensive, from the teak frame and headboard of the king sized bed, to the matching end tables beside it, to the large dresser and armoire. The doors to the closet were mirrored and one was half open. Handley’s clothes were meticulously lined up. Suits, then sports jackets, slacks, and shirts, each an inch apart. A shirt, underwear, and socks were in a laundry basket in one corner of the closet.

There was a wooden valet near the bed with a cashmere jacket, dark gray slacks, and a red tie hanging on it. His alligator wallet, Rolex watch, some coins, keys, and a gold chain with a St. Christopher pendant on it were lined up in the tray. A pair of expensive black shoes were under it, also neatly placed side by side.

“Well, Wilma did say he was neat,” Cody commented.

“That’s an understatement. I checked the wallet. Hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, fives, ones, all in descending order. Nine hundred and twenty-eight bucks.”

“We could retire on what one of those suits goes for,” Cody said.

“Here’s what’s really interesting. There’s a used bath towel on the bathroom floor.”

“So he took a shower when he got in last night.”

“Uh huh.”

“A very patient killer,” Cody said.

“And not greedy. Passed up the wallet, watch. But check this out.”

Bergman skimmed the carpeting with his flashlight, aiming it toward the library door nearest the kitchen. Naked footprints.

“He knew the killer was waiting for him. He was naked when he went into the library and…” they followed Handley’s footprints to the library entrance near the kitchen where the pair of booties was awaiting for him. “The killer met him at the door.”

“I was thinking,” said Bergman, “maybe this was an S amp;M thing gone sour. Or maybe he was killed somewhere else which would account for the absence of blood.”

“Not a chance,” Cody answered. “This was a set-up hit from the go and he knowingly walked right into it.”

“I was also thinking maybe I ought to get into his briefcase. Remember what the maid said about his little black book?”

“Good. Take it out to that little sitting room in the hall. Nobody, nobody, goes in or out until Wolf and his team gets here.”

“No problem.”

As Cody headed for the apartment door, he muttered half-aloud: “I can’t wait for Wolf to tell us what happened to all five liters of Mister Handley’s blood.”

5

At the same time Micah Cody and Cal Bergman were preparing to enter Raymond Handley’s apartment, crime writer Ward Lee Hamilton was seated in the Eames chair of his 59 ^ th Street penthouse apartment overlooking south Manhattan. It was a breathtaking view. The corner room had two floor-to-ceiling windows from which he could see five bridges, the spires of the city, and the heart-breaking emptiness where the Twin Towers once stood.

As always, and regardless of the season, he was dressed in his three-piece white linen suit. It was his trademark. With a lavender shirt and a dazzling yellow tie to complete the ensemble, he was aware that his exaggerated appearance attracted attention, that there were some who looked at him as a foppish popinjay.

He couldn’t care less. He had earned the right to set his own unique standards of dress and attitude. He marked his detractors off as silly, untalented, jealous fools. Ward Lee Hamilton was a snob in the truest sense of the word.

Hamilton had authored more than a dozen true crime narratives in twenty years, most considered the best of their kind in literary history. His first book, written when he was nineteen, had leapt to the top of the bestselling lists in its first week of publication. It had been followed by fifteen scrupulously researched books, flawlessly detailed examinations into the malicious minds of killers whose sexual, avaricious, and otherwise depraved cravings had resulted in some of the most grisly crimes in history. He was relentless in his search for facts, always digging for that one last clue to justify every word, as tenacious as a hungry-eyed hyena stalking another animal’s kill.

The room was filled with memorials to his success: Plaques, proclamations, awards, framed letters, all tributes to his achievements. Plus, an old-fashioned barber’s chair, complete with adjustable foot rests, anchored to the floor of the apartment. Ward sat in the chair for his weekly manicure, with the manicurist kneeling before him to finish his nails-and sometimes providing further service as well, whether he needed it or not. Yes, he was smug with success.

He was the Lord of the Literati. The Beau Brummel of the greatest metropolis in the world.

But today he had a little problem, which somehow annoyed him even more than his big, deadly problem.

He took out his pocket watch, snapped open the cover and checked the time. He got up, threw a tan, cashmere coat over his shoulders, set a gray homburg on his head, and strolled forth to the elevator that would carry him down to the streets of the city of which he considered himself a peerless prince.

His car arrived at the Regency precisely on time. He checked his coat and hat and strolled into the elegant dining room where he immediately became the focus of attention. This was a room where the power brokers of the town met for breakfast, dueling with each other before taking on the challenges of the day, like athletes warming up for a big game. He walked arrogantly to a corner table where his editor awaited. As was his fashion, he ignored the nods of the other diners.

The waiter held his chair and he sat down.

“Good morning, Jacob,” he said as the waiter poured him a cup of coffee.

“Morning, Lee.”

The waiter offered Hamilton a menu which he slapped away.

“Where’s Humphrey?” Hamilton snapped without looking at him. “Humphrey always attends my table.”

“He’s got the flu, sir. My name’s Gus.”

“Well, Gus, tell the chef Mister Hamilton will have the usual.”

“Yes sir,” the waiter said and vanished.

Jake Sallinger, the editor of Metro Magazine, shook his head. He was a man in his early fifties with graying hair and a neatly trimmed beard, a veteran of the highly competitive publication wars who had earned his position as head of the hottest magazine in town, which he had conceived with a keen sense for both word and story. He was accustomed to Hamilton’s superior attitude and was neither intimidated nor impressed by it. Most of the writers he dealt with were experienced journalists, professional and jocular by nature. But Hamilton’s name on the cover sold magazines so he endured the man’s insufferable ego.

He also had Hamilton against the wall and Hamilton knew it. Four years earlier, the writer had decided it was time to venture into novels. But he had written two which were critical and financial disasters. Now he was forced to return to the field which he had dominated for two decades.

Sallinger was a tough editor and a conceptual genius. He was demanding, a hard sell, and Hamilton knew that. He had interested the editor on a series of articles tentatively called “Chasing Demons,” a series of sometimes arcane, sometimes recent, unsolved or unsolvable cases. They would then be compiled into a book by the same name, co-owned by Metro.

This time they would be playing by Sallinger’s rules, a tough and bitter pill for the pampered writer to swallow. And his book publisher, knowing that Hamilton would sometimes spend months on research, was uncomfortable with a concept which might take several years to complete.

But Hamilton had convinced them that his files contained much of the research and had agreed to produce eight articles, one every other month for the magazine, and a new and lengthy prologue and epilogue for the book, a task he had agreed to complete in less than a year.

The thing was that Sallinger had him on the spot. He would be approving the articles and editing them and the writer despised making pitches as much as he hated being edited, considering them demeaning. But Hamilton had accepted the terms, like it or not.

It wasn’t the money; he was a rich man.

Vanity had dictated the terms.

He had to redeem his two failures. Thus he had picked a daunting challenge.

The only control Sallinger had allowed him was the due date of the first installment: Halloween. Hamilton had chuckled morbidly as he suggested it.

Gus arrived with their food, a bagel and cream cheese for Sallinger, Eggs Benedict for Hamilton. The writer took a fork and lightly punched the poached egg.

“This egg’s a little on the hard side,” he growled to the waiter. But he noticed Sallinger’s immediate exasperation and quickly added, “They’ll do.”

“I can take them back, sir,” the waiter quickly replied.

“I said they’ll do,” Hamilton snapped and dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

Sallinger looked down and disguised a smile with a bite of bagel. Clearly Hamilton was nervous and on the defensive.?

“So, Lee, what have you got for me?” He asked, spreading cream cheese on the bagel.

“It’s got everything,” Hamilton boasted.

“Forget the tease, okay? What’s the story?”

“Ever heard of the NYPD TAZ?”

Sallinger frowned. “Some kind of back-up squad, isn’t it? Jimmy wanted to do a piece on them a while back but he dumped the idea.” He took another bite. “I thought we were talking about unsolved cases?”

“I’ll get to that. TAZ stands for Tactical Assistance Squad, an understated moniker if I’ve ever seen one. They have more power than God. Everything they do is on the Q.T. They hide police reports, crap all over the media, violate open records laws. Push good, decent cops around. A regular Gestapo, Jacob.”

Sallinger glared at him. “First of all, stop calling me Jacob. Forget the Biblical bull shit and make your point.” He could see Hamilton bridle at his harsh tone, and didn’t give a flying damn.

“Nobody will talk about them. The precinct boys won’t mention them. Stinelli has a clamp on them. They can step into any homicide, any homicide they want. Just take over the investigation. The head of it was a kid when they formed the outfit about five years ago. That’s unheard of. They have their own headquarters downtown, a loft that’s harder to get into than Fort Knox. It’s a block from the old police station down around Little Italy.”

“You are pushing my envelope, Lee.”

“You remember a case about two years ago? Her name was Melinda Cramer. A sometime dancer. It went down as a suicide. Then it turned out she was snuffed and thrown off her balcony.”

“It rings a bell.”

“Well, the whole point of the TAZ is that they can step into any case immediately, for any reason-or none whatsoever. The theory being that if a homicide gets to be forty-eight hours old and there’s no leads, it starts icing up. So they form this squad with this young guy running it.”

“What’s his name?”

“Micah Cody.”

“Hey, so he’s young. It’s a young person’s world. Rock stars and singers are in their teens. What the hell, Custer was a general when he was twenty-two or something.”

“And look what happened to him.”

“Lee…”

“Just let me finish. Cody joins the force when he’s twenty-one. He makes detective by the time he’s twenty-eight, sergeant at thirty and lieutenant at thirty-two. Most cops are still in patrol cars when they’re thirty.”

“You got a hard-on for this guy or something?”

“No, granted he was a hot shot. But here’s what makes this a great story. Cody rises to captain and head of an elite squad in his thirties! They stepped in and took over the Cramer case when it was still unsolved. A headline case with a twist and they never had a decent suspect. Then, out of the blue, Cody has the body pulled out of the ground and re-autopsied. Jake, I keep a scrapbook filled with murder cases from all over the world. This one has everything. It’s perfect for the lead article. A beautiful young dancer, a suicide that turns into murder, a hotshot cop who’s never lost a case but one. A famous pathologist working it.”

“Who?”

“Max Wolfsheim.”

“Him I know. Somebody wanted to do a piece on him but he wouldn’t cooperate.”

“He doesn’t have to cooperate. I’ve got everything on him. I sat in on his lectures at NYU. The nuns in Guatemala, the Bhopal case in India, a dozen serial killers. Think about it. Great characters, a backroom squad nobody talks about, a case that’s colder than the Antarctic. And no files. I checked. Zip. The thing about cold cases? A lot of them the police know who the killer is, they just can’t prove it. Eventually they go cold. ‘Why’ is what makes them interesting. What’s the ‘why’ here? It didn’t even make the obit section when she was a jumper. It barely got to page three in The Post when it turned out to be a homicide. Couple of weeks later it dropped off the radar. I’ve got notes on a dozen cases, but this one? This one’ll be the most interesting hook we could ever come up with for the book. I’m nearly done with it, just one more hurdle.”

Sallinger finished his bagel and sipped his coffee. He stared at Hamilton. “I’m thinking maybe you see this as an entree to get inside this squad you’re so needled about.”

“I’ll admit that’s part of the story. But the victim herself is interesting. A beautiful young dancer, can’t make it with the New York Ballet Company, ends up a hoofer in the chorus line of a couple a Broadway shows, starts hanging out in rave clubs, singing at cabarets, and teaching in the daytime and anything else she can do to hold it together and then bingo, she gets murdered in what was obviously planned to look like a suicide. Who could possibly have wanted her dead?”

Sallinger had to admit it was an interesting yarn. He thought about it over his second cup of coffee.

“It’s not bad, Lee. But it sounds like a lot of back story with no payoff.”

“That’s what makes cold cases interesting. The back story is the story and sometimes it shakes up the pot and they land a killer. Which is very good publicity for us.”

“What’s your back-up on this if it fizzles?”

“I’ve got a dozen of them. Let’s not talk about ‘what if’. Let’s talk about ‘what about.’”

Sallinger thought about a minute or two more.

“What’s the hurdle?” He finally asked Hamilton.

“I need a look at the file. I don’t know Lou Stinelli but he’s a friend of yours. Just a phone call. Tell him you’re doing a piece on cold cases and the writer can’t find the Cramer file. It’s a fact check thing.”

Sallinger thought about it. The story did have meat, it wasn’t just bones. And Metro was known for its demanding standard of accuracy. It wasn’t an unreasonable request.

“Okay, Lee, I’ll give it a try. But remember, I’ve got this piece scheduled for the February cover with the attendant publicity. You blow your deadline and I’ll end up with pie all over my face. Halloween is just around the corner.” His threat was implicit.

“Why, I wouldn’t dare blow it,” Hamilton said, nastily, and leaned back with a grin. “I was fated to write this one. It’s a matter of life and death.”

6

She was shorter than Cody expected. Five-four or so. A trim young woman, twenty-six or seven, her body well-toned but not muscular, her dark hair cut to mold a face that was exotically beautiful even without makeup, green eyes with Asian folds that looked straight into his and held the stare, naturally full lips unenhanced by Botox. She was wearing black sweats, a black tank top and black walking sneakers.

“Amelie Cluett?” he asked and his surprise was evident.

“Yes. And it’s pronounced Clu-way. As in away.”

She read him instantly and knew what he was expecting. Masseuse: An alluring Amazon with Schwarzenegger muscles dressed in an outfit straight out of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

And he knew what she thought he was thinking now. His gaze never wavered.

“Sorry if I seem surprised,” he said. “I was expecting someone a little taller.”

“Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he answered and held up his gold badge. “I’m here on my business, not yours. My name’s Cody. Got a minute?”

She, too, was surprised. He was gut-handsome, five-ten, a deep, natural tan, jet black hair pulled into a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck, and startling aqua blue eyes that seemed to see right through her and tickle the back of her neck. And he seemed awfully young to be carrying a badge with “Captain” engraved on it. And that ponytail!

“Come on in,” she said, stepping back and holding the door open.

“Thanks.”

The living room was bright and cheerful with two sofas and two easy chairs covered in a variety of colors and fabrics that gave the white-walled room a gem-like brilliance. They were arranged in a quadrangle that invited conversation and were interspersed with wooden pedestal tables.

The wall facing the door was dominated by an enormous contemporary print with splashes of color that balanced the colors of the furniture. The room was lit by four, four-foot square lights flush with the ceiling and arranged in an eight-foot square pattern controlled by a dimmer switch. They provided the room with a soft, almost shadowless illumination. The wood flooring was laid in a brick pattern, a sharp contrast to the rest of the room as was a black baby grand piano in the corner beside what was the bedroom door.

The aroma of good strong coffee enhanced the space.

She watched his eyes quickly roam the surroundings, taking in every detail, before settling on hers.

“Raymond’s dead, isn’t he?” she said without a moment’s hesitation, her gaze never wavering from his nor his from hers.

He always remembered the words of qiwn at times like this. Listen with your eyes. They are the doorway to the truth. “Yes. And it wasn’t an accident,” he said just as abruptly and with an edge.

Her breath withdrew compulsively. She had guessed the answer but it was still a shock. Tears filled her eyes. She put the fingers of both hands over her mouth and the word “oh!” squeezed out between them.

“Why don’t you sit down,” he said quietly, the flint gone from his tone. He had learned a lot in the brief exchange.

She shook her head sharply, her hair flipping back and forth across her face.

“No,” she said weakly. “I think…I think I need some coffee. Would you like a cup?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

He followed her into the small but adequate kitchen, all stainless steel with pots hanging from a rack over a light wooden carving table in the middle of the room. The coffee maker both ground the beans and blended the coffee. She took two mugs from a built-in closet and put them on the counter.

“How do you like it? This is pretty strong stuff. I order it from a place in Key West. It’s called Colombian Hammerhead. I take it with a little sugar.”

“I’ll go with that.”

“Sugar’s really not good for you,” she said as she sprinkled it in both cups and stirred them. “But a pinch or two won’t kill you.”

They went in the living room. She sat in a chair adjoining one of the sofas and nodded to it. When he sat down their knees almost touched.

“Mind if I tape the conversation?” Cody asked. “I’m not very good at shorthand.”

She looked surprised, hesitated a moment, and then said, “No, it’s alright.” She took a sip of coffee and then abruptly burst into a monologue, talking so fast he just sat bemused and listened.

“ My name is Amelie Cluett. My mother’s French. My father’s Japanese, in the diplomatic service, and they met in Paris. They never married. I was born in Japan. They started me on piano when I was just learning to walk but I hated it. I preferred gym and soccer and stuff like that. I learned neechika, which is a form of massage, from an old Japanese master. I loved Japan but we moved back here to New York and I went to Juilliard and I was pretty good at the piano but not good enough. I was going to a gym on Madison called The Body Machine which is a stupid name but it’s a good gym and the owner, Jerry Kerry-I told him once he ought to change his name to Harry, like hari kari — and he thought that was a hoot and when he found out I knew neechika he offered me a job and I was pretty popular and I started getting clients-I call them clients because customers sounds like a hooker-who wanted me to go to their homes and we made a deal where I work four hours a day at the Machine and do home massages the rest of the time. That was about two, no two-and-a-half years ago. I get one-and-a-half at the gym and two-and-a-half for home massages. Anyhow, that’s where I met Raymond.”

She stopped to take a breath and sip some coffee. She had looked him in the eyes during the entire speech.

“Two hundred and fifty dollars for home massages?” he repeated.

“What do you think, two dollars and fifty cents? What century were you born in? And, actually, with tips it rounds out to about three.”

“An hour? No wonder you gave up the piano.”

“I didn’t give it up. It gave me up. I play a little jazz to relax but Carnegie Hall was never within my reach. So? I’ve known Raymond about three years. Go ahead. Grill me.”

Cody laughed and scratched his chin with his thumb. “I’m out of breath listening to you. And I just want to ask you some questions. We do the grilling down at the station.”

“I’m sorry about that. I just got started and… I guess I wanted to get my mind off of, uh, Raymond. I do talk a lot, I know that, people tell me that all the time.” She took another sip of coffee and asked plaintively, “What happened to him?”

“Somebody killed him.”

“Is that all you can tell me?”

“I don’t really know much more. Even if I did it’s a homicide investigation. We don’t tell, we ask. How well did you know him?”

“Socially? Not at all. I gave him a massage twice a week. Lately, because he was under a lot of stress, three times. Look, my clients come in all flavors. Some talk, some take a nap, some don’t say a word, some even hum. I have a fellow who writes lyrics for big Broadway shows. He hums the tune and then he’ll talk some lyric and write it down, then hum some more. I have an opera singer who gargles with champagne before we start. Sometimes when the spirit moves her she hits a high note and scares me to death but it seems to loosen her up so what the hell. I once had an old fellow who was ticklish and giggled a lot. Thing is, I want this clear right off the bat…”

“Ms. Cluett,” Cody interrupted, smiling. “We’re way past ‘right off the bat’.”

“Please call me Amelie.”

“Okay.”

“What do I call you?”

“Captain Cody.”

“Oh, that’s typical. I’m Amelie, you’re Captain Cody. I find that a bit sexist. Oh, which is what I was going to say. I’m a licensed masseuse. No funny business. Anybody gets out of line, I’m out of there. It’s happened once or twice and it’s over. I just wanted you to know that.”

There was some muffled movement in the hallway and it alarmed her. She spun toward the door like a startled bird.

“That would be my team arriving,” Cody said. “There’s going to be a lot of action in and out over there. Ignore it. And stay away from that peephole. It’ll arouse suspicion.”

“Am I a suspect?”

He scratched his chin again.

“Well, you were about…” he looked over his shoulder at her bedroom door, “about fifteen, twenty yards from him when he got it.”

She sat upright, her eyes widening. “I didn’t think about that. Oh my God, it just didn’t occur to me!”

“I didn’t mean to alarm you. But we do have to cover all the bases. Let’s stick with Raymond Handley, okay?”

She rolled her head around, loosening her neck, and blew a little burst of air from her lips.

“Sure, okay. Well, I treated him on Friday mornings, to loosen him up for the weekend. I mean the stock market is a zoo. Did I tell you he works for the stock market?”

“Wilma mentioned it.”

“Anyway, he’d be tight as a tick. Then Monday he’d come over and I’d loosen him up after the weekend. He worked hard and he played hard. He’s their only client I did here because he would jog over to the Machine and work out and jog back and Wilma would be over there so I’d set up the portable table and work him out while she was making him breakfast. Anyway, Raymond is a talker.”

She stopped and started to tear up. She took a couple of swallows of the Colombian java.

“Was he a switch hitter?” Cody asked.

“No. No.” She shook her head. “It was always about girls. And not all the time. I mean, maybe once a month he’d go off on one of his tantrums.”

“It’s tangent. Go off on a tangent.”

“Come on, Captain, I know the difference between a tangent and a tantrum. These were tantrums. He was really upset. It was a strange thing. Like…it was like he was talking in his sleep.”

He stopped and they took a breather.

“Want another cup?” she asked.

“I’m fine, thanks. So these were kind of like ramblings, getting something off his chest?”

“Exactly. When I was through he’d smile and pay me and go back over to his place.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

She shrugged. “He was a nice guy. He was polite. He said ‘Thank you.’”

“And you never asked him about any of these things?”

“He wasn’t a Chatty Cathy. I’ve got some clients who like to chat. Talk about movies, casual talk. There was nothing casual about Raymond. His monologue was part of his working out emotional kinks. He was there to get the knots ironed out, period.”

“I’ve got to ask you this. Where were you last night?”

“Here. I was reading. Sitting over there.” She pointed to a chair near the door.

He could see her sitting there, and the thought oddly pleased him. “Did you hear him come in?”

She shook her head.

“Would you have heard him? If he had come in?”

“Probably. We just heard your people.”

“What time did you go to bed?”

“I finished reading about quarter to eleven. Went back, turned on the TV. Watched the top of the news and then put in the plugs. I was asleep by, I don’t know, eleven-fifteen maybe.”

“What kind of slippers do you have?”

“Slippers?”

“You know, for your feet?”

She smiled, a big smile for the first time since he had entered the apartment.

“Big fuzzy ones with little balls of stuff on the top. You want to see them?” She gave him an elfish grin.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“I didn’t kill Raymond, Captain,” she said almost sternly.

“Okay,” he answered.

“I mean, I hardly knew him personally,” she said, still staring straight into his eyes.

Cody smiled. “You probably knew a lot more about him that a lot of his friends.”

Amelie didn’t disagree with that. She blurted out the rest of what she knew until Cody finally stood up to leave. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said. “It was good.”

“Where’s your tape recorder?” she asked.

He tapped the fountain pen in his breast pocket. “This is the mike. The recorder’s in my pocket.”

“Isn’t that cute,” she answered, following him to the door. He took out his card and handed it to her.

“My name and number is on that. You can call anytime, I’m always available. If you think of anything else.”

She flipped the card with a finger, smiled and took her card out and slipped it in the breast pocket of his jacket.

“May I ask a question?”

“I suppose so.”

“What’s with the ponytail?”

He stared at her for a moment and said, “My barber cut my ear with his scissors so I never went back.”

She shook her head and giggled. “Little wonders. A cop with a ponytail and a sense of humor. I bet you’d eat nails for breakfast if you had to.”

“It’s never come up.”

She stared at his neck and shoulders and then back into his eyes.

“You’re tight as a fist, Captain Cody. You could use a good loosening up. Give me a call. I’ll work you in. On the house. Civic duty and all that.”

“Thanks. Goodbye, Amelie.”

“So long for now. If I don’t hear from you I may just make up something and call you.”

“That’s against the law.”

“Then you can come over and give me a ticket.”

7

Cal Bergman was still intent on the black book he had found in Handley’s briefcase. He was seated sideways on the sofa in the hallway with the case opened beside him, a forefinger sliding down a page in the book as he dictated information into his headset.

It was not a little book. It was custom-made black leather, six inches wide by eight inches long, with a twenty-four-carat gold lock flap. It was indexed with colored dividers and was about four inches thick. He snapped around, startled, as Cody left Amelie Cluett’s apartment.

Cody laughed. “A little jumpy, aren’t you there, cowboy?”

Cal laughed along with him.

“Nothing wrong with having fast reflexes, Cal,” Cody said approaching the sofa. “And one of the reasons we picked you for liaison was your ability to focus. You were as focused on that page as a pitcher zoning on a catcher’s glove.”

“There’s a lot to zone on.”

“No laptop? Blackberry? Cell phone?”

“Nope. There are slots for them, though. But the book is amazing. This is an autobiography of Handley’s life in shorthand. Other than this…” He held up a baggie into which he had placed several receipts, “the cupboard is bare. Some personal photographs and other stuff but the book and the receipts are a gold mine.”

“Bag the book and the receipts and close the case.”

“Right. There is one other thing.” He held up a baggie with a black Halloween mask in it. “This was in the briefcase.”

“I’ll be damned,” Cody said. “Bring it along.”

Cody heard a vacuum cleaner at work in Handley’s apartment. He opened the door and leaned into the apartment.

“Wolf?”

The pathologist stuck his head around the corner of the library. He was suited out and had a surgical mask covering his nose and mouth.

“You and the kid made a pretty clean entry,” Wolfsheim said. Then added, “You may have missed a thing or two.”

“Such as?”

“I’m busy,” was his muffled reply. “We’ll get to that later. What do you want? We got work to do.”

Cody took the briefcase from Bergman and sat it on the floor inside the apartment.

“You’ll probably want to check this out. And you might be looking for a laptop, and a Blackberry. They weren’t in the case. We’re taking these.” Cody held up the bagged book, receipts, and the mask.”

“Just make sure they’re dusted before you go messing around with them.”

Cody chuckled and snapped his fingers. “Gee whiz,” he said. “I never would’ve thought of that.”

“Don’t be a smart ass.”

Wolf walked back into the library. As he did, he said over his shoulder. “We need to get that maid back here.”

“Frank took her home,” Cody said to the empty library entrance. “My guess is she’s probably napping by now. She was hot-wired.”

“Well, if she was as meticulous as I hear, we need her back here.”

“Looking for a trophy?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Get her highness back as soon as we clean this mess up. This wasn’t a robbery. I want to know if anything strange is missing or was left behind.”

“Well, while you’re sweeping the apartment you might keep an eye out for a safe.”

“No kidding,” Wolf replied.

“Any ideas about the blood?”

“Yeah. I don’t think whoever whacked this guy was planning on selling it to the Red Cross.”

“Let’s get back to the loft,” Cody said to Bergman, closing the door. “Or the chateau as he calls it.”

“Wolf’s a little grumpy today.”

“Are you kidding? He was born grumpy,” Cody answered. “He growled at the nurse when she cut his umbilical cord.”

As they started down the stairs, Bergman said, “Ms. Cluett’s still peeping at us.”

“Yup.”

“All she had to do was walk across the hall, if she had a key.”

“Yup.”

“Would you consider her a suspect?”

“Why not? So’s the maid at this point,”

“Just asking.”

“Until somebody makes a proper I.D., we can’t discuss the case with, or give up the victim’s name to, anyone but the crew. From what I gathered all Cluett understands is, Handley’s dead. No details. Right now, the maid knows more about the scene of the crime than anybody but us-and the killer.”

They peeled off their gloves, left the house and put their satchels in the back seat of Cal’s cruiser.

“Let’s get a few blocks down Lex before we put the red light on,” Cody said, taking out his cell. “Then we’ll have some fun wiggling through morning traffic.”

Bergman smiled. “My favorite thing,” he said.

Cody dialed Rizzo.

“Here I am,” came Rizzo’s answer. “Wilma’s got her friend from next door sitting with her. She took a sleeping pill and was dead to the world when I left.”

“She and her friend understand to keep mum.”

“Of course. I’m approaching the garage as we speak.”

“Do me a favor. Call Rick McKeown. Tell him we have a hot one. We need him to send two men to the address. One downstairs inside the front door. Tell him not to tape the outside of the apartment. We don’t want to advertise what’s going on. The other man will stand outside the apartment door. They don’t need to know anything except that nobody goes in or out until Wolf finishes. He’ll tape the crime scene only when I give the word, and the upstairs man stays until we release him.”

“Gotcha. We need a couple of Rick’s boys to canvass the neighborhood?”

Cody thought about that for a moment.

“Not yet, let’s keep it in the family until we brief the crew. Also the woman across the hall is Amelie Cluett. She’ll be going to work and that’s okay. I’ve already debriefed her.”

“Usual procedure?”

“Yup. We’re on our way back. Ring the church bell and tell everyone mass will begin when we get there.”

“Uh huh.”

“And see there’s plenty of doughnuts and coffee-good coffee, not that Starbucks shit-for all the parishioners.”

“Done.”

He hung up and turned to Bergman, eyeing the evidence bags.

“Okay, tell me about the stuff you’ve got there.”

“There are more names in the book than there are in War and Peace. Phone numbers, addresses, coded references, indexed and divided by friends, acquaintances, business associates, adversaries, favorite restaurants and hotels all over the world, you name it. Not a word about family. But, I mean, some of these names are kids he knew in grammar school.”

“Brothels?” Cody asked.

“Probably. I haven’t gotten that far into it yet. Why do you ask?”

“Our Mister Handley had a sex jones just as compulsive as his need for order.”

“That what Ms. Cluett told you?”

“Among other things.”

Bergman grinned. “Sounds like an interesting interrogation.”

“Yup.”

Cody thought for a moment, then added, “She’ll be calling back.”

“You think so?”

“She was very stressed. When she calms down she’ll remember other things. Some of them will be important. A lot of them will be just wind.”

Bergman whipped through the clogged streets, concentrating on traffic. Then he returned to the subject at hand. “The back half of the book is an hour-by-hour list of all his business appointments for the last month with tabbed reminders,” Bergman said. “And then there are the receipts.”

Cody held up the baggie containing the receipts and looked at them. “Thorough, neat, orderly.”

“Those are receipts for everything he spent for the last week, including his plane tickets to and from Cincinnati yesterday, where he had breakfast, lunch and dinner. And taxis-he didn’t hire a limo there.”

“How about the limo that picked him up when he got back.”

“No. Nor the taxi he took home from wherever he went after the limo dropped him off. Those cards are missing from the deck.”?

Bergman was the newest member of the TAZ crew, or at least half-member. He still had one foot in regular NYPD, and served as the group’s liaison with the hoi polloi of the force. He had an astronomical I.Q., had graduated from high school at sixteen and was top man in his class when he graduated, at twenty, from Harvard.

Halfway through his second year he quickly focused on two subjects that challenged and excited him: forensic pathology and criminology.

One afternoon, almost whimsically, he quit pre-med. His parents, enraged and embittered by what they considered their son’s defiance and betrayal, demanded he come to his senses.

When he refused, his father disowned him.

To Cal Bergman, experiencing the sudden rush of freedom from their stifling influence was like an aphrodisiac. He sold his car and headed for New York where he applied for and was accepted at the NYPD police academy.

He neither expected nor got any favors. He graduated top of the class and started his career as a patrolman. Bright, dependable, intuitive, eager, unassuming, professional, all defined his slow climb up the ladder where he made detective after eleven years. His sergeant was Frank Rizzo.

It took four years of careful screening and special training during which Cody and Rizzo developed the men and women whose unique qualities defined the TAZ before Rizzo brought his name up. They had been searching a month or two for one more cop to round out the crew.

“There’s this kid in the Fifth…” Rizzo began one day then stopped as he ran Bergman’s qualifications through his head.

“Yeah?” Cody said.

“Tall, good-looking guy. A real chick magnet.” Rizzo paused, staring into space as he thought some more about Bergman. He nodded. “Yeah, he was really good.”

“He couldn’t be that good if it took you four years to remember him.”

“Well, he was a quiet guy. Not pushy, you know. Not a glory hound. A very professional guy. Knew a lot about forensics. Very tough but not so’s you’d notice it. I got thinking about him last night.”

“Does this guy have a name?”

“Yeah,” Rizzo said. “Uh…Bergman. Maybe we should pull his record and see what he’s been up to.”

So they pulled his record. They interviewed him. And he had what Cody called “the wisdom for the job.” Only one problem: he didn’t want to lose his place at the Fifth Precinct. He was “emotionally attached” to the crew there. Go figure. But somehow Cody liked the sound of even that. It might even be a good idea to have a NYPD regular on the team, as practical-and public relations-liaison to keep the regulars’ noses from going out of joint. So Cal fit perfectly, like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Calvin Bergman became the last jewel in the crown.?

They were three blocks down Lexington when Bergman rolled down the window and put the light on the roof. He kept nudging the siren as they wound their way south.

Cody held up the bag of receipts and shook them a little.

“What do you know about Handley’s last day on earth, Cal?”

“He had three meetings in Cincinnati. His limo driver picked him up at home at about four-thirty, a.m. Handley flew American. He was traveling light. No luggage. The flight was about twenty minutes late taking off and got in about seven forty-five. Had a room at the Airport Hilton and had breakfast in the room. My guess is he wanted to freshen up and brief himself for his first meeting which was a lunch at high noon with a man named Wilkes at a German place called the Hofbrau.

“His second meeting was at a bar in the Wilkes Hotel. A woman named Christine Sykes. Got there about four and the meeting lasted an hour-and-a-half. One vodka and rocks, two Manhattans. My guess is the lady was drinking the Manhattans. It’s a lady’s drink.

“Also he had his big meeting early, at six-probably because he had an eight-fifty flight back-so he would have laid off the booze. I say big meeting because the dinner meetings usually are and the restaurant was very expensive. The Hoar’s Hound Inn. They had a bottle of Australian Malbec that cost a hundred and twenty bucks. His client was Ernst Braufmann, CEO of a very profitable statewide chain of upscale supermarkets. Self-made man who turned his father’s grocery store into a gold mine. Handley was out of there by seven forty-five, caught the flight back to New York.

“They were about fifteen minutes late landing at LaGuardia, ten-thirty. His driver picked him up and he went by his office for about twenty minutes. But he didn’t go home after that. He made a note in the book. He cut the driver loose somewhere downtown at eleven-fifty but he doesn’t say where. I’m sure the driver will remember. No taxi receipt for the last ride home.”

“You have an amazing memory, Cal.”

“But it’s short term,” Bergman laughed. “By tomorrow half of that stuff will be gone but that’s why I put it all on tape as I was going through that little black bible of his.”

“Well, between what we know from the entry plus my interrogation and your notes, we’ve got enough to wake the gang up and keep everybody busy. It’s gonna be a long day.”

“They usually are,” Bergman answered with a smile.

“And I’m guessing most of it will be in vain.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think we’re gonna find the name of whoever did that job on him in any book. And I don’t think the killer took any of his business stuff from the apartment. Or anything else for that matter.”

“That’s why he went by his office,” Bergman said. “He probably dropped off the computer, his cell, and the Blackberry there.”

“What leads you to that conclusion?”

“He was going someplace else before he went home,” Bergman said.

“Keep talking.”

“Didn’t mix business with pleasure. So he left the business stuff at his office and then went…wherever he went.”

“Then why did he take the briefcase?” Cody asked.

“Because it had the little black book in it and that was very personal.”

“Cool thinking,” Cody said. “The book’s a map of his past, Cal.”

“Also his future,” said Bergman. “All his appointments are in it.”

“They’re probably in his Blackberry and laptop. They just happened to be in that personal book, too, and he took that with him. And that mask.”

Bergman nodded. “Full of personal stuff,” he said.

“Yup.”

“Why do you suppose he took all the receipts with him?” Bergman asked.

“Force of habit. He still had one more stop to make after he signed off on the limo and he was taking the case with him anyway so he took the receipts.”

“There wasn’t a receipt for the taxi…”

“…because it was personal and he didn’t want a record of it,” Cody said, finishing the sentence.

“And the mask?” Bergman asked, dodging past a FedEx truck and taking a hard right.

“That may help explain where he went on his way home.”

“I just thought of something,” Bergman said. “His overcoat was in that closet in the bedroom.”

“Yeah?”

“It was cold last night so he was probably wearing it and stopped to put it in the closet when he came in.”

“And…”

“If he signed off for the limo the receipt may be in the pocket. We don’t want to have to check with the driver unless we have to, he’ll get curious.”

“Good idea.”

Bergman drove another block, weaving through morning traffic.

“What a weird way to live,” Bergman said, half aloud.

“Not nearly as weird as the way he died,” Cody answered. “And I have a theory about where he stopped after the office.”

8

Kate Winters stood in front of the oblong brick building and straightened out the wrinkles in her tan pants suit. She was about five-five, a shapely African-American woman in her mid-forties, with handsomely etched features and black hair trimmed in a bob. The strap of her dark brown purse was hooked over one shoulder but she held the purse itself in a tight fist, a not uncommon pose for a woman who had lived in Manhattan for more than a decade. A snatch thief would need a pair of vice grips to get it away from her.

It was an unimposing building, an old two-story warehouse that filled a short block bordering Little Italy and was surrounded by bustling commerce: restaurants, grocery stores, a deli across the street, a pizza parlor up the way; a structure so unobtrusive the world hustled by like it was an obscure eyesore waiting for the wrecking ball. Its windows were bricked over. The entrance was a single steel door with a small, thick, opaque glass window nestled between four large, steel garage doors. There was no number on the door. No mailbox. Nothing to indicate what might be inside the place.

She pressed a button close to the door jamb.

“Yes?” A gruff voice inquired from within.

“Kate Winters to see Captain Cody,” she told the window.

The door buzzed and was opened by a large man with his thumb holding his place in a tattered Even Hunter paperback, his blue uniform unadorned by any semblance of identification. She entered a miniscule box of a room with a chair, a reading lamp, a door to her left, and another facing her, both attended by a video camera. The big man pressed a button and said, “Kate Winters for the captain.” The door in front of her popped open to reveal a narrow staircase leading to the second floor.

“Top of the stairs on the left,” the attendant said, sat down on his chair and returned to his reading. A sawed off shotgun was leaning on the wall beside him.

“Thank you,” she said and climbed the stairs. The door on her left was labeled “Office.” The printing on the door to the right said simply “Keep Out.” Both had small one-way glass windows.

She entered a bright, sprawling room that was as cheerful as the trip up was drab. It encompassed half the second floor. Flush ceiling lamps cast a bright, shadowless light over the room.

No power naps in here, she thought.

It was also unlike any precinct station house she had ever seen. Kate was a quick study. One sweeping glance around the room revealed a dozen metal u-shaped desks scattered about in no particular order. But, she also noticed, not quite as haphazardly as would appear. All of them had a clear view of the wall behind her.

Seven men were at their desks. They looked up at her, smiled, gave her the once-over, and went back to what they were doing. They all were equipped with desk top computers and widescreen plasma viewers, DVD and video players, small desk lamps of every imaginable variety and shape, telephones that were jet black and accompanied by headsets, and a cup holder on every desk.

Very smart, she thought. Prevents spilling.

The desk chairs were as varied as the lamps; swing around chairs, stuffed chairs, straight back chairs, chairs with arms and chairs without arms, a tall movie director’s type canvas back with WOW printed on it, and a cocktail bar stool with a red leather seat and no back.

Perfect, she thought. A room ruled over by a man who was all business but had a strong respect for individuality.

“Hi,” said a young Asian about her height. He was thin, nicely buffed, had dark curly hair, and a smile that would melt a snowman. He took off the headset he was wearing and dropped it on the desk as he jumped up and stuck out his hand.

“Vinnie Hue. We’ve met. The wicker chair case?”

“Of course. You got more objections that day than any witness I ever had.”

“Yeah,” he said proudly. “I drove that lawyer nuts.”

“Yes, you did. And you drove me nuts objecting to his objections.”

“Hey, it worked,” he said and winked. “We won.” Then he spread out his arms. “Welcome to The Loft. Cody extends his apologies. He’s on his way. He’ll do the introductions when he gets here.”

“You call him Cody?”

“You can call him Cody or Cap or even Captain. Micah he doesn’t like too much.”

“Why not? It’s a lovely name.”

“Morphs too easily into Mickey. C’mon,” he wiggled a finger leading her toward a table in the rear of the room where coffee, tea, sweet rolls, and bagels beckoned.

She glanced at his cubicle as she followed him. It was a dazzling array of electronics: audio recorders, both digital and analog; another bank of six flat video screens with recorders attached; an audio/visual editing board; a keyboard interfacing the awesome display that was a remote controller’s nightmare. Buttons everywhere.

“Just out of curiosity, does anybody else understand all this stuff?” she asked.

“Si-that’s Larry Simon-can sit in for me. Sometimes we operate it together. The crew knows as much as they need to know. We have our own network. Like a mini CNN or ABC. Ten satellite dishes on the roof, wireless links constantly scanning for viruses or hackers. Nobody can bust through, we got better security than the CIA. And all our cell phones and laptops are interfaced and simul-recorded with my main frame up front.

“I can tape phone conversations, tape recorders, video, still photos off the laps. Everything. Also the vehicles are all bugged so whoever’s driving them can push a foot-button and tape anyone in the car and it transmits back to me immediately. All vehicles are GPS connected so we track them twenty-four seven. In short? Instant communication and no repetition. And nobody ever gets lost.” He stopped and smiled, as if awaiting applause.

“Turn around,” he said.

She turned to face the front of the room. Mounted in the middle of the wall was a huge eight-foot screen on which was displayed a satellite scan in real time of Manhattan and part of the lower Bronx. On each side of the main screen, mounted vertically, were three flat 42-inch TV screens.

Near the bottom of the map of Manhattan squeezed in among the tightly interwoven streets near Little Italy was an oblong block outlined in black. Using a complex remote controller, Hue zoomed into the area. The block slowly morphed into the headquarters building and filled the screen. Then the image tilted and she was looking at the front door she had entered.

“I can’t see through walls,” Hue said. “But I can put you on the doorstep of any building, house, park or structure in the city, from the Battery to the Bronx Zoo.”

He zoomed back until the screen was filled with a photograph of lower Manhattan. A green icon was moving south down Broadway.

“That’s Cody,” he said. “Heading home.”

The scanner panned up to Central Park and to the right to 73rd Street and zoomed down to Madison Avenue and then to the east. Hue settled the screen on a single house and zoomed and tilted the satellite image until the front of the brownstone nearly filled the screen.

“That,” he said, “is the scene of last night’s crime. Now I can overlay the still shots of the interior that Wolf emailed me from his laptop and that’s how we brief the squad.”

“You’re working a case now?”

He pointed to a timer in the upper corner of the big screen. It read: “01:43:” and the seconds were clicking off.

“Cal Bergman made the case at 7:02. We’re an hour and forty-three minutes into it already. When that timer hits 48:00 it turns red and we’re on the killer’s time.”

“Not a job for sissies,” Kate murmured, remembering what Phyllis Martingale had told her when she decided to interview for the position Phyllis was leaving.

“That’s about it,” Hue answered.

Kate looked back at the big board with astonishment.

“And you designed all this?”

“Yeah,” Hue said. “Took about eighteen months to get it running, another six to work out the bugs. The side screens are used to exhibit the case in progress. One lists suspects, another, evidence, one for the timeline, etcetera. Every aspect of the case in progress can be accessed as it develops. The same information is available to each of the squad members on their desktops and laptops as well as audio of interviews or comments by the investigators.”

“Is everybody as smart as you are, Vinnie?”

He shrugged. “All I did was the dog work. The concept was the Captain’s.”

“You call this dog work?” she said, sweeping her hand toward the huge display.

“Oh, I don’t mean it negatively,” he replied quickly. “I’m not thirty yet. Most guys in my business would never have a chance like this. I mean, to have the resources and opportunity to do something this ambitious? Hey, that’s the dream of a lifetime.”

“How long have you known Cody?”

“Since the beginning. Six years ago. I was one of the first guys he hired. I was in the Master’s Program at Rensselaer. One of my teachers is Cap’s best friend. He knew what the Captain wanted to do and he recommended me. Cap flew up to Boston, told me the mission of the squad and what he wanted me to do.”

“’Can you do it?’ he said.”

“And I didn’t even think twice. I said ‘Absolutely.’”

“You were that sure of yourself?”

“Nope. But I didn’t think I couldn’t either. And he didn’t want to hear maybe. I moved down three days later.”

He nodded toward an elevator in a corner of the room. “Here he comes now. Grab some coffee or tea. Excuse me.” She watched him walk briskly toward Cody.

