The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and Laurie motioned for them to get off.
   “As you’ve probably already guessed,” Lou continued, following Laurie down the corridor, “DePasquale’s death was an obvious execution.”
   “It was?” Laurie questioned. As of yet, nothing was obvious to her.
   “Absolutely,” Lou said. “You’re going to find that he was shot from close range with a small caliber bullet into the base of the brain. It’s the usual, proven method. No mess, no fuss.”
   They went into Laurie’s office. Laurie introduced Lou to Riva, who was already hard at work. Laurie got a chair for Lou and put it next to her desk. They both sat down.
   “You’ve seen these gangland-style execution cases before, haven’t you?” Lou questioned.
   “I’m not sure,” Laurie said evasively. From medical school training, she knew how to be vague when asked a pointed question. She didn’t want to give the impression she was inexperienced.
   “They usually mean friction between rival organizations,” Lou said. “And in this case it would mean friction between the Lucia and the Vaccarro crime families. They are the major players in the Queens area and their respective interests are controlled by midlevel bosses, Vinnie Dominick and Paul Cerino. My guess would be that Paul Cerino had a hand in poor Frank DePasquale’s murder, and if he did, I’d like nothing better than to nail him with an indictment. I was after the guy for the entire six years I was assigned to Organized Crime. I could never get an indictment to stick. But if I could link him to a capital offense like whacking DePasquale, I’d be in fat city.”
   “That puts the burden on us,” Laurie said as she opened DePasquale’s folder.
   “If you or your lab could come up with something, I’d be eternally grateful,” Lou said. “We need some kind of break. The problem with guys like Cerino is that they keep so many layers between themselves and all the crime committed in their name, we seldom get any charges to stick.”
   “Oh, damn!” Laurie said suddenly. She’d been listening to Lou as well as going through the DePasquale file.
   “What’s the matter?” Lou asked.
   “They didn’t take an X-ray on DePasquale,” Laurie said. She reached for her phone and dialed the morgue. “We have to have an X-ray before the autopsy. Unfortunately that’s going to hold things up. I’ll have to post one of the other cases first. I’m sorry.”
   Lou shrugged.
   Laurie told the mortuary tech who answered the phone to X-ray Frank DePasquale as soon as possible. The tech said he’d do his best. As she was hanging up, the doorway to her office was filled by Calvin Washington.
   “Laurie,” Calvin said, “we’ve got a problem that you should know about.”
   Laurie stood up when Calvin entered. “What is it?” she asked. She noticed that Calvin was eyeing Lou questioningly. “Dr. Washington, I believe you met Lieutenant Soldano.”
   “Ah, yes,” Calvin said. “Don’t mind me. It’s just Alzheimer’s setting in. We met just this morning.” He shook hands with Lou, who’d stood when Laurie introduced him.
   “Sit down, both of you,” Calvin boomed. “Laurie, I have to warn you that we’ve already been getting some heat from the Mayor’s office about this Duncan Andrews case. It seems that the deceased has some powerful political connections. So we’re going to have to cooperate. I want you to look hard for some natural cause of death so that you can downplay the drugs. The family would prefer it that way.”
   Laurie looked up at Calvin’s face, half expecting it to break out in a broad smile, saying that he was only joking. But Calvin’s expression didn’t change.
   “I’m not sure I understand,” Laurie said.
   “I can’t be much clearer,” Calvin said. His infamous impatience began to show.
   “What do you want me to do, lie?” Laurie asked.
   “Hell, no, Dr. Montgomery!” Calvin snapped. “What do I have to do, draw you a map? I’m just asking you to lean as far as you can, okay? Find something like a coronary plaque, an aneurysm, anything, and then write it up. And don’t act so surprised or self-righteous. Politics play a role here and the sooner you learn that the better off we’ll all be. Just do it.”
   Calvin turned and left as quickly as he’d come.
   Lou whistled and sat down. “Tough guy,” he said.
   Laurie shook her head in disbelief. She turned to Riva, who hadn’t paused in her work. “Did you hear that?” Laurie asked her.
   “It happened to me once, too,” Riva said without looking up. “Only my case was a suicide.”
   With a sigh, Laurie sat down in her desk chair and looked across at Lou. “I don’t know if I’m prepared to sacrifice integrity and ethics for the sake of politics.”
   “I don’t think that was what Dr. Washington was asking you to do,” Lou said.
   Laurie felt her face flush. “It wasn’t? I’m sorry, but I think it was.”
   “I don’