Whew, she thought and poured herself a cup of coffee.

Cody started talking as Hue reached him. “Here’s what we need to know,” he said hurriedly. “The victim made a stop somewhere downtown on his way home last night. He cut his limo driver loose at eleven-fifty. Call Annie and have her check his overcoat pocket for a sign-off receipt. I want to know where Handley got out and we don’t want to set off any alarm bells in the driver’s head. You and Si start calling every hack company in town and find out what time a taxi dropped Handley off at the 73 ^ rd Street address. If you get a hit find out where the cabbie picked him up. If we get two arrivals at the 73 ^ rd Street address we may have a line on the killer but don’t count on that. I need ten minutes with Ms. Winters. Get on it.”

9

Kate Winters had met Cody about two years before. She was prosecuting a murder case and he was sitting in the back of the courtroom. She knew immediately who he was: the ponytail, the dark, handsome good looks, the cool stare, the wisp of a smile on his lips.

After the verdict she had turned and he was standing there.

“Nice show,” he said. “Congratulations.”

He was gone before she could thank him. She had caught a fleeting glimpse of him moving gracefully away through the crowd that had gathered around to shake her hand.

Phyllis Martingale, one of her best friends, had been the first assistant DA Cody had hired for the squad. She had set the legal standard to which the crew was held. An integral part of the team, she was leaving to accept a powerful job for which Cody generously had recommended her.

When Phyllis told Kate she was being considered as her replacement, Kate asked, “What’s he really like, Phil?”

“Mystical,” Phyllis answered. End of discussion.

Kate was obviously nervous about the interview.

“Hi, Kate,” Cody said, offering his hand and a pleasant smile. “Sorry I’m late. Got coffee? Good.”

He poured himself a cup and led her into his office. Two of its walls formed the corner of the room. The other two were glass from floor to ceiling; a glass box which made him part of the team but afforded privacy if he needed it. He left the sliding glass door open. His desk was like all the others. A battered chrome floor lamp arced over it. His chair was an old-fashioned arm chair, its leather padding scarred and faded by age.

On the floor beside his desk was a large, fleece dog pad, a well-gnawed bone near one edge and a tan water bowl nearby.

On one of the solid walls was a large yellow flag dominated by a rattlesnake partly coiled, partly rising as if to strike, its body dissected by several cuts. Under it were the words “Don’t Tread On Me.”

Behind his desk chair on the other solid wall was a small, framed, calligraphed quote:

I am always doing things I can’t do. That’s how I get to do them.

Pablo Picasso

Otherwise, the walls were bare.

Cody sat on the corner of his desk and sipped coffee.

“So, what have you heard about the TAZ?” he asked Kate.

“What little Phil has told me. A lot of rumors. Nobody talks much about it.”

“That’s the way we like it.”

“Don’t the precinct guys resent it? I mean, when you take a case away from them?”

“It’s a trade-out, Kate. Our objective is to get in first. Make the entry. Keep the scene clean until Max Wolfsheim is finished. We work the case and when our AD feels it’s solid, we turn the files over to the precinct. So, we do the work and they get the collar.”

“And the TAZ ADA tries the case.”

“Right. In simple terms, we are attached to the precinct as long as the case is alive.”

“But you run the show.”

“The team runs the show.”

“Interesting concept.”

“Let’s get one thing straight, New York has the best police force and the best cops in the world. We’re all overworked and underpaid. Our job isn’t to show them up. It’s to help make them look as good as we can. That’s why we get the luxury of having our own full-time ADA.”

“Phil said TAZ was a lot like a family. One for all, all for one. That kind of thing. She said never talk about a case except with the crew and avoid the press.” She smiled. “She said if I got the job my end would be to keep you guys straight.”

“That’s right. Phyllis set the rules. She was great and we all admired her and we miss the hell out of her. There are no grandstanders in this outfit. We argue, disagree, kick wastebaskets when we get frustrated, work twelve to fourteen hours a day without bitching. When somebody gets burned out they come to me and I make them take a day off. If I get burned out somebody will tell me to go home and I do.

“I guess the main thing we all have in common is that when we’re working a kill we’re totally focused. We all know the law. One thing we try to do is sit in on a trial now and then, see what mistakes witnesses make, how good the prosecutors are. Everybody here knows if they screw up they can blow a DA’s case right out the window. But we still can make mistakes. That’s your job, Kate. If we start to step over the line, call us on it.”

He pointed to the framed aphorism on the wall.

“If we have a slogan, that’s it,” he said.

“Picasso was an artist. There’s no art in the law, Captain.”

“No. But there is in how one practices it, and you know that as well as I do. That’s why we picked you. Three months ago when I told Phil to take that job in Atlanta? Our big question was, who’s gonna fill her shoes? Phyllis said you’d be her first choice. We all checked you out and we all agree.”

She smiled. “I wasn’t sure,” she said. “I thought maybe this interview was a narrowing the field thing.”

“This isn’t an interview. You’ve got the job if you want it.”

Her mouth popped open for a second and she smiled.

“I’ll be damned,” she said.

“I’ll warn you, a lot of people would take a pass. It’s not a job for sissies or family people or cops who grumble about overtime or not getting to go to Grandma’s with the family for Thanksgiving.”

“Phil told me all that. Did she tell you I’m a lesbian?”

He hesitated for a moment then shook his head.

“Nope.”

“I would have thought she had.”

“She’s a good lawyer, Kate. She knows what’s immaterial.”

Winters sighed with relief.

“It’s kind of an unwritten law in the squad, Kate. We don’t talk politics, religion, sex, or family unless one of us has a problem and wants to share it or maybe get some advice.”

“Well,” she said, “Cocteau once wrote, ‘There is no art without risk.’ If you’re willing to take a chance on a gay black woman, I’m your gal.”

“Great. Welcome aboard.” He stuck out his hand and they shook. The skin of her hand was silky, her handshake was anything but.

“You draw the line, we’ll listen. Phil was our first ADA, you’ll be the second. Thing about Phyllis? She set her own rules. Very demanding on the crew but not intransigent. And I will tell you, we can be contentious as hell at times.”

“I’m a trial lawyer, remember? Contentious is my middle name.”

“Here’s the deal. There’s only two things you can’t do. Because you’re the ADA, that means you can’t actively work a case. Might be considered conflict of interest. But you can be an observer so you’ll do everything everybody else does. You’ll watch how we make entries, how we sweep a crime scene, how Wolf works the scene, even occasionally sit in on an autopsy. You’ll monitor the case as we work it and the crew will consider you one of us. And you will be except you will tell us what we can and can’t do and when a case is ready.”

“You said there are two things I can’t do.”

“You can’t carry a detective’s badge. Also a conflict of interest. It always pissed Phil off, the thing about the badge. When she left I gave her one as a going away present.”

“I know. It’s pinned in her wallet. Works like a charm for speeding and parking tickets.”

“But you do get this,” Cody said and put a small baby blue Tiffany box in front of her. She took the box and shook it like a kid on Christmas morning. Then she opened it slowly and unfolded the tissue paper. It was a sterling silver whistle with “KW” engraved on it.

“Just like the cops used to carry in the old days,” she said without looking at him. She caressed it as if it were a diamond ring.

“Wear it all the time. We all have one. You ever get in trouble blow the tweeter out of it.”

“Thank you,” she said, stroking it with a finger. She was in, part of the gang. For her money, a dream job. The hint of a tear crept into the corner of one eye.

“And don’t get weepy on me,” Cody said. “It’s like baseball, there’s no crying in copville.”

The phone rang, ending the interview.

10

“Yeah?” Cody said.

It was Hue. “Sorry to bother you, Cap, but we got a hit.”

“Where?”

“On Handley. Both ends. The limo driver.”

“Very good.”

“Also Wolf is finished at the scene and on his way back with Handley. And get this: They threw a blanket over Handley and carried him and the chair out. He said not to worry, he’ll give the chair back.”

Cody chuckled. “I won’t even try to guess what that’s all about. You ready?”

“Ready to rock. Look at the big board.”

Small red stars were blinking on the huge Manhattan map at all three addresses. He moved his glance to the running clock on top of the board. It told him they were two hours and ten minutes into the show.

“Showtime in five.”

“Gotcha.”

He hung up the phone and snapped his fingers, looking at Kate.

“I’ll run the cast by you real fast, we’ll worry about introductions after the briefing.

He pointed to the staff as he named them:

“Lt. Frank Rizzo ex-homicide. An old timer, first cop I asked to join the squad. A book guy, as good as they come. A widower.

“I’m sure you know Max Wolfsheim. He’s next door, got his own lab. He’s doing his magic with his current assistant, Annie Rothschild. Annie’s got a Ph. D. in chemistry, speaks Russian. How she ended up here is a book in itself.”

“Calvin Bergman. Newest member of the squad, active liaison with the rest of NYPD. Rich kid who quit med school and joined the force. His family disowned him. Next to Hue, the highest IQ on the team and loves RR. Also speaks French and Swedish. He made the catch this morning and I made the entry with him.

“Vinnie Hue you know, but there’s a lot you don’t know.

“The black guy with the dreadlocks is Sgt. Jonee Ansa. Ex-vice, homicide, bunko. Name it, he’s done it. He knows this town better than anyone on the crew but Larry Simon.

“Wow DeMarco is Hispanic and an ex-Crip. That was a long time ago. I don’t know where he picked up the nickname Wow. He’s never said. I think his first name is Horatio but he’s never mentioned that either.

“Butch Ryan is a one-time Westie. Brother’s a NY Fireman, straightened him out. Been a cop for twenty years. Incidentally Butch is his given name. I think his mother had the hots for Paul Newman. He’s also deaf in one ear.”

She looked stunned. “How does he pass the physical?”

Cody grinned. “We have a compassionate doctor,” he said and went on. “And finally there’s Larry Simon. A very special little man. I’ll tell you more about him later.

“And there’s you,” she said.

“Yup. Your desk is right there.”

He pointed to the empty desk closest to his office. There was a headset and a cell phone on it and a briefcase sitting beside it.

“Bring your own lamp and chair. Phil took hers with her. The briefcase has all your goodies in it. The. 38 is registered to you but I hope you never have to take it out. The headset is on intercom so you just press the button when you have a question or something to say.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you all know Kate Winters. She was crazy enough to accept our invitation to become the new ADA. Get sociable later. Hue, it’s yours.”

Winters was immediately entranced by the briefing itself and a format that was as swift and detailed as Cody’s introduction to the TAZ.

Hue started by zooming into the brownstone scene pointing out that there was a ten-foot alley between it and the apartment west of it. A narrow fire escape led from the kitchen door of Handley’s apartment to the ground with a short landing at the back door of the vacant apartment.

The big screen dissolved to a couple of shots of the labeled footprints on the carpeting, and Cody’s analysis that someone else had entered the apartment between the time Wilma had straightened it up in the afternoon and Handley’s entrance later that night. He held up the baggie containing the mask.

“This was also in his briefcase,” Cody said, “We’ll get to it later.” He nodded to Hue.

Finally: The shot of Handley’s naked corpse, handcuffed to the chair, his mouth agape with the handball stuffed in it, eyes half-opened and terrified, the deadly gash in his throat. No blood.

Somebody in the room muttered, “Holy Christ!” Otherwise there was no response.

Cody paused at that point leaving the photo on the board. “I’m sure Wolf will have an interesting explanation of that enigma,” he said.

Then he promptly did a flashback: a shot copied from a photograph of Handley in the bedroom showing a handsome man in suit and tie smiling into the camera.

“This is our victim in better days,” he said. “You will each get a copy of the shot in your package.”

Bergman followed with background on Handley: thirty-five years old, parents both deceased; father killed in a skiing accident when Handley was a tike; raised with his sister as a ward of the State; scored a full scholarship to Princeton where he was a whiz kid; a Phi Beta Kappa hired the day he graduated by Marx, Stembler and Trexler; his steady rise to vice president of the brokerage firm and his pending marriage to Victor Stembler’s daughter, Linda.

Bergman held up the black book, which he pointed out, was a literal biography of the dead man.

“So much for the skin and bones,” Cody said. “Now let’s get to the heart of the matter.”

He described Amelie Cluett, the fact that she was in bed a scant twenty yards across the hall from where someone was butchering Handley, and played parts of his interview with her, including her sudden and voluntary autobiographical outburst, which earned a few chuckles from the crew.

Cluett: “Well, he also…uh…maybe I shouldn’t be telling some of this. You know, it’s very personal.” Cody: “Raymond’s dead, Amelie. You can’t hurt his feelings.” Cluett: “No, but there are others. Like his fiancee, Linda. She’s really sweet. I bumped into them in the hall once or twice. He’d talk about her.” Cody: “Intimate things?” Cluett: “Yes.” Cody: “Such as?” Cluett: “She wasn’t very…sexually oriented, I guess you could put it. She wasn’t into sex. Raymond was very much into sex. Raymond was a power player. Power players are always sexual people. Men and women. It’s an attitude. You can tell. I remember once he said, ‘Jesus, you’re a twice a week girl and I’m a twice a day guy.’ But he wasn’t talking to me. It was like he was having a dialogue with her. Then there were the weekends when they weren’t together and he’d talk about the clubs.” Cody: “What clubs?” Cluett: “Weird stuff.” Cody: “Weird stuff?” Cluett: “Sex clubs.” Cody: “Did he mention them by name?” Cluett: “Only once. It was really a disgusting name.” Cody: “I’m a big boy, Amelie, I’ve heard it all.” Cluett: “The Tit for Twat Club was one. I remember that because it really upset me. But he had no idea. It was like he was confessing and I wasn’t there.” Cody: “Did he ever bring people home with him?” Cluett: “Not that I know about. I’m in bed at eleven and I’m asleep before the news ends. If I start to doze? The ear plugs go in and I’m out for the night. Sometimes I TiVo Letterman and watch it the next night when there’s nothing good on.” Cody: “Did he mention anyone by name?” Cluett: “Made-up names. Wonder Woman. Bat Lady. Trapeze Girl.” Cody: “Trapeze girl?” Cluett: “That was another club he mentioned. The Sex Circus.” Cody: “Did he ever say where these clubs were?” Cluett: “No. But he calls one girl the Staten Island Fairy. Said she’d come if he put a hundred dollar bill under her pillow, whatever that means. Sounds like a mixed metaphor to me.” Cody: “Was he a switch hitter?” Cluett: “No. No. It was always about girls. And not all the time. I mean, maybe once a month he’d go off on one of his tantrums.”

Cody stopped the tape.

“The Staten Island Fairy?” Butch Rogers said and there were a few chuckles in the room.

Kate Winters cautiously raised her hand.

“Yes, Kate?”

“Did she know you were taping her?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said.

Cody smiled. “Back to the business at hand. Once everybody gets past the freak factor here let’s face the implications. We’ve got a high profile victim, V.P. of a prestigious brokerage firm with offices across the street from the Stock Exchange and engaged to the boss’s daughter. He had a sex jones and was murdered in what looks like an S amp;M game that was set up for the purpose of smoking him. This case is going to be on front pages and will resonate all over this squad when it does break. What you just heard stays in this room. I know the stuff about the Staten Island Fairy is juicy gossip over a drink but we have to handle this one very tenderly. Kabish?”

“Is the Cluett woman a suspect?” Larry Simon asked.

“I don’t think so. Whoever killed Handley knew what the hell they were doing. This was a very clean homicide scene, including the absence of blood. I doubt that she would have been as frank as she was if she was implicated in any way. But…she was the closest person to him when he was killed so she’s on the list. Witness, not a suspect.”

“Funny she brought up all the sex stuff when she didn’t know how he was killed,” Hue said.

“All she knew-all I told her-was that he was dead and it wasn’t an accident. I think she got started and let it all out. But, you got a point, Vinnie. Si, run a background on her and the maid while you’re at it. She had a key to the place.”

“Already on it,” Simon answered.

“Okay, let’s finish the briefing, there’s more. Cal?”

Bergman ran the timeline:

“Handley stopped by his office on the way home for about twenty minutes. He discharged his limo driver on the east side Hudson Street, the 520 block, that’s between West 10th and Charles Street, at 11:50 p.m. The sign-off slip was in Handley’s coat pocket.”

Hue picked it up: “I talked to the dispatcher at Metro cab who says one of his cabbies was off-duty and driving south on Bleecker between 10th and Christopher when Handley waved him down. Says Handley looked well-heeled so he figured him for a good tip and picked him up. That was at 12:25 a.m. He let him out at the 73 ^ rd Street address at 12:55. Handley gave him a twenty buck tip.”

“And we know the killer was waiting for him when he got there,” Cody added. “We also know he went straight to the bedroom, undressed, showered, and walked naked to the library where his murderer was waiting for him. He apparently had a drink before the messy stuff started. The glass was on the table beside him. And he submitted to the handcuffing.

“And we have the mask.”

“Maybe he was gonna get a cup of coffee and stick up a convenience store on the way home,” Ansa said with a snicker.

“It was a full moon last night,” Wow said. “You know how crazy people get when the moon is full.” More snickers.

“Hey, next Wednesday’s Halloween. Maybe him and the Staten Island Fairy were practicing,” Butch Ryan added.

Cody smiled, accustomed to the insouciant gallows humor of the group. But he cut it off by turning to Hue. “Give us a satellite shot of that block in West Village.”

The crew watched as the satellite map moved over Greenwich Village then panned down until the block bordered by Hudson and Bleecker Streets and Charles and West 10th filled the screen.

“I’m glad you guys have a good sense of humor about this,” he said. “Let me tell you what I have. I have a self-made, thirty-five-year-old man who discharged his limo here,” he pointed at the spot on Hudson Street, “and hailed a cab here,” he pointed to spot on Bleecker where the Metro cab picked up Handley. ”That’s a block and a half. A five minute walk. I got a guy who’s wearing a three thousand dollar overcoat, a seventeen thousand dollar Tag Heuer watch, and more than a grand in his wallet. So he wasn’t taking a midnight walk in the moonlight. He went straight to somewhere to meet somebody probably to give that somebody a key to his apartment to arrange a little fun and games. And that’s what he got.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the ghoulish photo of Handley’s corpse.

“I’m open to any other cogent suggestions.”

Silence.

“Wolf’s next door by now doing the autopsy. I want to take Kate and talk to Victor Stembler. Can he make the official ID, Kate?”

She thought for a moment. “Any immediate family members nearby?”

“Stembler will know, but we’re getting that he had no family left. If we have to, we’ll call the fiancee. I think we can count on Stembler to soft peddle any details we give him.”

“Wow, you, Butch, and Jonee work the phones. You’ve all been in vice. Call any old contacts, find out everything you can about sex clubs in Manhattan until Wolf is ready to brief us on the autopsy. After that I want Jonee on RR. Wow, you and Butch take on the area in Greenwich Village. I want to know where he went. What he did. Who he saw? Any clubs in that neighborhood? If so, shake ‘em but don’t break ‘em. We’re interested in Handley’s activities, who he might have connected with during that half-hour or so. Our story is we need to talk to him about a case in progress.

“Si, start working on back stories. You know how far you can go with that.”

“Yes sir,” the little man answered.

Cody looked up at the timer.

“We’re two hours and twenty-four minutes into the show.”

“Same song, new verse,” Rizzo said.

“Maybe. But I have a feeling this is one song we’ve never heard before.”

11

Cody and Kate Winters took the elevator to the garage on the first floor. Rizzo was waiting, holding the rear door of a black Lincoln open for them. They crawled in and Rizzo got behind the wheel. The large steel garage door rolled up.

“Where to, Cap?”

“Financial district,” Cody said. “Exchange Place, across the street from the Stock Exchange.”

“Easy one,” Rizzo said. “We’ll cut over to Broadway and head down. Ten minutes.”

“No rush.”

Rizzo snaked his way through Little Italy, turned onto Broadway and headed south toward the few cramped blocks that formed an empire whose heart was the stock market; its blood, dollars, Euros, yen, and market shares; and brokers the jaded knights that jousted for power and control over its fortunes. Its main artery was Wall Street, which someone had once called Heart Attack Alley. And little wonder. Millions could dissolve in a day because of bad weather in Texas, a bad crop in Kansas, some sick cows in Canada, or a Ponzi scheme outed. Compared to this win or lose fiefdom, Las Vegas was a nickel-dime poker game.?

Victor Stembler was one of the elite members of a round table of multi-millionaires who were major players on the street. He had inherited his seat from his father, Chester, who in turn had inherited it from his father, Sidney, Victor’s grandfather, a robber baron of the old school who had made his first fortune in the railroad business.

Victor’s genes came from Sidney, a ruthless but charming rogue who loved the competition almost as much as the money.

Chester was neither charming nor competitive, he was simply greedy. A humorless and stingy alcoholic bigot, he had forced one of his partners, Herman Marx, out of the business because he hated being in business with a Jew. He had endured Trexler, reduced to a junior partner because he was smarter than Chester. It was a known fact that Chester had kept the name Marx, Stembler and Trexler because he was too cheap to spend the money to change letterheads, logos, and various other accoutrements attached to the corporation. He had died in his private rail car traveling from San Francisco to New York. His death was attributed to a heart attack although Victor liked to say his father, “choked to death on his own gall.”

Victor had taken over the business and was soon known on the street as a man to be reckoned with. But his only son, Victor, Jr., had drowned in a yachting accident. And his daughter, Linda, had no taste for the business.

Raymond Handley had come along at the perfect time. He was handsome and charming, captain of the Princeton Lacrosse team, a top student and a ruthless competitor, who had worked his way to the top in the corporation with a combination of talent and an instinct for the jugular. And he treated Linda like a princess.

The perfect candidate for a future son-in-law.

Victor was delighted when his daughter fell head over heels for Handley. At sixty, Stembler was smugly successful and looking forward to shorter days in New York and more time on his backyard tennis court in Boston.?

Cody didn’t know any of this background. Larry Simon would later fill him in with the details. He only knew he was about to give Victor Stembler a very hard kick in the head and he felt badly about it.

He and Kate exited the elevator on the top floor of the building across the street from the Stock Exchange. Stembler’s office was on northeast corner of an elegant hallway, its teakwood walls and floors subtly lit by antique lamps on pedestal tables. It was deathly still.

“A little depressing, don’t you think?” Cody said in a half-whisper.

“I think we’re supposed to be intimidated,” Kate answered.

When they reached Stembler’s office Cody tapped on the door and they entered the secretary’s lair which was a bit cheerier although the secretary, whose placard told them was Eleanor Wood, was archly solemn, archly coiffed, archly dressed, and archly challenging.

Cody tried a smile. She reacted as though he had committed a mortal sin. He got serious. He handed her his card.

“My name’s Captain Micah Cody, NYPD Tactical Assistance Squad. This is my associate, Assistant District Attorney Winters. We’re here to see Mister Stembler.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, Ms. Wood. It’s a matter of some urgency.”

She looked at the card, snapped it with a fingernail, and looked back at him. “He’s on the phone,” she said sternly.

“Tell him we’re here, please.”

“I can’t interrupt him. It’s an international call,” and she leaned forward slightly, “of some urgency. ”

As she said it, the red light on her multi-line phone blinked off.

“He’s off the phone now,” Cody said with quiet authority. “Tell him we’re here or I will gladly save you the trouble and go in and tell him myself.”

“Really!” she said, her eyes widening.

“Yes really,” he said. “Now.”

She turned sharply and entered Stembler’s office closing the door behind her.

“I thought she had the jump on you for a minute there.”

Cody answered with his usual cryptic smile.

The secretary returned. “Mister Stembler will see you now,” she said.

“Thank you,” Cody said and motioned Kate to go in first. The office was large but not expansive, tastefully decorated and brighter than the hall and the secretary’s anteroom. They were facing his desk, which was waxed to perfection. The phone, a leather writing blotter, a pen set, a cigarette box and matching ashtray and a gold lighter were all placed in perfect symmetry. There was a sofa and a coffee table in one corner, two leather trimmed chairs in front of the desk, and large windows on the walls to their left and right, one overlooking the East River, the other the Hudson.

Stembler was a tall man, six-one or two. His gray hair was neatly trimmed as was the pencil thin mustache that lined his upper lip. He had a tennis tan and stood as erect as a king’s guard. He was wearing a pinstripe double-breasted suit with a flash of silk in the breast pocket and he was smoking a cigarette.

He spoke in a deep, cultured voice. “Well, uh,” he looked at the card, “Captain Cody, what can I do for you?”

“Raymond Handley works for you, doesn’t he Mister Stembler?” Cody said.

Stembler looked annoyed. He took a drag on the cigarette. “Raymond is a vice president of this company and about to become a junior partner and my son-in-law, which I’m sure you’re aware of,” Stembler snapped.

“He’s dead,” Cody said.

Stembler’s attitude vanished. His tan seemed to drain from his face, replaced by skin the color of an oyster shell. His hands shook and his lips moved a moment before he spoke. Kate stared at Cody, a bit shocked by his abrupt disclosure.

“My God,” Stembler said. He crushed the cigarette in an ashtray and sat down. “Why? What happened?”

“He was murdered in his apartment sometime between midnight and six this morning. We don’t think he was robbed, nothing seems to have been taken.”

“How?” Stembler said, his voice turning hoarse.

Cody hesitated for a moment. “Somebody cut his throat,” he said.

“Why? Why would somebody do such a thing?” Then he added, “Please sit down.”

“We were hoping you might give us some help with that.”

“I don’t know anyone who had any reason to kill Raymond. Oh my God.” He wiped his face with the silk handkerchief. “I have no idea. Maybe he caught someone breaking in, maybe…”

“I don’t think that’s an option.”

“Not an option? How can you be so sure?”

“The circumstances indicate he was killed by somebody he knew.”

“There was a fight, then.” It was a statement.

“I really can’t give you any more details. We’re not sure of anything until after the autopsy.”

“My God, an autopsy.”

“It’s the law,” Kate said. “Any time someone dies violently…” She let the sentence dangle.

“Could it be business-connected?” Cody asked.

He quickly shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

Stembler’s mind was now racing to other things. Telling his daughter and his wife. Wedding plans to be canceled. Dealing with the press.

“He has no family that I know of. Just us. My daughter. My wife, Elizabeth. His associates here at the office.”

Cody looked at Kate and she nodded.

“We need an official ID on him,” Cody said. “Are you up to that, sir?”

“ID? Oh, yes. Where? When? What can I tell my daughter? Linda’s going to be devastated.”

“We’re trying to keep a lid on this, Mister Stembler,” Kate said. “My suggestion is that we wait until you officially ID him, then we can release his body to the funeral home. That way the cosmetician can do some work on him before she gets here.”

The talk of a funeral jolted him. Stembler looked like he was going into shock.

“Is there someone you can talk to here?” Kate said. “You look like you could use a shoulder to lean on.”

“I’ll be alright,” he said. He lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “Have to make a list. So much to do.”

“I’ll talk to our coroner about the ID. Perhaps after lunch would be convenient.”

“Sooner the better. I’ll have to alert our pilot. I have to get back to Boston and tell Linda.”

“I have to ask this, Mister Stembler,” Cody said. “Is there anyone in your company who would have anything to gain by Raymond’s death?”

“Nobody,” he said, still staring at the ceiling. “Everyone knew Raymond was irreplaceable.”

Cody nodded.

“One request,” Stembler added, giving Cody a piercing look. “Leave my daughter out of this. She’s very fragile… She doesn’t handle emotion very well.”?

The elevator was empty on the way down. Cody didn’t say anything for the first few floors.

“I could use a cup of coffee,” Kate said.

“Me too. There’s a coffee shop on the corner.”

“I’ve never had to do that before.”

“There’s no easy way to do it, you know,” he said. “All that pomp and circumstance. And you know you’re going to pull the rug out from under him. A man with everything and with two words you turn triumph into tragedy. You just have to throw it on the table and let it play out.”

He was silent until they hit the main floor.

“All of a sudden there’s a face on the dead man,” Kate said. “It’s nice to know someone loved him. It kind of balances the way he died.”

“Yeah, it’s nice to think so. You’ve had a tough first day and it isn’t even lunch time.”

“Comes with the territory, right?”

“Dog work,” he answered.

“Are you going to interview Linda Stembler?”

“Only if I need to,” Cody replied. “She didn’t kill him. She knew nothing about his moonlighting activities.”

“How can you be sure?” Kate asked.

As they left the building they heard a screech above them and looking up saw a peregrine falcon swoop between the buildings. It dove low and circled over Cody’s head and then swept back up and darted away. He stared at it hypnotically.

“It’s that falcon that nests uptown,” Kate said excitedly. “Have you seen it before?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes.”

As the bird dove behind a building, a chill streaked through him. He shook it off.

“You okay?” Kate asked.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I was thinking about options.”

“Options?”

“Yeah. Like ruling them out, narrowing the field. Take Stembler. When I mentioned options he just phased out. He was so busy worrying about the consequences of Handley’s death suddenly he didn’t care who killed Raymond or why.”

“The hauteur of the successful business man,” Kate said.

“Right. What happened to Raymond no longer has any validity in his world.”

They reached the door to the coffee shop and he looked up as he held the door open for her, his eyes tracing the arc of the falcon as it swept through the spires of Wall Street.

“Maybe he wasn’t a specific target.”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose his murder was nothing personal. Suppose his addiction put him in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You mean an accident?”

“No. Maybe Raymond was picked at random. Maybe he was the victim of some perverse, unthinkable kind of rage.”

12

In the autopsy lab, Wolfsheim and Annie Rothschild had completed their work and replaced the parts of Handley’s body they had removed for analysis. Annie Rothschild, who had some medical experience before becoming a police officer, had been working as Wolfsheim’s denier, his assistant, when he performed autopsies.

A petite brunette in her early thirties, Rothschild had all the rigid criteria for a spot on the squad but it was Wolfsheim who had recommended her after watching her at trial during a difficult cross examination by a high profile defense attorney. She had lured the lawyer with simple “yes” and “no” answers on some details of a particularly brutal homicide. Thinking he could make a fool of her on the stand, he had thrown some intricate pathology questions at her.

To his chagrin, she not only had acquitted herself admirably with her keen knowledge of forensics but had led the lawyer into uncharted waters. Watching her dismantle the lawyer’s defense, Wolfsheim realized that Rothschild had carefully orchestrated her performance as a witness to make the lawyer look like a fool. His client was convicted and Annie had become a prime candidate for the TAZ.

While they were completing their work they had both listened through earphones to the initial debriefing Cody was conducting in the HQ so both of them knew what had been accomplished thus far. They washed up and crossed the hallway.

Wolf entered the room rumpled and enervated like a sigh waiting to be uttered, his eyes temporarily atrophic from the demands of minute scrutiny, his fingers gnarled by restless and constant exploration, his shoulders bowed by the relentless probing and dismemberment of what had once been Raymond Handley.

As always, his psyche was momentarily askew. He performed each autopsy compassionately. They were constant reminders of the finite line between life and death, between the human body and a corpse without a soul.

And there had been the physical demands: cutting open the body and dictating his findings into the microphone that hung just over his head; looking for signs of mischief in the intricate collaboration of veins, capillaries, and arteries that stitched together the pulpy organs that had supplied and supported life to the now smelly, inanimate mess that lay before him; collecting blood and fluids and slicing sections of bones; examining the lifeless eyes and slicing open the skull to reveal what secrets the brain might reveal; weighing heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and the myriad other elements of the once miraculous human machine that he was dissecting in his quest for whatever explicitly had destroyed it.

Wolfsheim finally set free a sigh, took the cup of black coffee Vincent Hue offered him, shook off his momentary lapse of objectivity and smiled at her.

They knew what had killed Raymond Handley.

And this one was a beaut.

It wasn’t what killed Raymond Handley but in what order. Handley’s homicide was a masterpiece of misdirection, leaving a conundrum that Cody and his crew would ultimately have to pull out every stop to unravel. Why had this killer resorted to such deviltry murdering Handley when killing him straight out could have been so much simpler?

That was Cody’s problem. But Wolfsheim wasn’t ready to spring that question. He had his own method of briefing the members of the TAZ. Briefing was, he liked to say, a continuous educational process. So he began by reviewing what the squad already knew.

Wolfsheim sipped his coffee. Then he began his lecture, his build-up to the autopsy findings.

“Micah and Bergman did a great job on entry,” Wolf said. “That was great tracking. And Annie followed up sweeping the whole scene. What we can ascertain for sure is that this was a prepared crime scene. The killer came in first, probably with a key supplied by Handley, and set up the scene of the crime in the library.

“I think we will also assume from the tracks in the carpeting that Handley came in, went straight to his bedroom, undressed, and then walked barefooted to the library where the killer was waiting. Handley walked with the killer to the chair and willingly permitted the killer to handcuff his hands and feet to the arms and legs of the chair. This is when it gets dicey.

“As you know,” he went on, “we try to ascertain the initial cause of death and the last event prior to death and if there is a time lapse between the two. For instance, let’s say a woman is hit by a car. She is rushed to the hospital where it is determined she has catastrophic blunt trauma. Also internal bleeding. Examination shows a broken rib has pierced the heart and she is bleeding internally. Loss of blood has been severe. The rib is removed and the heart is sewn up but the woman dies. Initial cause of death was blunt trauma. The last event prior to death was shock caused by internal bleeding. The time lapse was continuous so the final ruling would be that the cause of death was trauma from the automobile accident.

“In this case, the initial cause of death appeared to be a stabbing or piercing of the throat which was a catastrophic wound. It was a slash from left to right which cut the jugular, all other blood vessels and the windpipe. However, the absence of blood puts the initial cause of death in doubt. Further examination of the body revealed a small puncture wound in the left carotid artery, similar to that left by the insertion of an IV. We also know that approximately two liters of blood were drawn from the body using the IV as a siphon. That’s almost half of the body’s blood supply and would have resulted in extreme trauma to the heart. The result would be a lowering of blood to the brain, shock to the heart. Ultimately lethal.”

“Where did the blood go?” Winters asked.

“Don’t rush me,” Wolfsheim snapped back without looking at her.

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay, you’ll learn,” he answered with a wisp of a smile. “Continuing. There’s another wrinkle. We completed an examination of the blood which shows us it contained toxic levels of both nitroglycerine and yohimbine. Point three milliliters of nitroglycerine and ten milliliters of yohimbine, which you probably know as Yohimbe, a fast-acting aphrodisiac when administered orally. Yohimbine is an alpha-2 adrenergic block agent. A dose of yohimbine this high has numerous side effects, including rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, overstimulation, and seizures.

“The two drugs are additive and would cause an almost immediate and deadly drop in the blood pressure.”

He paused for another sip of coffee while the TAZ squad waited impatiently for the big kahuna to continue.

“The question is, which came first? Based on the condition of the heart and brain, it is my conclusion that the Yohimbe was administered first. I’m sure he took it willingly and chased it down with the drink on the table which was bourbon. The killer then began to masturbate Handley. Then he was given a second drink which contained the nitro tablet, and the killer began to service him orally. Handley was approaching a state of ecstasy and it was easy to slip the handball into his mouth and tie it in with the towel. That stifled any screaming. With the introduction of the nitro, Handley was brought to orgasm-and probably suffered extreme pain similar to angina. Then the killer injected the needle and began the exsanguination. Handley’s blood pressure already had dropped dangerously low with the administration of the drugs, and with the loss of blood he was probably brain dead within five minutes followed shortly thereafter by a fatal heart attack.

“We found no DNA so I guess the killer swallowed,” Rizzo snickered, drawing a piercing stare from Annie.

Wolfsheim ignored the interruption. “The killer then withdrew the IV, the remaining blood had settled by gravity to the lower part of the body and there was no blood when the killer cut Handley’s throat.”

“Why go to the trouble of draining the blood when the nitro-Yohimbe dose would have killed Handley?” Bergman asked.

“Good question,” Wolfsheim said.

Bergman took a cautious guess. “No blood stains on the killer or in the room to mess things up?”

“Possibly, but I doubt it,” Wolfsheim answered.

“Make sure he died if by some miracle the nitro and Yohimbe didn’t kill him?” Hue guessed.

“I like that better,” said Wolfsheim.

Then Annie threw in a question: “Why cut his throat after all that?”

“Why indeed,” Wolfsheim muttered again.

“Now may I ask what happened to the blood?” Kate Winters asked cautiously.

“Sure,” said Wolfsheim. “Annie, you want to take that one?”

“Okay,” she said. “There were a few fibers at the death scene. They were on the floor next to the chair where Handley was killed. We’re checking them but we feel fairly certain they came from the towel around Handley’s neck. We’re guessing that towel was put on the floor and the blood drained into something fairly portable resting on the towel.”

“Like a hot water bottle,” Wolfsheim added. “Then it was dumped into the toilet in the guest bathroom.”

“Did you guess that?” Cody asked. “Is that why you took him out sitting up?”

“Educated guess. The blood had to be somewhere. All the killer had to do was drain half his blood supply, two-point-seven liters, to kill him. So I assumed the rest of it had settled in his lower body. Had we tilted him over it would have run out of his mouth, ears, the slit in his throat. All over the place. So, I decided to haul him out the way he was. Also the neighbors wouldn’t notice.”

Rothschild picked it up. She was excited. “The bourbon most likely came from Handley’s wet bar in the library,” she said. “The knife that slashed his throat had a serrated blade so we think it was one of the knives in a holder in the kitchen. Also washed clean in the toilet. We brought it in to test it.”

“Which still doesn’t answer, “Why make the kill so complicated?’” Hue said.

“Also it had to be somebody Handley knew,” Bergman offered. “Perhaps someone who had been there before to case the place.”

Cody had been listening to the word play. Now he joined in. “Well,” he said, “I agree he may have known Handley before that night, but it’s not a certainty. Handley could have described the layout. We have to assume Handley was discreet. He knew the only potential witness was the masseuse across the hall, who was usually asleep by eleven-thirty. So Handley would have been comfortable going to his place.”

“So would the killer,” said Bergman. “I mean, up the stairs and in the door. Hell, entry in a minute, exit in a minute. Somebody spots you going in, you abort the job. Only risk is a minute to get out.”

“Any ideas, Micah?” Wolfsheim asked. “Think about it. The killer was set up and waiting when Handley came home at 12:55 a.m. The entire procedure could have taken say twenty or thirty minutes max, depending on how much the killer was enjoying it. Clearly S amp; M is involved in this. My guess is the perpetrator was out of there by one-thirty, two at the latest. And all the killer needed to bring into the scene was a hot water bottle or some other viable container, a three-foot IV, liquid Yohimbe, two pills, gloves, and some booties.”

“Stuff easily carried in a purse or a paper bag,” Cody said. “Maybe…to complicate matters? Maybe he was testing us? Or maybe…”

“Yes?” Wolfsheim asked.

“It was just a cruel joke.”

Everybody paused to think about that. Could Handley have set up his own sadomasochistic game only to be killed by his partner?

“Could have been a her,” Annie said.

Cody nodded. “True enough. We don’t know for sure whether it was a him or a her.”

“Or both,” Hue added.

“Or androgynous,” Bergman said with a smile. “A he-she.”

“It’s unlikely for this kind of killer to be a woman,” Kate said.

“Yes, it is unlikely,” Cody told her. “But it happens. Though when women kill they usually employ the softer devices, like suffocation.”

Larry Simon looked thoughtful. “But some women torture, and even use guns and knives.” He pointed out that Nell “Hell’s Belle” killed forty men; and that Theresa Noor, who shot her first husband and tortured other victims, including her own daughter, giggled while confessing.”

“She tortured her daughter?”

“Yeah,” Simon said. “She spread a whole pot of macaroni and cheese on her daughter’s legs, made her eat every bite, then killed her.”

“Now that’s torture,” Hue chuckled ghoulishly, remembering his mother’s awful mac and cheese that was so dry it nearly choked him on more than one occasion.

Cody hadn’t been paying attention to Simon’s war stories. He was thinking his own thoughts. “It wasn’t anyone in the Stembler family,” he said. “They were all at a party in Boston last night. The old man flew in on the company plane this morning.”

“How’d he take it?” Wolfsheim asked.

“Shock, disbelief. Then when it began to really sink in I think he was overwhelmed by the whole thing. Autopsy, wedding plans to be canceled, telling his wife and daughter.”

“He volunteered to make the ID,” Kate added. “Then he said he had to make a list.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “The businessman in him started to creep out.”

“That’s pretty cold,” Hue said.

“He’s a corporate shark. He didn’t get where he is suckling on the milk of human kindness. Most people in his spot would have been more concerned with Handley. Motives, did we have any suspects, more details. He made the arc from Handley’s death to the problems he was facing in about three minutes flat.”

“Did you tell him what happened?” Wolf asked.

“I told him Handley’s throat was slit by someone he knew and that it was not a robbery or a fight.”

“Not entirely untrue,” Wolf said.

“For now that’s all anybody has to know but us.”

“I did notice that he didn’t bring up the possibility that the killer could have been a woman,” said Kate. “I got the feeling it was an option he didn’t care to deal with.”

“Maybe we should call the perp Androg,” Bergman suggested. “Covers all bases.”

“Sure, why not,” Wolf said. “Androg. I like it. Of course it opens up a few more doors. Now we really don’t know what the hell we know.”

Everybody laughed. Then Wolf added, “I’d make one change.”

“What’s that?” Hue asked.

“Play it safe,” Wolf answered. And then added edgily: “Make it Androg 1.”

Everyone fell silent.

Cody nodded slowly.

“You agree then?” Wolf said.

Cody continued nodding.

“This is too elaborate to be a one-off. There’s a demon loose amongst us,” Wolf said.

“Yeah, and so far Androg hasn’t left or taken any trophies,” Cody said impatiently. “What are we looking for? A time sequence? A location pattern? Moon phase? What? And why Handley? Hell, we don’t even have a signature yet.”

In the back of the room Larry Simon was staring at the big board. He said, almost casually, “Sooner or later the perp will start bragging. They all do.”

13

The crew, except for Vinnie Hue and Larry Simon, vacated the office quickly to follow their assignments. Wolf and Annie returned to the lab to clean up.

Hue was busy transcribing and editing the tapes that had been gathered in the four hours since Handley’s body was discovered.

Simon was at his desk toward the rear of the room, his eyes fixed on the screen, his fingers dancing across the keyboard of his computer.

If Vincent Hue was the nerve center of the TAZ, Larry Simon was its brain. Like Hue, Simon had an IQ that was off the charts.

From an early age, Simon, the youngest son of wealthy Jewish parents, mastered every subject his teachers threw at him with an ease that baffled them. Like a magnet attracts flux, Simon’s facile brain attracted information and retained it.

By the time he was sixteen, the eccentric, moody, loner was a senior in college, five-five, and slightly overweight; a baby-faced teenager with a brain eons older than his body and littered with encyclopedic fragments of knowledge, none worthy of his undivided attention. When a group of psychologists gathered to study the prodigious youngster, one diagnosed him as borderline autistic.

But a psychology professor at Harvard Medical School named Howard Reischman disagreed, observing that he showed none of the signs of autism. “There’s a big difference between frustration and rage and boredom and ennui,” he told Simon’s parents. “He just hasn’t found anything that holds his interest long enough to focus on.”

He enrolled Simon in one of his abnormal psych classes in order to observe his learning habits and his interaction with other students. He quickly noted that Simon had a devilish sense of humor, never voluntarily answering questions in class and, when called on, casually couched his answers either as abstractions or ingenious epigrams. He wasn’t challenging the other students, he was challenging Reischman.

Then, on a field trip to a mental institution, Reischman observed Simon taking copious notes while observing interviews with the inmates. Simon never took notes. Was he really that interested, Reischman wondered?

Simon did not appear in class for a week following the trip. Reischman was concerned until Simon appeared at his house one night with a book tucked under his arm.

“Do you have a minute?” Simon asked. The minute turned into a four-hour conversation. In that one visit to the institution, Simon had grasped the most subtle distinctions between psychopaths and psychotics and was comfortable discussing the subject in some depth.

“The psychopaths were pretty bright guys,” Simon said. “The look normal but one of them lied all the time about everything. Another one played with himself the whole time we were there and actually enjoyed it. Totally anti-social. What separates them from the psychotics is they aren’t nutty. They know right from wrong, they just don’t care. They don’t have a conscience.

“On the other hand, the psychotics are confirmed whackos. They hear voices and have visions that make them commit crimes. They’re like that David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, who claimed his dog made him do it.

“Thing is, we don’t know what motivates psychopaths, so we can’t stop them before they commit crimes.”

“That’s true,” Reischman answered.

“Classic psychopaths,” Simon said. “Knew what they were doing and they knew it was wrong but they just kept doing it until they got caught.”

Reischman was fascinated. He just listened. Simon had assimilated the history of serial killers and the range of iniquity that set them aside in a terrifying enclave reserved for the worst predators of society and the paradigm that distinguished them from the norm: They were not insane, they simply had no conscience.

They liked to kill and the more they killed the more they liked it. Their motives were unique unto themselves, so unfathomable, so bizarre, they defied analysis, common decency, and human empathy.

Reischman realized it was the enigma that hooked Larry Simon. There was no easy explanation for these awful crimes. They were obscene social puzzles and as such, had become worthy of Simon’s attention.

“I think I know what I want to do with my life,” he announced.

At twenty-two, armed with a strong recommendation from Reischman to Brooks and a confirming phone call, Simon was admitted to the FBI school and assigned to Brooks upon graduating. Simon would last five years before Brooks realized the young genius was getting antsy. He had been gathering data and talking to people in the field and he was getting bored. Brooks knew it was time for Larry Simon to hit the street.

Brooks called an old friend, Lou Stinelli, a commander in the NYPD, and for thirty minutes regaled one of Manhattan’s top cops with Simon’s unique qualities. Stinelli listened with more than casual interest. Brooks’ timing was perfect for Stinelli was in the process of putting together a unique project of his own: the TAZ.

“Why do you want to get rid of him?” Stinelli asked.

“I don’t, but he needs to leave now. He needs to be on the street. He needs to go after these people face-to-face.”

“Send him up,” Stinelli replied.

Needless to say, Stinelli was blown away by the man’s knowledge.

“So? What did you think of the session?” Cody asked Kate as they walked toward the little man.

“Fascinating. I gather you and Wolf think we have a serial killer on our hands.”

“Worst case scenario,” Cody said. “When you catch one like this it crosses everybody’s mind. So far we don’t have that much to go on. We have to follow what we do have and see where it leads.”

They reached Simon’s desk but he kept doing what he was doing and didn’t look up.

“Bet you a buck I know what you’re up to,” Cody said.

“That little birdy tell you?” Simon said with a wry smile, still pecking at the keys. “I know better. I always lose whether it’s a little bird, the big bad wolf, or an owl and a pussycat that’s been banging on your ear.”

Winters frowned but said nothing.

“Deep six on Stembler?”

The little man stopped typing and leaned back in his chair. “Just backing you up. I think that crack about him looking for a new candidate for a son-in-law is on the money. I did a probe on Handley. A guy in the company named Louis Nevins made the initial recruiting interview when Handley was a junior at Princeton. But Stembler himself went over there for the final interview and nailed him that day. I mean, he had Handley married into the family when he hired him.”

The little man looked up at Kate. “Welcome to hell central.”

“Thank you,” she said, shaking the hand he offered.

“Picked a great day to start.”

“So I gather.”

Simon looked back at Cody. “What did that birdy tell you?”

“Be careful but work fast.”

Simon chuckled. “Obscure, as usual.”

“You had to be there.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what you always say. I’ve already run all the names we’ve gathered through the names and moniker base, including the maid and Nevins. No hits, they’re all clean. And no reference to the sister.” He chuckled a bit and added: “The Staten Island Fairy didn’t make the cut either.”

“You gonna run ViCAP or NCIC yet?”

“Maybe. What I like best is bleeding the guy. That’s a new one on me. I may start the trail by entering all three of Wolf’s findings. Death by piercing, double dose of drugs and exsanguination and see what happens.”

“How about the crime scene?”

“Probably bring up a lot of bondage hits. Handcuffing to the chair, blah, blah, blah. All that crap isn’t that uncommon.”

He paused for a moment or two staring at the screen.

“Maybe this wasn’t a sex crime,” Kate pondered aloud. “That what the birdy meant?”

“Maybe he meant be careful but don’t waste time. Maybe Androg would like to lead us down a blind alley at this point.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“This is your part of the show, Si. Play the hand you feel we’ve been dealt.”

“S.O.P.”

“I’m gonna get Kate straightened away and pick up Charley. I’ll be back in thirty, maybe we can grab a sandwich.”

“Roger that.”

Cody and Kate headed for the elevator.

“Do you have wheels?” He asked her.

“No. I rent when I need to go out of the city.”

“Now is as good a time as any to pick up a chair and lamp and anything else you want for the office.”

She smiled. “My lamp and chair are at my apartment. We’ve been together a long time.”

“That’s on the west side, right? Ninety-fourth just off West End near Riverside Park?”

“I see I have no secrets,” she laughed.

“It’s on your application,” he said. “You’ll need transportation and a strong arm. I’ll get you one of the vans and one of the guys in the garage to help you.”

“Thanks. Question?”

“Fire away.”

“I’m not sure I got everything you two were talking about back there.”

“You mean about the bird?”

“Well, yes. For starters.”

“Ah, that’s just Si speak. You’ll catch on. Everybody in this squad has strong instincts. That’s one of the reasons we’re here. He was verbalizing his.”

“Was he talking about the falcon?”

“He didn’t know we saw the falcon,” Cody answered as they got on the elevator.

14

Police Commander Lou Stinelli was sitting in his office at One Police Plaza talking to himself. His lips moved silently as he scanned the speech he had to make in a few days. And he was in a crappy mood. He would have preferred walking through fire than address the Ladies Auxiliary of the Policeman’s Support Group or any other group for that matter.

“Hey, why so grumpy?” his wife Valerie had asked as he got ready to leave that morning.

“You know why,” he grumbled.

“The ladies are going to drool all over you,” she said, smiling. “They always do.” She straightened his tie as he was on his way out the door. “You’re the best-looking guy in the NYPD.”

“Hah,” he said walking toward the waiting car.

“Hey!”

He turned toward her.

“I love hearing your talks. You always knock ‘em dead.”

He gave her a look.

She blew him a kiss and he finally smiled.

“You could get a brick wall to smile,” he said. ”How about dinner tonight?”

“Love it, Commander.”?

At 61, the Deputy Chief of Police Bureaus was everything the public wanted in a top cop. He was straight and tall, gruffly handsome, his jet black hair streaked white at the temples, his voice tough and commanding. The only son of Italian immigrants, he had climbed up the bureaucratic chain of command the hard way, rising from the meanest streets of New York to a position that many felt put him in line to be the next chief of the best police force in the country.

Stinelli was admired both as an innovative risk-taker and a devoted family man. His office was decorated with photographs of his family; his parents’ wedding photograph beside his own, his two daughters and son growing up, his mom always there in the background at first communions, high school graduations, weddings, frolicking with her seven grandchildren, standing beside her grandson, David, the day he was awarded his wings at the Air Force Academy.

Lou’s first words upon entering the office every morning were, “Hi Pop, I love you.” His father had died on the beach in Omaha the day Lou was born.

His last as he left the office for the day were, “Night Dave, sleep well.”?

Stinelli was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, running the speech one more time. He did not see the red light blinking on one of his telephone lines or when it steadied as his secretary, Gloria, answered it. When his phone buzzed it startled him. He snatched it up.

“I told you no calls, Gloria. Did I tell you that or was I dreamin’?”

“Yes you did, Commander, but…”

“I’m late for my first meeting already.”

“Actually you have thirty minutes before you have to leave, sir.”

“I’m still working on my speech.”

“It’s Jake Sallinger at Metro Magazine. He says he only needs a minute or two.”

“Since when did the press ever want a minute or two? What does he want?”

“He said it’s a matter of importance.”

Stinelli’s shoulders drooped. “It’s always a matter of importance with Sallinger. If the light’s on for five minutes cut in and tell me the car’s waiting.”

“Yes sir. Line one.”

He speared the button with his forefinger.

“I got a meeting in fifteen minutes, Jake. Keep it short or call back later in the day.”

“It’s no big deal, Lou. I’ve got a writer working on an article. He needs a little help.”

“What kind of help?”

“It’s about a cold case…”

“Cold case?” Stinelli cut him off. “What cold case?”

“Remember a homicide about two years ago involving a woman named Melinda Cramer?”

“Sure. A suicide that turned into murder.”

“We’re doing an article on her.”

“Why? That’s old news.”

“It’s, uh, part of a series. You know how my fact finders are. They’re real bloodhounds and my writer can’t locate the homicide and autopsy reports. He wants to check some details.”

Bells went off in Stinelli’s head.

“What writer?”

There was a pause. “Is that important?”

“Is it some kind of secret? I’m curious. Call it the cop in me. ”

“Ward Lee Hamilton.”

Stinelli rolled his eyes. “The smart alec who thinks he’s smarter than my cops? The one who dresses like a clown?”

“He’s a trend-setter,” Sallinger said.

“Trend for who, Barnum and Bailey? Nobody else in their right mind dresses like that.”

“What’s the difference who the writer is, Commander? We’re talking about a homicide report. Public record. Hamilton is a meticulous researcher. He’s just trying to do his job.”

“Why are you calling me?” Stinelli snapped. “Tell him to check the damn dead files.”

“He’s checked everywhere. Maybe it got misplaced. It’s a freedom of information thing. I thought a call from…”

“What the hell’s that mean? A freedom of information thing. That some kind of threat?”

“No, no. But he’s very persistent and…is there a problem?”

“Jake, I’m preparing for an important meeting at City Hall. After that I’m tied up for most of the afternoon.”

“Is that a no?”

“It’s an ‘I don’t know.’ I’m not a micro-manager. I’ll put Gloria on it and get back to you.”

“He’s on a tight deadline, Lou. Please don’t stonewall me on this…”

“Stonewall hell. I said I’ll check into it.”

“Hamilton’s going to Philly to accept some kind of award tonight and tomorrow’s Saturday. Can I expect a call back, say, Monday?”

“I said I’ll check on it.”

He slammed down the phone.

“Gloria.”

She stuck her head in the door.

“It was only three minutes,” she stammered.

“Has Captain Cody called in today?”

“Yes, sir, but you said to hold your calls.”

“Find him. Now. Then check with Manhattan North and South and the Cold Case Squad and see if they have the files on the Melinda Cramer case. And tell my car to come around.”?

Cody and Charley were headed toward the Loft when Gloria caught up with him. A second later Stinelli was on his cell phone.

“Where are you?” Stinelli asked.

“Walking east on Canal. Charley and I are headed for the office.”

“Head over to Broadway. I’ll pick you up in about two minutes. Put Charley up front with Berno.”

“Okay.”

Cody and Charley walked to Broadway and waited for a couple of minutes and then saw the black Cadillac a block away. He crossed to the far side of the street, waited until the Caddy pulled up, and opened the front door.

“Hi Berno,” he said to the policeman assigned to the Commander.

“Captain,” Berno nodded.

“Hop in, Charley,” Cody said and the big shepherd jumped in. Berno Adashek smiled and rubbed his ears as Cody got in the back. Stinelli was sitting upright, his fingers drumming his knees.

“Hi, kid,” Stinelli said. “Mind taking a drive down to City Hall with me? Berno will bring you back.”

“Whatever you say, Chief. Gloria tell you I called?”

“Yeah. Got something working?”

Cody nodded.

“We’ll get to that in a minute. You’ve heard of Ward Lee Hamilton, right?”

“I occasionally read the papers. Even a book when I have time.”

Stinelli chuckled. “Has he called your office in the last coupla days?”

“Nope.”

“Ever met him?”

“Nope.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Well, I don’t know a cop who’d shed a tear if he got run over by an eighteen-wheeler.”

Stinelli laughed and said, “Guess what? You’re about to join the club.”

“Already joined…Why?”

“Jake Sallinger has hired him to do a series on cold cases for Metro Magazine. Melinda Cramer is on top of the list.”

Cody’s expression didn’t change.

“Where’d you pick that up?”

“Sallinger called me. Hamilton’s whining because he can’t find any of the records on the case. Gloria checked with the 24 ^ th, Manhattan North and South, the detective bureau and the dead files. Hamilton has called them, all right. When he struck out he had Sallinger call me.”

“And he wants you to produce the records?”

“Probably. Or tell him where they are.”

“I’ve got the files.”

“I know that. Is it still active?”

“It’s our only open case.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s a work in progress. Whenever one of us has some free time we take a look at it. The reports are in the computer.”

“And?”

“It was cold when we got it. If we send it to the dead bureau that’ll be the end of it.”

“Hell, Micah, it’s one case and it was already screwed up when it was dumped on you. He’s gonna write the piece anyway. Wolf did a great job on that second autopsy. Give Hamilton that to play with.”

“I’m not willing to sign off on it yet.”

“You’re being stubborn. He’s threatening to go to court. Invoke the Freedom of Information Act.”

Cody thought for a moment. He tugged on his ear then shook his head.

“Hamilton won’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“If he does the rest of the press will get on it. He wants an exclusive. The last thing he wants is The Times or The Post or Nancy Grace getting curious and jumping all over it.”

“Huh. Good point,” Stinelli replied. “You say you have something on the plate?”

Cody nodded. “As of seven a.m. So far it’s all verbal including Wolf’s initial autopsy. We’ll keep it that way as long as we can.”

“High profile?”

“Oh, yeah.”

The Cadillac pulled up in front of City Hall.

“We’re here, Commander,” Berno said.

“How about I stop by the Loft later in the day so you can fill me in?”

“Sounds good, sir. What’d you tell Sallinger?”

“That I’d get back to him. Hamilton’s out of town ‘til tomorrow. It’s the weekend so we don’t have to screw with it until Monday.”

“Sic Hamilton on me Monday.”

“You don’t have time for that.”

“Neither do you. We’ll make him chase his tail for a while.”

“You sure? I can tell Sallinger it’s still under investigation.”

“Nah. Have him call me to arrange a sit-down with Hamilton. Then let me fiddle while Hamilton burns.”

“He can be a nasty son of a bitch,” Stinelli said as Berno opened the door for him.

“Commander, that oughta brighten my day considerably,” Cody said. Then he smiled. “Have fun in there.”

“Shit.”

15

Ward Hamilton sat at his desk, elbows angled, chin resting on intertwined fingers, his brown eyes converged intently on his computer screen. Smoke curled from a gold-tipped Sherman cigarette burning forgotten in an ashtray nearby as he scanned the innocuous internet report which had produced nothing he didn’t know already.

On the wall behind the screen, tacked on a green felt bulletin board half the size of a pool table top, was an entropic collection of newspaper clippings, copies of web downloads, partially-written manuscript drafts, and notes to himself scribbled on notebook pages of every size and shape, fluttering idly in the gentle breeze from an antique ceiling fan. It served as his “hold file.”

Otherwise, the office was a paradigm of a man of fastidious and eccentric nature with an insistence upon order and efficiency: his reference books lined up alphabetically on hand-crafted shelves; his Eames chair and ottoman positioned precisely to afford a perfect view of lower Manhattan through the floor-to-ceiling windows; unread magazines stacked neatly on a matching table in the order in which he would read them; signed first editions of great American novels set aside in a special niche in the corner and arranged chronologically based on the date they were published; a thirty-six-inch widescreen television set accompanied by an interlocked stereo and digital recording system, built into the wall and confined behind smoked glass doors, unobtrusive and silent unless he felt inclined to tape a program or play some music while he was reading.

His two-foot wide desk was a rosewood semicircle designed so everything his daily routine required was close at hand. Pens were in one container, pencils in another; unedited drafts in one tray, finished manuscripts in another; answered mail in one tray, unanswered in another. The telephone, equipped with a warning light, answered every call robotically and was muted, recording every message, name, number, caller ID and all the conversations he made personally. The laser printer was on a shelf under the desk, an arm’s length from his chair, its only sound the hush the paper made when it fell into the tray.

Only his own voice was permitted to intrude. Otherwise the room was as quiet as a mausoleum.

Only two people were permitted to enter the sanctuary. One was the maid, who dusted and sanitized it before he got up in the morning.

The other was Victoria Mansfield, his lover for the past decade, who shared the penthouse apartment with him but could enter his sanctum only when the small red light next to the door was switched off. Together, their brio was the stuff of dreams for gossip columnists and society writers. He was the flamboyant and curmudgeonly writer who had parlayed murder into a small fortune. She was the elegant, unpredictable, nonpareil heiress, about whom a columnist once wrote, “has so much dough, re, mi, she would have made Croesus look like a panhandler.”

His focus was interrupted by a green light in the corner of his screen alerting him that someone was at the entrance to the apartment. He pressed a button and a small picture appeared in the upper corner of his main screen. A tiny video camera revealed Victoria at the front door, arms juggling shopping bags, a larger suit bag slung over her shoulder and the front door key clenched between her teeth as she swept the card key through the slot and, that done, tossed the card in one of the bags, opened the door with the other key, and entered the apartment. He turned the red light off and waited for her to come in to his office, his back to the door.

He continued tampering at his computer and waited for five minutes before he heard her come in.

“Hi, cutie pie,” she said. “How was breakfast?”

“Sallinger was as stiff as usual but he’s calling Stinelli to get the records I need. I’ll have them by Monday. Buy out the store, did you?”

“Picked up a few things. Find out anything new about the cop?”

“Same old crap. Half-breed Indian, father was a Nez Perce, war hero, died when the kid was young, mother was a Catholic school teacher on the reservation, moved to her hometown, Columbia, Missouri, when he was thirteen, opened a little restaurant near the campus of the University and did some teaching. He studied English and psychology at Missouri-there’s an anomalous mix-but, then again, maybe not. Did a year in the Army assigned to military intelligence. I’m still digging into that.”

“Put away your shovel.”

He whirled his chair around and looked her over.

She was wearing a short, pleated sport skirt. Her amber hair was artificially disarrayed over a piquant face. Perfect nose, perfect lips, flawless complexion, smoky, inviting eyes. No shoes. Or bra, her nipples teasing her white silk blouse. She unbuttoned it as she walked over to him, straddled him, pressed his knees together and leaned forward, straight-arming the back of his chair, a hand on either side of his head. The blouse fell open, revealing lovely, tight breasts, nipples hard as pebbles.

“Sorry you couldn’t make lunch,” she said.

When he didn’t respond she nibbled his left ear. “I’m horny as hell,” she murmured.

“You’d be horny during a root canal.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Willy’s going to pick me up in thirty minutes. We don’t have time for a quickie.”

“You know I hate quickies. Just a little tease to hold me until you get back tomorrow. Set me up. Make believe they’re…ice cream cones.”

He leaned forward and obliged. She pressed one hand against the back of his head, closed her eyes and swayed slowly from side to side, sighing.

“Ummm.”

A little later…

“Thanks,” she whispered with a kiss, standing up with her knees still pressing his.

“Any old time.”

“I have a surprise for you.”

“Really?”

“Actually it’s kind of for me.”

“You bought yourself a surprise?”

“I went to Barney’s and bought you something,” she said mischievously. “But, it really is for me.”

She took his hand and he stood up. She led him down the hall to the bedroom. She slid open the door to his closet, took out a white suit bag, laid it on the bed, zipped it open, and turned to face him.

“I want you to do me a favor tonight.”

“I won’t be here tonight.”

“I know that, silly. I’m talking about at the banquet. I want you to be-distingue for a change.”

“What! You think I’m going to butter up that sanctimonious coven of jealous…”

“Listen to me…”

“It’s almost insulting, giving me the Clue Award now when I haven’t written a book in four years.”

“It’s for your body of work, darling.”

“They hardly had a choice. Thanks to that bitch, they’d given it to everyone else. It’s a snide put down.”

“All the better to do what I’m asking.”

“And what’s that?”

“Be nice. Accept the loving cup. Enjoy your little poker game after the dinner. Maybe even lose a few shekels.”

“A two-bit ante game,” he snapped. “I can clean that bunch out blind-folded in an hour.”

“Listen you, I went to La Perla and bought the most expensive, most erotic, most seductive peignoir in the house and I’ll be wearing it when you get home tomorrow. But you have to be a good boy tonight.”

“ Blackmail? ”

“Let’s call it e-mail-as in erotomail.”

She turned, took a classic black single-breasted tux from the bag and held it up in front of him.

“Perfect,” she said.

“You have to be kidding. I’m wearing…”

“You’re wearing this,” she said quietly but firmly. “You’ll euthanize them with charm. There’ll be some press there and they won’t pass up the chance for a picture of Peck’s Bad Boy playing by the rules for a change. I’ve already talked to Sophie about it. You’ll be all over page six tomorrow. ”

He looked down at her and his rancor evaporated.

“Don’t miss a trick, do you?”

“I’ve been playing games with columnists since I was sixteen, honey. They’ll be expecting the customary sardonic Hamilton, instead you’ll show a bit of humility. They’re expecting the churlish Hamilton, be whimsical. They’re expecting you to be haughty, be grateful for the honor. Be brief and sit down. Knock ‘em all on their pompous asses.”

She stood on her toes and swept her tongue across his lower lip.

“After that, what the hell,” she said with a shrug, “at the poker game, if it suits you, you can be the sweet, supercilious son of a bitch I’ve grown to adore.”

16

No dog is born bad.

Wow was remembering that line as he and Ryan stood on the corner of West 10th and Bleecker Streets. Five-seven, built like a tank, dark-skinned and balding, Wow DeMarco was dressed in freshly pressed jeans, a white sweat shirt and a black leather jacket, his cautious black eyes surveying the block in front of them. Butch Ryan, six-one and muscular, with thick, neatly trimmed black hair cut below his ears, his gray eyes aloof and detached, was wearing his customary dark blue suit with a light tan, crew neck sweater. Wow’s arms hung loosely at his side, fingers drumming his thighs. Butch’s hands were tucked in his pants pocket, his attitude bordering on the debonair.

An unlikely pair at best.

They had a seminal connection: A passionate public defender named Mark Windham who had saved both of them from doing hard time by convincing a calcified juvenile judge that the two teen gang bangers, one an Hispanic Crip from Spanish Harlem, the other an Irish Westie from Hell’s Kitchen, were proof that “no dog is born bad,” that their youthful hauteur had been tamed; in Butch’s case, by a dedicated older brother who was a decorated firefighter; in Wow’s case, by an Hispanic ex-con known as Big Luis who ran a store front hiring agency which was really a front for a harsh, kick-ass, tough love regimen designed by Luis who, with a kind of ethnic animal instinct, picked gang kids he thought worth saving. In the back room, there was a warning scrawled on the wall reminding them succinctly: “Work or die.”

Cody frequently paired them because they both knew the streets, kept up with its volatile argot, and played a dazzling good guy, bad guy act. Wow was the bad guy with the cunning eyes and mercurial temper; Butch the good guy whose insouciant eyes and muscular frame served to comfort a capricious suspect or witness. Little did their quarry realize that Butch could turn from hare to tiger in a flashbulb-instant and Wow, deceptively alarmed by his partner’s seemingly choleric behavior, could become the rabbit. The quick change act was enough to make a snake sweat.

But standing here on a corner in the West Village, where Jonee Ansa, who was Running Recon, had dropped them off, Wow was getting antsy staring at the enclave of restaurants, coffee shops, jazz clubs, tattoo parlors, t-shirt joints and apartments occupied by an intermixture of every possible profession from dock workers and bus drivers to actors, writers, and college professors.

And we ain’t got a clue, DeMarco thought. Not a suspect. Not a witness. Nada.

“Jeez Christ, man, we spend two hours talking with every sex cop in town and what do we know? Zilch, zero.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Butch answered lazily, “we picked up a lot from the guys. We know these sex clubs are mostly private. We know the cops don’t screw with them unless they get too public and upset the citizenry. We know they’re pretty small. Fifteen, twenty, maybe thirty people, very well-heeled and hetero.”

“That really narrows it down.”

“C’mon, we know more than that.”

They knew that the people who frequented the sex clubs to which Handley most likely was attracted had a lot of money. Men set the rules, as one informant told them. Solo women were not allowed although, curiously, a man with two attractive females was. Many of the participants were married couples or couples who lived together or men with their mistresses or, perhaps in Handley’s case, men who brought attractive women with them. There were some daytime clubs for guys who liked matinees but most were nightclubs. They could pop up behind a club or restaurant. Or in a basement. Or in somebody’s apartment or condo. Just about anywhere where comfort and discretion would permit. The rules seemed to vary somewhat with one exception: gay men were out. That was a different clique. They had their own turf.

Because of the time element, DeMarco and Ryan had pretty much narrowed down the location to a square block bordered on the south and north by 10th and Charles and on the west and east by Hudson and Bleecker.

They headed down 10th toward Hudson. Ryan stopped about halfway down the block. He looked around, turned up his jacket collar, studying the street. DeMarco walked a little farther down toward Hudson, checking the landscape. Ryan cupped his hands over his mouth, breathed on them, and then rubbed them together.

“It got cold all of a sudden.”

“Hell, it’s almost November. You should know better.”

“You sound like my Aunt Mabel.” He leaned forward, squinting up and down 10th Street. He was visualizing the big board back at the Loft and the satellite shot of the area. They were on the north side of 10th. The limo had dropped Handley off near the corner of 10th and Hudson, which was to his right. And Handley had caught a cab on Bleecker, which was a half block to his left and around the corner to the south.

“I dunno, kid. You know what Cody always says, if you can’t think it, talk it out.”

“Uh huh. Then he goes off and has a chat with a friggin’ squirrel.”

“Whatever works for him. There isn’t an alley on the other side of the street.”

“I noticed that.”

“So he gets dropped off near the corner a half a block down there on Hudson and gets picked up a half a block that way on Bleecker. And he’s all dolled up and stands out like a kid with a black eye at First Communion.”

“And he’s gonna get where he’s going without dancing in the street like Gene Kelly.”

“My thought exactly.”

“Straight and narrow.”

“We gotta start somewhere, Wow. I say we make some maybes into positives to start with. Like he comes down here to meet a dame. A classy dame. Not a pimp. He isn’t into hookers, that’s why he goes to these clubs.”

“Somebody he’s met before, man. Maybe to set up that gig in his apartment.”

“Yeah. This somebody, this chick, is gonna meet him and he’s coming in from Cincy so the setup has to cover for a late arrival. A classy dame isn’t gonna sit around some club or restaurant alone.”

“But one of these sex clubs, that works, right? She’ll be comfortable if he’s a little late. And she checks on the flight, see if it’s late.”

“Good thinking. Know what, Wow? I don’t think it’s in an apartment. Too many people going in and out. A doorman, too, probably. That’s too risky for Handley.”

“That’s good, Butch, that’s real good. So she goes to this club, wherever the hell it is, about the time he’ll get there.”

“Right. And he isn’t going anyplace and hang out waiting for her. I mean, this guy’s all class. He’s gonna be noticed at that time of night with his three thousand dollar coat and killer briefcase. So he’s gonna go straight to the club, too.”

“And it’s more likely to be in an alley than on a main street.”

17

“Jesus!” Stinelli said. “What the hell kind of wacko are you dealing with?”

Hue and Cody had just run the entire Handley briefing for him, but the commander’s eyes were fixed on the photograph of the death scene. Stinelli and Cody stood at the back of the operations room as he stared at the main board. Simon and Hue were at their posts, Kate Winters was sitting at her desk and Charley was asleep on the cot in Cody’s office. The rest of the crew was in the field.

“Si, can you elaborate a little bit for the commander,” Cody said.

“A conundrum,” the little man said.

“That’s obvious. A little more than that.”

“I’m still working on a couple of things,” Simon said. “I have a lot of blanks to fill in.”

“Just give him the general profile for now, Si.”

“Well, we’re not dealing with a wacko in the sense I think you mean, Chief. Not like, say, Richard Trenton who believed he had to drink his victim’s blood to stay alive. He was a true psychotic. Our killer is a psychopath. The murder has all the indicators of a serial killer-who are mostly white, male, psychopaths between the ages of twenty-five to forty-three. Average age thirty-four. Only five percent are psychotic and, of the entire lot, only about one percent are women. So for the sake of this discussion let’s just say this killer is a white male who appears to be normal, probably follows a routine-a civil servant or blue collar person although he could be a doctor, lawyer, or college professor. He shows minimal bizarre behavior in everyday life but harbors a secret need to dominate and control others, has a constant need for sexual stimulation and gratification, has no conscience, knows good from evil but feels no guilt or remorse. He’s a hedonist. No worse, a sybarite. Cynical, often impulsive. And a contact killer because he enjoys inflicting pain and killing. It’s an addictive obsession. Normally he would have left a trophy or some kind of signature because he’s proud of his accomplishment. So far we haven’t found one.”

“But, maybe he didn’t need to. The slaying itself is unique,” Cody added.

Si paused for a moment and said: “The scariest thing about these killers is they usually take a cooling off period after a kill. Weeks, months, sometimes years. Until something prods their appetite.”

“So how can you be sure this is the work of a serial killer?” Stinelli asked.

Nobody answered for a minute or two.

“Look at the picture, Chief,” Cody said. “This is a sadist at work. He controlled Handley and tortured him. He dominated the scene. The whole set up was manufactured. This killing was brilliant. No clues, no prints or DNA that we can determine. It was not impulsive, the killer had it planned and timed perfectly and had the prerequisite biological knowledge to pull it off.”

“The simple answer is because there’s too much joy in this kill,” Si said.

“Joy?”

“He obviously enjoyed every minute of it.”

“We call the killer Androg because it could be a male or female,” Cody added. “Either way, this killer’s addicted.”

“And brilliant,” Si said. “Most serial killers commit their acts in the same way. John Wayne Gacy is typical. His trademark was that he stuffed his victim’s underwear down their throat so they’d gag and die in their own vomit.”

“This one?” Cody said. “This one’s all over the map.” “He’s the guy next door, Commander,” said Winters. “Hiding in plain sight. And waiting to kill again.”

“I hope to hell he’s not living next door to me,” Stinelli growled. “How about a motive?”

“The motive is Androg’s compulsion,” Simon said.

“And you’re expecting more,” Stinelli said flatly.

“That’s Wolf’s appraisal and we all agree. Frank and his team are working the neighborhood. Bergman is checking the company where Handley worked. I’ve got my three best street cops working the West Village hoping to find out where Handley spent the missing thirty minutes on his way home.”

Almost on cue, the phone rang. Hue fielded the call and nodded to Cody. “It’s Butch.”

Cody answered it. “Yeah. Where? Okay stay on top of it, call me when you get something.” He signed off and turned to Stinelli. “Ryan says they may have nailed down a spot. They’re scoping it out now.”

“A sex club?”

Cody nodded.

“Amazing,” Kate said.

“It’s what they do,” Cody said. “Nothing sets off their adrenalin like the old needle in a haystack.”

Stinelli shook his head. “Christ, how are you going to keep this one under wraps, Micah? Victor Stembler? Hell, Handley might as well be the mayor’s son-in-law.”

“Victor Stembler doesn’t want the details to leak out.”

“He almost fainted when he came over and made the official ID,” Kate said.

“So far he’s the only one who knows exactly what happened. We treat it as a break-in that went sour. A case in progress. Everybody stays mum as usual.”

“How about the autopsy?”

“Nothing on paper yet.”

“And McKeown? It’s his precinct.”

“He’s working with us. Some of his people are doing the door-to-doors with Frank. He’ll file a normal report with the generic stuff. Name, address, occupation, blah, blah…”

“How about cause of death?”

“Possible homicide during a break-in. He’ll just drop it in the box. No press conference or any of that. He’ll treat it as a normal homicide.”

“A normal homicide. There’s an oxymoron. And you also got that guy Hamilton dogging you about the Cramer murder.”

“Out of town. I’ll worry about that Monday.”

“Sometimes you make me nervous, Micah.”

“Ah, come on, boss. Keeps us on our toes.”

Stinelli shook his head and looked back at the board.

18

“Y’know what? I’m not even sure what the hell we’re lookin' for,” DeMarco said as the three cops stood under one of the larger trees in the area behind the theater.

It was a pleasant spot but cramped, hardly wider than a city street, its trees and buildings blocking the sounds of the city.

“What were you expecting, a marquee?” Ryan said.

In this quiet island midst the bustling streets, someone had hung a child’s swing from a branch of the tree which struck Ryan as odd considering the licentious nature of the club they were seeking. Huddled in Ansa’s Yankees jacket, which was draped over his shoulders, he sat down on the swing and looked around.

“A marquee would be a help,” said Ansa, staring at the backs of apartments, stores, and the theater.

“Yeah,” DeMarco said with a sweep of his hand. “A big red neon arrow, blinkin’ on and off: ‘Get laid here.’”

Several of the buildings had staircases leading down to rear entrances and there was a deck behind the theater with stairs leading down to their level. The back door opened and a tiny, dark-haired girl who appeared to be in her early twenties came out. She was dressed in a white gossamer dress with wings attached to it. She huddled against the wall and lit a cigarette.

“I got an idea,” Ryan said.

“Aw hell, here we go again,” DeMarco shook his head.

“Just bear with me.”

Ryan climbed the stairs to the deck and gave the young woman his fifty-dollar smile.

“Hi,” he said, looking over the costume. “Halloween party?”

She rolled her eyes. “This is a theater. We’re like doing Midsummer Night’s Dream. ”

“Shakespeare, huh. Who are you playing?”

“Just a walk-on.” Her eyes narrowed a hair as she looked past him at his partners. “I’m one of the fairies.”

“No kidding,” he said. “What’re you gonna do, wave your wand and change me into a warthog?”

“Now there’s a clever pick-up line,” she answered, still squinting over his shoulder at DeMarco and Ansa checking doorways. She looked back at Ryan who was still grinning.

“What are you three up to?” she asked cautiously. “Looks y’know like you’re casing the place or something?”

“In a manner of speaking. We’re looking for a club. Private place. We heard it was back here.”

She sighed and took a drag on her cigarette, turning her head when she exhaled.

“You don’t look the type,” she said with a pinch of arsenic in her tone.

“What type would that be?”

“C’mon.” She looked him over. “Anyway, from what I hear you’ll fail the dress code. The Yank’s jacket alone’ll do you in.”

“How come?”

“Mink coat society.” A shiver wove through her body and she dropped the cigarette in a sand-filled pot nearby.

“Gotta leave,” she said. “I’m like freezing.”

Ryan took off the jacket and draped it over her shoulders with the back facing him.

“Here,” he said. “This won’t squash your wings.”

“So what do you need that kind of thing for anyway? Good looking guy like you.”

“Thank you. That is a great pick-up line. Only…” He took out his I.D. wallet and flashed his gold badge. “We’re working.”

“Oh, m’gosh,” she said, her eyes widening. “Oh please don’t bust the place until after rehearsal, okay? Our director’s a real ninny. He’ll like pitch a squirrel.”

“Pitch a squirrel?”

“He y’know totally loses it over anything? You go up on a line? Boom! He’s like a squirrel you just stepped on its tail.”

“I get it.”

“Anyway, you’re way early. Things don’t get started until like ten, ten-thirty?”

“Where is it?”

She nodded toward a staircase leading down to a door at the end of the tiny square.

“What do you know about the place?”

“Just what some of the kids hear. Some of them leave this way and short cut over to Christopher.”

“What do they hear?”

“It’s mainly uptowners and they, uh, y’know…uh, like to, uh…trade partners?”

“Sex club.”

“Well…uh huh, I guess. There’s this bartender named Warren? Should be there now. He comes early to supervise the cleanup crew.”

“You know him?”

“By sight. Some of the kids have talked to him but he won’t like talk about the club.”

“Does it have a name?”

“I think it’s called the Yellow Door.”?

Ryan put his thumb over the peephole in the door and DeMarco knocked on it and they waited.

A minute went by. Two. Three. DeMarco knocked again, this time with a little more authority. They waited again. Then Ansa appeared at the top of the stairs. He was wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask only it was bright red with spangles around the edge.

“This must be da place,” he said.

“You cover the peephole this time,” Ryan said taking out his badge. “I’ll do the knocking.” He stepped back and kicked the door hard with the toe of his boot. Another minute and a muffled voice inside asked, “Who is it?”

“The Dumpster guy, Warren,” Ryan said. “Open up, we got a problem.”

Inside, the chain clinked, the deadbolt was drawn and a key turned the door lock. The door opened a couple of inches. Warren, startled speechless, backed up as Ryan shoved it open and they walked into a small anteroom with a yellow door facing them. To their left was a heavy door with a thick glass window and a small slot in it. To their right a narrow hallway curved around into darkness.

“You need a warrant,” Warren said so fast the words ran together. He was a short man, five-six, with reddish-brown hair, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with “It’s my attitude and I like it” printed across the front. “That’s the law,” he added.

“You know what this is?” Ryan asked, holding his badge an inch from Warren’s face.

Warren stared at it for a moment, nodded, and said, “I have to call my boss.”

“You know what this is?” Ryan insisted, shaking the badge.

“It’s a badge.”

“That’s correct. And right now it’s the only warrant we need.”

DeMarco stepped in, playing the good guy.

“Take it easy, sergeant,” and to Warren, “This isn’t a bust, kid. No need to get your shorts in a knot.”

Ansa stepped behind the little man and opened the yellow door as DeMarco and Ryan forced Warren into the room beyond.

It was lush; an art deco cabaret with mirrored walls and ceiling, a well-stocked curved bar on one side and, facing it on the other side of the room, a carpeted lounge with expensive, pastel colored sofas, chairs and futons. A small dance floor separated the bar and lounge. The color scheme was muted yellow. Throughout the room scented candles offered soft light and herbal perfumes which, although pleasant, could not entirely erase the ineluctable odor of Lysol.

There were six doors on the far wall bordering the lounge area, each with a light over it.

The room was spotless and empty.

“See, nobody’s here now but me,” Warren said. “The cleaning people are gone and I’m just getting the bar set up. Nothing’s going on.”

“We know that, Warren,” Ryan said. “Let me tell you, we are not vice, we are not here to break up your party.”

Warren’s voice went up an octave. “There’s no party! Nobody’s here but me.”

“You opened the door,” Ansa said. “You let us in. Give us a few minutes and we’ll be gone and nobody will ever know we were here.”

“Who’s that?” Warren asked, “Why is he wearing a mask?”

Ansa smiled and took off the mask. “It’s Halloween,” he said.

“Calm down, fella,” Ryan said. “You’re gonna have a heart attack over nothing.”

“Nothing? You break in here and…”

“Nobody broke in,” said Ansa. “Like I said, you opened the door for us.”

“What do you want from me? What have I done?”

“Who said you did anything?” DeMarco said. “See, you’re jumping to conclusions and getting upset over nothing.”

“Look, once again, we’re not from vice, okay?” said Ryan. “We know about the club and we really don’t give a shit about that. You give us a hand? We are out of your life forever.”

“There’s no money here. I got maybe thirty dollars.”

“Who said anything about money?” said Ansa, getting irritated. “What’s that supposed to mean. You trying to bribe us?”

“No. No. I thought…”

“That’s your problem, Warren, you think too much,” said DeMarco, looking around the room.

Suddenly, Warren snapped. His demeanor changed. “That’s it!” he yelled. He stomped across the room to the end of the bar, still babbling. “Bust in here like a bunch of elephants stomping all over me. Haven’t got a warrant. Don’t read me my rights. Waving badges in my face.” He snatched up the phone. “I’m calling the boss.”

Ansa hurried across the room and pressed the cutoff button on the phone. Warren stood his ground, his hand on his hip, legs spread apart, the phone clutched in his hand.

The cops looked at each other and back at Warren.

There was a long pause.

“Well, what do you want?” Warren loudly demanded.

“See, Warren, what it is, this hasn’t got anything to do with you or the club or your boss. Uh, we got a witness who’s alibied here last night. We figure you might be able to confirm that.”

“I don’t know anybody by name or by looks. Mostly they wear masks and even if they don’t we aren’t supposed to look anybody in the face. No checks, no credit cards. Everything’s cash.”

“We checked out your record, Warren. We could make trouble for you if we wanted to. We don’t.”

Warren thought about it.

“Even The Banker doesn’t know them by name,” he said. “He doesn’t look at anybody either. Everybody’s anonymous.”

“The Banker?”

“The boss who works the door where you came in.”

“The door with the bulletproof glass,” Ryan said.

“What’s with the doors over there?” DeMarco asked waving toward the far wall.

“Private rooms. Sometimes a couple or maybe a threesome wants to go private. The light over the door goes on when it’s in use. There’s a backdoor opens into the hallway you saw on the right coming in. I’ve got the board over there,” he nodded to a small electronic device with buttons and lights on it. “Lights go on when the room’s in use, off when it’s empty. I can tell from the lights on the board so I can log the room in and out.”

“And I suppose that has a price tag on the door,” DeMarco said.

“Three bills.”

“They just think of everything, don’t they?” Ansa said. “Whoever they are.”

“I don’t know who they are. I was hired through a reentry agency. The only person I know is the Banker. Don’t know his name, just he’s the Banker. ”

DeMarco took the manila envelope out of his pocket and put it on the bar.

“What’s that?” Warren asked.

DeMarco slipped Handley’s photograph out of the envelope and slid it in front of Warren.

“We know he’s a member.”

“I can’t do that. Man, I’ll lose my job for sure.”

“I guarantee you, Warren, you will not lose your job.

Just look at the picture. I mean, c’mon, when all the whoopee starts, the masks come off, everybody’s doing everybody else. Hell, you’re not blind. Just look at the picture.”

Warren shook his head vigorously. “You don’t understand. I make three times what the most upscale bars in town would pay me. Not counting tips. When the games start I pop a coupla of valium, put the IPod earphones on, and read a book.”

“Your job is not on the line here,” Ryan repeated. “Please just look at the picture.”

“We just want to make sure he was here last night, when he arrived and when he left.”

Warren gazed down at Handley’s photograph.

He knows, Ryan said to himself. I can see that little flicker in his eyes, the little twitch in his jaw.

“Let me guess,” Ryan said. “He came in right at twelve.”

Warren kept staring at the picture and finally he slowly nodded.

“How’d you make him?” DeMarco asked.

Warren rubbed a finger. “His ring,” he whispered. “Princeton. He always had it on.”

“Very good,” said Ryan. “And what time did he come in?”

Warren walked to the other end of the bar and came back with a notebook. He opened it, leafed through the pages and stopped.

“Things were already heating up. He came in and looked at me and I held up three fingers and he went to the room. I logged him in at 11:49.”

“So he already paid the Banker the three cs?”

“The Banker called me earlier, told me number 103, that’s his number, 103, arranged for a visitor to meet him in room three.”

“What’s in these rooms?” Ansa asked.

“Some are just like bedrooms with a TV. Soft lights, silk sheets. Some members get heated up out here and then like a little privacy. The other three are varied. One has a large waterbed…”

“And?”

“One of them has chains, leather, whips, y’know.”

“S amp; M crap,” Ryan said.

Warren nodded.

“How about room three?” DeMarco asked.

“Just a plain bedroom.”

“So our guy didn’t go for the S amp; M room, right?”

Warren nodded. “Right, when he came in the visitor was already there.”

“How do you know?”

“The rear light went on at…11:36.”

“So the Banker saw her?”

“No. He asked the Banker when he paid in if the visitor was here and the Banker called me to see if his visitor was in the room yet. She must have got by him. It’s dark, other people were checking in. And I said yeah.”

“But it was a woman?”

Warren nodded.

“How can you be sure?”

“I thought you were just interested in him?”

Ansa said, “She could back up his alibi. That way you, the club, nobody else gets involved.”

“You said nobody would get involved. That’s what you said.”

“And you won’t,” Ryan said. “When did you see her?”

“It was like five minutes after he went in. Around 12:05. The strobe lights were on, people were getting into it. I saw the front light go off and she came out. But I was down at the other end of the bar.”

“And he was still in there?”

Warren nodded. “He left by the back at 12:20.”

“What did she look like, Warren?”

“Oh, I…you know, it was a jungle. Dark, strobe lights flashing, I just got a glimpse of her. There were two women going at it on the sofa and a guy doing one of the women and she stopped for a second or two to watch and then she looked up and saw me looking and I looked back down at my book real fast and then she was gone.”

“What do you remember about her, Warren?” Ryan asked. “Anything at all?”

“Red dress. Very classy. Spaghetti straps. A designer dress but I can’t tell you for sure. All the women in the place dress like a million bucks. That’s part of it.”

“How tall was she?”

“Five-five, five-six. Depends on the shoes. I couldn’t see her feet but she was probably wearing spike Pradas with that outfit.”

“How about her face? Hair?” Ryan pressed him.

“I have no idea.”

“Just a hint, Warren.”

“She was wearing a head mask. One of those kind that drapes down to the shoulders, covered her head and neck.”

“What kind of mask?”

Warren thought for a minute and said, “Bela Lugosi.”

“Bela who?”

“Lugosi. Pointy, bloody teeth. Weird eyes. Dracula.”

19

“Who is she?” Cody mused aloud, staring at the crime scene photo on the big board. “Why did they meet? Is she the killer?”

“Hard to say, Captain,” Ryan said. “According to this kid, Warren, nobody knows nothin’. The members have numbers. It’s all cash. They wear masks. He isn’t even sure how many members there are but Handley’s was 103.”

“Could be a couple of hundred people involved,” DeMarco added.

“So?”

“That’s a lot of people.”

“Ever heard of Eddie Zigo?” Cody asked.

“Everybody knows Eddie bagged the Son of Sam.”

“The taskforce knew the Son of Sam was using a. 44 caliber Bull revolver. They zeroed the search down to a hundred. 44 Bulls in Brooklyn. They tracked them down one by one. And Zigo made the case with a. 44 Bull in Berkowitz’ car. Get the point?”

There was a pause and then Ryan said, “Yeah, but even if we got a list, Cap, the woman was Handley’s guest. Her name won’t be on it.”

“Handley sure won’t be giving her up,” Annie Rothschild muttered.

Cody stared at her for a moment. He shook his head and sighed.

“So we’re back to square one.” He looked around the room. “Anybody?”

“Our best guess is that Handley met her at the club and gave her two keys,” Ansa offered. “One for the front door, the other to his apartment.”

“Two people were in that apartment, Handley and his killer,” Cody said. “Either she killed him or passed the keys to somebody who did.”

Cody nodded. “Amelie Cluett says Handley was straight. If she’s correct then Androg is the lady in red. Handley wouldn’t have submitted to a guy.”

“Unless…” Si said.

“Unless…?”

“Unless part of the deal was that Handley blindfolded himself when he got undressed. Maybe he and the killer never spoke when he got home. Maybe that was part of the intrigue. Maybe Vampira was a Judas goat.”

“Part of the lure,” Annie finished the thought. “Handley didn’t know for sure who was seducing him. It’s perverse enough to fit.”

“Either way, she’s involved,” Cody said. “We can’t rule her out.”

“Unless she thought it was just part of a play,” Kate replied. “The whole sex club thing is quirky as hell. Maybe she didn’t know what the endgame was.”

“You’re thinking like a prosecutor,” Si said.

“That’s my job.”

20

The Filipina housekeeper answered the doorbell and ushered Bergman into the Beekman Place apartment. She led him down a short hallway to a large living room, unlit except for a soft light over a wet bar in one corner and the city lights streaming through the windows.

“Your guest is here, Mister Nevins,” the housekeeper said.

“Thank you, Maria,” he answered and she left Bergman standing at the entrance to the darkened room.

Louis Nevins was standing with his back to him, one hand in his pants pocket, the other swirling the ice in an empty old fashioned glass. Nevins was staring through a massive corner window, the panorama of South Manhattan spread out before him. The United Nations tower framed one side of the view, and to its right, far beyond it, were the gently arched spires of the Brooklyn Bridge, and still farther a speck of light marking the lady in the bay.

“No other city like it in the world,” Nevins said, without turning. “First time I came here I cried like a baby when we drove out of the Holland Tunnel. I expected to see windmills and people in wooden shoes. What did I know? A six-year-old kid from Haddonfield, N.J. But then dad drove over to Times Square and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the grandest sight I’d ever seen.”

He turned to face Bergman. “I’ve been a New Yorker ever since. And today? Today is the saddest day of all the years I’ve lived here.”

“I’m sorry,” Bergman said without emotion. “Thank you for seeing me.” He offered his hand and they shook.

Nevins was tall, trim, in good shape for a man in his sixties. He was wearing rumpled brown slacks, a gray sweatshirt and expensive loafers. No socks. Cosmetic surgery had stretched the age wrinkles from his face and his thinning, gray hair was combed sideways to cover up a bald spot. On a better day he could have passed for a man in his early fifties but the whites of his swollen, brown eyes were blood-streaked and his voice, forced reed-thin with grief, betrayed his true age.

“Have a seat. You look young for a detective. How about a drink?” Nevins ran the words together into a single sentence as he walked past Bergman toward the wet bar in the corner of the handsomely furnished room.

“Thanks, but I’m on the clock,” Bergman said.

“Going to make me drink alone? How about some fruit juice? We’ve got all flavors. My companion doesn’t drink.”

“Apple juice?”

“Fine.”

Bergman sat down in a large over-stuffed chair beside a wide, round glass table with black iron legs that curved out from a ring under its center.

“Know how many homicides have been committed this year?” Nevins asked as he poured the drinks.

“Four hundred and seventy-two so far,” Bergman replied. “Eight unrelated killings in one day last July. The oldest victim was a ninety-three year old woman shot in a holdup. The youngest killer was a nine-year-old girl who stabbed her best friend in a fight over a jump rope.”

The glass of apple juice made a soft clink when Nevins put it down in front of Bergman. Nevins pulled up another chair and sat next to him.

“Statistics, Inspector Bergman. Six months from now Raymond will be just another statistic. That’s one reason I’m sad. I’m sad because the only time I will ever see his beautiful face again will be in a coffin. I’m sad because he was the best at what he did, for which I can assume some responsibility. And I’m sad because I loved him like the son I never had. I’m sad because he thought of me as the father he never had.”

“Explain.”

“His father was killed when he was a child. His mother lived in California and died years ago. He had no family, except a sister who also died a few years ago.”

“How’d she die?”

There was an imperceptible pause before he answered. “A tragic accident,” he said. He took a sip of his old fashioned. “So, tell me what really happened to Raymond.”

“He was killed in his library. It wasn’t robbery. And we feel certain he knew his killer.”

“That’s it, that’s all?”

“It’s a case in progress, sir. I’m not at liberty to say anymore. I need to talk to you about Handley. Everything you know.” Bergman took out his notebook and pen.

Nevins leaned back and shook his head slowly as he stared at the ceiling. “Jesus, how many days do you have, detective? Or weeks, I should say. I’ve known this man since he was a sophomore at Princeton. We have recruiters at all the Ivy League schools, all the major firms do. He was called to my attention the day he entered college. I had his dossier from the day he was born. I monitored him through his first year and then I mentored him, groomed him, took him on the floor of the Exchange for the first time, saw his eyes light up watching the big board. He had it all. The fire in his belly, the instinct for the edge, the risk-taking, the focus, the intelligence, he was a natural for the game.”

“And a future son-in-law for Victor Stembler?”

“Of course. That was part of the package.”

“Did he ever fire anybody or damage someone’s career?”

“Not without cause. Raymond couldn’t stand incompetence. But he never did anything with rancor. He let them down softly. Others I know are not that kind.”

“But he liked to win.” It was a question framed as a sentence.

“Of course, whatever the enterprise. If you played racquetball with Raymond you would expect to come away with bruises. But it wasn’t personal. He was a ferocious competitor. Losing was never an option.”

“How about women?”

“His one flaw. He was born with the power gene that validates sex. But to my knowledge, he never conned a woman in his life. He always made it clear up front that it was for the joy of the moment. There were only two viable relationships in his life: the Stembler Company and Linda Stembler. So how exactly did he die, Inspector Bergman?”

“I’m sorry, sir, to have to tell you…His throat was cut.”

Nevins took it like a physical blow. But he took a deep breath and recovered. “I don’t mean to be rude, son, but if our talk is going to continue, put away your notebook. From here on, this conversation is quid pro quo. You ask and I’ll ask. And I promise you, I can keep a secret.” He tapped his forehead. “There are enough secrets in this brain to send half the people on Wall Street up the river.”

Bergman thought for a moment and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see how it goes.”

He put the notebook in his inside breast pocket and clicked off his tape recorder mike at the same time. “Before we start,” Bergman said to Nevins, “let me ask you one thing. Is there an outside chance that maybe, just maybe, Raymond Handley may have experimented sexually with men?”

“That sounds a bit homophobic.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. At this point we’re not sure whether the killer is a male or female.”

Nevins frowned and looked down for a moment. When he looked back he was staring past Bergman, his eyes fixed on some vague spot in a dark corner of the room.

“The first time I ever saw Raymond was in one of those old school restaurants,” he mused. “You know, all teakwood and dark colors. Framed in the sunlight streaming through the window, he looked like a cutout. A beautiful young man in a boat neck sweater, hair slightly mussed. Not a blemish on his skin. Confident brown eyes. For me, it’s an image frozen in time, like a black and white photograph.”

He stopped, drawn back to the present, and looked back at Bergman.

“He was a sophomore at Princeton. We chit-chatted for a while and sometime during lunch I leaned across the table and said, ‘Has anyone ever told you you have beautiful eyes?’ And Ray looked at me, laughed, and said, ’Well, Mister Nevins, no man ever has.’ So, it was on the table and off, just like that. He knew I was gay. I knew he wasn’t. I wasn’t serious, of course. It was what we call in the business a ‘clarification question.’ No, Inspector, Raymond loved the ladies. He also knew if he got involved with one, it could jeopardize his career at the firm. So, in college, and ever since, he was a one night stand man.”

“Do any of these names mean anything to you? Trapeze Lady? Tit for Twat? The Sex Circus?”

“Look, New York is full of sex clubs,” Nevins said with a dismissive wave of his arm, “Trapeze Lady performed at the Sex Circus. But it got too public and vice shut it down. Same with the Tit for Twat. Ray went to them once or twice until I warned him off.”

“Does the Staten Island Fairy ring a bell?”

Nevins face drained and became pasty. He was obviously shocked.

“Christ, where did you hear that?”

He got up slowly, his shoulders sagging wearily. He looked at Bergman’s untouched drink, and went back to the bar to fix himself another one.

He tinkered with the fixings and, without looking up said, “Only two people ever heard of the Staten Island Fairy. It was a joke.”

“A joke?”

“That’s right. I have a jousting sense of humor. Once the gay thing was out of the way I said to Ray, ‘From today forth I’m going to teach you the way we do business at Stembler.’ And I laughed and said, ‘The Staten Island Fairy and the Princeton Hunk are going to be partners.’ It put him at ease and he laughed and we shook on it. I lived on Staten Island at the time.”

Bergman, a very cool character under the most extreme circumstances, could not conceal his surprise. Nevins returned to the table, his face etched with sadness and dropped with a sigh into his chair, his face troubled.

“An inside joke, Inspector Bergman, between the two of us. It was never said in polite society and I’m sure he never mentioned it to anyone else. Where in heaven’s name did you hear that?”

Bergman’s mind nimbly sought an appropriate answer. “It came up in one of the briefings along with those other names,” he said. “Your name was never mentioned. Maybe Handley jotted it down somewhere, you know, on a list of calls to make or something.”

Nevins paused for a moment then relaxed, accepting the explanation. His sudden change in composure was evanescent.

“ Quid pro quo time,” he said.

“One more thing. It relates directly to the homicide.”

“I hope so. We made a deal.”

“Does the Yellow Door sound familiar?”

Nevins expression changed slightly. He leaned forward in his chair and took a swig from his glass.

“Your turn,” he said firmly.

“Okay. I will depend on you to keep what I’m about to tell you in complete confidence.”

“That was understood,” he nodded.

“He was your friend, sir. You’re going to find the details odious at the very least.”

“I’m prepared for that. Will it bother you if I smoke?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank God.” He took out a pack of unfiltered Camels, tamping the end of a cigarette on the table before lighting it. He drew deeply, leaned back with his eyes closed and exhaled toward the ceiling.

As Bergman described the scene, Nevins leaned forward, took a deep drink, lit one cigarette off the other and his expression became increasingly horrified.

“Oh. Oh, my dear God,” Nevins cried. He was shaking all over. The ash on his cigarette fluttered to the floor. Bergman took it from his hand, crushed it out in an ashtray. “I may be sick to my stomach,” Nevins croaked feebly.

“Maybe it would help to lie down on the sofa.”

“No. I’ll be alright in a minute.” He paused and then added, “How do you do it? Seeing things like that all the time?”

“It goes with the territory. I don’t know how I’d handle it if the victim were a friend.”

Nevins sat up and wiped his face with the wet towel. Tears were streaming down his face which sagged with sorrow.

“Why? Why would anyone do such an abominable thing to Raymond? How could someone hate him that much?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“Are there suspects? Do you have any ideas?”

“I was hoping you could help us with that.”

“I can’t imagine Ray being involved in anything that tawdry. Perhaps he was victimized, kidnapped or forced into it.”

“I ran the crime scene with my boss, Mister Nevins. He’s the best there is. I can assure you, Handley knew what he was getting into. Our best guess is that he thought it was a game but whoever killed him went there with murder in mind.”

“Nobody I know who knew him well could possibly be capable of such a thing. He was a lovely young man. He was tough but he never intentionally hurt anyone.”

“ Quid pro quo. Tell me about the Yellow Door.”

“I will, just please tell me how it figures into this.”

“He stopped there on his way home from Cincinnati. Met a woman in one of its private rooms. She got there before him, he arrived about midnight, she left a few minutes later. He waited about fifteen minutes and left the back way. He got home in a cab about one. We are certain that a single person committed the crime. That person got there before Raymond. That person had his keys and set up the scene. That person planned to kill him and robbery was not a factor.”

“Any description of the woman?”

“Not much. Red designer dress, about five-five, five six, depending on the shoes. She was wearing a Dracula mask, the kind that goes down to the shoulders. She didn’t take a cab to Handley’s place, if she went there at all.”

“You think it could have been someone else? I mean, it sounds like…”

“The Yellow Door, Mister Nevins.”

“Please, just help me understand this. Was he tortured? Was he in great pain? Was there a struggle?”

“I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. At this point anybody who knew him is suspect.”

“Does that include Edgar and me?”

“You’re sixty-one, born in Haddonfield, N.J. Your dad was a veep at RCA. You’re a graduate of Harvard Law with an MB from the Wharton School. You’re Victor Stembler’s closest confidant, been with the firm for thirty-eight years, a senior partner and member of the Board with an enormous salary and all the accoutrements that go with it.”

“Huh,” said Nevins, sardonically. “You’re certainly thorough. What’s my shoe size?”

“Eleven C, you wear a forty long and your shirt size is sixteen/thirty-five. That was easy, I’m sitting here looking at you.”

Nevins smiled and nodded his head.

“Your point, Inspector,” he said ruefully. “Time to talk about the Yellow Door.”

21

The wolves started to howl at dusk. Charley heard them first. Cody saw his ears go up. The big white dog sat up and his ears turned like a radio antenna searching for a signal. He whined deep in his throat, barely audible.

“It’s okay,” Cody said and Charley looked at him and settled back down in the corner of the office but his ears were still tuned to the sound.

Out in the office Hue was taping the beginning of Bergman’s interview with Nevins.

Then she called. He recognized the number when it appeared on the caller I.D. on his private line. Cody picked up the receiver.

“This is Cody,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. “It’s Amelie Cluett. Remember me?”

“Of course.”

“I think I may have thought of something. Could you stop by?”

“Now?”

“I’m sorry. I know you must be busy…” There was a sense of urgency in her tone.

He was thinking while she spoke. The Wildlife Center was only a few blocks away from her.

In the background he could hear Bergman’s conversation with Nevins on the loudspeaker.

“That’s alright,” he said. “I was just heading up that way. I’ll swing by in a few minutes.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“It’s no problem.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

He grabbed his leather jacket and Charley started to get up.

“Stay, Charley, I’ll be back soon,” he said and the dog looked at him for a moment and whined again and lay back down.

As he walked out of his office he heard the end of Bergman’s conversation.

“His recorder just went dead,” Hue said.

“You heard, Nevins,” Cody said to him, “He said to put away the notebook. Erase what you taped so far.”

“Good call, Cody,” Kate Winters said and smiled.

Cody slipped his leather jacket on.

“Where you headed?” Si asked.

“Seventy-third Street,” Cody said. “The Cluett woman just called me.”

“She didn’t mention the Yellow Door in your Q and A.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“You going on tape?’ Hue asked as Cody headed for the door.

“Monitor me and see,” Cody said as he headed for the elevator to the garage. As he left he looked at the clock on the big board.

11:57.

Below it was the real time and date. It was 6:59 p.m., 10/26/08 and they were almost twelve hours into the case and were without any hard evidence except the corpse and had no suspects except an elusive woman in a red dress and a Dracula mask. Cody was getting edgy, the crew could tell.

He checked out one of the town cars and headed to Bowery, took a left to Third and a right to 73 ^ rd.

He parked in the alley next to the Handley brownstone. Then he heard the wolf again. It was a high-pitched, modulated howl, a lonely sound tinged with sadness. He pressed the mike button on the gear shift.

“Hue?” Cody said.

“It’s Si. Hue’s grabbing dinner.”

“Have we heard anything from Cal?”

“Not yet.”

“Who’s running recon?”

“Jonee on the south side, Butch on the north. Hue’ll relieve Butch at eleven, Wow will take the south. I’ll run the board here. At six a.m. it’ll be Frank and Annie, south, Cal and Kate on the north, and Hue’ll be back on the board.”

“Anybody planning to sleep?”

“We’ll all be cat-napping here until we get back to normal.”

“That’ll be the day,” Cody said and chuckled. “That’s a good plan, Si. Thanks.”

“Oh, your pal Dave called. He’ll be calling you on your cell.”

“Thanks. I’m going off the monitor now. You need me, call the cell. I’ve got it on the hummer.”

“Gotcha.”

Cody turned off the car, got out and locked the doors. The wolf bayed again as he walked toward the front door and dialed Amelie Cluett. It was very dark. The lights over the doorway were off.

“Hello?”

“It’s Cody. Want to buzz me in?”

“Wow, that was quick.”

The door buzzed and popped open and he entered the hallway. He looked to his left, noticed a light switch and clicked it. The lights outside flicked on.

Huh, he thought. Then he heard her door open and he looked up, and sucked in his breath.

She was standing at the top of the stairs. She was wearing a madras skirt cut four inches above the knee, a white frilly blouse and a red vest. He looked her over as he came up the stairs.

“Not working tonight?”

“I took the day off,” she said, leading him into the living room. The smell of strong coffee greeted him.

“I started to go to the gym this morning but I changed my mind and came home, canceled my appointments and cried for a while. Then I decided to clean the place. That’s what women do when they’re upset, they sanitize the nest and take a shower.”

“And make coffee?”

“I put on a fresh pot after I talked to you.”

He started to take off his jacket as she went into the kitchen but she whirled around and said, “I mislead you.”

“That’s not easy to do.”

“I mean, when I said I had some new ideas. That was just a big, fat lie.”

He laughed. “Well, I admire your honesty. I guess I’ll have to give you that ticket.”

She started to pour the coffee but her hand was shaking so hard she spilled some on the counter.

“Oh, damn!”

“Hey, easy.”

He took the pot from her and poured the two cups and she started babbling as she cleaned the counter with a sponge.

“All of a sudden I was alone here, nobody in the building but me and I saw that yellow police tape on Raymond’s door and I, uh, I got scared to death and I’ve been scared to death all day and then it started getting dark and then there are these wolves over in the Park zoo and they started howling-I guess at the full moon, they do that you know-and I, uh, I just grabbed your card and…”

Who the hell put that tape there? he thought. Probably one of McKeown’s boys. He put a forefinger against her lips and stopped her.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Incidentally, that’s an old wives’ tale, about wolves and the full moon.”

“It’s really eerie.”

“I suppose it can be. Particularly if someone you know has just been killed across the hall and you’re alone.”

Tears welled up in her eyes and she turned her head. He stepped forward and put his arms around her, held her close to him and gently rubbed her back.

“It’s okay, let it out. You have a right.”

“I thought I was all cried out.”

“It’ll come and go for awhile.”

He stepped back and she dried her eyes with a dish towel. “God, I must be a mess.”

He thought for a moment then asked: “Have you eaten anything today?”

“No.”

“Well, neither have I and I’m starved. So how about we turn on all the lights in your apartment and I’ll go over and pull down the tape on Raymond’s door. And then we can go grab a bite somewhere. Or am I being too forward?”

“Oh yeah, you’re just all forward and a mile wide. Look, you don’t have to…”

“I don’t have to do anything. I’d love to take you to dinner.”

His cell hummed against his side.

“I’m gonna have to take this. Excuse me for a minute.” He looked at the call window, pressed the button and said, “Hey, Dave.”

“ Ahoki, brother. I hope this isn’t an inconvenient time.”

“Not at all.”

“Your friends miss you.”

“Yeah, I heard the alpha. I’m right up the street.”

“I picked up a couple of nice venison bones this afternoon at the market on Amsterdam.”

“Terrific. Give me fifteen. Oh, I’ll have a friend with me.”

“That’s cool.”

He rang off and turned back to Amelie. “Why don’t you go do whatever you have to do and I’ll turn on the lights,” he said.

“Everything okay?” she asked tentatively.

“Sure. I have to stop for a few minutes on the way to dinner and see a couple of friends. I think you’ll like them.”

She rushed off to the bathroom and he walked around the apartment clicking on lamps. He stopped for a moment at the window overlooking the street. A nice street, he thought, but it will never be the same for her. Then he went across the hall and tore down the yellow crime ribbons, balled them up and stuffed them in his jacket pocket, and went back to her apartment, doctored his coffee and sipped it until she came back.

He noticed, for the first time, that she wore very little makeup. Her skin was flawless and her eyes, cleared by tears, sparkled behind pale eyeliner. She had exchanged the blouse and vest for a red cashmere turtle neck sweater.

She was something. A guilty pleasure in his world of violence, death and paranoia. Perhaps in fairness to her…

“Let’s go,” he said.

He drove west to Fifth Avenue and turned left with the park drifting past them on the right. He turned into the park at 65 ^ th Street, drove to a discreet entrance behind the Wildlife Center and turned in.

She was surprised but said nothing. I’m with a cop working a murder case and we’re going to a closed zoo in the dark and I feel wonderfully secure, she thought. I have no idea what we’re doing here and I don’t care. It’s a giddy experience after a day filled with fear and it feels good.

And she laughed, secretly, inside herself.

He parked, got out and hurried around the front of the car and opened the door for her. As she got out she heard the wolf howl again only this time it was very close by and seemed less mournful. It startled her and Cody took her hand as she got out of the car and smiled.

“Not to worry,” he said and led her toward an open door at the rear of the wildlife complex. A man was leaning against the door jamb awaiting them, his hands in the pockets of his jeans and a large package stuffed under one armpit. He was a little taller than Cody and was wearing a black sweater, its sleeves pushed up to the elbows. He was deeply tanned like Cody and his short, black hair appeared wind-ruffled. He saw Amelie and looked surprised.

“Hi, pal,” Cody said and they gave each other a friendly hug. Cody turned to Amelie and said, “Meet Dave Fox, the best veterinarian on the planet. Dave, Amelie Cluett.”

Fox smiled and shook her hand. “Miss Cluett. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Hi,” she said with a smile. “It’s Amelie.”

“Good. I’m Dave.”

“We grew up together,” Cody said as the vet led them through the Center.

Fox led them to a rear door marked: “Private. No admittance.” Inside there was a dimly lit glass corridor with another door leading to a large, secluded compound, thick with foliage, with a stream coursing through it and a man-made den at its midpoint. It was enclosed by a ten foot chain link fence surrounded by trees, which hid the isolated enclosure from Central Park’s East Drive. As she peered through the glass into the compound, she saw a large gray wolf exit the den about fifty feet away and walk back and forth, staring at them.

“They’ve been restless all day,” Fox said. “Done some roughhousing but mostly he’s been stalking around like that. Very vocal. Y’know, growling and whining the way he does. Then they started yelling about forty-five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, Charley heard them all the way downtown.”

Amelie, who did not fully understand their conversation, stared mesmerized at the big gray who was watching them through golden eyes, his raised nose sensing the air.

Fox handed Cody the brown paper package. “Good shank bones,” he said. “Lots of meat on the shoulder.”

“Good. Thanks.” Cody turned to Amelie. “Wait here with Dave, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna have a chat with old loudmouth there.”

“The gate’s unlocked,” Fox said.

“Okay.”

He went outside the corridor, closing the door behind him, and walked toward the gate to the enclosure.

“Where’s he going?”

“Just watch,” Fox said and then, out of curiosity, “How long have you known Micah?”

She looked at her watch. “About twelve hours. Since this morning. I started out as a suspect, then I became a witness and now? I don’t know what the hell I am now.”

“You ought to be flattered. He’s never brought a guest with him before.”

Inside, Cody opened the gate and entered the big cage.

“Is he going in there with that wolf?”

“Keep watching. That’s the alpha. He was the leader of the pack. His mate is shy. Wary of strangers. She smells you but she’ll be out in a minute.”

“I don’t believe this,” Amelie said half-aloud.

She watched as Cody closed the gate behind him and walked toward the wolves. He jumped the small stream then squatted down and opened the package, taking out two large bones and laying them beside him. He appeared to be talking to the animal. She could see his mouth moving, then he held out his hand, palm up. The alpha wolf crouched, then stood up and approached Cody slowly, leaning forward, and licked his hand. Cody began to stroke his neck between his ears with his other hand. She could hear the wolf, half growling, half whining-a strange, happy sound. The wolf hunkered down and Cody gave him one of the big bones.

A moment later the female slipped out of the den and came forward slowly, zigzagging her way to Cody who held his hand out and spoke softly to her. She finally crouched down too and, bending her head, took the other bone he offered and backed away a few feet before settling down to her feast.

“You look good, son,” Cody told the alpha. “You must be up to a hundred and twenty pounds and no fat. They’re feeding you good here, aren’t they?”

The wolf grunted as though he understood.?

The shooting had occurred two months ago, when Cody was back on the reservation for a visit.

And now the alpha and his mate were good as new, thanks to Dave Runningfox, who had healed them and built the pen in which they had grown strong.

“Three weeks, old boy, and I’ll take you home,” Cody said to the alpha. “That juvenile that’s looking to take over your pack will take one look at you and back off with his tail between his legs. And you two can have more pups and life will go on.”

Back inside, Amelie and Dave were sitting on a bench watching Cody and the wolves.

“Are they tame?” she asked Dave.

“No, not at all,” Dave answered shaking his head. “They’re wild as grizzlies.”

“Then…?”

“They were shot.”

“Where? Not around here.”

“Out in Idaho, on the reservation. Micah tracked the hunter and gave him the beating of his life.” He paused, watched questions forming in her eyes, on her brow. “How much time have you spent with Micah?”

“I told you, I met him twelve hours ago. He questioned me about a man who was killed. Probably thirty, forty minutes.”

“That’s Micah, alright. He doesn’t answer questions, he asks them.”

“I called him a little while ago. I’ve been scared all day. He came out, calmed me down, then asked me to dinner. The wolves were howling and here we are.”

“Well, wolves howl differently for different reasons. They howl one way when they’re lost, another when they’re looking for their mate, another when they’re sad. If they spot a prey they howl to the rest of the pack to come bring it down.” He laughed and added, “And sometimes when they’re feeling full of themselves, they just howl for the hell of it.”

She laughed and asked, “How about tonight?”

“That was a lonely howl. The alpha was calling Micah.”

Amelie said, skeptically, “Specifically Micah?”

He nodded. “Look, I’m sure he would’ve gotten around to this. We’re Nez Perce Indians. Ours was the tribe that befriended Lewis and Clark and led them through the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean.”

Her eyes were wide with wonder. She slowly nodded her head. “I remember that from history lessons. There was an Indian girl with them.”

“Sacagawea. She was Shoshone but she interpreted for them with the Nez Perce.”

“And the reservation is in Idaho?”

“Yep. It’s gorgeous. Near the Washington border. That’s where we grew up. Been best friends since we were toddlers.”

“Does he still have a home there?”

“No. But he goes back three times a year, ten days at a time. His father was Nez Perce. Nimiipu in the language. His mother was white. She was our school teacher when we were in grammar school. His born name is Micah Cody Wildpony. My full name’s David Runningfox. I shortened it when I went to college.”

“You’re not kidding me?”

“Of course not. But I am talking too much. I should let him tell you all this.”

“Not on your life.” She looked back at Cody, and then added, “You started, you can’t quit now.”

“Well, when Cody was about three, the Elders of the Nimiipu recognized something special about Micah. They call him Ka’wan, which means Little Wolf. The wolf is the most sacred of all creatures. They pronounced he was weyekin, a prophet, someone unique. Cody is incredibly intuitive. He inherited great instincts from his dad who was a true warrior, special ops. The Nez Perce have no written language and Micah was selected as one who passes on the legends and language of the Nimiipu: the myths of nature, the wisdom of the culture, the religion of The Dreamer. He takes that responsibility seriously. So, he lives in two worlds. His spirit follows the wisdom of the Nimiipu but he chooses to live in this culture.”

“Why did he leave the reservation?”

“Micah was thirteen when his father died. His mom moved them back to her home in Columbia, Missouri. He went to the University there.”

“So how did he end up here?”

“He was in the army for a year but it didn’t appeal to him. He loves New York City so he decided to serve it as a cop.”

She exhaled. “And he talks to wolves,” she said.

“Well, the Elders were right, he’s weyekin- he has the gift. He communicates with other creatures. It’s a spiritual thing I couldn’t begin to explain. But it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”

She looked back in the compound. The alpha’s head was in his lap and Cody was scratching him behind the ears. It was lovely to behold and it touched her. She could feel her pulse in her throat. “I wonder why he brought me here?” she thought aloud.

“Well, he’s a practical guy and this is on the way to dinner,” Dave answered. “Or maybe he sees something special in you. Or maybe you are a suspect. Or maybe it’s simply that he’s a man and you, Amelie, are quite a fox, if I do say so myself-and pun intended.” Dave Fox smiled at her impishly.

She looked over at him and smiled back. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

“And what’s with the ponytail?” she asked.

“Part of the culture.”

“Then how come you don’t wear one?”

Dave answered, quite seriously, “Because I’m a veterinarian. He’s a warrior.”

22

“Shall I call you Daisy?” Ward Hamilton clinked his crystal glass of Prosecco against Victoria’s, and squirmed in his arm chair with the delight of knowing that, beneath her filmy white crushed cotton slit skirt, she was almost certainly wearing nothing at all.

“Why, Mr. Gatsby,” she purred. “I do believe you’re treading closer to the informal every moment.” She smiled at him lasciviously, and finished her drink in a single sensuous sip-her eyes never leaving his as she swallowed. In the distant background, in what could indeed have been scene from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, archers also dressed in white dotted the country club’s impeccable green lawn.

“You must admit it, darling,” Victoria continued. “I bested you roundly this afternoon.”

“You did indeed,” Hamilton chuckled affably. “But I am not surprised. While I’ve been slaving away at the Public Library and in front of my screen, you can practice any time you like.”

“Not that you did too badly,” she allowed. “Four bull’s eyes aren’t exactly a shabby score.”

“I am becoming,” Hamilton said, “an increasingly good marksman. Un bon tireur, as General Idi Amin used to say. Though he was talking about his rate of impregnation.”

“Why is it everything has to come back to sex with you?”

“Because you are my lover,” Hamilton said. “In your physical presence, there is nothing else worth thinking about.” He took her hand, and brought it to his lips, savoring her delicate perfume.

“If only it could cure what ails you,” she said, her eyes misting for a moment until she covered by reaching for the bottle.

Hamilton brushed her hand aside, took the bottle, and poured for her.

The waitress in the French milkmaid’s pinafore approached the table, a look of sweet solicitation on her innocent face. “May I bring you another bottle, madame et monsieur?”

Hamilton shook his head. “I think we finish this one,” he said in a teasing tone, “take it and you with us to the back seat of our limousine for dessert.”

The waitress put her hand to her face to cover a blush.

Under the table Victoria’s white-stockinged foot found its way into Hamilton’s crotch and gave him a playful nudge. “Don’t worry,” she said to the young woman, “he’s just joking.”

“Not at all,” Hamilton insisted. “We would take you to places you’ve never imagined,” he purred to the waitress, who was slowly but surely backing away from the table, glancing around for the nearest exit.

Victoria put down her champagne glass and reached for her cell phone. She pushed a speed-dial and spoke into the mike: “Bring the car around, please. Mr. Hamilton is being naughty again and needs to be attended to.”

Hamilton loved the look she gave him. He knew he was in for a treat.?

“The privacy window is up,” the chauffeur whispered to Victoria as he held the door for her.

“Thank you, Patrick,” she said. “Care to join us?”

“No, thank you,” the driver answered, flicking a speck of pollen from his otherwise impeccable gray lapel. “Awfully jolly to invite me, though.”

Victoria gave him a look filled with erotic promise, then ducked inside the car, taking care to allow Patrick a glance of her braless decolletage.

Hamilton was waiting.

“Are you sure you’re up to it?” she said, reaching for his zipper and pulling aside her skirt.

“You’ll see,” he said. “Viagra goes down very well with champagne.”

“Then I will too,” she said, releasing him from his white linen trousers. “Pretend I’m wearing a white pinafore.”

“I’d rather pretend you’re wearing nothing at all,” he said, moaning as she took him into her mouth. He pulled her hair away from her neck, so he could focus on the heart-shaped tattoo at its base.

23

Cal Bergman was frustrated. He had taken no notes during his interview with Nevins but the details were swirling in his brain; details he was not sure how to handle. How much should he reveal to Cody? How much should he dictate to himself? What had he learned that would advance the case?

That one he was sure of: nothing.

Should he suggest another run at the Yellow Door club? Perhaps shake up the bartender a little more or perhaps bang on the Manager, whoever he was? It seemed to him that would be a waste of time though as Cody often reminded them, “Nothing is a waste of time.” Dog work, which is what the captain called it, was necessary if for no other reason than to close the book on a string of the investigation. As he wove his way through the Friday evening traffic he considered the only clue they had: The woman in the red dress and the vampire mask.

Someone had to know who she was and at that moment the only someone was the killer. And at that moment who was the only person whom he felt certain knew who the killer was? The woman in the red dress.

A classic conundrum.

The only other person who knew was Raymond Handley and Handley most certainly wasn’t talking and he laughed at that thought. Not a humorous laugh, a laugh of vexation. What was it his grandmother used to say? If two people know something, it’s a secret. If three people know, it’s a headline.

The only headline the third person in this case could be assured of was when the details of his lurid death became known to the media.

And so Bergman’s lissome brain turned back to Handley. His detailed journal might still contain a secret; some address, some name, some hypocorism that may have eluded him when he was poring over the black book. Perhaps a phone number scribbled sideways on one of its pages. Anything.

He had decided on a simple method to reduce the overwhelming contents of the book to a workable monograph. He would narrow his focus to the previous two months and use ratiocination, string logic, to connect names, dates, possible codes, even scribblings, in search of any clue that might reveal the identity of the woman in red and hopefully lead to Handley’s killer.

But his tenacity was encumbered. He checked his watch. Six fifty-seven. He had not eaten all day and lack of food had drained his energy and was giving him a headache. And so, as he drove south on Bowery, his thoughts turned from homicide to sapid delights; to fettuccini Crosetti, a big bowl of minestrone, a rich Italian salad, perhaps even a glass of red wine-to La Venezia Ristorante, which was right on his way and a few blocks from the Loft-the perfect place to parse Handley’s black book while satisfying his hunger.

He turned right onto Hester Street, drove a block and turned into a parking lot. He called the Loft from the car, and told Simon, who was working the desk, where he was, then headed for the entrance.

The Venezia was near the intersection of Mott and Hester, the bustling tourist tract where Little Italy morphed into Chinatown. It had occupied the same one-story building since the mid-fifties when Tony Crosetti and his brother Bernardo, whose father had left them a modest inheritance, had pooled their resources, bought the building and started the restaurant, with their mother as the grand chef. Their first menu was hand-written from the recipes in her head. Dishes she had been cooking for them all their lives. Tony, who was twenty-five and had a head for numbers, would handle the business while Bernie, who was twenty-seven and had a stomach for cooking, would learn cuisine at his mother’s elbow.

It was the neighborhood trattoria where locals-especially cops and hangers-on of the law-gathered to drink, eat, trade lies, argue, and celebrate first communions, birthdays, and other treasured family moments. It was no secret that Lo Zio, Uncle Tony, loved cops, knew the regulars by name-most of who worked the 1.2 square miles of the Fifth Precinct or were members of the TAZ-and treated them as family.

As Bergman entered Venezia through the Mott Street entrance his senses were overwhelmed by the tantalizing aroma and the noise: thirty tables crowded with Friday night revelers, their conversation and laughter virtually drowning out the music playing in the background; real people joyously welcoming the weekend. It had been a long time, Cal wishfully thought, but quickly brushed off the idea. He had work to do.

The dining room was to the right of the entrance, its walls adorned with photographs of Venice, Naples, Rome and Lake Como; of family and friends; and a framed copy of a piece about La Venezia from City Gourmet Magazine entitled “The Ritual Prince of Mott Street.” The bar to the left was also crowded with revelers, among them two older gents playing dollar poker.

Uncle Tony was a man of tradition, disciplined and habitual. A small, joyful fellow, barely five-six and weighing at best 140 pounds, he dressed impeccably, always a dark blue suit, white shirt and a carnation in his lapel. He looked up from the maitre d’s desk as Bergman entered. “Sergeant Bergman,” he said. His creased face lit up.

Bergman towered over the little man who rushed over and hugged him around the waist. Bergman laughed. “Not yet, Zio Tony,” he said. “Still just detective.”

“Well, you should be,” Tony said firmly.

“I’m working on it,” Bergman answered. He held up Handley’s book. “Thought I’d grab a bite to eat while I’m doing some homework. I forgot it was Friday night. I should have called first.”

Tony waved off the suggestion. He looked at his reservation book, glanced around the room, and snapped his fingers at a passing waiter. “Kenny,” he said. “Table nineteen for our friend. Clean it off quickly.”

“Yes sir.” The waiter rushed off.

“So, you are working something, eh?” the little man said, nodding at the journal.

Bergman smiled. “We’re always working something, Uncle Tony.”

“Perhaps a drink? Soothe the nerves.”

“I’m on the job.”

“Who’s to know?” Tony said with a wink. “A little vino. Stir the appetite.”

“Okay. Maybe a Chianti, please.”

“Excellent.”

The waiter returned to tell them the table was ready.

“Bring Chianti for the detective,” Tony said as he grabbed a menu and led Bergman through the room toward a small corner table for two. As they passed a hallway to the private dining room, Tony cocked his head toward the room which was particularly noisy.

“Magpies,” he said, “cheep, cheep, cheep. Rich ladies. A charity thing tonight. They come once a year before their annual shindig. So…” he waved his hand slightly, “they get a little buzzed, laugh a lot, tip the waiters big. They can cheep all they want, right?”

“Right,” Bergman agreed.

They reached the table and Tony held the chair as Bergman sat down.

“Take your time. Do your homework. It’s my honor to have you.” He leaned over and added, “Try the special, bistecca Maria, my mother’s favorite. A little filet mignon, wild mushrooms soaked in brandy and Gorgonzola sauce, wrapped up a nice fluffy pastry.” He kissed his fingertips and flared out his hand.

“ Grazie, Zio,” Bergman answered.

Tony patted him on the shoulder and left.

Bergman put Handley’s black book on the table in front of him but the waiter arrived with the glass of wine so he set the book aside and turned his attention to the menu.

The ladies started heading out for the shindig, one in a red dress offering him a whiff of her exotic perfume as she passed his table.?

At about the same time, Cody and Amelie Cluett were parking near an intimate Thai restaurant on 66 ^ th Street. They both had agreed on Thai food and Tiger Thai, one of her favorites, was a few blocks from the Wildlife Center. Before they left the car, Cody called The Loft.

“Hi, Captain, it’s Si.”

“Hue off?”

“Taking a nap in the back. He’s on recon later tonight.”

“Heard from Bergman yet?”

“Yes sir, he’s eating at Uncle Tony’s. He needs to talk to you.”

“Did he score something with Nevins?”

”No, but he needs to give you his report. He doesn’t want to put it on tape.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say.”

“I’m at Tiger Thai on 66 ^ th. When Cal calls back, tell him it can wait until morning, he’s been at it since dawn. I don’t want him walking around in his sleep.”

“Right.”

“You working anything?”

“I’m not sure yet. Tomorrow maybe. Trying to get a fix on Linda Stembler’s whereabouts so we can talk to her.”

Cody knew better than to push Larry Simon. He didn’t like to talk about his works in progress.

“Okay. If anything important comes up call me on the cell. It’s on the hummer so it won’t annoy everybody in the restaurant.”

“Gotcha.”

“Later.”

He rang off and entered the restaurant with Amelie which, while crowded, was less boisterous than La Venezia. They found a quiet table in the back.

“How about a drink?” he asked when the waiter arrived.

“I’ll have a Thai beer,” she said.

“Good. I’ll have Thai tea, iced.”

The waiter nodded and left.

“You don’t drink?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I don’t have to…”

“Hey,” he said with a smile, “I have absolutely nothing against it. I just never got around to it.”

She started to laugh and smothered it with two fingers pressed against her lips. “Never got around to it. That’s funny.”

“Funny stupid or funny-to-the-point?”

“Oh, succinct. I can’t imagine you saying anything stupid.”

“Oh. Well, I can be stupid, believe me.”

She thought a moment and said, “Dave says you’re a prophet. I always think of prophets as being profound. And you have visions. Are you psychic?”

“Well, not exactly. The visions are very brief and…uh

…metaphoric.”

She laughed and said, “So you’re, let’s see…” she thought a moment and said, “Profoundly psychimetaphoric.”

They both laughed.

He shook his head. “I’m only profound on Halxpaawit.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. I wouldn’t even try to pronounce that.” More laughter.

The waiter came with their drinks and Cody told him they weren’t ready to order yet. Then Micah stared at her and said, “ Halxpaawit is like Sunday, if you’re a Christian. Or Saturday, if you’re a Jew. It’s Nimi’uuputimptki, the language of the Nimiipu — the Nez Perce. So, on Halxpaawit, the Nimiipu m eet in a large communal house and practice walabsat, which is the Religion of the Seven Drums as told by the miyooxat, who are spiritual leaders, and interpreted by the weyekin, who are, as you put it, profoundly psychimetaphoric. Oh, and my mother was a Catholic. How about you?”

He started to laugh and she joined him and said, “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Very succinct,” he said and raised his glass of tea to her. “You’ve eaten here before, what’s your recommendation?”?

Jonee Ansa offered to drive Kate Winters over to the Hospital. He was running recon in South Manhattan and, as he said, “As long as you’re going south of 42 ^ nd Street anyplace is on my way.”

Munching from a bag of chips, he drove up to 14 ^ th Street and headed east.

“You picked quite a day to start,” Ansa said.

“And how,” Kate answered. “Is it always like this?”

“Nah. Sometimes we’ll go a couple weeks working with the precinct guys, then we’ll catch one. But it’s never dull. Think you’re gonna like it?”

“I do already,” she said, fingering the whistle under her blouse. “I couldn’t believe it when he gave me the whistle.”

“Yeah, he’s full of surprises. Let me tell you, they come in handy. Me and Rizzo caught a double homicide report one day monitoring 911. It was over on Avenue D. We get there, we can see a dead guy in the hallway. His brains are all over the place. The door’s locked so I go around to the side of the house, jump a little fence, and just before I get to the back door I am looking at the biggest fu…friggin

…Doberman I ever saw. Waist high and all teeth and just itchin’ to have me for lunch. So I grab my whistle and blow as hard as I can and that dog’s ears damn near fly off his head and he starts yipping like I kicked him in the nuts and he disappears. I think he went under the house or something. Anyway, it turned out to be a guy who popped his wife and then ate the gun. We had to call animal rescue to come find the dog.”

Kate laughed. “I’ll remember that.” She paused a moment then asked, “Does Cody ever lose his temper?”

”I heard him raise his voice once, coupla years ago. But you can tell when he’s angry. Those eyes of his’ll burn a hole right through the wall. But then it’s over, just like that. He smiles and gets on with business. Right now he’s getting edgy. I mean, so far we ain’t got a clue. That dame in the red dress is it. This one’s really clean. Not a print, no DNA. Nothin’. Just Handley-deader than Honest Abe.”

He turned left on First Avenue and headed north.

“Your companion’s a nurse, huh?”

“She’s a doctor. ER Chief of Staff. Right now she’s squiring a new group of interns through their first year.”

“That sounds like a pain. What’s her name?”

“Song.”

“What’s her first name?”

“That’s it. Dr. Song Wiley. Her parents were hippies back in the late sixties, hanging in Haight-Ashbury. She was born in a one room flat. Five people living together. Says she was ten before she realized that some people smoked real cigarettes.”

Ansa chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “Been there.”

They drove past Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village with the East River reflecting the full moon in the background.

“Where did you meet?” Ansa asked.

“It was really strange. We both answered an ad for an apartment at the same time. There we were, the two of us, seniors in college, and a real estate gal who didn’t know what to do. So Song looks at me and I look at her and then she says, ‘Why don’t we go to dinner and work it out.’ We ended up sharing the apartment. Been together ever since. Fourteen years.”

“Terrific. There’s Bellevue. Where to?”

“Emergency entrance will be fine.”

“Hell, that’s not much of a leap, is it?”

“Well, not really when you think about it.”

“At least she’ll understand the crazy hours.”

He pulled up at the ambulance entrance. “Gimme a call on the cell when you’re ready to leave, I’ll run you home.”

“That’s way off your beat, Jonee. I live up on 94 ^ th Street.”

“Ah, I’ll have Butch meet us at 42 ^ nd and take you from there. He’s running the north end. One of the perks, Kate. Makes up for the lousy hours. Welcome to the crew.”

Kate walked through the swinging emergency doors and down a hallway to the night desk. As she approached it she saw Song, who was only five-two, a pretty woman with bright red hair and a pixie nose. Forty-four and looked thirty. She glanced up from her desk and grinned elfishly at Kate, her Asian eyes looking oddly comfortable in her freckled face.

“You’re happy,” she said. “I can tell. You got it, didn’t you?”

“I had it already, sweetheart. Cody just ran some of the rules by me and gave me this.”

She pulled out the whistle and showed it to her mate who took it and held it in the palm of her hand.

“Sterling silver.” Song admired the craftsmanship.

“Tiffany’s. Cody gives one to every member of the crew.”

“It’s already initialed.”

“How about that?”

“Pretty classy boss you got there.”

The white-haired chief night nurse came down the hall and Song called her over. Her name was Myrza and she was an old pro.

“Hey, Kate,” she said.

“Hi, Myrza.”

“Take the desk for thirty,” Song said. “We’re going over to the deli and get a sandwich.”

“Don’t dally at the deli, girl, it’s Friday night,” Myrza yelled after them. “They’re already backing up in the holding room.”

Song and Kate walked out the driveway toward First Avenue.

“We’re already working a case,” Kate said excitedly. “They call it a show. Cody came back from doing the entry and told me I was the new ADA and introduced me around and I sat through an incredible briefing and then I got my first assignment. I went with Cody to tell some rich Wall Street snob his future son-in-law was murdered last night.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Song squeezed her hand and pulled Kate to a stop. “I can hear your adrenalin rushing.”

“I know. I wish we were going home.”

“Sorry, sweetie, I’m on a thirty-six-hour shift. But I’ll be home by seven.”

“Oh, great. My partner is picking me up at six.”

“Hey, I’ll be off for twenty-four hours. I’ll be there when you get home. Congratulations, darlin’.” Song stood on her tiptoes and they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed there under a street light in the middle of First Avenue.

It was 8:53 p.m.?

When Frank Rizzo got back to his small apartment after dinner with some of the old timers, he opened the cabinet in the kitchen, looked up at the unopened bottle of Jack Daniels on the top shelf, and said, “Hello, you son of a bitch. Eat your heart out.”

It was a tough night for him. There were several-holidays, anniversaries-but October 26 was always the one that hit his heart the hardest. Forty-three years ago he had his first date with Jessie. It was her nineteenth birthday and they had gone to the Tivoli Theater to see the movie “West Side Story,” which had opened ten days earlier, and she had cried all the way home. He was twenty, had been a cop for two months, and didn’t know what to do with the pretty, dark-haired teenager who had her face smothered in his handkerchief and was sobbing uncontrollably.

When her father opened the door, he immediately assumed the worst.

“What’d ya do with my little girl,” he roared, balling up his fist.

“I didn’t do anything,” Rizzo pleaded. “It was the movie.”

“Movie? What movie?”

She rushed past her father into her mother’s arms. “Poor Maria,” she wailed. “They killed Tony and she was really in love with him.”

Rizzo looked at her equally bewildered father and held his hands out at his sides.

“What d’ya do?” he said helplessly.

What he did was date her for six months and then marry her. They had weathered thirty-six years, a son and a daughter, three grandchildren, the long hours and often fear-filled nights of a cop’s life, and were thinking about Rizzo taking early retirement and moving to Florida.

He got the call while interrogating a robbery suspect at the precinct station. She was dead by the time he got to Bellevue. She had collapsed in a super market two blocks from their apartment. No warning. No previous history. Her heart had just stopped, Snap! Like that, she was gone.

Rizzo was alone for the first time in thirty-six years. His son lived in Denver. His daughter was a flight attendant stationed in Atlanta. The members of the Manhattan South Precinct were his real family.

So he took three weeks off, buried his wife, and his kids helped him gather her clothes for Good Will. And when they left, Frank went back to work. He hired a cleaning lady twice a week, ate most of his meals at Chauncey’s, the precinct hangout, and did his drinking there.

Booze crept up on him. Soon he was closing the bar at night, having a shot to get started in the morning, eating lunch alone so he could sneak a drink or two to get through the day. It was his precinct captain who finally suggested that he take a thirty day paid leave and go into rehab. The suggestion surprised Rizzo. On his way home that night he bought a bottle of Jack Daniels, put it in the cupboard and quit drinking.

Four months later, Cody offered him a dream job-second in command of the TAZ, with a promotion to go with it.

He had been clean and sober for 2,017 days.

He got a glass, poured himself a glass of ginger ale, went in the living room and turned on the television set. When the remote turned up nothing of interest, he put on the DVD of “West Side Story” and as the overture began, he slumped down in his easy chair and let memories envelope him like a warm blanket.?

Bergman was on his second cup of coffee when he looked up from Handley’s journal and realized that the last of La Venezia’s customers were paying their bills. He checked his watch: Eleven-ten. He had been so focused on the book he had lost track of the time. The kitchen had closed at eleven. He marked his place in the journal and hurried to the desk.

“Sorry,” Bergman said. “Time got away from me.”

“No problem,” Tony said. “And how did the homework go?”

“So-so. You know what they say, win some, lose some.”

“Sorry. Maybe it was too noisy.”

Bergman laughed. “No, Tony, maybe the food was too good.”

The little man chuckled and glanced down at the bill. “I see you took my advice about the special. Che pensa?”

“Magnificent. It floated into my mouth.”

The little man beamed.

“I get to have my taste at the end of the day,” Tony said. “Something to look forward to.”

He looked at the sizeable tip, which more than covered the discount Bergman had received.

“You spoil my waiters,” Tony said.

“That’s not possible, Uncle Tony, they spoil me.”

“ Grazi’,” Tony answered with a smile. “ Buona notte, Sergeant.”?

Throughout their dinner, Cody had purposely avoided business and Amelie had followed his lead by keeping her sardonic sense of humor in play. They had talked about everything: mutable subjects that flowed naturally from one to another; about music, about movies, about Japan and Idaho; about parents, wolves, and falcons. They laughed a lot about Jon Stewart and the lunacy of politics. They talked about why neither of them ever married: Amelie lived with a musician who insisted she put her career on hold while his progressed; so she walked. Cody had the opposite problem: He was engaged to a wealthy, young woman but his unpredictable hours did not fit into her social schedule, so she eloped-but not with him. He read about it in the newspapers. Later she told him he was too damned secretive about his work, and she got bored being stonewalled. Enough time had passed for them to brush off the experiences without regrets. It was a comfortable evening.

About the only thing they did not discuss was Raymond Handley.

But as Cody turned into 73 ^ rd Street, the specter of Handley became palpable again. He sensed her fear creeping back as they turned into the driveway; the kind of fear fueled by the unknown, by rampant imagination; by the dark at the top of the stairs, a shadow moving in a dark corner, a squeaky floor in a room above.

“Don’t worry,” he told her as he helped her out of the car. He checked both doors on the first floor when they entered the brownstone, rattled Handley’s door, and then checked the rooms in her apartment, the closets, even looked under the beds.

“Clear,” he said, dropping her keys in her hand.

They were standing in the apartment doorway, a foot or so apart.

“Cop talk, huh?” she said, leaning forward an inch or so. “Brief and to the point.”

She leaned forward another inch but he didn’t take the bait. He stared down at her, started to say something. But changed his mind.

“Get your cordless phone and look out the front window,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow, make sure you’re okay.”

And he left.

She got the mobile phone and went to the window. He was standing on the sidewalk, talking into his cell.

He had dialed the north RR car and Vinnie answered.

“It’s Cody. Where are you?”

“East side, near 65th.”

“Good. Come to Handley’s brownstone. I got a nervous witness here.”

“Five minutes.”

Cody looked up and she was staring down at him and he held up a forefinger and pointed to his phone. She waited. Five minutes crept by and a black sedan pulled up. A young Asian got out and Cody talked to him for a moment and he nodded. Then her phone rang.

“Hi.”

“Hi. Say hello to Vinnie, one of the crew. He’ll be parked in your driveway most of the night.”

“Cody?”

“Yeah?”

“I had a great time. Thank you.”

“Me too.”

“Maybe, uh…maybe next time dinner’s on me.”

He paused a moment, looked up at her and said, “Sleep well. Here’s Vin.”

She saw him hand the phone to the young Asian who looked about eighteen. “Hi, Miss Cluett,” he said. “I’m here if you get nervous. Please write down my number.” She fumbled around in her purse, found pencil and paper, and jotted it down.

“Thank you, Vinnie. Please call me Amelie.”

“Gotcha.”

He rang off and she watched Cody get in his car, pull out of the driveway, and leave.

It was 11:49 p.m.?

Cody drove back to the Loft and checked the car in then took the elevator up to the nerve center. Charley was sitting by the elevator door when it slid open. He sniffed Cody’s legs and then raised his nose to his waist and sniffed his jacket.

“He smells your wild friends,” Si said without looking away from his computer.

“He’s smelled them before.”

Si continued banging away on his computer. “He’s been sitting there for ten minutes,” he said. “He walked over there five minutes before I heard the garage doors open.”

Cody reached down and scratched Charley’s ears. “His ears are as good as his nose. I tooted the horn when I was coming down West Broadway.”

Si stopped working and looked over at Cody and Charley. “You know how many horns are tooting on West Broadway right now?”

“He knows my touch.”

Si shook his head and laughed as he turned back to his keyboard.

“What’re you chasing, Si? I know when you’re after something.”

“It’s bad medicine to talk about it until it shakes out.” He stole a glance at the clock. “We’ve had tough ones before, Micah. It’s only been twelve hours and fourteen minutes since this show started. Go home and get some sleep.”

“You’re gonna keep Charley up. He can hear your mind working all the way over at my apartment.”

“Good. He snores.”

“Tell me about it.”

Cody and Charley always walked the few blocks to his place on Lispenard Street, swinging over to a small arrowhead-shaped area of trees near the intersection of Sixth Avenue and West Broadway, where Charley often met up with Hoover, a black lab, owned by a young artist named Harrison. The two dogs liked to roughhouse together. But that was usually about ten p.m.

“We’re too late tonight,” Cody told the dog who seemed to understand, sniffed the trees, and peed on a couple before they walked the two blocks back to their apartment.

Cody walked into the bedroom, pulled off his jacket and laid at the foot of the bed. Charley approached it with nose twitching and smelled every inch of it, then sat down beside the bed and stared up at Cody.

“Don’t worry, pal, nobody can take your place. Anyway, I think you’ll like her.”

He stripped off his clothes and took a quick shower. When he came back, Charley had pulled the jacket down on his pad and was curled up sleeping on it. Cody got in bed, set the clock for six a.m. and clicked off the light.

Just another Friday night in the Garden of Eden, he thought as he began to doze off. Except tonight the clock was running. And he knew he was thinking something he would not say aloud:

Somebody else was going to die before they got another clue.

24

Saturday, October 27

As was their custom, Cody and Charley ate breakfast at Waldo’s at 6:30 then, it being Saturday, jogged up Mulberry St. toward Grand. Cody was wearing sweats with a bottle of water sticking out of his back pocket. Their destination was Sarah Roosevelt Park where they always found another dog or two to play with.

Cody knew the park well. His first partner was Harry Ellison, who had been on the force for twenty-three years and was not happy saddled with a rookie, particularly one who wore a ponytail and was laughed at behind the hand of just about everyone in the Fifth Precinct. But after a few months, Ellison, who was divorced, came to admire Cody’s quiet attitude, his intuition and quick response, and his eagerness to learn from a veteran cop. When Cody moved on, they remained close friends, eating dinner once a week and catching an occasional movie. When Ellison volunteered to join the Search and Rescue squad, Cody spent time watching Harry work with Charley, a cadaver dog and Harry’s new partner. Although he graced Cody with an occasional wag of his tail, Charley was a one-man dog and Harry was the man.

It was an accepted fact that Charley had the best nose in the business.

Then came the morning of September 11, 2001.?

Charley and Harry had been on the chaotic scene before the second tower fell, had spent exhausting hours combing the deadly ashes at Ground Zero, crawling through its surreal depths, seeking victims in the twisted remains of the Trade Center. On the fifth day nobody was surprised to hear Charley’s urgent bark. It was only after he continued for almost five minutes that a firefighter followed Charley’s cries and found Harry, crumpled in the wreckage, with Charley standing beside him, refusing to leave despite the smoking ashes that scorched his feet.

Ellison was DOA, felled by a massive coronary. His companion had to be carried out, his feet so badly burned he could not walk.

Cody found them both in an ambulance; Charley, his head lying on Ellison’s shrouded body, his sorrow a low wail, wrenched from his heart.

“Nobody can get near them,” the medic told Cody. “The vet’s on his way over with a shot for the dog.”

“I’ll take care of the dog,” Cody said.

“He’s got to be put down, Captain.”

“I said I’ll take care of the dog,” Cody repeated, his anguish underscored by anger.

“Look at his feet, sir. He’ll never walk again.”

“Then I’ll carry him,” Cody said, climbing into the ambulance.

Charley’s eyes shifted slightly and his lips curled back from his teeth. The wail turned into a snarl.

Cody sat down next to him and slowly reached out to him. He held his hand a few inches from Charley’s nose, watched it quiver, saw a flicker of recognition in his black eyes. Cody moved his hand slowly back to Charley’s neck, and began to pet him as he whispered in his ear.

“It’s okay, pal, let him go. I’m here to take you to a safe place.”

And Cody called Dave Fox.?

For two months Charley lay close to death while Fox, using a mutable combination of antibiotics, native American herbs and experimental drugs, labored to cure his edematous wounds; another three months before the dog could stand on his own; still another three of laborious physical rehabilitation before he could walk, and then only with uniquely padded boots to protect his paws.

Throughout the lengthy and painful recovery, Charley lived with Cody, surrounded by his toys and Ellison’s favorite jacket, thick with his scent; things Cody had gathered from Harry’s apartment after the funeral. Before he was well enough to walk, Cody patiently carried him to the Loft every day where he slept in Cody’s office, curled on the jacket; took him to surrounding parks to bond with other dogs and to bathe in restorative sunlight; washed his paws with balms, liniments and anodynes at night. The crew talked to him, sneaked him bones and other treats, devotedly welcomed him into the family.

Finally, one night as Cody was dozing off, he felt Charley warily slip on the bed and curl up beside him.

Cody was the new man in Charley’s life.

And he still had the best nose in the business.?

As Cody and Charley headed up Mulberry, Cody’s cell phone rang. It was Rizzo, who was running recon in the south end with Annie Rothschild.

“You anywhere near Hester and Mott?” Rizzo asked.

“Yeah, I’m on Mulberry about to cross Hester.”

“We’ve cruised past Jimmy Farrell twice. He’s sittin' in front of the Venezia, sideways in his patrol car with his feet on the sidewalk. Been there about ten minutes.”

“Probably grabbing a smoke. You know how they are about smoking in the cars.”

“Thing is, it bein’ Saturday, I had Vinnie check the Five roster and Jimmy’s not on duty today. Seems a little funny is all.”

“I’ll trot by. Charley and I are headed for the park. It’s on the way.”

He signed off and they moved the block down Hester to Mott. Farrell, Captain of the Fifth, was still sitting there. Wearing jeans and a heavy sweat shirt, he was unshaven and was lighting one cigarette off another with a smoked-out butt between his feet. His eyebrows were welded into a worried frown.

“Hey Cody,” Farrell said, surprised to see him. “Hi Charley.” He scratched the dog’s ears.

“Everything okay?” Cody asked. “You look a little ragged.”

“I feel a little ragged. We had a farewell party for one of the guys last night and I’m a little hung over. So who calls me at six-fuckin-thirty? Mama Crosetti. Tony didn’t come home last night. She can’t find a key to the place. So I send a car to pick up Ricky and bring a key. He lives out in Forest Hills. They should be here in twenty minutes or so.”

The drapes were pulled across the door and windows.

“I checked the back. The place is locked up and there’s no lights on. I banged on the door a couple of times but I got nowhere.”

“You got any needles? Let’s go in.”

“Seems a little drastic. Tony probably lay down on the sofa after they closed and fell asleep. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time. Meanwhile, I feel like I been hit on the head with a fuckin’ night stick.”

Cody looked up Mott Street and saw Rizzo’s cruiser half a block away. He called them on his cell and Annie answered.

“Swing by slowly and hand me a pair of lock needles, two pairs of gloves, and a flashlight.”

“Okay. What’s wrong?”

“Probably nothing. We want to check to make sure.”

The black car slowed down as it approached and the window slid down. Rizzo handed Cody the gloves, needles, and light.

“Sure you don’t need any help?” Rizzo asked.

“Nah. Uncle Tony didn’t make it home last night. Probably asleep on the couch. Just circle the block until we check it out.” He handed the light to Farrell, “Stand behind me, Jimmy, so nobody sees me busting into the place.”

“Okay. Nobody around, anyway, it’s too early. Can I have a swig of your water?”

“Be my guest.”

Cody was an old pro at using needles. He stuck each of them in the keyhole and worked the hook until he felt the tumblers click. The door opened and Cody, Charley, and Farrell entered the darkened restaurant. It was warm and the lingering aroma of garlic and herbs greeted them.

“Stay right here,” Cody said, closing the door behind them. “Where’s the light switch?”

“Right here,” Farrell answered, reaching behind Cody and flicking on the lights to the main dining room. He was careful not to touch the switch pad, in case it held prints. The dimmer switch was set on low and soft light bathed the room. To their right was the main dining room, to the left, the bar with the stools upside down and lined up on top of it, beyond it the door to Uncle Tony’s office. The wall beside his office closed off the kitchen with its two swinging “in” and “out” doors to prevent waiters from head-on collisions. Straight ahead of them was the maitre d’s desk and behind it, the cloak room, and farther to its right, a hallway leading to the private dining room and the rest rooms. Cody flicked on the flash, swung it slowly until the finger of light pointed at the office door.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Cody said, handing Farrell a pair of gloves and reaching down and loosening his jogging shoes. “Take off our shoes, put on the gloves, and you follow directly behind me. We’ll go to the office first.”

“Is all this necessary?”

“SOP.”

“Christ, if he is sleeping and we cruise in there he’ll probably have a damn heart attack.”

“Let’s hope that’s all it is.”

“Jesus, Micah, you always were the cautious one.” Then he yelled, “Hey, Uncle Tony, it’s me, Jimmy. You in there?”

No answer.

“Well, shit.”

“Follow me. Charley, heel.” They walked single-file, following the finger of light to the office, the dog close beside Cody. As they neared the door, Cody stopped abruptly and Farrell bumped into him.

“What?” Farrell said.

The light beam was focused on a coat rack on the opposite wall of the office. A black coat was hanging on it with a black fedora perched on top.

“That his?” Cody asked.

“Yeah, I’d know that hat anywhere.”

“It was down in the thirties last night,” Cody said.

“And Tony hates the cold. Can’t ya tell? It’s like a sauna in here.” Farrell looked around nervously. “Shit, I ain’t even heeled.”

“Me either.”

“Fine pair a cops we are.”

“How long you been out there?”

“Twenty minutes maybe. I also checked the back door. Nothin’.”

“If anybody beside Tony was in here they’re long gone by now. What time is it?”

“Seven-twenty.”

“Exactly.”

“Seven-twenty-three.”

“Stay right where you are.”

Cody took a couple of steps and swept the flashlight beam around the office. The room was empty. He turned on the lights, took out his cell and called the Loft.

“Vinnie. It’s Cody. I’m not sure what we have here but Jimmy Farrell and I just made a forced entry to the Venezia Restaurant on Mott St. Start a new case tape rolling.

Entry time: Seven twenty-one. Then patch in Rizzo.”

“What’s going on there?”

“Uncle Tony didn’t come home last night. Just a precaution.”

There was a click and Annie answered from the RR car.

“This is Annie.”

“Where are you?”

“Elizabeth Street approaching Hester.”

“Okay, I’m not sure whether we have a problem or not. You and Frank go through the parking lot at Hester and Mott to the alley behind the Venezia and park at the rear door.”

“Copy that,” Annie said.

“Vinnie, acting on the advice of Captain James Farrell of Precinct Five that Mrs. Anthony Crosetti, wife of the owner of the Venezia Restaurant, reported he did not return home from work last night. I want you to call Wolf and alert him that we may have a problem here and send a car for him. Alert the garage to have a van on standby. I do not have, repeat, do not have a kit so I need somebody standing by to bring me one. I need everything including a headset. Copy all that?”

“Gotcha.”

“I’m going to see where Charley leads us. I’ll keep my phone open. We’ll get pictures and videos of these sites so I’ll keep the descriptions brief.”

Cody, anxiety nibbling at his stomach, was staring at four items of interest: Tony’s hat and coat; an oriental rug beside the desk; and the desk top itself, which was clear except for an empty water glass and a dinner plate and fork. The plate was a mess, the food was partly eaten, and the rest seemed to have splashed onto the desk.

“What the hell…” Farrell started.

Cody cut him off. “Jimmy, I want you to do me a favor…”

“You’re not gonna take this case, Cody. This is personal.”

“They’re all personal, Jimmy.”

“Yeah, but they’re all not Ricky’s godfather.”

“Look, I know you’re very close to the Crosettis, but if this is a crime scene please let my crew run the grid. You know we’re the best in the country.”

“God damn it!”

“Jim, just do what I ask. I’m not cutting you out, I just want to find Tony and keep this scene as clean as possible until we do. Charley will find him if he’s here. Meantime, I need you to go back the way we came in, get the shoes, go outside and lock the door behind you and pull your car into the lot next door. We need to low ball this as much as possible until we know what happened here.”

Farrell was breathing heavily. His shoulders sagged. Finally he said, “Okay. Just find him and fast.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

As Farrell left, Cody called Rizzo’s car which was pulling up to the restaurant.

“Annie?”

“Yes sir.”

“I want you to suit up and standby. Frank, is there any room back there? I want to clear the door?”

“Yeah. There’s a dumpster out here. I can pull down next to it.”

“Good, wait until I call you. I’ve got Charley with me. I’m going to see where he leads me. Farrell is bringing his car to the lot. Annie if I need you, enter through the rear door and lock it behind you.”

“Copied.”

“Hue?”

“Right here.”

“Bergman and Winters are running the North section, right?”

“Affirmative.”

”Didn’t Cal eat here last night?”

“Yes sir. He logged out at…eleven-twenty-two.”

“Okay. If we have a problem here I want them both to come to the scene. Everybody parks in the lot next door. I don’t want it to look like a police convention around here, and let’s consider the restaurant’s lot a crime scene for now. I want Si to come with the van if we need it. Right now, Annie is the primary, Si will assist her and Bergman and Winters will work the cleanup. Assign whoever is available to replace Rizzo on south RR and Bergman on the north end. And keep after Wolf.”

“All affirmative.”

“Are you taping everything?”

“Yes sir.”

“Cap, what if he’s just asleep in the john?”

“In that case, Vinnie, all this never happened.”

Cody signed off. He stood next to the desk and studied the office for a moment. A sense of apprehension swept over him but he shook it off. He took Tony’s hat off the rack and held it close to Charley’s nose.

“Find him,” he said.

25

Cody judged the room to be about twenty feet square. It had no windows. The wall facing the door and the two adjacent walls were lined with bookcases about five feet high to accommodate Tony’s height, the books neatly arranged with bric-a-brac filling in the empty spaces. Paintings and photographs adorned the walls. Crosetti’s desk was centrally positioned in the room, with a moveable computer desk and printer angled beside it. A leather sofa occupied the wall facing the desk with a large painting of an ancient church mounted on the wall above it. A four by six Oriental rug lay between the desk and the wall adjacent to the entrance and the hat rack was angled in the corner facing the door. The room was compulsively neat. From the small crystal chandelier over the desk to its polished wood floors, everything about it reflected the ritualistic mien of Anthony Crosetti; everything except the messy dinner plate on the desk.

The dog seemed a little confused at first. He turned away from the hat and walked to Tony’s desk chair, worked it over before the scent led him to the top of the desk. His nose worked the area in front of the chair, initially distracted by the messy food platter, but then he shifted his attention to the area around the corner of the desk and from there to the rug, where his scrutiny became more intense.

Ignoring a smear of food near one corner, he circled the length and width of it and then, his nose an inch above the floor, he walked through the door and headed for one of the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. Cody was close behind, his flashlight surveying the scene before them. When Charley reached the doors he stopped, tapping it with his nose and scratching the door with one foot.

“Stay,” Cody said. As the dog sat, he pushed one side of the door open a foot or two and, leaning in, flashed the light around the large kitchen. The beam swept past two shuttered windows on the back wall, then streaked around the darkened kitchen as it reflected off the stainless steel pots and pans hanging from the overhead racks. He knelt down, scanning the floor.

Charley wasn’t waiting. He shoved his nose past Cody and went through the door.

“I said ‘Stay’,” Cody snapped.

Charley stopped but did not sit. He stood, head forward, tail curved downward and looked back at Cody who peered around the edge of the door, threw a switch.

An aria from “Tosca” blared into the room. Cody jumped a foot off the floor. Charley’s ears stood straight up and almost spun around as the sound blasted them. Cody quickly flicked the switch off and tried the other one.

The room lit up like Times Square.

“Sorry about that, pal, didn’t mean to break your ear drums.”

Charley shook his head and yawned.

Uncle Tony’s penchant for cleanliness was obvious. The big kitchen glowed; grills and stoves lining the island in the middle glittered as if new; sinks and ovens were greaseless; the white tile floor was radiant.

Except…

Cody knelt down and gently flicked a tiny thread of cloth stuck in slender black grout between the tiles. He leaned forward and squinted down a straight line ahead of Charley’s intended path. More specks. Some streaks adjoining them. He looked over at Charley who was staring impatiently at him.

“Okay, swifty, so far, so good. You’re in such a hurry, show me how good you really are.”

Charley walked straight ahead. To his left was the kitchen, to his right a wall. Ahead of him was the back door. A long counter and stainless steel sinks ran the length of the wall to the left of the door and curved back along the opposite wall. A narrow hallway ran to their right at the end of the wall beside them.

Charley, his nose roaming left and right, walked straight ahead and stopped at the hallway. Cody joined him. The hallway to their right ended at the restaurant’s private dining room and another hallway stretched back toward the main dining room from its entrance.

They were in a small alcove formed by the rear entrance, the hallway, and a heavy steel door to their right. Charley followed his nose to the rear door, sniffed around, came back, still working the floor. He stopped at the heavy steel door, sniffed along its bottom edge.

He sat down and looked up at Cody.

“Annie?”

“Right here.”

“I’m gonna open the back door. Hand me the two kits and then hop inside. I’m gonna close the door behind you and lock it. Frank, pull down beside the dumpster.”

“Right.”

“Here we go.”

He opened the door. Annie handed him the two kits which he put behind him. He grabbed her hand as she hopped inside, slammed the door and locked it.

“What have we got?” Annie asked.

Cody nodded toward Charley who had not moved.

“I’m guessing that’s the door to a walk-in meat freezer.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Your headset hooked up?”

She nodded. Cody hooked his up.

“Copy me, Hue?”

“Yep.”

“How about me?” Annie asked.

“Yep.”

“We are about to open the door to what I assume to be a large walk-in meat freezer near the rear entrance of the restaurant. Dr. Rothschild is the forensic pathologist on the scene. She will take it from here.”

Cody moved Charley to one side and opened the hatch of the door. As he pulled it open there was a hurricane of frigid air which turned immediately to a thick mist as it rushed into the hot air in the kitchen. Annie and Cody tried to flap the swirling fog out of the way. Then, as it began to dissipate, a human being took form.

They saw his face first.

His skin was blue, his eyes partially open, his mouth agape. Frost covered his hair and head. Small icicles hung from his eyelids and nostrils. A thin film of frost started in his mouth, coated the side of his face and ended in a large icicle which hung from his jaw.

The rest of his body quickly became visible as the steam vanished. He was naked, seated on a dining room chair. His fragile body emerged, blue and rigid, hands in his lap, feet flat on the floor. A partially filled bottle of wine and an empty glass sat beside the body. The floor was covered with a thin sheet of ice.

Annie’s expression did not change.

“Is it Crosetti?” she asked.

Cody nodded.

She stepped carefully into the doorway and leaned forward, wrapping her left hand around Crosetti’s throat for a second or two and pulled it back.

“Not anymore,” she said. “We’ve got us an iceberg that used to be Mister Crosetti.”

Cody sighed and leaned against a counter. “Annie, I think what we’ve got is Androg 2.”

26

The first person he called was Jimmy Farrell. He deserved that. Annie was doing her thing, working the crime scene, which meant working in the Frigidaire-tiptoeing around the eggs, stepping over the leftover potato salad, looking for needles among the ice cubes. Hue was directing traffic, keeping everybody in the right square on the chessboard, waiting patiently for things to go a little haywire, which they usually did. Rizzo was standing by-waiting to catch the leftovers and no complaints. The crew had one thing in common: The rush.

Ricky had the nastiest job of all. He had to tell his godmother that her husband of fifty years was never coming home again. Not that he was naked in the freezer, not that some nut job had killed him for reasons her imagination would never comprehend. For now, he was just dead. And she would know that the minute Farrell walked in the door. Before he said a word, she would know. Women know those kinds of things.?

“He’s dead, Jimmy, and it’s not pretty,” Cody told Farrell.

“Oh Christ.” He paused and Cody could hear him swallowing. “Aw, Jesus, Micah, what happened?”

“Charley led me to him. He was in the freezer. Been in there-I’m guessing-four or five hours.”

“I told him he had to put a two way opener on that goddamned thing. I warned…”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Farrell did not immediately answer. His hung over brain was slow processing the information.

“He’s stark naked, sitting on a chair.”

“Whaaat? Maybe he, uh, maybe…”

“It wasn’t robbery or suicide, his clothes aren’t here. But it may tie in with something we’re working on.”

“You mean some sicko…”

“That’s a substantial guess, Jimmy.”

“The kid’ll be here in about five minutes.”

“We need to get a statement from him. He’s the last one to see Tony alive. He doesn’t have to see him now, I think it best to wait until after the autopsy. Maybe late this afternoon. But you’re gonna have to tell Mama Crosetti so maybe you could come to the rear door and take a look.”

“Of course. Sure.”

Annie was shooting pictures when Farrell tapped on the door. He stood in the doorway for a full minute or so and then turned his back on the corpse.

“I been a cop for thirty goddamned years and I’ve never, ever seen anything like that before. I thought maybe he had a heart attack or fell down the stairs to the wine cellar or something. Christ, what’ll I tell Ricky? Shit, what’ll I tell Mama?”

“You can buy us both some time. Tell them he doesn’t have a mark on him and we won’t know exactly what killed him until after the autopsy. It’s not a lie.”

“What if Ricky wants to see him?”

“It’s just grotesque, the way he’s…positioned. Distract Ricky. Tell him we need to talk to him in Rizzo’s car down by the dumpster. Make him comfortable. Go with him. Make sure he understands he’s not a suspect, that we need his help.”

“Yeah, that’s good. That’ll work.”

Farrell returned to his car and Cody joined Annie who was shooting a picture of Tony’s feet. She was using her kit to prop open the door of the freezer.

“We have some impressions here in the frost in front of the corpse,” she said.

“Sole prints?”

“No. My guess is surgeon’s booties.”

“Like on Handley’s carpet?”

“Uh huh.” She handed the camera to Cody and leaned closer, took a pair of tweezers and a small test tube from her kit and plucked a small fiber from the side of the one of the impressions and put it in the tube. She held it up so they both could get a better look.

“Light blue. Probably cotton. You’re right, the killer was suited out, just like at Handley’s. Roughly the same size feet. So far no fibers, no semen, no prints, and I’m guessing the only DNA will be Crosetti’s.”

“Why is he naked?”

“My guess? Make him freeze faster.”

“And the clothes?”

“Killer wasn’t taking any chances. Maybe something incriminating on them. Notice that brown stain on the corner of his mouth? Some food particles in his hair and on his chin. I’m guessing maybe something he ate and some of that wine. Maybe he threw up. There are some abrasions on the back of his throat but I couldn’t pry his jaws apart to get a good look.”

“How long will it take to thaw him out?”

She shrugged. “He’s frozen solid, Cap. We’ll have to move him out as he is. We try to straighten arms or legs out, they’ll break like twigs. When we get him back to the lab maybe we can speed things up with a heated blanket or a portable heater. Wolf’ll know. I’ve never had one quite like this.”

“D eja vu. We had to take Handley out in the sitting position.”

“And naked.”

“Yeah. And they probably both died about the same time of night.”

“He was undressed before he was put in here and he didn’t put up a fight. Except for those bootie prints there’s nothing on the floor. No signs of a struggle.”

“I think I can answer that for you. You finished here?”

“Yeah. I’ve got all the pictures I need. Gotta bag that wine bottle and glass. I also picked up some brownish-red fibers in front of the freezer door.”

Cody looked around. “Where’s Charley?”

“He was here a minute ago.”

“Charley?” Cody called. He heard a low “ruff” from the hallway leading away from the kitchen. They followed him around a corner and the dog was sniffing at a door. It led to the private dining room. When they opened it, Charley walked straight to the head of the table, sniffed around. All the chairs were in place except one.

“That chair Crosetti’s sitting on came from the head of this table,” Cody said. “Charley’s picked up another scent.”

Charley left the room, his nose leading them down the hallway toward the main dining room. He sniffed at the door to the men’s room, kept going and then stopped at the entrance of the women’s rest room. He scratched at the door.

Rothschild reached under her arm and drew her. 38 as Cody opened the door. She looked through the crack in the door, then shoved it open and flicked on the lights. She knelt down, looking to right, left, and under the three stalls to their left. Charley walked to the third stall, nosed it open and went in.

“Room’s clear,” Rothschild said as Cody followed the dog to the stall. He was sniffing the toilet seat, then he turned to the wall of the stall and gave it the once over and looked at Cody.

“Good boy, keep going,” Cody said.

They followed Charley out of the rest room and down the hall to the main dining room. He stopped, sniffing at the corner of the hall, then walked straight across the room to Tony’s office, went in, sniffed the edge of the Oriental rug and sat down. Cody laughed.

“Son of a gun,” he said. “Still the best nose in the business.”

Cody and Rothschild followed him into the office and Cody petted Charley, roughing up his ears.

“You’re beautiful, boy. Good job, Charley. Good job.” He looked at Annie and smiled. “He just showed us how the killer got in here. He tracked the perp backwards. First, from the office to the freezer. Then he picked up the perp’s scent, probably from the chair or fresh prints to the private dining room and from there to the rest room. Our killer was standing on the seat in the lady’s room waiting for the coast to be clear so he could go about his dirty work on Tony.”

Cody activated his headset.

“Hue?”

“Yes sir.”

“Send the van now. Who’s driving?”

“Bergman.”

“Tell him to take it easy, don’t attract attention. Take Grand to Mott and come down to the parking lot and come to the back door of the Venezia. Bring Si with him.”

“Gotcha.”

“Annie is coming back with the package. Tell Si he’s gonna take over the grid. How about Bergman?”

“He should be in the lot about now.”

“Tell him to wait until the van leaves, then I want him and Kate to enter through the rear entrance.”

“Copy that.”

“How about Rizzo. How’s the interrogation going with Ricky?”

“They got him calmed down. He was pretty frazzled when they started.”

“Tell Frank I’ll be joining them after the van splits.”

“Right.”

Cody signed off and looked at Annie who was checking the messy dinner plate and the spot of food on the rug. She ran her fingertips over the surface of the rug.

“Follow me,” Cody said. Annie and Charley followed Cody to the door to the kitchen. Charley followed his original path to the freezer and sat down.

“Check these out,” Cody said, squatting down and pointing to the fibers in the tile grout.

“I get the message,” she said. “Looks like Mister Crosetti passed out-or was kayoed-and fell forward into his dinner. Then the killer wrapped him in the rug and dragged him back to the freezer.”

Cody nodded. “Then brought the rug back to the office. There are no bruises on Tony’s skull, are there?”

Annie shook her head. “The bottle of wine and the glass in the freezer may provide the answer to that.”

“The question is, how did the perp get in the restaurant and when? Ricky can help us there.”

“And why? Uncle Tony doesn’t look like the type to be hanging out at sex clubs.”

“I think that’s a safe assumption. It certainly opens the door wide for motive.”

“Well, Charley just earned himself a big, fat marrow bone dinner.”

“At the very least,” Cody answered with a smile.

27

Cody got in the front seat beside Rizzo and sat sideways, looking back at Farrell and Ricardo Crosetti, a man fighting shock, his sorrow etched in the seams of his face, his swollen brown eyes glistening with unwept tears. He was unshaven and had obviously dressed in a hurry. The forty-four-year-old chef was wearing white sneakers, a pair of weathered jeans and a brown wool sweater over a white t-shirt-but his socks did not match: One was blue, the other black. He was leaning forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together as he tried to cope with reality: The man who had adopted him as his son was dead.

Jimmy Farrell did the introductions. Ricky had a hearty handshake but his palm was wet.

“I’m sorry this has happened, Mister Crosetti,” said Cody.

Crosetti nodded, thought a moment or two, and said, “Maybe I should see Uncle Tony.”

“Look, Ricky, I think we should stick to the plan,” Farrell said. “Let the Captain and his squad do the autopsy. Then I’ll go with you and get him to the funeral home. Tell her exactly what we said, no signs of violence and we won’t know his cause of death until the autopsy is complete. Right now that’s the truth.”

“I’ve got a timeline from 11 p.m. until Ricky left at about 1:10 a.m.,” Rizzo told Cody.

“I’ve got a couple of questions for Ricky,” Cody answered.

Crosetti looked at him and said, “Okay.”

“What time did all the work staff and cleaning people leave?”

“I signed out the last one, that was my sous chef, the assistant master chef Tom Poggi, at 12:20.”

“Did they all leave by the rear entrance?”

He nodded.

“And just the two of you were left at that point? You and Tony?”

“Right.”

“Then what happened?”

“I re-mopped around the back door, some of the boys had stuff on their shoes. Uncle Tony finished doing the books and took the cash and checks down to the ATM. He left right at 12:30, way he always does. Jimmy, here, always has a squad car down at the corner of Canal Street to keep an eye on him. I went outside and had a smoke. Tony doesn’t like smoking in the place. Then I got the electric polisher and went in to do my uncle’s office, polish the floors, that is. That’s the last thing on the itinerary.”

“How long does it take you to do the office? What’s your procedure?”

“Fifteen minutes. The rest of the place is spotless. I personally check the whole restaurant before the cleaners leave. I do the polish when he’s down at the corner. He usually stops in to have a quick cup of tea with Mister Chow-he owns the Shanghai Palace-he’s never more than ten minutes with Chow. I put the rug on the desk, polish the floor-move the chair and computer desk around. Put it all back the way it was. When he comes back he locks the front door behind him, comes straight to the kitchen, I give him his glass of wine, and he sips while he checks every square inch of that kitchen. What I mean, there better not be a spot of grease on a stove or the oven or any of the pots and pans. He’s really freaky about that.”

“Where’s the wine kept?”

“He breaks open a new bottle every night from down in the wine cellar. What’s left after he has his couple of glasses goes out to the bar as bar wine the next day. First thing I do before the polish is uncork the bottle and pour him a glass, let it sit while I do the rest of the job. He likes to let it breathe. So, when he comes back he checks out the kitchen and sips his wine, then he goes to the office and I take him his supper-it’s always the special of the day-and a bottle of water. Sometimes a salad but he didn’t order one last night.”

“Do you leave the door ajar while you’re doing all this?”

“Yeah, air it out. It’s always pretty hot in there.”

“And the wine?”

“On the counter with the glass. I take the whole thing in on a tray, set it out for him, ‘ Buona notte, Padre,’ kiss him on the cheek, bring the tray back, close the shutters on the kitchen windows, lock the door as I leave.”

“The wine and water stay in there?”

“Right. He has another glass with his dinner, brings the plate, glasses, the bottle into the kitchen when he leaves, puts the dirty dishes in the sink, leaves the bottle on the counter, throws what’s left of the water in the garbage.”

“Always the same?”

“Every night. Rituals. That’s the way he is.” The dam broke as he said it. Ricky lowered his head and tears showered down his cheeks.

Cody shook his head. He looked at Farrell and nodded. “That’s all I have,” he said, and to Ricky, “I’m sorry we had to put you through this. Thanks, Ricky.” And Cody returned to the restaurant.?

“Yeah,” Cody said. “Vinnie and Winters are waiting in their car in the parking lot until the van leaves. They’ll assist Si running the grid.”

“Any signs of a struggle?” Si asked.

“No,” Annie answered. “Just some smudged footprints in front of the chair. I’m guessing they’re O.R. booties. Eight inches long, which is rather small. I pulled some blue fibers from the frost on the floor. It frosts up when you open the door; the temperature in there is zero Fahrenheit. There were also some red droplets on the floor. I assume they’re drops of wine. I’ve tubed everything from inside the freezer except the wine bottle and glass.”

Hardy returned with the gurney and a blanket.

“Brung a blanket,” he said. “He’s gonna be kinda slippery, don’t wanna drop the poor guy.”

“I’ll help you get him on the gurney,” said Annie. “We’ll lay him on sideways and cover him with the blanket.”

“Good,” Cody said. “I’ll give Si a quick tour back to the office. Meet us back there. You’ll wanna take the rug and plate with you.”

“Right.”

Cody led Si to one side. “Here’s what you need to know. Crosetti lived by rituals. Everything was done his way, every day. Everybody that works here is out by quarter after twelve. That leaves the old man and Ricky here alone.

“I think our killer knows all this. Follow me. He comes in, spikes the wine bottle and glass, walks down this hall, to the ladies rest room, comes in, comes back here to the third stall, and stands on the toilet seat. And waits. He’s in and safe. He waits until he hears Ricky give Tony his dinner, hears him close the window shutters in the kitchen, lock the door and leave, then he comes out, comes down here to the main dining room and waits in the dark. Watching. Watching Tony Crosetti eating his late night supper, sipping his wine. He waits and watches and…” Cody led Si across the darkened dining room to the office, “…at some point, Uncle Tony passes out and falls face forward into his dinner.”

Si stared at the plate and started to say something but Cody cut him off.

“Let me finish. Uncle Tony’s out cold. Our killer drags him out of his chair, lays him on the rug, wraps it up and drags him through that door to the freezer. You’ll find fibers in the tile grouting in the kitchen. Then he goes into the private dining room, takes a chair from the table, and puts it in the freezer. He undresses Tony, props him in the chair the way we found him, takes the rug back to the office and brings the wine bottle and glass back, puts it beside Tony, closes the door, and leaves. The whole trick doesn’t take more than twenty, thirty minutes. Look at the plate. Crosetti wasn’t half way through his meal when he took the dive.”

“That’s pretty good, Micah. Two questions. Why the clothes? And why put the wine and glass in the freezer?”

“You tell me, Si.”

“First of all, he froze faster naked.”

“Okay.”

“And second, there was something on the clothes, maybe some fibers, DNA, something the killer was worried about, so he copped the clothes. Why take a chance?”

“How about the bottle of wine?”

Si smiled. “He’s talking to us Micah. He’s telling us something. I told you, sooner or later they all have to mark their work, like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. And I’ll make you a ten dollar bet.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll bet you ten bucks Crosetti didn’t freeze to death.”

28

Frank Rizzo was leaning on the wall of a five-story building on the opposite side of the alley. He was facing the Venezia’s back exit, scoping out the adjoining area with his camera. Cody walked the forty or so feet to join him, unconsciously setting his pace with the sound of the camera-c lick, whrrrr, click, whrrrr- and remembering Rizzo’s initial disdain for the idea of learning to use a camera until he realized he had a natural eye for capturing details. Now the crew had to practically pry it out of his hands when he got started.

“See anything interesting?”

“Actually, it’s what you can’t see from here that’s interesting. Look around. There are no lights on this side of the alley. If you stood right here at, say, midnight nobody could see you. It’s black as a coal mine. But when Ricky comes out for a smoke, Androg can look into the kitchen and see the freezer. Step five feet to his right, he can see through the window, see the kitchen, see through the double doors into the bar, see Tony’s office door.

“Day or two later he drops into the bar for a quick drink, goes back to the men’s room, takes a leak, comes out and he can grab a look into the kitchen. Now he’s got the whole place scoped out.

“Now what does he know? He knows the help is out by eleven. He knows Tony goes down to the ATM and maybe stops off for a cup a tea and is back by one. He knows Ricky steps outside for a quick smoke, goes back inside while Tony’s gone and polishes the floor in his office. He knows Ricky takes about fifteen minutes to get that done. And Androg can hear the polishing machine so he goes over, enters the back door, spikes the glass of wine and the bottle, and vanishes around the corner into the ladies room. He’s inside and safe in a minute or two.

“Then he just waits for Ricky to shutter the kitchen windows and leave. The door’s locked. All the ambient light from the kitchen is blocked so nobody will see him when he finishes at, what? Two, two-thirty. The snake can take all the time he wants killing the rabbit.”

He was right, Cody agreed. The alley behind Venezia was like a boxed canyon; blocked at one end by a tall building, at the other by an unlit parking lot; tall structures crouched around it like sentinels. In the dark, even residual light from Hester Street would fade by the time it got to the alley. From their vantage point, Cody studied who might have caught a glimpse of the killer. Perhaps someone leaving the parking lot? Customers in the restaurants and shops to their right on the opposite side of Hester? Were any of them even open at two-thirty in the morning? Once again their wily nemesis had left little room for mistakes.

“I’ve set up some help from the Fifth,” Rizzo said. “I got three detectives and five uniforms to Q and A the joints over on Hester. One of them talks Chinese which’ll help, a lotta of the old guys don’t parlay English. But, y’know, let’s face it, there ain’t a lot of action around here that time a day. I’m figuring Androg parked in the lot, maybe down by that warehouse so he wouldn’t be too obvious. Maybe we can cop a description, something about the car, a tag number…” He paused, looked around, looked at upstairs windows in buildings. “…something.”

They needed a break. A little luck. The one thing they could never count on, Cody thought. His frustration was getting palpable.

“A major sicko, freezing the old fella like that,” said Rizzo.

“Yeah,” Cody growled. “This one’s too cute for our own good.”

He walked to the mouth of the alley, looked up and down the street. There was a small warehouse on the Elizabeth Street end of the lot. The lot was divided into four long rows with two cars parked bumper to bumper in each and a drive-out between each one. He estimated it would accommodate at least a hundred and twenty or thirty cars. But at two or three a.m., probably just a handful in the whole lot. From the other side of Hester it would have been too dark to see much of anything.

“I think maybe the lot’s our best bet,” Cody said. “If we got a bet at all.”

“I agree. We’ll zero in on it. And the restaurants. Maybe one or two of ‘em were still open at that hour.”

“Anything will help. Anything! Is Androg short, tall, skinny, fat, male, female?”

“Pigeon-toed, knock kneed?”

“Bow-legged?”

Rizzo chuckled. “There’s a thought. Maybe he’s a cowboy.”

Cody, too, started laughing off the tension. “That’s it. The ghost of John Wayne.”

“Or Randolph Scott.”

They both started to chuckle.

“How about one of the Three Stooges?” Cody said, their chuckles escalating into nervous laughter.

“I think we both need to relax,” Rizzo said, putting his arm around Cody’s shoulder. He looked past his boss and nodded. “What’s with Charley?”

The dog was walking toward the parking lot, his head moving slowly back and forth, his nose working the ground. Cody walked up behind him and followed the dog’s slow progress.

“He’s on to something,” said Cody. He stopped and looked back at the rear entrance to the restaurant. ”Let’s see, after the work gang leaves, Ricky mops the floor to the back door. Then he steps outside for his smoke and goes back inside leaving the door cracked. Androg walks over and waits near the door in the dark and when he hears the polisher he goes in. Tony comes back from the bank drop, he and Ricky do their inspection. Ricky serves him dinner, closes the shutters and leaves. Androg does his dirty work and leaves. So the last person out was the killer. He turned the lights off and left.”

“You figure he’s got Androg’s scent?”

“Think about it, Frank. We have about five million scent receptors in our nose. Charley there has 220 million. He picked up Androg’s scent inside and he picked it up again when we came out. He can separate a scent easier than you can pick a daisy.”

Charley stopped for a moment and looked back at Cody. “Keep going, son,” Cody said and they continued another fifty feet to the parking lot. The parking spaces were each marked with white oblong stripes. Charley stopped for a minute, sniffing the concrete, then walked several car lengths down, stopped again, and followed his nose about three-quarters of the length of the parking spot and stopped. He raised his head, sniffed the air, looked back at Cody and sat down.

“I’ll be damned,” Rizzo said.

“This is where the scents end,” said Cody. “This is where Androg got in the car. Mark it with yellow ribbons. Maybe somebody over on that strip of restaurants on Hester Street noticed the car. Maybe even saw Androg when he left.”

“Or when he got here which would have been, what? A little after twelve maybe?”

Cody nodded. “Get lucky, Frank. We can use a little help.”

29

Victoria Mansfield turned slowly in bed and pulled the silk sheet over her shoulder. The phone rang again and she groaned. Her sleeping mask had slipped sideways across her face and she angrily whipped it off and threw it across the room. Squinting her eyes to shut out the light sneaking through the blinds, she reached out a hand to find the phone, knocked an ashtray on the floor, and the phone receiver rattled as it fell off the carriage.

“Shit!” she muttered as her hand fluttered around the night table until she found it. She pulled the sheet up over her head.

“Uhnn?”

“Wake up, kiddo,” Hamilton’s voice ordered.

“Umm. Wha’ time’s it?”

“A little before nine. We’re halfway home. Should be there in an hour or so. It’s Saturday, no traffic coming into the city.”

She threw back the sheet, suddenly wide awake, and sat naked in the middle of the bed.

“Shit,” she cried, “I forgot the paper. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She jumped out of bed and ran naked from the bedroom, through the living room, to the alcove by the front door, peered through the peephole into an empty hallway, and unchained, unbolted, and unlocked the door. The newspapers were stacked in front of the door where Louie, the doorman, had left them. She snatched the neat pile inside, bumped the door shut with her naked behind, and ruffled through them until she got to The Post. Dropping the remaining papers on the floor, she ran back to the bedroom, jumped on the bed like a child, and grabbed the phone.

“Still there?”

“No, I’m on the planet Mars. Where do you think I am?”

“You sound a little surly,” she said, flipping through the newspaper to page six.

“You’d be surly, too, if you had to spend an evening with that bunch of dull assholes. Thank God for my ability for self-amusement.”

“Naughty, naughty. Be nice to your peers.”

“I do not consider them my peers.”

“I know darling,” she said condescendingly while reading the item. “You are a peer unto yourself.”

“I’m glad you realize that,” he said, superciliously.

She giggled gleefully to herself as she read the item then said to Hamilton, “I’ll be right back.”

“Where the hell’re you going? Victoria? Al…Damn it!” He clicked off the phone.

She went into the kitchen and retrieved a china cup from the cupboard. The automatic coffee maker had done its job and she poured herself a cup, threw a spoonful of sugar in it, stirred it briefly, tossed the spoon in the sink, and went back to the bedroom where she settled in comfortably before picking up the phone.

“Had to get a cup of coffee, the odor was driving me… Hello? Hello? Well, damn you.”

She punched in his number.

He let it ring a couple of times before answering. “What are you doing?” he snapped.

“Getting my coffee, do you mind?”

“Well, you keep running off in the middle of a sentence and…”

“Do you know what I’m wearing?”

“Of course I know what you’re wearing. Your skin, as usual.”

“And don’t you wish you were here to share it?” she purred. She leaned back against the padded headboard of the bed and started to run the fingernails of one hand across her flat stomach. “Guess what I’m doing?”

“Vic, are you going to read the article to me?”

“Say please.”

“God damn it…”

“Uh uh, be nice. You don’t want to make the pussycat sulk, do you?” She looked up at the mirrored ceiling and gently scratched the mouthpiece of the phone.

“You’re shameless.”

“Don’t you just love it?”

The thought of her, stretched out on the bed, toying with herself stirred him.

“Jesus, read the damn article before you run out of breath.”

She laughed heartily, sipped her coffee, and said, “Tell Dave to speed it up.”

“Screw the article.”

“No, screw me, darling. Oh, I know, I know, Dave can hear you and we can’t have any fun, right?”

“Very perceptive.”

“Okay, and did I hear please?”

“Please, for Christ sake.”

“Ahh, that’s my boy. Want me to finish what I’m doing before I read it?”

“Victoria!”

“Ohhh-kay.” She sat and smoothed out the tabloid. “My God, they even have a picture.”

“They shot it before dinner. They can send photos from a laptop in two minutes these days.”

“The headline reads: ‘Has Literati Bad Boy Gone Soft?’ Are you soft, sweetheart?”

“Stop it, just read on. And it’s literatus. ”

“Look at you, all dressed up in your little tux. Aren’t you cute.”

“Just read what it says, okay?”

“’kay. ‘Ward Lee Hamilton, best-selling author of enough books to fill a small library, who has never met a human being he didn’t insult, proved to be a tame tiger at the Philip Marlowe Award banquet in Philly last night as he accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award from a full house of his peers.

“’Hamilton, known for his condescending attitude, his whiplash tongue, and his flamboyant couture, was an absolute dear as he praised several fellow nominees whom he said, ‘deserved the honor’ adding ‘they should all be standing beside me here tonight.’

“’Hamilton was dressed in an elegant and conservative, black tuxedo, a rad departure from his usual attire. The only thing missing was gal pal, socialite Victoria Mansfield, who was at a charity affair here in the city. What a shame. She would have been proud of her usually boorish play toy.’”

“Play toy! That bitch!”

“Oh, calm down, sweetie, you know Sophie has to get her digs in. Maybe that cop will be a little friendlier if he thinks you’ve turned into Mister Nice Guy.”

“I’m on to something about him. I’ll jump on the computer when I get home and…”

“You even go near that office and pussycat is gonna close shop.”

“Blackmail?” he said, feigning shock.

“Listen you, when you walk in the door I’ll be wearing that eight hundred dollar peignoir I bought yesterday and I expect your full attention and appreciation. Understood?”

He chuckled. “A bit waspish, aren’t we?”

“ We? I am going to turn this boudoir into a bordello, darling boy,” she said. “Single-handedly if need be. Have you forgotten?”

“I don’t forget anything.”

“Good,” she whispered, fondling the phone. “It’s Story Lady time.”

30

The corpse was floating sideways in a deep tub, still in a sitting position, hands still frozen in its lap, its eyes staring half open through melting ice crystals that floated by and then shrank and vanished into small veils of rising steam from the water, which was being maintained at exactly 98.6 degrees. Max Wolfsheim, who finally had checked his phone messages, had arranged for the large gray plastic container to be delivered before he even got to the lab. Annie had set up the thermostatic faucet which delivered the water to the tub so the temperature would stay consistent as the icy contents melted. It was beside the stainless steel slab on which the systematic dissembling of the body would take place.

“He was a classy, old fella,” Wolf said sadly and to nobody in particular.

Annie was at a long lab table nearby preparing a chemical analysis of the red wine in the bottle found beside the dead man. The rest of the crew was in the adjoining big room, preparing the briefing.

“How long will this take?” Cody asked.

“Can’t say for sure,” the wizard answered. “Right now he’s floating because ice is lighter than water. When he goes down and is fully immersed, he’ll thaw faster. Normally the lungs, which are ninety-percent water, would thaw first but we have to wait until the body and skin temperature rises to about 82.4 degrees to preserve the tissue before we start cutting. So blood will thaw first; it’s eighty-three percent water. He was probably dead by the time his temp dropped to 82.4. How long you figure he was in the icebox?”

“I’d say, roughly, 2 a.m. to 8:30 when we started moving him.”

“Six-plus hours at zero Fahrenheit,” Wolf muttered. “I’m guessing he was dead, hell, little guy that size, in probably two hours max. Depends on some other things. What he ate, if there was anything else contributing to death, stuff like that.” He paused and added, ”That was cruel, undressing him like that.”

“And no signs of a struggle,” Annie said.

“That’s because he was heavily drugged,” said Wolf. “Hypothermia begins at about ninety-five degrees. There would be intense shivering. By the time it drops to ninety-three the tremors would be severe, other abnormal body reactions would also set in-hallucinations, delirium. Look at him, totally relaxed, hands in his lap. He was deeply unconscious when all the bodily reactions normally start. Perhaps he was dead before he was put in the freezer.”

Cody said, “That was Si’s guess.”

The Wolf turned to Simon. “Based on what?” he asked.

“Hunch.”

“You mean the idea just floated into his head?” Wolf said with a grin.

“Well, look at the set up. I don’t think this was a revenge killing or some impulsive thing. It’s just weird. So, I’m guessing it’s Androg’s work and if it is, the obvious cause of death will not be what killed him.”

Wolf looked back at the body which was slowly beginning to roll on its face.

“Good guess,” Wolf said, turning his attention to Annie Rothschild. “You ready for the toxicology tests?”

“Uh huh. I’m doing an analysis of the wine while we wait for blood samples and stomach contents. I think it was spiked.”

“How come?”

“I think that’s why the bottle and glass were next to the body. Like Si said, sooner or later Androg’s going to start bragging. Smell the bottle.”

Wolf picked it up, looked at the label. “Nobile di Montepulciano, 1986. Good year.” He took a sniff, lowered the bottle for a second, then took another. “It’s very faint.”

“Yeah. I didn’t notice anything until I started setting up the test sample.”

Wolf handed Cody the bottle.

“Take a whiff.”

Cody held it a few inches from his nose and moved it slowly back and forth, then leaned close and took a hefty smell.

“Chlorine, maybe?”

“Hardly discernible.”

“But it’s there,” Annie said and Wolf nodded agreement.

“So you’re guessing what? Chloral hydrate?” Cody said.

“Good old-fashioned knockout drops,” Wolf nodded. “If so, our killer slipped Uncle Tony a pretty strong mickey. It kicked in when he started eating and he fell face forward right into his dinner. Make that number one on the toxicology list, Annie.”

“Already have,” she answered.

“So the immediate cause of death was freezing,” Wolf said. “We’re looking for the proximate cause-what really killed him. I’m guessing we’ll find that in the blood sample.”

“And it won’t be drugs or thermal,” said Cody.

Annie nodded agreement. “Too obvious,” she said.

Cody thought for a moment and then pressed the button on his headset. “Hue?”

“Right here.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Ready for you.”

“Good. We’ll be over in a few minutes. Bring up Wolf’s list on the big board.”

“Gotcha.”

31

Sunday, October 28

Lou Stinelli was finishing his first cup of coffee and perusing the Sunday Times obits when he stopped at a headline.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“What is it?” Valerie asked, as she refilled his cup and doctored it with the usual three sugars and a generous dose of heavy cream.

“Remember Steamroller Jackson?”

She rolled her eyes. “Steamroller Jackson! How could I ever forget Steamroller Jackson, your old high school buddy? Our second date and almost our last, Mister Macho. I hated prizefighting then and I still hate it.”

Stinelli laughed, recalling the disastrous evening.

“Steamroller decked Jersey Kaminsky in the first round. You could hear that right connect in Albany and old Jersey went straight to the canvas…limp as a bag of marbles, and you…”

“Don’t start…”

“… almost fainted. I had to put your head down around your knees…”

“I said…”

“Okay, okay, darlin’.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Christ, that was over thirty years ago. You got a memory like an elephant.”

“Are you kidding, Louis? That’s one night I’ll never forget.”

“Well, you can forget old Steamroller. Poor guy died late Friday night. Found in an alley yesterday morning, slumped against a brick wall. Apparent heart attack. Says he probably o.d.’d on cocaine or alcohol. He was only sixty-one.”

“Oh!” She said, covering her lips with her fingertips. The private phone line rang, interrupting any further conversation. Stinelli scowled at it.

“Damn it,” he said, “it’s Sunday morning. I haven’t finished the God damn paper yet. Take a number. Tell whoever it is I’m in the shower or something.”

“You’d have me lie my soul into hell just so you can finish the paper,” she said sternly as she lifted the receiver.

“Hello,” she said sweetly.

“Good morning, Mizz Stinelli, this is…”

“I’d know that voice in my sleep, Micah. He says to tell you he’s in the shower-or something.”

“I’m sorry, Val, but it’s important.”

She looked over at Stinelli. “Is it going to ruin his day of rest?” Cody hesitated a second and said, “Just tell him I said Androg.”

“Androg?”

Stinelli looked up sharply. He jumped up and took the receiver.

“Micah?”

“Good morning, chief. Sorry to…”

“What about Androg?”

“He hit again.”

“How do you know it’s Androg?”

“Cause of death disguised. But that’s not the really bad news, Lou. The victim is Tony Crosetti.”

“Uncle Tony? My God what happened? When?”

“About one-thirty or two yesterday morning. Jimmy Farrell and I found him at about eight. Mama Crosetti called Jim because Crosetti didn’t come home Friday night. I happened to jog by Venezia while Jim was sitting there so we made a crime scene entry. We found Tony in the meat freezer. He was naked, sitting in a chair, frozen solid as an iceberg.”

“Oh, my God! Where are you?”

“At the Loft. Wolf’s doing the autopsy. So far it’s a state secret. We got him out of there fast. There aren’t many people around there at that time of day. The sign in the window of the restaurant says it’s closed due to illness in the family.”

“Christ, Cody, you can’t keep this quiet.”

“Jimmy’s going to front it. I expect the autopsy shortly but Farrell will make a prelim report that the cause of death is pending an autopsy tomorrow. He’ll blame it on the weekend.”

“Every cop in the lower end of Manhattan knows Tony.”

“None of the cops know any details and Jimmy won’t be talking; he’s busy helping with the funeral arrangements.”

Stinelli rubbed the back of his neck as he paced the kitchen.

“You know you got one helluva Monday coming up, pal. Two murders plus I promised you’d meet with that guy Hamilton about the Cramer case.”

“Don’t worry, chief, I’ll take care of it. Look, we got a very slick killer on our hands. The longer we keep it in the closet the better.”

Stinelli thought for a moment or two more.

“Okay…okay. But keep me up to speed on this. You turn up anything new, anything, you call me.”

“Maybe the less you know the better.”

“You let me decide what I should and shouldn’t know. Just keep me informed, kid. We clear on that?”

“Clear.”

Stinelli cradled the phone and sat down. He and Valerie had a rule: He never discussed business with his wife. But she knew Lo Zio and Venezia was one of their favorite restaurants. It was less than a mile from his office at One Police Plaza.

“Uncle Tony’s dead,” he said. “That’s all we know so far.” He took her hand as she sat down beside him, her eyes tearing up.

“Who’s Androg?” she asked.

“One of the bad guys.”?

Vinnie Hue was ready for the Sunday morning briefing. He had all the photographs and comments from the scene of Tony Crosetti’s murder as well as the exterior front and rear shots of the Venezia prepared for projection on the big board.

There was another addition: an alphabetical list of the categories with which forensic pathologists break down and identify how homicide victims are killed. They varied from one pathologist to the next but basically were pretty much the same. It was typical of the mordant humor of the enclave, much of it initiated by Vinnie, that the list, in his comic book script, was headed “Wolf’s Biggest Hits”:

1. Blunt trauma 2. Cutting, stabbing, piercing 3. Drowning 4. Drugs, including poisons 5. Gunshot 6. Suffocation 7. Thermal (electric, freezing, fire)

Individually, serial killers usually employed the same method to kill; strangulation and stabbing were popular because they enjoyed watching their victims die. Ted Bundy, one of its more prolific practitioners, once described serial killing as “a contact sport.”

Nearby in the lab, Wolf had moved the thawed corpse to the stainless steel table and was dictating his findings into an overhead mike.

Only Wolf, Rizzo and Bergman were absent. Rizzo was a few blocks away preparing to interview anyone who might have seen the killer. He was at a distinct disadvantage. Anyone working in the restaurants or on the street within view of the Venezia during the crucial hours between one and three a.m. would not be showing up for work until late afternoon. Bergman, meanwhile, had returned to the scene to go over Tony Crosetti’s receipts from Friday night, hoping something familiar might turn up since he was the last customer to leave the place. It was a long shot but at this point everything was.

But Larry Simon had some surprises for the crew and had provided Hue with several photographs and some documents for a presentation he would make following Cody’s briefing.

Simon sat back in his chair, patiently watching the panorama of death flick across the big screen as an obviously edgy Cody described in detail how Charley had led Cody and Jim Farrell to the freezer and thus to the harrowing discovery.

There was a murmur of discomfort as the first grotesque photo of Uncle Tony’s frozen corpse flashed six-feet high on the board. The entire crew was aware of the murder by then, but since they all knew the victim, the bizarre scene conveyed to each an ineffable sense of melancholy, of sorrow, despair, and, ultimately, anger. Nor did anyone in the room doubt for a moment that this was the work of the psychopath they knew only as Androg.

Cody gave them a moment to compose themselves before continuing, playing Annie Rothschild’s description of the entire scene.

“I think it’s safe to say we won’t be finding any DNA except perhaps Crosetti’s,” she said. “There’s no blood anywhere. We dusted the office and freezer and picked up some prints but I’m guessing they’re either Tony’s or the nephew’s. We’ll be checking his clothes for fibers, prints, anything that might give us a lead but the team agrees that our killer undressed him in the office, not at the freezer as I originally thought. The killer had more room and could stack the clothes in the closet where we found them and get them out of the way. This was a very carefully planned and executed homicide, just like Handley’s.”

“Rizzo and Bergman are canvassing the area with a team of Farrell’s best detectives,” Cody said. “Hopefully he’ll find someone who saw Androg or his car in the lot. And we’re waiting for Wolf to complete the autopsy. I’m sure he’ll have something to add.”

“Is there any possible connection between Crosetti and Handley?” Kate Winters said.

“Well, we’re pretty sure the killer was in the place at least once before this morning.”

“Not much help there,” Ryan said. “The place is crowded every night.”

“Typical,” said Simon. “Our killer’s hiding in plain sight.”

Before he could continue Wolf and Annie entered the room. He was still wearing blue scrubs and booties but had removed the blouse. The sleeves of his plaid shirt were rolled up to the elbows and he was drying off his hands with paper towels Annie was handing him one at a time from the roll she carried.

“Well,” he said, tossing a used towel into a waste basket, “we haven’t done the toxicology reports yet, but I can tell you how Tony Crosetti was killed.”

The entire crew turned their attention to Wolfsheim, which is how he liked it.

“He was drugged with a dose of chloral hydrate. He was nearly comatose when he died but he was dead before the freezer door was closed.”

“Okay,” Cody said, “what’s the kicker?”

“He was drowned,” Wolfsheim answered.

“We found diatoms, a form of plant life that lives in water,” Annie nodded. “When a person drowns, their lungs fill with water and the microscopic diatoms burst through the lungs and enter the blood stream. They move rapidly through the blood stream and throughout the body and ultimately settle in the bone marrow. Cut a bone and if it contains diatoms, it is a drowning.”

“In short,” Wolfsheim theorized, “the killer slipped Crosetti a mickey in his wine to knock him out. Then held his nose, opened his mouth, and forced enough water down his throat to drown him. That’s why the water glass was empty.”

32

Although he could have knocked off for what was left of the weekend-Uncle Tony certainly wasn’t going anywhere-Wolf spent the afternoon writing up his autopsy report.

Wolf was intent on comparing Uncle Tony’s murder to Handley’s point by point. Both occurred approximately the same time of night. Both victims were naked, both sitting. Both had no obvious motive. Both killings went out of their way to confuse the cause of death, as though intentionally playing games with the investigators. In both cases, fiber evidence that Androg was wearing surgical booties seemed all too easily discovered, as though the clue had been left on purpose to perplex. The vague imprints were approximately the same in size.

Rizzo and Bergman, for their part, were making plans to interview anyone who might have seen the killer at La Venezia Friday night and planned to sit down with Ricky both to go over his unprompted recollections of the crowd and to jog his memory with the Venezia’s credit card slips-though they found it hard to accept that this particular killer would have used a credit card.

Bergman kept thinking about the woman in red, who looked somehow vaguely familiar as she passed his table leaving in her wake an unforgettably sensual and expensive scent. He made a note to pay a visit to the perfume boutiques at Saks when he had finished the interviews.

“Is there any possible connection between Crosetti and Handley? Could Handley have been a customer at La Venezia?” Kate Winter asked Cody.

“That’s what Larry’s trying to determine,” Cody said. “Right now their only obvious connection is that they’re both dead.”

“I don’t understand why we’ve come up so short on physical evidence,” she said. “Nobody’s that good.”

“I don’t think we’ve come up short at all,” Cody replied. “What I think is that we just don’t understand what we have yet. But we will. Leave that to the gang.”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “Androg may just be the exception to the rules.”

Cody nodded. “Sure looks like he’s trying to be.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a call from Stinelli. “What’s the latest?” the Chief demanded. “I’m starting to get calls from The Daily News. It’s ruined my Sunday. Even that son of a bitch Hamilton’s on my ass already.”

“How the hell did they get onto this?” Cody wanted to know.

“They have eyes and ears everywhere, even more than we do I sometimes think.” Before hanging up, as though to vent his irritation, Stinelli reminded Cody that his captain’s ass was expected at the Ladies’ Auxiliary Ball Tuesday night come hell or high water.

“I’d hate to have your job,” Cody said, then registered what he’d just heard and tried to slough it off as though it were a casual invitation. “I’ve got my hands full here, Chief. Give me a break. You gotta let me off this friggin’ hook!”

But Stinelli wasn’t having it. It wasn’t an invitation, he pointed out; it was a command performance. Cody better be there, and in proper formal wear, with a proper escort. The idea was a show of force to show the Ladies the brass appreciated their charitable commitment to the general well-being of New York’s Finest.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cody said. But he was listening to a dial tone.

Who the hell am I going to drag to this circle jerk? he thought. Suddenly a not-altogether-unpleasant thought crossed his mind. He reached for the card still in his pocket, and punched in the numbers.

Amelie Cluett answered immediately, as though she were expecting his call. “I’m fine, Captain. Thanks for checking in on me.”

“Do you think I can ask you to do me an enormous favor?”

When she heard what he was asking she said, “Sounds to me more like a date than a favor.”

“Is that a yes?” he asked.

33

Monday, October 29

Before he could make it to breakfast, Cody got a call from Kate Winters. She was in a panic.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” she started. “I may not make it in this morning.”

“What’s wrong, Kate? Pressure getting to you already? It’s a little early to be claiming a mental health day…”

“Song didn’t come home from the E.R. this morning. She didn’t even call. It’s not like her to disappear. In all these years it hasn’t happened once. I just-”

He and Charley changed directions and headed for the Loft. “Kate, it’s all right. You stay put. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.”

“She always comes straight home from her E.R. shift. I’m usually sound asleep,” Kate said, her voice on the point of breaking. “When I called them, no one had seen her this morning-but they’re the day shift. I finally got someone to tell me she hadn’t timed out yet. That makes no sense at all.” She was making a heroic effort to keep her voice steady.

By this time Cody was at his desk. “Look, I’m sending Ansa and DeMarco right away,” he said. “Ansa can stay at your place waiting, and DeMarco can go with you to the hospital to check it out.”

“Thanks,” Kate said.

Cody’s intercom buzzed. “Got a visitor, Cap,” Rizzo said. It was seven fifteen.

“Who the hell is it at this hour? I haven’t even poured my coffee yet, for chrissakes.”

“Says he has an appointment with you. To talk about the Melinda Cramer case.” He hung up before Cody’s swearing burst his eardrum.

34

Like a referee gingerly dancing around a ring at the start of a fight, Frank Rizzo escorted Ward Hamilton into Cody’s office. “Captain, this is Ward Hamilton,” he said, “who’s working on a story for Metro Magazine. Says the Chief told him you’d cooperate.” He turned to leave without waiting for Cody’s response.

“I’ve heard of him,” Cody said to Hamilton as though Wow were still there. He recognized the crime writer from the newspapers and the Internet, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that he looked like as big a prick in person as he did on YouTube.

It was hate at first sight.

Hamilton didn’t offer his hand, and Cody didn’t offer his either.

“How the hell do you come off waltzing in here at this hour of the day?” was Cody’s greeting.

“I find surprise can be quite revealing,” Hamilton answered. “Happy to see you’re already at it this morning, Captain.” He said the last word as though it were a taunt.

Cody had little use for writers in general. They were always sticking their noses in other people’s business, clogging up the machinery of life. On top of that, this one was a snob, smug, condescending, and arrogant. And it didn’t help that he was working on a magazine expose on cold cases, beginning with the only case in Cody’s twelve-year record as a homicide detective that went cold on him: the murder of Melinda Cramer.

“If you turn over your files,” Hamilton was saying, “we can make this painless for you. I won’t have to interview you here and tape it.”

“You won’t interview me because I don’t have time.”

“Yes,” Hamilton said coyly, “I do understand you have your hands full right now.”

Cody stared the man down, refusing to take the bait he was so subtly being offered.

“Don’t worry, Captain Cody, I won’t be too hard on you. I know you weren’t at the crime scene, and that the coroner put her down as a suicide.”

“That’s correct,” Cody said. “It was four days later that I had her exhumed, and re-autopsied. It was determined that she was dead before she hit the ground.”

“And that the cause of death was suffocation,” Hamilton chimed in, “not blunt trauma.”

Cody nodded. “Manual strangulation was indicated by fine pin point hemorrhages in the eyes.”

“Also hairline fractures of the larynx and hydroid bone,” Ward added, “that had been completely overlooked at the first autopsy.”

“The case was cold before I got it,” Cody finished, trying to keep any defensiveness out of his voice. “Since you seem to know so much about it, why do you need the files?”

“I like to investigate fuck-ups.” Hamilton’s smile was warm as a viper’s. “The public gets plenty of exposure to investigatory brilliance on television. I pride myself on giving them the other side of the coin-especially if it takes the hottest detective on the force down a notch or two. If I can slow your rise to power by just a little, I’ll consider my job well done.”

It was all Cody could do not to punch the guy in the face. But he hadn’t had his coffee yet, and he had better things to do this morning. The sooner Hamilton was out of here, the better. He couldn’t resist. “Didn’t you finally receive an award some people say was twenty years overdue?”

“Don’t even think of jousting with me, dear boy.” Hamilton absent-mindedly brushed off the lapel of his signature white suit. “We can’t have our police thinking cold cases will go away just because they’re being ignored. If you don’t give me the file, I’ve already had my attorney fill out the Freedom of Information forms. He just has to pull the trigger.”

Cody was seething. But for now Raymond Handley and Uncle Tony-and now Dr. Song Wiley-were his priorities.

Ward Hamilton was not.

Mindful of Stinelli’s pleas, Cody reached across the desk and handed over the green file containing a Xeroxed copy of the Cramer file he’d ordered Kate to check over before she left the Loft yesterday evening.

Hamilton accepted the file without bothering even to glance at it, much less open it. “Remember, detective, the race goes to the swiftest.”

“Not always,” Cody replied evenly.

“And I do understand you’re busy adding a few more unsolveds to your list,” Hamilton concluded as he stood up.

This time Cody took the bait. “What the hell are you referring to?” At his orders, TAZ had bent over double to cloak the events of the last few days in secrecy.

Hamilton’s shit-eating grin said it all, but that didn’t stop him from adding: “I have my sources.”?

Kate and Rizzo were at Bellevue E.R. retracing Song’s movements last night. So far they’d come up empty-handed. No one on the day shift was the least bit useful; they might as well have been working on another planet. Kate had led Rizzo to the office Song used, but today it was occupied by a Pakistani whose English was so thickly accented that they could barely make out a word. But the gist was clear. The man hadn’t seen Dr. Wiley. When he’d started his shift, he’d gone straight to the O.R. and only just occupied the physicians’ office a half an hour ago.

Finally, a minimally-helpful desk clerk suggested they visit Human Resources. A flash of badge at the African-American who manned the reception desk was enough to get the list of everyone who worked the E.R. shift with Dr. Wiley last night. Phone numbers were another matter, however. It was an hour before they’d gone through the personnel files and created a complete roster.

“We’re losing precious time,” Kate said, berating herself for not staying awake last night for Song.

Rizzo heard the edge in her voice, and nodded. “I’m going to fax this over to TAZ,” he said. “Five people manning the phones should get the speed we need.”

And, in fact, it was only twenty minutes later that they got their first lead.

“She was heading for the pharmacy when she left here,” one of the nurses, an Hispanic named Ivonne Leonel, reported.

“What time was that?” Kate asked.

“Ten-maybe fifteen-after twelve,” Leonel said. “Why are you asking about Dr. Wiley? Is she okay?”

“Do you know why she was heading there?” Rizzo pressed, ignoring the question.

“One of my patients was complaining that we were bringing his medication too late,” Leonel explained. “Dr. Wiley said she was going to up the medication and prescribe that we bring it to him every three hours so we wouldn’t always be chasing the pain, she said.”

The pharmacy was in the basement, and they got lucky. The very weary pharmacist was doing a double shift.

He remembered Dr. Wiley had come in on her way out last night. Ruffling around in an untidy spindle, he pulled out the prescription she’d ask him to fill. He waved it toward them, as though to show off his organizational skills.

“What time was that?” Rizzo asked.

The pharmacist thought for a moment, then typed a few strokes into his computer. “Twelve-twenty,” he said. “Have to record the time for billing purposes.”

“Did Dr. Wiley wait for you to fill it?” Kate asked.

The pharmacist nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I offered to take it up myself, but she insisted. It only took me a few minutes. I handed it to her, and she thanked me and left.”

Kate brushed at her eye, as though something other than a tear was bothering it.

Rizzo noticed the thoughtful look on the pharmacist’s countenance. “Anything else you can tell us?” he asked.

“Yes,” he said. “The elevator wasn’t working. She walked back and asked me where the steps were. ‘It was working a minute ago,’ she said. I pointed down the hall and she left again.”

Kate and Rizzo shared an uneasy glance as they walked down the same hall Song had walked nine hours ago, toward the “Exit” sign that indicated the doorway to the staircase.?

They never made it to the stairs.

A few feet before the exit, a door marked “Pharmaceutical Storeroom-Authorized Personnel Only” caught Kate’s attention. The door was ajar.

“That’s odd,” she said, stopping in front of the door. Her hand extended to push it open when Rizzo intervened.

“Let me,” he said, reaching inside his jacket for his piece. “Stand behind me.”

Kate wasn’t budging. “I can handle myself,” she said.

Rizzo kicked the door open, then reached for the light switch.

For the rest of his life, Kate’s scream would haunt his dreams.

35

Like Handley and Uncle Tony, she’d been stripped naked, and was seated. On a card-table chair. Her legs and arms bound with surgical tape. One hand was clutching an open bottle of Excedrin. They could see that at least a third of the pills were missing.

The other hand was positioned on her lap, its thumb taped beneath the four fingers.

Kate stopped screaming. She was staring at her lover as though a huge practical joke was being perpetrated on her and, if she just waited, Song would wink and say, “Gotcha!”

Rizzo studied the rigid corpse. Song’s body was perfect, not an ounce of fat anywhere, he noticed. Her breasts were perfectly formed, the nipples hard with the caress of rigor mortis. No visible signs of trauma-only the look of surprise on the good doctor’s face seemed out of kilter with what otherwise could have been mistaken for a model posing nude for a painter.

The sonofabitch who had done this to her was painting with human lives.

Kate hadn’t moved, not backwards, not forwards. Rizzo could see she was in shock. “Let me handle this,” he said, taking her by the elbow and backing her toward the door.

With a wrenching effort, Kate snapped out of it and turned her head toward him. “Take your hand off me,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“If you’re fine,” he said. “You’re superhuman.”

“Why her? Who would do this to Song?” Kate sobbed. “She never hurt a fly in her life.”

“My guess is that it had nothing to do with her at all,” Rizzo said, reaching for his cell phone. His nose wrinkled at a familiar scent.

Kate detected it too.

“Burnt almonds,” Rizzo said.

“Cyanide?” Kate guessed.

Rizzo nodded as he speed-dialed.

Then Kate pointed to something else, the shelf to the right of Song’s body.

It was filled with boxes and boxes of blue and green surgical booties.?

For the rest of the day, the entire squad was turned on its ear. Kate’s devastation ignited a slow burn that would not cool until Androg was brought to justice. Cody had tried to send her home, to get her a prescription for valium. She’d refused both.

“Don’t you realize I’d go crazy if I went home?” she said. “Don’t do that to me. I’m staying here. I’m working the case.”

“You know you can’t work the case, Kate. It’s not in your job description. It’d be counterproductive, to say the least. You observe cases, remember?”

“I’m staying here and doing my job,” Kate insisted.

While they awaited Wolfsheim’s autopsy results, no one doubted for an instant Larry Simon’s preliminary analysis that they were dealing with the same psychotic killer who had offed Raymond Handley and Uncle Tony: all three victims ended their lives in a sitting position, all were in their death seats between twelve and one o’clock a.m., none of them seemed to have any connection to the others. “And I’m betting that the cause of death will not be the obvious one,” Larry added. “It won’t be ‘Excedrin laced with cyanide.’”

Simon’s head was focused on the photo showing Song’s thumb taped under her four fingers. “It’s a message from the perp,” he concluded firmly. “He’s warning us that Number Four is about to happen. Maybe even giving us a hint about how it will happen or who it will happen to. If anyone can figure it out, you can,” Simon said. “What are your thoughts?”

“What I think is that it may be something else,” Cody said. “Maybe it’s already happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe she was Number Four.”

36

Tuesday, October 30

The call to Stinelli had not gone well, and Cody threw his empty coffee cup against the wall. Even with three investigations going, his attempt to beg off the Ball tonight had been stonewalled.

“Sometimes politics takes precedence over procedure,” Lou asserted. “I know you’re up to your eyeballs, but believe me it’ll be a much bigger problem if you don’t show up.”

“Why?” Cody wanted to know.

“Because, for one thing Goddamit, your pal Ward Hamilton is going to be there, and that damned Clue prize he received has gotten the whole town talking about his next project, which is you! If you don’t show, he’ll smell fear. And blood-yours. There’ll be no hope of containing the meltdown, and holding him back till you’ve caught this maniac Androg. ”

Cody knew his goose was cooked. He had no choice but to join those who were fiddling while Rome was burning.

“In that case, Chief,” Cody said, “I guess I’d better take a nap. I haven’t been home for forty-eight hours.”

Stinelli’s grunt was how he terminated the call.?

Feeling way more uncomfortable in a tuxedo than Bruce Wayne could ever imagine, Cody walked up the stairs to Amelie Cluett’s apartment. A glance at Handley’s door made him even more uncomfortable. He’d spent the afternoon listening to TAZ report that nothing new had been found to throw light on Raymond’s death and Bergman was getting nowhere with the Venezia interviews.

Instead of riding whip on the group, Cody was dressed in a monkey suit and going to the fairytale ball as though the grim realities of his day to day job had been whistled irrelevant.

But there she was, opening the door before he could knock or ring: tastefully stunning in a midnight blue silk dress, faux diamonds around the hem, excited to see him looking ruggedly dashing.

Amelie did a little girl’s twirl, to show off the dress-and to waft a delicately tantalizing perfume in his direction. “How do I look?”

“You look…” Cody took the time for a full detective’s perusal. “Edible.”

“A man of many words,” Amelie giggled. “You don’t look too bad yourself. Please come in for an aperitif.” Then she caught herself. “I’m sorry. I forgot you don’t drink. Haven’t gotten around to it, I mean.” She confused herself into a blush that only accented her finely-chiseled features.

“That’s not it,” he said. “It’s just that this is an official function.”

“You can’t be going to a ball ‘on duty,’” she replied, disappointed.

“Believe me, I can,” he said. “It’s about the only way you could drag me there.”

“So that makes me, what, official volunteer arm candy?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye. She reached for her clutch. “Okay, officer, lead the way.” She offered her hand.

And Cody took her hand as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do.?

En route to Gracie Mansion, Amelie quickly realized small talk wasn’t happening. “Spill the beans,” she said. “What’s on your mind? Or are you always this silent on a second date.”

Cody laughed. Is that what this was? Well, if so it didn’t feel that bad.

But she was insistent, and somehow he wanted this one to start out differently. So he swore her to secrecy and told her about Uncle Tony and Song Wiley and TAZ’s belief that they were both murdered by the same killer who ended her neighbor Raymond’s life. How there was no logical sequence, no geographical location in common-other than they were all in Manhattan. The victims weren’t connected in any obvious way and there were no definitive clues.

“There’s something all these killings have in common besides the confusing ways of death and we’re missing it,” Wolf had said. Either something the killer left behind or something the perp took from each of the victims.

“And he’s right,” Cody told her. “Androg is screwing with us. All we have to go on is the Number Four.”

“Four?” she asked. “I thought you had three victims.”

“Yeah, unless there’s one we haven’t heard from yet. That’s what I think.” At the mention of each name he had to stop and parse the list of players for her. He was impressed that she could follow his report at all, but it seemed to come easily to her.

“I’m a good listener,” she said, as though reading his mind. “The better my hands work, the more I hear,” she added in a teasing tone of voice.?

The chemistry with Amelie was on fast track, and Cody found himself surprised that he was doing nothing to curtail it. He couldn’t afford this distraction right now, could he? Nonetheless he couldn’t take his eyes off her and noticed with satisfaction and-was it pride? — that other men in the mayor’s crowded ballroom couldn’t either.

At one point the electricity arcing between them got so intense that Amelie grabbed his drink, set it down, then took his hand and dragged him onto the dance floor just as the band struck up a sentimental version of “My Funny Valentine.”

Cody fumbled for the right moves, but Amelie moved for him, slipping into his arms as though she were meant to be there and guiding his right hand to the naked small of her back. He felt her pressing against him, and realized he wanted to be fully in this moment even though professionally he clearly needed to be somewhere, anywhere, else: the Loft, Raymond’s apartment, the Venezia, Bellevue, the morgue.

Amelie sensed his hesitation, but was determined to ignore it as she finessed him into leading her around the floor. He was beginning to respond to her one step at a time, but, just as she pressed the issue by resting her head on Cody’s chest, the cavalry arrived in the persons of Lou and Valerie Stinelli.

“There you are!” Lou’s voice boomed to break the spell. “Glad to see you could make it,” he added.

Cody flinched, as if caught playing hooky. He pulled back from Amelie, causing her to frown.

“You remember my wife Valerie,” he said, eying Amelie with interest and approval.

“Of course,” Cody said, taking Mrs. Stinelli’s hand and squeezing it. “Let me introduce you to Amelie Cluett. Amelie, this is Chief Lou Stinelli and his wife.”

Amelie greeted them warmly.

“Have you met the Taylors?” Stinelli’s gesture took in the three attractive young socialites who had materialized at their side. “They’re sisters,” Lou explained, “Margaret, Anne, and Clay. Their parents sponsor the Ball every year.”

The Taylor sisters smiled brightly.

“They’re environmental attorneys,” Lou added. “I call them Earth, Wind, and Fire.”

As the young ladies assessed Cody, Stinelli noticed Amelie taking Cody’s hand territorially in hers. The Chief signaled his approval by putting his arm around her. “Watch out for this guy,” he told her. “Down deep, he’s a real wolf.”

Thanks to her encounter with David Runningfox, Amelie got the joke and laughed.

“Anything new on Androg?” Stinelli asked Cody, as the ladies chirped their greetings to one another.

Cody let him know about Larry Simon’s interpretation of the four fingers message. Stinelli looked thoughtful.

“Sorry to read about your friend Steamroller Jackson,” came a voice behind them that made Cody bridle. They turned around to see it belonged to Ward Hamilton, looking unusually dapper in his new tuxedo, Victoria in hand.

“How did you know we were pals?” Stinelli asked the writer.

“That was a long time ago,” Valerie said. To her husband she added, “And you weren’t that close.”

“You know me, Chief,” Hamilton said. “I pay attention to details,” making sure Cody heard the comment. Hamilton flashed a Cheshire cat grin that made Cody’s blood boil. “Long time no see,” he winked at Cody.

Something about the whole thing bothered the hell out of Cody. Stinelli walked away without replying, leaving him and Amelie with the whipdick writer and his society moll. The pair had in tow a tall, striking, thirty-something woman with dark blue eyes.

“Meet Captain of Detectives Micah Cody,” Hamilton said with a singsong lilt in his voice, and purposefully mispronouncing Cody’s first name. “The detective here will be needing some good P.R.,” he said. “Patricia here is a P.R. consultant.”

Cody’s nose wrinkled at the whiff of strong cologne that assaulted him as Hamilton doubled over in a ridiculous laugh.

Patricia Robert’s card materialized out of nowhere, and landed in Cody’s vest pocket. Cody could see that the woman’s pixie smile and innocent wide eyes hid a clever and intelligent mind. He wondered what the hell she was doing in the company of the decadent duo.

Victoria was dressed in a red silk Versace pantsuit, and wore a thin pink ribbon around her flawless neck.

“Nice touch,” Amelie said to her, admiring her neck, and noticing the heart tattooed at its base. That must have hurt, she thought. It’s directly on top of the disc!

Victoria responded to the comment with an icy smile.

Hamilton stared Cody down. “A little birdie told me you’ve been a very busy boy-yet another fish on the line. You won’t want to miss the last installment in my homicide series,” Hamilton added.

“I’d love to know where you find your little birdies,” Cody said. Once they stopped Androg, ferreting out leaks would be his top priority. It had to be Stinelli’s office. He trusted his own troops one hundred percent. If Cody had his way, he wouldn’t report to anyone until a case was closed.

Victoria threw down her own superfluous challenge. “You should never underestimate the past, detective. It always comes back to bite you.”

When Cody turned away to keep from decking them both, Amelie, who had observed the exchange with growing irritation, handed Victoria her card. “Judging from those neck muscles,” she said. “You’re as tight as a fist. Give me a call sometime and I’ll work you in.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” Victoria pushed back the card as if it contained germs. “Ward and I find our own ways of relaxing.”

“Those two give me the creeps,” Amelie said, as she caught up with Cody and reached for his hand.

Cody noticed the gooseflesh on her arm. “They are the creeps,” he quipped. “Let’s finish that dance.”?

The three of them watched Cody and Amelie walk away. “Nice ass,” Victoria commented, admiring Cody’s build.

“Nice asses,” Hamilton said, eying Amelie’s.

“I’m really turned on just talking about it,” Victoria said, matter-of-factly.

“Me too,” said Hamilton. “How about you, Patricia?”

“…Uh… Uh-huh.”

“I think I’m up for a standup Dutch fuck,” Victoria added.

“Excellent,” he answered. “Let’s drink to that.”

“Okay, you got me. What’s a standing Dutch fuck?” asked Patricia, toasting her champagne glass against theirs.

“Well, we stand up and take turns inhaling into each other’s mouths and do whatever turns us on while we’re inhaling. We do three inhale-exhales each. Want to join us?”

“Why the hell not?” Patricia said, giggling like a schoolgirl. “Tomorrow’s a business day-but business is slow.”

37

“Maybe this Androg practiced before he killed,” Amelie told Cody. They were en route back to her apartment after stopping for a bite. “That could be why the murders are so perfect. Maybe that’s why he skipped a number? To point you backward to find it.”

“I’m not sure. Somehow I don’t think the practice murder was Number One. I can’t fit the two-year gap into the puzzle. Handley was Number One, Uncle Tony Number Two, and if Dr. Wiley was Number Four, we haven’t figured out Number Three yet.”

Amelie shivered. “Great job you have,” she said.

“Somebody has to do it,” Cody responded.

They drove the rest of the way in silence, both lost in thought. Once they reached her place, Cody parked the SUV in a no-parking zone, relying on his police plate to protect it from bounty towers.

He knew she’d feel better if he escorted her to her door and had to admit he was pleased when she invited him in.

At the look on his face as he considered the offer, she said, “Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to tuck me in or anything.”

He chose the brightly striped Scandinavian chair in her living room rather than the couch, and she pretended she thought nothing of it as she headed for the kitchen and returned with a small glass filled with golden amber liquid.

“You sip this,” she handed it to him. “It’s my favorite after-dinner wine. It’s called ‘ice wine’ because it’s made from the grapes bitten by the first frost. You’ll love it.”

“What about you?” he asked her, accepting the glass.

“I did you a favor, now I’m going to ask you to do me a favor.”

“What do you need?”

“I’ll explain in a minute. Take the time to enjoy your first drink.” With that, she headed into what he guessed was her bedroom.

Surprised at how piercingly sweet and pleasant the wine was, Cody surveyed the apartment, his mind for the moment miles away from the Loft and its homicidal horrors. He remembered how cozy Amelie’s place had felt when he first entered what already seemed like ages ago.

Before he could analyze his thoughts, she reappeared before him. She’d slipped into something more comfortable-but not at all the usual. She was wearing what looked like surgical scrubs. Then he realized it was her masseuse uniform.

She took his hand, and led him across the room. “Come into my parlor,” she said. “I can’t stand seeing so much tension in your neck. It’s time for that massage I promised you.”

The wine had its admittedly pleasing effect on him, and he didn’t even feel like protesting. She modestly retreated while he slipped out of his clothes and climbed on the table, beneath the waiting towel.

Cody couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a massage. Somehow it didn’t fit with the routine of a NYPD homicide detective, though a few minutes into it he realized he should order every member of TAZ to have one once a week, whether they wanted to or not. He could imagine the kind of ribbing he’d get for that.

Amelie’s hands were soft and gentle and very, very strong. They were demanding hands, hands that knew their way around a man’s body and how and where to find the knots. She was very thorough, and very sensual. But she stopped short of crossing the line. When she told him to turn over, Cody found himself embarrassed by the incipient erection she’d caused. “That’s okay,” he said. “Let’s skip the rest. This is more pleasure than I should be allowing myself right now. Rain check?”

“Yes, sir,” she teased, pretending she hadn’t spotted the culprit that was causing his shy response. “Off to the sauna with you.”

She waited for him to wrap himself with the towel, then led him to the door to the sauna, which she’d turned on while he was sipping his wine. “It’s good for you to-“

“-sweat out the stink,” he interrupted her, remembering his childhood on the reservation.

To his disappointment, she closed the sauna door after him, leaving him in the dark room wishing she had joined him there.

When he was dressed again and at the front door, Amelie stood on her tiptoes to give him a chaste kiss good-night. “Good body,” she said. “Take care of it for me.”

38

Wednesday, October 31

Halloween

It was shortly after midnight that the tipsy trio arrived back at Hamilton’s E. 59 th Street penthouse. Patricia was hesitating. “Can I just watch?” she ventured.

“Sure,” Victoria responded. “Just don’t be embarrassed. Free yourself.”

“I’ll try.”

“We’re good friends. Anytime you want to join in just say so,” Ward said. “Liberate yourself.”

“Okay…”

They moved closer, stood in a tight group, the two women facing Hamilton.

He took out a joint and lit up, taking a deep hit and holding it. Then he moved toward Victoria and pressed against her.

She moved her hips against him as he kissed her and exhaled while she inhaled.

Victoria closed her eyes and held the smoke in as he put his hands against her cheeks and pulled her even closer to him. They swiveled against each other slightly as she slowly exhaled.

Ward moved his hands up. His thumbs caressed her nipples, teasing them even harder.

“Um,” Victoria said, looking into Patricia’s eyes. “Go under…”

He slid his hands under her blouse and stroked her breasts as she took another hit, held it, and leaned back to allow him to slip her chemise off.

Patricia watched intently, her breath beginning to come harder as Victoria leaned back and Hamilton kissed her breasts and sucked her nipples.

“Sure you don’t want a hit?” he asked Patricia.

She hesitated.

He slipped Victoria’s skirt off and took another hit. Victoria was wearing black, see-through panties. Her thick hair curled over the top of them and around the tight-fitting crotch. As Hamilton leaned in and kissed her again, exhaling, she slipped his pants off. His cock was getting hard. Victoria pressed against it as she twisted slightly, rubbing their nipples together.

Patricia was getting very hot, her enormous dark nipples straining against her silk blouse. Victoria reached over, pulled her closer to them. Patricia could feel Hamilton’s leg against her crotch. “Okay, I’ll try,” she stammered.

Hamilton took a long hit, turned to Patricia and standing tight against her pressed his now full hard-on against her pussy through her skirt. Then he kissed her.

Her mouth was wet and it was a deep kiss. He exhaled into her mouth and reached up and ran his thumbs against the sides of her full breasts, stroking them but careful not to touch the nipples. She turned slightly, maneuvering for his fingers to rub her steel-hard nipples. Patricia’s exhale was a sensuous groan.

Hamilton placed the joint between her lips again. This time as she inhaled he slid her skirt off. Her white bikini panties were fluffed out from her silken, blonde hair. He slightly brushed her crotch with his cock, which was now fully erect.

“Oh,” she gasped and exhaled into his mouth. She was trembling slightly. Ward deftly slid her blouse off. Her breasts were large, very firm, the nipples standing up like blackberries for him to relish one after the other while pressing his cock more tightly against her. He slid one hand over her ass and turned back to Victoria.

She was breathing hard too, her perfect hard breasts swelling.

Ward offered her the next hit.

Victoria took the hit, stepped back and began to stroke his cock as he slid his free hand between her legs and caressed her.

Patricia watched, her breathing even harder.

Victoria was moving her ass as Hamilton stroked it. He slid his hands between her legs from behind. She lifted up slightly until his middle finger found her asshole through her panties. She exhaled into Hamilton’s mouth. He continued to move his cock against her hand.

Victoria licked her fingers and slid them under his shorts.

He licked his hand and slid it under her panties, pulling them down.

Patricia stared down at their hands, saw Ward’s caressing Victoria’s clit. She was transfixed by Hamilton’s cock, which was now its full seven inches and rock-hard. She could hear the liquid sounds from Victoria’s pussy as Hamilton began to masturbate her while she did the same for him.

Hamilton took another deep hit, turned to Patricia, exhaled into her mouth and moved his hand around to find her clit, moist and throbbing under her panties. Gently his finger stroked it.

With his other hand he continued to masturbate Victoria who was now breathing aloud and grinding against his hand.

Patricia began to do the same, synching her groans with Victoria’s. She slid her panties down as she kissed Hamilton, and then looked down to observe all three of their organs throbbing in unison.

Patricia added her hand to Victoria’s on Ward’s cock while he continued to caress them both.

“Oh God,” Patricia groaned. Her legs were trembling. She felt the drop of come at the end of his cock and her hand began to pinch the corona to hold him back.

Victoria was humping now, thrusting her swollen clit against Hamilton’s wet hand. Patricia imitated her motion.

“Oh Jesus, it’s coming,” Victoria said, moving faster.

Hamilton turned to her, took Patricia’s hand and guided it to press his cock between Victoria’s legs.

Now he was stroking Patricia hard. She gasped as she guided his cock against Victoria’s cunt.

“It’s coming…” Victoria stammered.

Groaning again, Patricia pressed herself hard against Hamilton’s hand and hunched against it while probing Victoria’s clit with Ward’s cock.

They were all trembling now.

“Me too,” Patricia stammered. “Oh God, me too.”

“Who wants it first?” Hamilton whispered.

Patricia couldn’t say the words. She was mesmerized by their simultaneous movement, by this dance she had never danced before.

Victoria reached down to the base of Ward’s cock, pushed it toward Patricia’s cunt.

Ward felt Victoria teasing Patricia’s clit with it, faster and faster until Patricia reached behind him, grabbing both cheeks of his ass.

He pressed his finger against her asshole as he continued to masturbate her with his cock, his other hand still wildly stroking Victoria.

“Oh God, I’m coming,” Victoria yelled, “I’m coming, baby. Fuck her, fuck her. Oh yeah, oh yeah!”

In a single smooth movement, Hamilton shoved himself inside Patricia. As they merged together, Victoria pressed her breasts against them spreading her legs wide to take in Ward’s hand.

As Ward’s cock entered her fully, Patricia screamed with delight, coming again and again.

With Ward’s hand inside her, Victoria’s orgasm was continuous. Her screams and moans were in harmony with Patricia’s.

Victoria’s back arched. “NOW!” she cried, as Ward thrust again deep into Patricia, leaning forward so his cock rode high inside her swollen, wet, cunt.

Her eyes locked with Victoria’s, Patricia was groaning like a wild animal. “There,” she screamed. “That’s it. Right there!”

He felt the little curl deep inside her and kept riding her until her cunt was throbbing, squeezing his cock with each orgasm.

“C-c-coming, c-c-coming, oh, OH! Oh yes, you did it!”

Hamilton felt his cock throbbing as it thrust deep into Patricia’s orgasm. “Here it comes,” he cried.

“Yes,” Patricia cried out. “Come inside me. Right now!”

But Ward pulled out of her, and in one smooth motion twirled Victoria around, bent her against the white sofa, and roughly entered her.

Victoria grunted with pleasure, wiggling against him until he was buried deep inside her perfect ass.

Patricia sobbed in disappointment, and moved around in front of Victoria, pressing her cunt to where Victoria could reach it with her lips. As Ward frantically fucked her ass, Victoria’s tongue brought Patricia, who was arching her back in delirious pleasure, to one orgasm after another in a primal rhythm worthy of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.”

“Again,” he cried out. “AGAIN!” And he continued the pounding until they all achieved a simultaneous triple orgasm.

Then, with a chorus of grunts and cries and whimpers, it was over.

The disentanglement began. Patricia’s glazed eyes began to focus. She looked around, frightened, as though in disbelief at what she’d participated in. She reached for the floor to retrieve her panties.

“Let me,” Victoria said, snagging the sheer white material and using it like a slingshot to sting Patricia’s face.

“Ow!” Patricia cried. “Why did you do that?”

“Just for fun,” Victoria said.

“Yeah, we’re kinda weird that way,” Hamilton agreed. He took her by the hand and led her toward a piece of furniture in the middle of his den that was covered with a red chenille throw. Victoria whipped the throw off-to reveal the old-fashioned barber’s chair. “Sit here for a minute. The best part is yet to come,” Hamilton said, planting Patricia firmly in the chair.

Suddenly Patricia realized the fun was over.

“The fun has just begun,” Victoria said, cuffing Patricia’s legs to separate legs of the chair.

Before Patricia could open her mouth to protest Ward had slipped her brassiere into her mouth, and tied it firmly behind her head.

Now her eyes were wide open with fear. What were they going to do to her?

“Sorry to use your own underwear for this, dear,” Victoria was saying. “But I never wear one myself.” She thrust her chest out proudly, to display the firmness of her breasts that showed no trace of sagging.

Hamilton held her down until Victoria finished with her legs. Then she moved to Patricia’s arms, handcuffing them at the wrists to separate arms of the chair.

“Now we can finish off the book,” Hamilton said, watching with satisfaction as Patricia thrashed and writhed in vain trying to free herself. But the tapes were strong and the chair was firmly riveted to the floor.

“Better get some shut-eye, buttercup,” Victoria said to Hamilton.

He nodded. “I agree. Tonight’s the night.”

“And it’s going to be a busy one.”

The fear in Patricia’s eyes turned to terror as she saw Hamilton lean down, twist a dial beneath the chair.

Then the ticking began.

39

Cody slept like a log. Charley nearly had to drag him from the bed in time for their routine rendezvous with Waldo at the diner.

While Charley continued working the lamb shank Waldo had generously provided, Cody opened the Melinda Cramer file, which was still on his desk from Monday. In the middle of breakfast he realized he was one hundred percent certain that he’d found the key to the Rubik’s cube that was TAZ’s current challenge. He called Vinnie and Si into the office, and told them to make five copies of the file-for them, and also Rizzo, Bergman, and Kate to comb through looking for similarities with Androg. “Get me a list of her effects, too,” he said. “Every stitch of clothes she could have worn that night, and everything except the furniture that was found in her apartment.”

An hour later the crew squeezed into his office to report their unanimous opinion that Melinda’s murder had Androg written all over it. The list of her effects would take longer to retrieve, but there was no doubt: She was found naked. Death by strangulation, but made to look like blunt trauma so that the coroner missed it entirely until Cody had demanded a reexamination.

Was Melinda Number One instead of Raymond, after all? That’s what they wanted him to believe. But he still had the same feeling he’d expressed to Amelie. If she was Number One, why had it taken Androg two years to strike again? Then why had he struck two more victims in so few days? Something didn’t quite add up, but Cody could sense, like the hunter he was, that they were at least approaching the right trail. Maybe it took Androg two years to plan this week’s killings, starting with choosing the victims and then making sure they were taken out, one by one, and executed like clockwork.

Two years. Twenty-four months.

Cody looked at the file again. Melinda died shortly after midnight, having returned from a Halloween rave.

Tonight was Halloween night.?

As neat as a good plot. Or a well-written crime book.

But writers weren’t the real artists when it came to murder; they were just the critics, the aficionados.

Serial killers were the maestros, the true artists of the medium. Cody was pretty certain who he was up against.

But he knew damn well he couldn’t reveal his suspicions without solid evidence. He’d be the laughingstock of NYPD if he confided who he thought Androg was. He would bide his time, awaiting his break, but now with the assistance of selective perception. He knew what he was looking for, and that would make it all the easier to find. He would do a little medical background check.

Around nine Wolfsheim reported that Song’s blood count was 97.2. “While you were dancing with the fat cats last night, I was working,” Wolfsheim couldn’t resist the barb.

That meant Song was dead less than six hours when they located her. “You won’t be surprised to hear that the odor Rizzo thought was cyanide and the brown powder found on her lips and in her mouth was an intentional misdirect. The powder was applied to Song’s lips after she was dead already-and it smelled like “burnt almonds” because it was burnt almonds.

Androg had gone to the trouble of bringing the misleading evidence along just for the sake of putting icing on the cake.

Plus, there was no trace of the Excedrin-which was not laced with anything-in her system. The partially empty bottle was another misdirect.

Cody was getting impatient with Wolfsheim’s overly deliberate rhetorical style. “I know you found something, Wolfie,” he interrupted. “Get to it, Goddamit. The son of a bitch is out there right now preparing the next victim for us.”

Wolfsheim grunted his acknowledgement. “When we started shaving her skull,” he said, “we found a single gunshot wound-entry on the back of her head.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Cody said. “She was shot?”

Wolfsheim nodded.

“What caliber?”

“I’d say. 22 judging from the size of the entry wound. But it’s impossible to tell. There was no bullet.”

“What do you mean?”

“The damage to her brain made it clear the gunshot wound is what killed her-fired at point blank range, but through some kind of cloth-probably surgical gauze-which is why we found no trace of blood on her hair at first examination. Though we didn’t find the bullet, we found an ounce of water in her brain. The bullet was made of ice.”

“Jesus Christ,” Cody said. “Who else knows about this?”

“No one except Annie,” Wolfsheim said.

“Let’s keep it that way for a few minutes. We’ve got a leak somewhere and I need to plug it before we go back to normal procedure.”

“You think it’s inside TAZ?” Wolfsheim asked, surprise in his voice.

“I sure as hell hope not,” Cody replied. “That’d be enough for me to hand in my badge.” His thoughts went to the Chief’s office, and that didn’t make him happy either.

As if by response, the black phone on Cody’s desk rang. When he glanced at the caller i.d., he nodded for Wolfsheim to stay.

“I found Number Three,” Stinelli said.

“What?”

“On a hunch, I called Philadelphia P.D. this morning early and asked about the details of Steamroller Jackson’s death. The investigating officer just called me back. Jackson was found in an alley, slumped against a wall-naked.”

“Sitting down?” Cody asked.

“Yes,” Stinelli answered.

“Cause of death?” Cody asked, punching Stinelli onto speakerphone so Wolfsheim could hear.

“They wrote it off to a heart attack induced by drugs and alcohol overdose,” the Chief answered. “The poor guy had been homeless for two years, and was a familiar face to the cops on the beat. I asked them to do an autopsy. They still have him in the morgue, waiting for a distant family member to claim him.”

“I want to be there,” Cody said.

“Me too,” said Wolfsheim.

“I’m pulling up outside right now,” Stinelli said. “Bring your coffee… In spill-proof mugs, please.”?

Cody and Wolfsheim both liked their coffee scalding hot, so neither dared a sip until they were onto the Turnpike. When Wolfsheim grumbled about the city’s potholes, that seemed especially treacherous on the West Side, Stinelli cut him short. “What would you rather have, smooth streets or extra cops?” he asked.

Nothing to argue about there.

When the Chief asked about the case, Cody asked him to close the courtesy window.

Stinelli’s eyebrows went up, but he pushed the button.

“Can’t be too careful,” Cody said. “That bastard Hamilton has inside information, and I don’t think he’s getting it from our side.”

“For chrissakes,” Stinelli said, “Berno’s been with me for fifteen years.”

Cody chose not to reply. “Jackson very well could be Androg’s work,” he said instead. “But why Philadelphia-and what’s the connection?”

“The connection,” Stinelli said, “is that the guy used to be a pal of mine.”

“Just like Uncle Tony was Bergman’s pal, and Dr. Wiley was Kate’s?” Wolfsheim said.

Whose pal was Raymond Handley? Cody wondered. “Go ahead, Wolfie, give the Chief your thoughts.”

Wolfsheim summed the case up: “All we know about these crimes is what we don’t know. No DNA, no hairs, no prints, no blood, not even a definitive footprint. No direct connection between the victims, no particular geographical area or social status. We got everything from a rich stockbroker to a restaurant owner to an E.R. doctor, and maybe to a bum in an alley.”

“We know the killer is doing a tour de force of murder methods each time,” Cody said, “using one way but perversely disguising it as one or more other m.o.’s.”

Wolfsheim nodded. “We also know that most serial killers have two characteristics in common: they want us to know the killings are their work; and they subconsciously want to get caught. That’s why they usually leave a totem or trophy.”

“But this isn’t business as usual,” Cody said. “I don’t think this killer is that simple. If he’s like other serial killers, he will develop a ritual to preserve his success-but he hasn’t developed it yet. If Androg wants to get apprehended and brought to justice, it’s gonna be in no way we’ve seen before. There’s some kind of elaborate and unique game going on, and unless we figure out the rules soon it’ll only get worse. If Jackson turns out to be one of them, we’ve got four in four days.”

Stinelli looked at his Blackberry’s calendar as though trying to read its secrets. “It’s gonna be a media meltdown when they get wind of this.”

“Hamilton already got wind.”

“How?” Stinelli asked.

“I don’t know,” Cody answered. “It’s just a hunch. A very strong hunch.” There’s one way he could know that had nothing to do with leaks, he was thinking.

Wolfsheim continued. “He’s not exactly leaving trophies, but this perp clearly wants us to know these killings are his handy work. All the victims were found in a seated position. All three of them were naked-including Jackson.”

“Causes of death?” Stinelli asked.

“Asphyxiation, stabbing/slashing/puncture wounds, and gunshot.”

“Which leaves drugs/alcohol/poison,” Cody added.

“Right,” Wolfsheim interrupted. “And, if you go by the book, blunt trauma and electrical-thermal. And don’t forget: All the murders take place right after midnight.”?

The forensics exam began minutes after the New Yorkers arrived at Philadelphia Police Headquarters on Franklin Square.

Jackson’s body had been moved from the cooler an hour earlier so that it would reach room temperature before the procedure.

Lou was surprised at his own reaction to the sight of his old high school classmate’s rigid face. A wave of sorrow washed over him, followed by anger at a life wasted and snuffed out. Why was it, he thought, that some people get it together and others don’t? Is the shape of your life really under your control, or is it all the luck of the draw? Certainly Steamroller had little control over his death. Some heartless prick had selected him as a pawn in his own sick game.

Wolfsheim saw the detective’s nostrils flare. “Ammonia,” he nodded at Cody. “Probably maggots in there somewhere.”

The Philly coroner was named Sam Liu, an Asian so diminutive he had to stand on a stool to operate. As Sam made the Y-cut and the abdomen fell open, the smell of ammonia intensified. And, sure enough, they discovered unhatched maggot eggs in the abdominal cavity.

“What does that tell us?” Cody asked.

“You know as well as I do,” Wolfsheim said.

“I like to hear you tell it.”

“Dead bodies attract flies within minutes. The females swarm around open wounds and lay hundreds of eggs which hatch twelve-fifteen hours later.”

“So Jackson was found before they hatched,” Stinelli said.

“And before they could destroy the evidence,” Cody added.

“Maggots can consume a full grown pig in days,” Liu said, apropos of nothing.

The three New Yorkers looked at him, but he continued his examination without further commentary.

“I think we can safely conclude,” Wolfsheim said, “that time of death was shortly after midnight Saturday morning.”

One of Liu’s intern-assistants ran the eggs through a blender, and returned to report that she’d found traces of cocaine in the sample.

Liu nodded. “Happy maggots. That’s consistent with our first conclusions.”

“Something else,” the assistant said. “We identified a residue of liquid in the Chivas Regal bottle found near the body. It was loaded with coke. That’s how it was introduced,” she said.

“At least he died a happy death,” Stinelli commented sorrowfully.?

Liu continued the autopsy, meticulously examining every inch of the flabby corpse that had once borne the nickname “Steamroller.”

“Take a look at this,” he finally said.

At first the visitors couldn’t see what the Philly coroner was pointing to. But it came into focus as he explained.

“Residual pressure point,” Liu indicated with his finger, “precisely adjacent to the heart.”

Now they saw it clearly: the trace of a grid mark on the pressure bruise.

Wolfsheim admitted he was baffled.

“Wait a moment,” Liu asked them. He removed his plastic gloves, excused himself, climbed down from his bench, and left the operating room.

A few minutes later Liu returned, a Taser gun in hand.

The New Yorkers watched as Liu held the gun up to the corpse, demonstrating how its grid-like contact surface could have left the mark sealed by death on Jackson’s body.?

An hour later, Liu concluded his examination of the heart muscle, confirming that “the victim’s heart arrested, probably following constant arrhythmia that it could no longer compensate for due to the strain already put on his system by the alcohol and drugs.”

The Taser had finished him off.

“No doubt about,” Cody said. “It’s our guy.”

Wolfsheim concurred. “And this is yet another m.o.-thermal/electrical. The guy’s working the neighborhood.”

As he saw his visitors to the exit, another of Liu’s assistants handed him a plastic bag. Liu nodded, and gave it to Stinelli.

“What is it?” Lou asked.

“One of the items found on the victim’s body,” the coroner explained. “The minute I walked in I realized who it was.”

Looking perplexed, Stinelli held the plastic flush to the newsprint contained in the bag. Cody and Wolfsheim saw the Chief physically react as he recognized what it was. In a well-weathered newspaper clipping, it was a faded photo of Stinelli with his arm around Jackson. Jackson’s face was a mass of cuts and scratches, but his grin showed through it all.

Stinelli regained his composure. “This was taken outside his locker room, when Valerie and I attended our last prize fight.”

“Who knows about this photo?” Cody asked Liu.

“No one but us chickens,” the coroner replied. “And the cops who found the body.”

“Check the prints on it,” Cody said.?

Cody was silent on the drive back to New York, mulling over the entire Androg scenario to date. It was nearly six when Stinelli dropped off Wolfsheim at his apartment, then, at his insistence, dropped Cody back at the Loft. “Knock off early. Get some sleep,” Stinelli advised.

“I’ll sleep after we stop this son of a bitch,” was Cody’s reply.

Stinelli grunted. That’s why he’d chosen this man to head TAZ.

Cody lost no time getting to Google. He looked up “Clue Awards” and, pinpointing the date, quickly corroborated the suspicions that had been nagging at him for the last twenty-four hours.

Hamilton was in Philadelphia at the time of Jackson’s murder. If he had planned it in advance, he could have had his limo drop him off near the alley after the event, walk a few blocks to find him, tempt Jackson with the fine scotch, chat with him while the combination of coke and liquor produced its effects, press the Taser against the man’s chest until his heart failed, then walk to the waiting limo, and head back to New York as though nothing had happened.

How could he possibly know that Jackson was in that particular alley? Even the homeless have habits, Cody thought. And Hamilton was a master researcher.

But something was wrong with this theory. How could he still be so certain when there was an obvious problem with it?

The problem was Uncle Tony.

With growing dread, he knew the evidence was right in front of his eyes. The totem was subliminal and artfully designed so only Cody would begin to flash on it, which he did as the messages from his unconscious continued.

One after the other, he deciphered the subliminal signs-trying to figure out if each murder had either a distinctive male or female overtone:

Was it Victoria who had killed Handley, after giving him oral sex?

Victoria could have killed Uncle Tony while Hamilton was busy in Philly. She hid in the ladies room until the time was right because she was a lady.

She would have gotten home just in time to greet Hamilton returning from the Awards.

Hamilton, who had just killed Jackson in the alley. Chivas was a man’s drink. It had taken a man’s strength to hold the former boxer still enough for the Taser to finish the drugs’ work. Cody could imagine the scene: a man in a tuxedo with his arm around a bum in the alley, the Taser concealed as it shocked the boxer to death.

Hamilton or Victoria could have killed Song, though women killers rarely use guns.

Whose turn was it next? Who was Number Five?

This entire theory was too preposterous to take seriously. It would leave Cody out on a limb that could fatally distract him from stopping Androg. Or was it? He couldn’t get it out of his mind.

Cody studied the calendar. He picked up the phone and dialed Wolf’s number. “I need you to do me a favor,” he said, “and do it personally, no questions asked.”

“Shoot,” replied Wolf.

“Get me Ward Hamilton’s medical records.”

“Why in the hell-?”

“-No questions asked,” Cody interrupted.

Wolf grunted. “You got it.”

“And Wolf… Whatever it takes. Do it.”

Tonight was Halloween, exactly one week since the killings started.

If seven was the magic number, there’d have to be three more deaths.

With a shaman’s certainty, Cody knew they were planned for tonight.

And that one of them was meant to be him.

40

Halloween Night

Jake Sallinger got out of the shower, careful to navigate his balance on the slippery porcelain that had, more than once, ushered him to a painful slip.

As he reached for his towel, he contemplated with excitement the evening’s entertainment. Waiting for him at the Lotus Club would be the woman who described herself as a “strawberry blonde, green eyes, wicked smile” in the Metro Magazine personals ad. Who knows? Tonight might be his lucky night. It was certainly overdue. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gotten laid.

But something was off.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand to clear them from shower fog.

Where his towel should have been a manila envelope was propped on the rack.

More than puzzled, he reached for it without thinking, disturbing the white powder that covered the flap.

As his eyes automatically began to scan the first page, Jake found himself sneezing uncontrollably. He doubled over from the sneezing attack-just as the bathroom door pushed open.

Cynical laughter he’d recognize anywhere, then: “Thought you might appreciate it more by manual delivery,” Hamilton said.

But Sallinger had fainted from the effect of the mysterious powder. The last things the editor’s eyes saw were Hamilton’s clear plastic gloves and green surgical booties.?

Careful not to slip on the wet floor, Hamilton dragged Sallinger’s naked body toward the bathtub. He lifted the still-breathing editor into the tub. Taking a deep breath to recover from the exertion, he grabbed his editor’s head with both hands-and slammed it repeatedly against the brass towel rack, until he was satisfied Sallinger was dead.

To be doubly certain, Hamilton took the man’s pulse, and nodded to himself when he found none.

Deftly, and quickly before rigor mortis set in, he arranged Sallinger in a sitting position.

Taking another calming breath, Hamilton reached for the wall telephone and dialed 9-1-1.

“You’d better send someone to 155 E. 49 ^ th St. #3D,” he said to the operator. “The best crime article ever written has just been delivered to its former editor. Right on deadline.”

Before the operator could respond, Hamilton hung up and, as he headed for the service entrance, grinned at himself in the dining room mirror.

It was seven-thirty p.m. The wolves in the zoo were howling again. Hearing them, Hamilton thought about Detective Cody-and grinned.?

Way south in Cody’s apartment, Charley was hearing them too. “I know, pal,” Cody said, as he emerged from the shower, “they’re calling us. And this time they mean business.”

Using his hunting knife, he went through the ritual movements of preparing a venison stew, chopping the cranberries in half the way Old Man had taught him. This was the hunter’s meal, the meal he’d first eaten on the Reservation so many years ago on the night before his walk-out. When the simmering was done, the fruit and vegetables crisp and the venison still rare, Cody carefully divided the savory mixture between his own and Charley’s bowls. “I need you for this one, old friend,” he said.

Charley, licking every drop of the stew from his bowl, greeted him with a grunted bark of acknowledgement.

Just as Cody took his last bite, his cell phone rang.

It was Amelie. She heard the wolves too, Cody thought. “Don’t even think of arguing,” she began. “I need to see you now.”

“I honestly can’t,” Cody said. “I’ve got a job to do.”

“If you want to see me again, ever,” Amelie said, a strange tone in her voice Cody couldn’t identify, “You will give me one hour. That’s all I’m asking.”

Cody looked at the time on his cell phone. It was seven forty-five. If Androg stayed true to form, nothing would happen until midnight. “One hour,” he said. “This better be important.”

“It is,” she said.

Instead of canteen, flint, matches, and blanket, he rummaged in his socks drawer, found his ipetes, the eagle feather he’d carried with him from adolescence. On this quest, it would suffice.?

Somewhat against his better judgment, but somehow not wanting to over-analyze it either, Cody headed for Amelie’s apartment. Trust your head, a voice from the past was telling him. Everything you have learned. The answers will be there.

As for Charley, “It’s on the way, after all,” he told his sidekick.

Charley’s look said he wasn’t quite buying it.

“I know, I know,” Cody responded to the shepherd’s baleful stare. “But she said it was important, and she’s a potential witness after all.”

He left Charley in the SUV. No sense in having them sniff each other out unnecessarily.?

He heard the piano as he approached her apartment. Something by Gershwin? And she was good.

But the music had stopped abruptly and Amelie opened the door before he could lift his hand to knock. “I will help you prepare,” she said, as though he’d told her what he was about to do.

She led him toward the massage room. Her voice was businesslike. “Take your clothes off and get on the table.”

For a moment, Cody hesitated. Then he saw that she was doing the same-unbuttoning her blouse, zipping down her pants.

His eyebrows went up, partly because he was admiring her perfect athletic figure, partly because he was admiring the audacity of her invitation. “I thought you didn’t do this kind of massage,” he said, stupidly, as he unbuckled his belt and kicked off his loafers.

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it,” she said, impatiently reaching out to help him with his shirt buttons. “Just had to be the right man at the right time.”

She waited for him to be face down on the table before removing her bra and panties.

Turning his head to watch her, he was rebuked.

“Focus on your breathing,” she said. “It will loosen you up.”

The massage that followed redefined sensual. Her hands were strong and experienced and both relaxed and excited him to a point he’d never experienced before.

“Turn over,” she said, after kneading his legs, lower back, and shoulders.

Without a word he complied, and let her work her will on the front of his legs and abdomen, careful to keep the towel positioned in his midriff.

Although inevitably the towel betrayed him.

“Did I miss anything?” Amelie asked coyly.

“You missed the main attraction,” Cody responded. “And you know exactly what you’re doing.”

Her laugh only ignited the heat between them.

“Lose the towel,” she said, “and join me in the sauna.”

And he did.?

She was in his lap facing him. He was inside her. They sat unmoving, staring deep into each other’s eyes.

Always look at the creature who looks at you, he remembered. The doorway to the truth is in the eyes. Listen.

Finally, when she began to move, they moved together as though they had been moving together all their lives. They made love slowly and thoroughly, and Cody flashed back to that sweat house he entered as a young man before embarking on his walk-out.

It was nothing like this.

She reached up and undid his ponytail, so that his long hair fell down to envelop them both.

“How did you know I needed this?” he said.

She chuckled as she reached her third orgasm. “I could tell from the way you danced with me,” she said. “Now go out there and catch the bad guys. But do me one more favor.”

His eyebrows went up. “Another favor?”

“Come back,” she said, looking him again in the eyes.?

The all-forgiving Charley by his side again, a fully-empowered Cody quickly drove the SUV down Fifth to E. 59 ^ th Street, and was now parked across from Hamilton’s building, settled back to stake out the lobby which was the only way out of the structure.

A handful of residents left the building, the only one Cody recognized being the wealthy composer Paul Ketty, tall, full head of black hair, in the company of his two matching Corgis. The doorman’s smile at Ketty told the detective he treated him handsomely at holiday time.

It was ten-thirty. He’d been sitting here for over an hour-an hour he could have spent with Amelie in the sauna.

He used the time to reflect on the Androg case. Trust your head…The answers will be there. The only one he’d shared his theory with was Wolfsheim, who had reported back that Hamilton had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer two years ago.

“How did you find out?” Cody had asked.

“No questions asked, remember?” had been Wolfsheim’s response.

“How long does he have at this point?” asked Cody.

“Months at best, more likely weeks. And here’s something: He’s refused all treatment.”

In a radical departure from his customary procedure, he’d placed Wolfsheim in command for the night shift tonight.

Wolfie hadn’t said much about Cody’s hunch by way of approbation, but he hadn’t denied the possibilities as Cody outlined them either. “Watch your ass, Chief,” was all he said.

“Don’t worry about my ass,” he replied.?

Freshened up from his visit to Jake Sallinger, Hamilton walked back out the double doors at eleven forty-five. Tonight he was not wearing his usual frumpy white suit. He was wearing a red devil’s costume and, indeed, smiled devilishly at the doorman as he stalked away into the night toward Fifth Avenue.

Cody noticed two other details.

Once Hamilton’s back was turned, the doorman flipped him the finger.

And the asshole was carrying, slung on his shoulder, what Cody recognized as a Flambeau crossbow case.

Cody realized Hamilton was heading northwest toward Central Park, the place that, on this one night, was filled with not only the extraordinary beasts of prey that populated Manhattan but also ordinary citizens acting out their fantasies that would, had they been real, have turned the metropolis into a nonstop nightmare.

Maintaining a safe distance, Cody “walked” his white German shepherd among the crazy-costumed Halloweeners making their way from one bar to another. He wondered where Hamilton’s consort Victoria was. Was Hamilton en route to a rendezvous with her?

The detective knew he was facing his ultimate challenge, the very reason that had led him to become a cop and felt deep in his bones that it was his destiny had led him to this night.

He was ready.

The crowd in front of the Plaza Hotel was so thick that for a moment, Cody lost sight of his quarry on Central Park South.

And Charley lost the scent in the onslaught of horse manure from the lined-up tourist carriages.

But it wasn’t long before Charley got them back on track, picking up the man’s scent again on the north side of CPS. Cody had to race to keep up with the big shepherd, who was leading him to the entrance to the Park that Hamilton had chosen.?

The moment they entered the Park, he heard the call.

“Oo-oo-whoee,” the owl cried twice.

It will rain. Soon.

Cody could smell rain in the air. He glanced at the sky. Storm clouds were indeed gathering.

They were now walking alongside the Pond, the dilapidated fence around it marred by jagged gaps because the city couldn’t afford to keep it in repair. At its northwest branch, they lost sight of Hamilton again.

As Charley sniffed back and forth at the fence, bewildered, Cody squatted down to figure out how Hamilton had disappeared before their eyes.

If you are not sure which trail to take, think about who you are. Think of it as a crossroads with four directions. Maybe a creature will talk to you.

High in the air above him, the peregrine falcon issued a screech, and Cody looked up and listened, seeming to understand. “Listen with your eyes,” he repeated Old Man’s words from his boyhood-the words that had led to his career as the most successful detective in New York.

“Thank you, brother falcon,” he said.

Then he felt Charley pulling at the leash, wanting to go through the gap in the fence.

The falcon shrieked again, and Charley pulled all the harder.

The creatures talk to each other, Cody remembered, his eyes continuing to scan every inch of the terrain.

Then he saw them.

They were tucked beneath a low-lying bush: Hamilton’s highly-polished black shoes. The writer had crossed the wire fence, left his shoes where they would stay dry, then continued to skirt the circumference in his stocking feet.

Cody knelt to study the footprints in the nearly-dried mud. He brushed the leaves away from the faint tracks.

His pulse quickened as he spotted the miniscule green fiber left behind in one of the prints.

Hamilton wasn’t in stocking feet; he was wearing surgical booties stolen from the Bellevue supply closet where Kate and Rizzo found the body of Dr. Song Wiley.

Now Charley was on the hunt in earnest, heading north to the end of the Pond.

Suddenly the wolves howling from the zoo added eeriness to the dark night that was filled with the shadows of Halloween revelers haunting the Park in all directions. They are telling us we’re on the right track, Cody thought.

Cody’s eyes picked up Hamilton’s faint footprints as they turned into a narrow path into the heavy brush.

Charley was barking, and nothing Cody could do would stop him until he was satisfied Cody got his message.

Another set of footsteps, these significantly shorter and smaller, mixed with Hamilton’s. Cody’s hunch was right. Victoria had arrived in the Park to join her lover. Tonight would be two for the price of one.

Somehow Cody could interpret Charley’s excited low growl to mean that his sensitive nose had picked up this second scent before. It would have to be the same scent he’d followed to La Venezia’s parking lot on the morning after Uncle Tony’s murder.

Charley stopped barking and looked at Cody to follow.

Cody’s eyes listened to the footsteps.

The larger ones were slightly fresher than the smaller. The woman’s prints were firmly set, and dryer; whereas minute water bubbles were still seeping into the man’s.

The two people whose trail he and Charley were following were not walking together.

Ward Lee Hamilton was tailing Victoria Mansfield, the larger prints trailing behind the smaller.

Judging from the prints, about eighty feet behind. Stalking her!

There was no longer a single doubt in Cody’s mind that Androg had been the two of them, working together.

And that now their deadly game had turned into a final stalking contest in Central Park!

The detective well knew the TAZ procedures. After all, he had written them.

He knew he should call for backup.

He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket.

And turned it off.

Because the warrior also recognized that this was personal.

The murders had been orchestrated specifically to test him.?

As they moved from the bushy terrain into a tiny clearing Charley’s barking reached a new peak of intensity.

From the east and uptown, the wolves howled in response.

Cody studied the ground until he saw what they were telling him.

The tracks were diverging. Ward was no longer following Victoria. His moved off to the right as hers continued to the left.

What did that tell him?

He stood still for a moment, breathing in the sensations of the night-the distant cacophony of traffic, the slight rustle of leaves, the earthy smell of foliage greeting ozone-allowing his instincts to sharpen.

He made his decision.

He followed the woman’s tracks, careful to keep eyes in back of his head as he moved forward. If he was flanking his lover, Cody would encounter them both at the ambush.

Or be lured into a pincer trap.

A surprise is not a surprise if you know about it in advance.

Cody thought of signaling Larry Simon for backup, but, once again, left his phone in his pocket.

He would finish this alone.

For this game of stalking was meant to involve him as well as them.

If he was right about Androg’s m.o., Number One was Raymond Handley, not Melinda Cramer; she was nothing more than practice. Androg’s numbering system was meant to be sequential, an Unholy Week of Death. Number Two was Uncle Tony, Number Three Steamroller Jackson, Number Four Song Wiley, and Numbers Five, Six, and Seven? Well, Cody himself would probably count for one of them in Androg’s demented calculus that, like it or not, Androg had involved him in.

The next victim could be Cody, or one of them. He reached inside his pocket and ran his finger along the edge of his knife. It was razor sharp. A dull knife’s about as a good as a broken leg.

Sometimes the hunter is better served by waiting than by chasing.

But who was the hunter here?

Was Hamilton waiting, waiting for his prey, expecting him-or his lover-to follow. Expecting them to walk into his trap?

The tracks had been almost too clear, too easy.

Maybe he was the cheese in the trap, and Hamilton was circling behind him-stalking into the mouth of death?

Both bent on making Cody Number Five.

He was confusing himself, forced himself to stop thinking. To see, hear, smell, taste, touch-nothing else.

Victoria’s tracks led to an opening burrowed beneath an arcing tupelo about ten yards away.

He waited. Listened. Reached his hand out to touch the oak’s dry bark which was thirstily enjoying the winter rain.

Patience is the virtue of the hunter.

He waited while above him storm clouds continued to gather. Though it must be near dawn by now, it was getting even darker.

A massive jagged flash of lightning was followed by a loud crack of thunder so close it startled even the flapless Cody. He was sure it must have hit a tree nearby.

But he kept his focus on the hole. Perhaps the rabbit had left her house? Perhaps he was wasting his time. But his instincts told him the rabbit was waiting patiently for the fox. If he waited, he would catch them both.

Then he heard a sound.

The rabbit peered over the edge of the hole. Victoria looked around, stuck her head up a little farther. He could see her now clearly above the hole.

He waited. A minute, two minutes passed. Then the woman rose up just a little farther, and he could see the flash of bright satin red from her costume as she crawled out on her hands and knees.

Was she another devil?

And stood up.

But then why was her right breast bare?

She reached for her quiver, and Cody pulled his hunting knife.

The wolf howled soulfully, as though it were not far off. She and Cody both reacted.

In the same instant, they both heard the subtler sound as the arrow whirred toward its target.

Victoria turned her head sharply.

But she was too late.

Hamilton’s arrow had already found its mark. It pierced his lover’s neck, pinning her to the ground at the edge of the hole.

Marking the direction from which the arrow originated, Cody rushed forward.

He had no doubt it was Victoria, her face pressed into the damp earth.

The arrow was embedded up to its shaft in the back of her neck-an almost superhumanly perfect shot, between the occiput and C-1, cleanly severing the spinal cord. Cleanly transecting the heart-shaped tattoo.

Cody did not expect to find a pulse, and in fact did not.

Victoria Mansfield had died instantly. She was Number Five!

He thought of turning her over, but knew that he’d never hear the end of it from Wolfsheim-or Kate, for that matter-for disturbing the victim’s body. He could see from the side that the nipple on her exposed perfect breast was hard as a pebble.

And that the costume she was wearing was not that of a devil after all, but more likely that of an Amazon. That would explain the exposed breast.

The perfect evening wear for death by archery.

The arrow could only have issued from a cross-bow like the one he found next to her body. She had been lying in wait-for Ward Hamilton? Or for him?

Cody noted that the flap button on the woman’s sheaf was opened. She was about to reach for an arrow of her own-too late-when she was struck. Cause of death: Slashing/stabbing/puncturing with a sharp instrument?

Or did Hamilton’s arrow only conceal another mechanism of death?

Exactly what kind of satanic game was this he’d found himself in the middle of?

Cody had concluded that the socialite and the writer were just a pair of self-infatuated lovebirds, their own dual species of creatures of the night.

Now it appeared what they had constructed was an autoerotic euthanasia pact.?

He trotted toward where he’d marked Hamilton’s ambush position through the thick brush-deeper into the unforgiving wilderness in the darkest heart of this untamed city.

He came to the cold stream that fed the Pond.

Listen. Sometimes when you are alone it is okay to think about what has gone before. In your life, I mean. To understand why the past has become the present. Sometimes it is okay to think about where the trail will lead you, and why you are following it at all. Old Man’s words haunted him.

But Cody was too focused for further reflection. Tonight he was hunting in earnest, hunting for a hunter who enjoyed the hunt.

He followed the invisible trail, the only clues instinct alone. Ahead of him he could hear a waterfall, and moved faster through the trees. His instincts led him downward, into a small ravine. His night vision was sharper than ever, no need for infrared.

It was beginning to rain.

He would have to find a decent shelter. A cave, perhaps, to keep the weather at bay.

Any tracks he might have detected were now disappeared with the rain.

Charley was whimpering. Charley didn’t like the rain. It rendered his prodigious nose impotent.

Counter-intuitively, Cody decided to follow the stream farther down the hill. His eyes moved constantly in the darkness as he trotted through the woods. Always walk an inch off the ground so nothing will hear you.

Charley barked, his whine becoming eager again. He pulled Cody toward the stream, which was at this point barely three feet wide. They both leaped across, Charley returning his nose to the ground.

Cody knelt down to inspect the rock. No footprints, but a tiny fiber caught in a fissure so small only a nose like Charley’s could have found it. A blue-green fiber.

Barely visible, beneath a fallen elm a few yards away, he saw where Charley was heading. Nearly concealed by the elm and the surrounding brush, was an opening under an overhang.

It was the entrance to a cave. Charley made a bee-line for it, but Cody held him back.

He pulled his knife out. And signaled Charley for silence.

Listen. Patience is the virtue of the hunter.

There was a rumble of thunder. Cody watched the cave opening. Perhaps Charley was wrong. But Charley strained at his leash, not to be dissuaded.

In the distance, the wolves resumed their warning howls.

Charley responded with a low howl of his own. When Cody moved toward the entrance, Charley held his ground. He had mistaken the shepherd’s signals as urging him to go in. Instead, Charley was trying to keep him back, trying to protect him from what lay in wait inside the cave.

But the warrior would not be deterred. “Stay,” he commanded.

Charley whined in protest, but obeyed his master, hunkering down to wait beneath the sheltering tree.?

The opening was small but large enough to crawl through. On his hands and knees, he entered the cave. He looked in, sniffing the stagnant air.

Once he’d cleared the entrance, he found the cave enlarged. It was almost tall enough to stand, so Cody moved to a half-upright crouch as he headed forward into the pitch darkness.

The odor was feral, but the cave was too dark even for his sharp eyes. He sniffed the air again. Was it fur? A fox perhaps? Was he intruding on its domain?

The cave was long and Cody was walking into its inky recesses blind, and even more vulnerable because he was backlit by a distant light in the Park.

But his steps on the slippery stone pavement were firm, instincts strong enough to tell him he was not alone.

He was aware he was being watched. An overwhelming sense of evil washed over him, and Cody walked toward the presence as though under its control.

Then his nose identified the smell. It was perspiration, mixed with an expensive cologne. He flashed back to the Ladies Auxiliary Ball, recalling where he had smelled it before.

A bolt of lightning startled him and cast a blue glow through the cave opening. His ears ringing from the crack of thunder, Cody was startled to hear the hesitation in his voice. “Hamilton?”

By answer Cody heard the feathery whisper of his death flying toward him. His mouth dried up.?

Before he could duck, the arrow had missed him by an inch.

Cody immediately realized that this was intentional.

He heard the writer’s ghastly laughter.

“Woops. Missed!” Hamilton emerged from the depths, eerily illuminated with a hellish orange light. He was carrying a child’s flash light shaped like a jack o’lantern.

“Detective Cody,” Hamilton said. “We have got to stop meeting like this. One would think you were stalking me.” The outlandish laughter again.

“You missed me on purpose,” Cody said. “Cliche or not, you’re a writer. You need to talk.”

This time the laugh was more like a cackle.

“You killed your lover!”

“Oh, don’t fret your handsome head about her. It was instantaneous. I couldn’t bear for her to suffer. She doesn’t want to live without me, you know. Fiercely loyal to the last.”

“She was the vampire woman in red at the Yellow Door,” Cody said.

Hamilton nodded. “Good, Micky. Now you’re thinking. She met Handley there to pick up the key and to make sure she passed muster. He was picky about his illicit rendezvouses.”

“Why Handley? Why did you pick him?”

“The town will read all about him and his sister when they find my masterpiece on Number Five’s body.”

“His sister? What do you mean, Number Five? Isn’t Victoria Number Five?”

“Read the article.” Hamilton’s life was indeed diabolical.

“Melinda Cramer was Handley’s sister, wasn’t she? The DNA match I ordered will come back positive.” He read the slightest wrinkle of Hamilton’s eyebrows as a confirmation.

“Stop the cat and mouse,” Cody said. “I know you’re going to tell me who Number Five is.”

“Jake Sallinger, my erstwhile editor at Metro,” Hamilton answered in a coy tone. “By now your boys have found his body-and my article. Alas, this is one piece I’ve written that the bastard won’t get to mark up with his illegible scrawl. They’ll decide to run it, of course, after a perfunctory wringing of their limousine liberal consciences.”

“What about Handley’s sister?” Cody pressed. “Why did you go after the two of them?”

“Victoria was right. You aren’t that good, are you? You’re a good clue man, but you stink at research. Read the article.”

“So thanks to your marksmanship, Victoria became Number Six…”

“She wanted to be the one to do you,” Hamilton said. “She always told me I get all the luck. I only wish I could have fucked with you a little more,” he added, “for all the aggravation and delays your reluctant cooperation caused me.”

“Your luck has run out, Ward.” Cody reached for the cuffs in his jacket pocket.

But his hand never got there.

Distracting the detective’s attention with the plastic lantern, Hamilton’s free hand had concealed something behind his back.

A distinctly marine odor made Cody cry out. He moved to block the man but was too late.

With a single fluid motion Hamilton lurched at him, using the arrow as a hand-held weapon, and stabbed him savagely in the leg, puncturing his pants behind and two inches above his knee.

Then he compounded the wound by yanking it back out.

Saxitoxin. Cody’s brain identified the odor, recognizing it from one of Max’s forensic pathology demonstrations. He broke into a sweat. The marine secretion was neurotoxic to mammals and caused a respiratory paralysis known as paralytic shellfish poisoning.

“Which leaves you,” Hamilton said, “as the very probable Number Seven. Though, of course, I always believe in backups.” There was the coy tone again. “Either way, I win, you lose.” His voice now sounded like a hissing snake.

Then, howling in ghoulish laughter, Hamilton watched Cody fall to his knees.

The detective lost control over his legs.

Echoing from outside the cave was Charley’s angry howl, backed by the distant chorus of the wolves.

“I’m not sure your canine pals can help you now,” Hamilton said, shoving Cody’s back against the wall of the cave and pulling his legs in front of him.

“Sit up! Sit up! That’s a good boy,” Hamilton chuckled-and disappeared into the darkness from which he came.

There must be another entrance was what Cody thought as the numbness rose through his midriff.?

Cody could think of only one thing: The poison’s effects would progress upward, finally paralyzing his heart. He must cut the toxin from his body while he could still use his arms.

His fear was replaced almost immediately by action. He remembered the words of Old Man.

Do not panic or you will die. Be calm but do not hesitate. Move slow like the possum, but do not waver. Do what you must do before the sleep comes.

Charley rushed onto the scene, yapping mournfully. Fending the dog away with one arm, Cody moved resolutely but in slow motion, using his hunting knife to slice open his pants and expose the puncture wound that was already reddening and beginning to swell.

Unflinching, he leaned over, cut a v-shaped incision an inch deep, and scooped the flesh away with the sharp blade. He could smell the venom as he discarded the scoop of bleeding flesh, and sliced two long strips of cloth from his pants. His teeth began to chatter. Pain overwhelmed him. His thoughts were a jumble of images flashing through his head:

Amelie’s face as he entered her in the sauna.

Handley in his death seat.

A shaft of blue sunlight.

The rattlesnake striking in the cave.

Uncle Tony’s frozen rictus.

His Pa vomiting in the bathroom.

The beautiful Song Wiley, serene in death.

The white wolf pointing him the way.

Hamilton’s infernal sneer.

Drawing on his last strength, he leaned forward to suck the venom from the wound. But the angle was impossible even for an agile man. No matter how he tried it, he simply wasn’t flexible enough to reach beneath and above his knee.

Reading his master’s dilemma, the shepherd’s lifesaving instincts instantly took over.

Cody’s heart jumped. “No, Charley,” he grunted from his near-delirium. But it was too late.

His faithful sidekick, whose life Cody had saved long ago, was settled on his haunches beside Ka-Wan’s leg, his rough tongue licking at the wound as though attacking one of Waldo’s bones, aggressively sucking the venom from it.

Never give up hope. Hope is a test. When you think all is lost, an answer will come to you. A solution will be found. A gift from the Creator?

It was working.

Though Cody was beginning to shake, and the pain that numbed his lower legs was intense, the numbness was not climbing higher. He looked straight into Charley’s eyes. The flashing download of thoughts slowed. He began a nimiipuutimpt chant to himself, slowing the words, lowering them deep in his throat.

He felt himself recovering, felt the blood flowing in his legs again.

Charley finished his licking. He stood up, stretched his legs and shook himself. He staggered across the cavern floor, looked back at Cody, put his head back and howled, a single, sustained, note.

A few seconds passed and, off in the distance, his song was answered with the same call.

Then Charley crumpled at his master’s feet.

Helplessly Cody watched the fire flicker out of his canine friend’s eyes until they were flat and cold and still.

Charley had taken Number Seven for himself.

The howl from the outside came again, this time mournful, echoing the sorrow Cody was experiencing.

Quickly Cody did his best to bind his wound with the strips he’d sliced from his pants. Reaching down to place his hand on Charley’s head, Cody held back his tears and stumbled after Androg.?

The far exit of the cave opened into a clearing in the woods. As Cody left the shelter, a flash of lightning made it clear that the clearing was empty. But his eyes instantly spotted Hamilton’s wet tracks, moving north.

Wincing at the pain of his cut leg and wobbly from the temporary paralysis, he followed the tracks till they entered the woods on the far side of the cave clearing.

Then lost all signs in the bramble bushes. Cody ducked and wove his way through, checking every inch for clues of passage. But without Charley along and his prodigious sense of smell, he was coming up empty-handed.

He’d gone half a mile when he stopped, squatting down behind a pin oak. He studied a bare circle of earth in front of him where the bushes had died out from what looked to have been a quickly-contained brush fire.

On one side was a mini-cliff, a sheer granite face dropping ten feet. If his night-vision had not been so keen he might have tumbled to his death.

Above the cliff were more tracks.

He needed to catch his breath anyway so he forced himself to be patient, studying the tracks for direction and estimating they were no older than a few minutes.

Where was Hamilton going? What kind of merry chase was his demented psyche leading him on?

Cautiously he stood up and, careful to avoid the precipice, walked across the bare circle back into the brush on the far side.

The bramble abruptly ended. A branch of the meadow was on the other side, and he could see the tracks clearly again. He was feeling stronger by the minute.?

The howls came again, answered from the direction of the zoo. It was as though one of the wolves had broken free and the other was still in Dave’s compound.

The animals were speaking to him, though he couldn’t imagine how they knew where he was. The wound in his leg throbbed to remind him. Of course, they can smell my blood. He could see it was bleeding through the makeshift tourniquet.

He howled back.

And then, limping along, he navigated between their responses, as though they were his own personal GPS system, until he knew he was closing in on Androg.

Back across the meadow, back through the brambles-as the howling from both sides warned him he was almost upon his quarry.

Back to the bare circle above the cliff in the midst of the tangled brush-that was no longer empty.

The howling ceased.

Oblivious to the rain, Wade Hamilton was waiting for him, leaning against an oak tree. A flash of light illuminated the red-suited devil.

“I was going to give you another minute,” the man said in a voice that no longer sounded even remotely human. The smile he flashed at Cody was a blood-curdling glimpse into the heart of darkness. “Can’t get enough of me, hunh?” he taunted. “I thought I’d made you Number Seven back at the cave. So I guess that number is still up for grabs.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Cody said. “You killed my dog.”

“Yeah, I’m a real prick,” Hamilton said. “I figured the faithful sniffer was your only shot, but it was a helluva long shot. I congratulate you. I hate dogs.”

“You also killed your favorite Amazon.”

Hamilton shrugged. “I’m not surprised you’re not more observant. I always thought your investigatory skills were wildly exaggerated by the fawning press. She wasn’t an Amazon, dear boy, she was dressed as my private Cupid. Designed the costume herself, especially for tonight.”

“You’re under arrest,” Cody said. “You have the right to remain silent-“

Hamilton’s demonic laughter overrode Cody’s attempt to Mirandize him. “There’ll be plenty of time for silence later,” he scoffed.

Then, in a torrent of words, he rushed on to boast about Androg’s murderous exploits.

He confirmed that the original idea was for it to be a contest between them. The survivor would get to kill the ace detective-or be killed by him. Hamilton shook his head. “I’d planned it from the beginning that I would get her before she could get me. If you want something done right, better do it yourself.”

Cody had lost track of the madman’s logic but saw there were now actual tears in Hamilton’s eyes.

The writer stared at him and held out an arrow. “Turns out, I don’t have the heart to live without her either,” he said. “Please.”

“Well, I’m not about to do you any honors,” Cody said. This criminal egomaniac man needed one way or another to pay for the lives he’d taken, starting with Charley’s. “I’m taking you in.”

“Are you indeed?”

This time Cody was ready. Before Hamilton could move his hand toward his bow, the hunting knife was in flight.

Its aim dead-on, the sharp knife pierced through the palm of Hamilton’s hand and pinned it squarely to the oak.

As Cody reached for his cuffs, Hamilton howled in pain and, with his free hand, yanked the knife free. This time the sound he emitted was more like the savage grunt of a wounded bear.

Grimacing through his pain, Hamilton brandished the knife at Cody. “Want it back?” he asked, his hand dripping blood.

In a lightning move Cody whipped the cuffs toward the writer’s knife hand, causing him to wince and howl with pain as the metal connected with his wrist. Then Cody pulled the chain forward, wrenching the knife free.

It fell to the soggy ground and Hamilton bent to retrieve it.

But not before Cody made his move, head-butting him and knocking him backward.

Still reaching for the knife, Hamilton fell on his face with a grunt.

Cody kicked the knife five yards farther into the tiny clearing. Then he turned back to the supine writer, and grabbed his left hand to cuff it.

He’d managed to click shut the cuff when Hamilton, with preternatural strength, reached for Cody’s belt with his right hand and pulled himself to his feet.

He spit in Cody’s face.

Hamilton spun his body and managed to let loose a roundhouse that caught the detective square in the solar plexus.

Caught off guard, Cody doubled over with the pain and surprise of the blow.

But only for a moment.

Grabbing hold of the cuffs he wrenched with all his strength and turned Hamilton back around so his back was toward him.

Hamilton was ready for this, reached back to catch Cody’s butt, and flipped him over himself like a circus act.

Cody landed on his feet, gnashing his teeth from the pain from his wound.

Hamilton attacked, raining blows first into Cody’s abdomen then concentrating his fury on Cody’s wounded thigh.

Cody, holding on, turned Hamilton’s strength against him. He allowed himself to be backed up, inch at a time. He could hear the crack as his elbow broke one of Hamilton’s ribs.

Bellowing, Hamilton charged again-and the two men plummeted together from the cliff.

This time the surprise was Hamilton’s, and Cody had the advantage as he twisted the writer’s heavier torso so that he landed on his back-knocking the air from his lungs-but cushioning Cody’s fall on top of him.

Which further took away the killer’s breath.

As Hamilton lay gasping, Cody moved to grab the writer’s right arm and force his hand into the remaining cuff.

But Hamilton, despite his pain, was too fast. With a heroic contortion, he grabbed an arrow from his quiver and wielded it at Cody, causing the detective to roll off and keep his distance.

Before Cody could stop him, Hamilton placed the tip of the arrow into his mouth and sucked on it.

“You don’t think I’m giving you the last laugh?” he gasped. Then he stabbed himself in the side.

Well, Cody thought, in its own bizarre way, this was classic “depression phase,” the last of the serial killer’s psychological phases as defined by psychologist Joel Norris. He watched Ward Lee Hamilton’s paroxysms, making no effort to come to his assistance.

This time the howl was only yards away, making the hair on Cody’s arms stand up. But he was weyekin. He understood the language of animals.

This time it was a welcome howl.

Cody waited for the man’s paroxysms to end before he reached for his cell phone.

That was when he saw the wolf.

41

Thursday, November 1

Brother Wolf sat and watched, bemused. Then he looked up at the moon, then back at Cody and growled. Not a threatening growl, but stern.

The alpha male was crouching on its forelegs, snarling at the strangely-garbed man whose death throes he had just witnessed. When Hamilton’s paroxysms ended, and he was no longer a threat, the wolf acknowledged Cody, who used the weyekin language to thank it for its concern.

“Hey, boy,” Cody asked, “How the hell did you get out?”

“He jumped the fence,” came the voice of Dave Runningfox, as he ran into the tiny clearing beneath the cliff.

“Jesus, Dave. What the hell’s going on?”

“One might ask you the same thing. You look like you’ve just boxed with the devil.”

“I have.”

Dave’s eyebrows rose as he stared at Hamilton’s red-clad body. “The alpha was howling for you. I couldn’t shut him up-not even with that extra bone you left the other night.”

Cody was squatting next to the animal, which seemed subdued now that he saw Cody was not in danger. “Well, he’s obviously fully recuperated,” he said. Cody nodded for Frank to use the tranquilizer gun on the wolf so he could be transported back safely to the zoo.

As the alpha male slumped into unconsciousness, Cody looked at Dave. “They got Charley,” he whispered.

“Yeah, I know. The alpha led me to him. He’s already in my van.”?

En route to the morgue, Cody phoned Amelie to tell her that he was okay, but he had lost Charley.

“I am so sorry,” she stammered, knowing that anything she could say would be inadequate. “I know you loved him.”

And Cody realized he loved this woman too.

Bergman, Wolfsheim, and Annie were waiting for him, along with the corpses of the Androg duo that had just been positioned on the examining tables.

Ward Hamilton’s badly bruised body was further distinguished only by its enormous post-mortem erection.

Later, Wolfsheim would confirm that the writer’s brain was indeed riddled with cancer. “I’d have given him no more than two months to live, at most,” he judged.

Bergman had immediately identified Victoria’s perfume as the one worn by the woman in red who’d passed his table Friday night at La Venezia-two hours before Uncle Tony’s murder. He’d verified from an eyewitness that the heartless bitch had a limousine wait for her in the parking lot while she did her work inside.

Calling for a check on Jake Sallinger’s whereabouts, Larry reported that NYPD responded to an anonymous 9-1-1 call and discovered the editor’s body a few hours ago. TAZ had been informed immediately, and Rizzo and DeMarco were at the scene at Sallinger’s apartment.

An hour after the autopsies were concluded the hastily-assembled TAZ staff tried to make sense of the matrix of deaths caused by the autoerotic duo, as projected on the wall by Larry Simon:

MELINDA CRAMER Victim: 0(?) — practice run? Appearance: blunt trauma/suicide — fall from balcony Mechanism: asphyxiation Cause Of Death: suffocation — plastic bag over head

RAYMOND HANDLEY Victim: 1 Appearance: slashed throat/alcohol amp; drugs — throat slashed after death Mechanism: brain damageaheart attack — blood drained, blood pressure drop combined with Yohimbe/nitro and oral sex Cause Of Death: puncture wound — to insert I.V. for exsanguination

UNCLE TONY Victim: 2 Appearance: thermal-freezing to death — wine bottle amp; glass at foot of chair Mechanism: asphyxiation Cause Of Death: drowning — in red wine and water

STEAMROLLER JACKSON Victim: 3 Appearance: heart attack caused by drugs/alcohol overdose — empty bottle of Chivas nearby Mechanism: arrhythmia from electrical shocks, leading to heart arrest — Taser pressed against his side until heart arrest Cause Of Death: electrical/thermal — Taser caused fatal ventricular tachyarrhythmia

SONG Victim: 4 Appearance: poison — cyanide found on lips from contaminated Excedrin Mechanism: massive brain damage — gunshot entry wound discovered on back of skull Cause Of Death: gunshot wound — with ice bullet

JAKE SALLINGER Victim: 5 Appearance: asphyxiation — inhaling powder led to paroxysm after which death came from hitting head against towel rack as he fell. Mechanism: massive brain damage — inhaling veratrum album (sneezing powder) led to paroxysm during which he was bludgeoned repeatedly against the towel rack Cause Of Death: blunt trauma — found in pool of blood where he died from massive hemorrhaging as his head repeatedly hit against towel rack

VICTORIA MANSFIELD Victim: 6 Appearance: cutting/stabbing puncture wound in spinal column Mechanism: arrow severs spinal cord — leads to paralysis, but heart attack caused by poison Cause Of Death: poison on tip of arrow — led to heart attack in about ten seconds

WARD HAMILTON Victim: 7 (?) Appearance: arrow through heart Mechanism: massive heart damage Cause Of Death: stabbing and poison — sucked on arrow head before stabbing himself with it

Next to this chart was juxtaposed “Wolf’s Seven Ways,” the simpler list made previously by Vinnie. Simon had scrawled, “7 Ways in 7 Days?” sideways across the new chart.

But Cody was frowning. Something was wrong with this picture, and at first he couldn’t put his finger on it. Hamilton was a perfectionist, and Cody’s instinct told him he wasn’t through with him yet.?

Wolfsheim came in from the morgue, grabbed the cup of coffee DeMarco handed him, then sat down to quietly contemplate the charts and the list, mentally checking off the orchestrated murders one by one.

Then he frowned too. “You’d think someone might have considered checking this list with the coroner on call,” he gruffly remarked.

Cody suddenly recognized what was wrong. Simon listed “suffocation” and “drowning.” But, Wolfie pointed out, they were one and the same “way,” known generically as “asphyxiation.” And Hamilton was playing word games with “Number Six” back in the cave, something about a “backup.”

Wolfsheim took another sip of coffee, then reached into his grip and held it up: “the Murder Book,” as he called it, the dog-eared and ragged handbook used by every coroner worth his salt. He lost no time beginning his lecture.

The missing “seventh way” was one that all the pathology books, including this one, argued over. It was generally called “catastrophic” or “mass disaster”-an event involving multiple victims whose wounds were so massive and varied that it was difficult to separate them; an event like an airplane or train crash, or an explosion, in which death occurred by fire, blunt trauma, and/or piercing from flying debris.

The category had been overlooked by Vinnie and Simon because TAZ normally focused on singular acts of violence, not on disastrous events of that scale.

Cody flashed to the doorman’s gesture as Hamilton exited his co-op building last night at 11:45.

He exchanged glances with Wolfsheim. Then he thought of something else. “Where was I last night?” Cody asked.

“You were out dancing, Captain,” Vinnie answered immediately, keeping a straight face.

Cody rummaged through his wallet, and pulled out Patricia Roberts’ business card and handed it to Vinnie. “Find out where this woman is right now.”

Only a few minutes passed before Vinnie returned from his desk to report that Roberts hadn’t shown up for work at her P.R. firm yesterday morning. Her employees said it wasn’t “like her” not to even let them know she wasn’t coming in. They’d been unable to reach her by phone all day.?

Calling in advance to warn the Seventh Precinct, within minutes TAZ had descended in full force on Hamilton’s E. 59 ^ th Street residence. The Precinct had already staked out the perimeter; it was, fortunately, headquartered on the very next block. This time Cody saw the yellow ribbons with approval, and was also pleased to see that the Special Demolition Unit had just arrived on the scene, its Mark V, an 800-pound robot the size of a riding lawn mower, being rolled down its ramp from the armored truck.

“Who’s in the apartment?” Cody asked the Precinct officer in charge.

“We don’t know,” the officer replied. “When we picked up the clicking sound from the hall, we waited for you as you requested.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “That was a trick question.”

The officer stared at him without comment.

Another officer escorted the super to Cody, and Cody reassured the nervous Russian that they needed his immediate action and cooperation. “This is an emergency. You have three minutes to get all the residents out of the building and onto the street.”

The man’s shocked look quickly gave way to the New York sangfroid and suspicion. “What is-“

“You’ll need to open up the penthouse for us,” Cody interrupted.

“Do you have a warrant?” the super ventured.

“No, but we do have a battering ram,” Cody said. “Your choice.”

“Just had to ask,” the super shrugged. “Give me a minute to find a key.”

“We don’t have a minute to spare,” Cody retorted.

As the man walked away, the Transit Bureau K-9 detail showed up with a sniffer.

Seeing the jet black German shepherd straining at his leash, Cody had to look away.

“His name is Nero,” the K-9 officer said.

Vinnie took out Patricia’s card, and handed it to the officer.

“Here, boy,” the dog officer said, offering the business card to the eager canine’s nose. “Here’s your target.”?

A heartbeat after the elevator doors opened, Nero barked twice.

“That was fast,” Cody said.

“It’s not that,” the officer said. “That double-bark means explosives.”

The building’s alarm siren sounded, squawking the warning to residents to evacuate. There were no other doors on the penthouse floor. Cody could only hope the co-op owners weren’t so jaded by false alarms after 9/11 that they would ignore the alarm.

Nero, unfazed by the raucous squawking, led them directly to the front door of the penthouse, passing by the janitorial closet and the service entrance without a glance.

He pawed at the front door, and growled, looking at the five men escorting him as if to say, “Your move! My work here is done.”

Cody called for the Mark V to be sent up. Then he signaled for the K-9 officer to take Nero and the super to safety, took the pass key and moved his hand toward the double lock.

“Aren’t you going to wait?” Bergman said, eyeing the door warily.

Cody shook his head. “It won’t be the door,” he said. “These two were exhibitionists. That’s one thing I understand about them. They’d want us to see the stage they’ve set first.”

All the lights in the luxury penthouse were on. But the two detectives could discern at a glance that the main room was empty of anything unusual. The ticking sound emanated from the door to the right of the large room.

“You do the honors,” Cody said, gesturing for Bergman to record their entrance as he himself had done Saturday morning at La Venezia.

Bergman nodded, and took out the digital recorder while Cody moved to the picture window and glanced down at the street where he could see the residents filing out beneath the canopy in various states of disarray. He signaled to Bergman to get started.

“It’s Thursday, November 1 ^ st,” he began, “and we’ve entered the penthouse of the late Ward Hamilton…”?

They found Patricia in the barber’s chair, nude, bound, and gagged with a lacy brassiere. Her eyes shouted her relief as she saw the detectives, without a thought for her nakedness. Cody removed his windbreaker and positioned it across the woman’s body as he squatted to examine the device beneath the chair.

“We’ll get you out of here in a sec,” he said to the grateful publicist, whose chest was still heaving with fear.

The bomb squad officer gestured for Cody to step back, but not before the Captain could see the device’s timer counting down from 00:03:00. The demolitions guy saw it too. “We don’t have time to fuck around here,” he said.

Cody was busy freeing Patricia legs.

The bomb-exploding robot rolled through the door.

Its keeper, an East Indian officer in full Hazmat gear whose badge read Krishna Daipur, read the situation at a glance and opened his olive-green notebook. “Disarm or contain?”

“Contain! No time to disarm!”

“Very well, sir,” the Officer Daipur said. “But there can be no certainty of successful containment…”

“Just do what you have to do,” Bergman ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Daipur said, dropping his helmet mask into place.

Once Cody untied the bra from her mouth, Patricia Robert, the only survivor of the diabolical Ward Hamilton and Victoria Mansfield, would not stop screaming.

“Get her out of here,” Cody told Bergman. “Now!”

Bergman already had the terrified woman by the arm and was rushing her to the door.

At the same moment, Officer Daipur was delicately lifting the explosive device from its place beneath the chair. The robot’s abdominal cavity swung open, catching Cody’s windbreaker as Bergman was hustling Patricia toward the door.

Patricia screamed again, this time a mixture of rage and embarrassment as the jacket was nearly wrenched from her sobbing frame. Exchanging a hapless glance with Cody, Bergman quickly disentangled it and restored her dignity.

Cody could see the fear etched in the eyes of Officer Daipur, behind the mask, as the man stood in place, trying not to look at the half-naked woman.

The device’s timer read 00:01:05.

“Is the building clear?” Daipur asked Cody, unaware of the incongruence of his logic.

“Fuck the building!” Cody’s eyes were intent on the timer, as he held the robot’s door open.

Daipur set the bomb gingerly inside.

Its device read 00:00:45.

Cody swung the hatch closed while Daipur quickly armed the robot.

The officer glanced down at his watch.

Then it occurred to him that Cody was still in the room. “Captain, exit the room immediately,” he ordered. “This is my job.”

Cody ignored him, mesmerized by the timer which was counting down to zero.

The robot shuddered, lifting inches off the floor as the device exploded, muffling the sound as though it were in the next borough.

“Jesus,” Daipur exclaimed. “That was enough TNT to blow up the whole fucking block.”

“I’m sure that’s what the devils were hoping for,” Cody said.?

At Kate Winters’ insistence, the ceremony for Dr. Song Wiley was minimalist chic. It was sponsored by the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, at its retreat center on E. 51 ^ st Street next to Greenacre Park. Song’s only religion was her yoga, and she had practiced ashtanga at the center four times a week. The Neptune Society, which she and Kate had joined together three years ago, had already supervised her cremation. Wolfsheim, of course, had reserved Dr. Wiley’s brain and internal organs in case they were required as evidence.

Kate, alone, would spread her ashes at midnight from the Circle Line where they’d had their first official date.

Over Kate’s protest, the Chief had insisted on closing the Park for two hours so the memorial service could be held beside the waterfall. Looking uncomfortable in their funeral garb, all the members of TAZ were on hand to support Kate.

The Friends’ director chanted one of the sutras, surprising everyone with its power-and brevity. Then Kate, looking elegant and composed, approached the microphone. She was wearing a green silk suit that blended in perfectly with the flora of this quiet oasis in the midst of a never-quiet metropolis.

“’The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon,’” Kate began. “You loved to quote that, and I never ceased wondering what it meant. But one thing I always knew: When you first took my hand, you put a song in my heart.”

She addressed the photograph of her friend and lover that had been placed strategically by the falls beside the gigantic bouquet Cody had ordered for the occasion. “Now you live only in my heart, and my heart will be full with your song until the day I die.”

Then she turned off the microphone and gave herself to the comforting embraces of her teammates. She’d been a member of TAZ only a few days, but they were now her family.?

Stinelli rarely attended TAZ social events, preferring to meet its captain on his own turf. But this was an exception. He shook hands with everyone on the team, and put his arm around Kate. “I’ve seen evil in this town,” he said, “but I’ve never seen it like this.”

She knew what he was referring to. This morning Annie reported finding a bullet-shaped plastic mold in the Hamilton’s Sub-Zero freezer.

Simon confirmed the count for him. In Androg’s Unholy Week of Murder, Raymond Handley was Number One, Uncle Tony Number Two. Steamroller Jackson was Number Three and Song Number Four; the newspaper clipping found with Jackson’s body had Hamilton’s fingerprints on it. Jake Sallinger was Number Five. Victoria Mansfield Number Six. Hamilton “didn’t count” because he killed himself, just as Melinda Cramer didn’t count because she was “just practice.” Cody was intended to be Number Seven, but just in case he survived Patricia Roberts was his designated replacement-the “seventh way” of death.

And she would have taken all the neighbors with her. and exploded Hamilton’s deadly numbers sky high.

“I told you he was fucking with me from the beginning,” Cody said to Stinelli.

“What do you mean?”

“I asked Bergman here to call the Staten Island Fairy, who mentioned that Handley had a sister. Turns out Handley had been estranged from her. Her name was Melinda, until she married a whipdick actor whose last name was Cramer. She dumped the actor after three months, but kept the name because she and her brother had developed bad blood between them.”

Bergman had walked up to join them. “Handley wanted to believe she committed suicide,” he said. “He even tried to stop the autopsy, saying it wasn’t necessary. Apparently he’d been supporting her career as a dancer for years, but took it out on her by having her set him up with members of the chorus line to feed his sex jones. She couldn’t stand it anymore, became disgusted with his insatiable needs, changed addresses, got an unlisted number, and disappeared.

“The night he finally tracked her down at the rave was the night she supposedly jumped to her death.”

“Melinda Cramer!? Is that what you’re telling me?” Stinelli sounded incredulous. “That sonofabitch. No wonder he wanted to open her file.”

“Here’s where it becomes interesting,” Cody said. “After she turned down his pimp-money, Melinda supplemented her income by singing in cabarets-and, get this, writing an occasional book review for The Village Voice.”

Stinelli’s eyes widened. “Let me guess,” he said. “She reviewed one of Hamilton’s books.”

Cody nodded. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks,” he said.

Stinelli grunted.

“Here’s the last piece of the jigsaw. Simon got us a list of her reviews. Two months before she fell off the balcony, she not only trashed Hamilton’s book but ended her review with a plea to the Clue Awards to maintain their high standards by never according him the honor he’d been lobbying to receive for nearly ten years.”

“That sonofabitch,” Stinelli said. “So their practice run was revenge, pure and simple.”

“Only, not pure, and not so simple,” the detective said. “And a couple of other things. NYPD found a matchbook on her computer table. It had a phone number on it, and a note. ‘Call me. Ray.’ The number was Raymond Handley’s. And the St. Christopher medal that we found around his neck? It was the same one removed from his sister’s body before he buried her.”

Stinelli looked at Cody. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Captain, but it looks like you’re gonna have to get dressed up one more time. You might even want to bring that date of yours.”

Cody’s eyebrows went up in question.

“I’m putting you in for the Medal of Honor.”

42

Three Months Later

The sun was setting on the approaching horizon, and Cody recognized the first sights of his native State. “That’s Borah Peak,” he said, “the highest mountain in Idaho. We’re nearing the State line.”

Amelie’s eyes were shining with excitement. She pressed his hand.

And, as though he understood Cody’s words, a gravelly bark came from the backseat driver.

Cody glanced in the rearview mirror at Charley, who had awakened from his nap and was now fully alert, his ears pricked with expectation. “Yes, boy,” he said. “Soon as we’ve crossed, it’ll be time to stretch your legs.”

Charley barked again. His tracheotomy made him sound like a throat cancer victim. This time the shepherd surely did understand. He knew a rest stop would involve another of the knuckle bones Waldo had thoughtfully supplied him for the trip. They were waiting in the Styrofoam cooler Charley never took his eyes off.

A chorus of approving howls echoed through the van.

Cody and Amelie laughed together.

The wild animals could sense their territory approaching.

Last Halloween night, as Dave had reported to Cody, the wolves in the zoo clinic would not stop howling. They knew Cody was in trouble, and they were trying to warn him, to help him somehow. Finally, at the moment when Charley was licking Cody’s wound to restore him to life, the alpha male leaped over the twelve-foot fence-and led Dave Fox to the cave in time for him to rescue Charley, then on to locate Cody.

While Cody was still tracking down Hamilton, Dave called his van to carry Charley’s body back to the clinic-to work one of his miracles. Probing the shepherd in the cave, he had detected the tiniest eyelid flicker then detected the faintest of pulses. Charley was deeply paralyzed, and Dave wasn’t surprised that Cody thought he was dead. His heart was on its last fibrillations; but Charley was still, if barely, alive.

Dave had recited the Nez Perce healing prayer-then force-flushed Charley’s stomach out, shocked his heart with makeshift paddles, pumped him with oxygen, and dosed him intravenously with alkalis, the only known antidote to saxitoxin.

After over an hour of Dave’s relentless treatment, Charley, a veteran of near-death experiences, bounced back for yet another shot at life.?

Of course Metro Magazine had sold off the newsstands in the first hour of its release, trumpeting Hamilton’s posthumous cover article, “7 Ways to Kill-in 7 Days?” Stinelli pulled every string he could think of to prevent its publication, but the magazine’s attorneys threw the First Amendment at him with that peculiarly American mixture of freedom of speech and crass commercial greed that so often prevails.

The article detailed exactly how, from the comfort of his writing chair-one of the murders’ signatures was that the victims were found seated-he and Victoria, following the coroner’s handbook as their diabolic catechism, planned the sequence of “murders by the book.”

The article’s banner line: “If you are reading this, I am dead. My beloved Victoria and I pushed the homicide envelope beyond all limits, committing the murders I was reporting! From the moment I was diagnosed with my own death sentence, we planned to die together, and de-create the world in our own image and likeness in seven days. Neither of us had any interest in losing final control over life and death.”

The closing log line: “Ward Hamilton’s lifelong achievements culminated in his receipt of the Clue Award.” Ward got his vengeful last word on the hated literary committee that had delayed his honor until it was nearly too late. The asshole who wasn’t satisfied with his precious writing awards also wasn’t satisfied with looking through his reporter’s glass at his chosen subject matter. He required a hands-on experience, wanted to redefine the limits of human nature by committing the very murders he was purportedly investigating!

And, yes, Hamilton, in a perverse expression of his southern gentility, had even planned his ultimate double-cross to Victoria. He had promised her that she would kill him first, then changed his mind because he knew her survivor’s pain would be unbearable.

Instead of allowing the love of his life to stalk and slay him, the devil would reverse ambush his Cupid, thus making a final magnanimous and gentlemanly gesture of sparing her the ultimate pain of loneliness. She was “the one human being worthy of my passion,” as the article put it.

Of course because Ward had turned the piece into Sallinger shortly before, ensuring it would remain unedited by him, the article couldn’t have foreseen what actually happened that night in the park. He left the follow-up to the natural inclinations of the magazine’s editorial board. At Stinelli’s insistence, the one concession they made was to abbreviate the events of Hamilton’s suicide and Cody’s survival in the form of an “editor’s note” at the end.?

Fortunately TAZ had broken into Hamilton’s apartment in time to save Patricia from being the seventh way to die.

Cody explained to Amelie that, in case Sallinger’s copy somehow got lost in the morgue shuffle, a second print-out of the article had been tucked to the bomb beneath the barber’s chair. He caught a glimpse of its headline just before it was blown to smithereens inside the robot’s belly.

“I still don’t understand why Raymond had to die,” Amelie lamented.

“If it hadn’t been for Raymond cutting his sister’s support off, she wouldn’t have been writing book reviews,” he guessed. Of course if Handley hadn’t died, I’d have never met you. Cody thought better of speaking the observation aloud.

But he did wonder if there was another surprise planted by Hamilton out there somewhere, just waiting for him to discover. He made a mental note to pay his own visit to the Yellow Door.?

It was twilight by the time Cody and Amelie reached the forest that bordered the Nez Perce reservation in far-western Idaho.

The wolves were showing signs of increasing agitation, knocking their heads against the sides of the cage.

“Will it hold?” Amelie said, a worried look on her face.

Cody laughed. “They’re okay,” he said. “They’re just excited to be home.”

The dirt road they’d been traveling for the past twenty minutes seemed to taper into nothingness as it reached a wide clearing in the tall pines.

Amelie remained in the front seat, her head turned to watch Cody open the back doors, and the cage.

With yaps of excitement, the two wolves leaped onto the ground and sprinted toward the far side of the clearing.

Amelie opened her door, then Charley’s, and stood with Cody watching the sleek animals bound across the meadow.

“Be fruitful, and multiply,” Cody called after them.

The alpha male and his consort reached the far tree line, where they were greeted with howls and yips of welcome as they reentered the wilderness that was their home.

Then, just as Cody and Amelie were turning back to the van, the alpha male reappeared at the edge of the clearing under the full moon-and looked toward Cody in gratitude.

Charley gruffly barked his approval.

Content

William Diehl
Seven ways to die

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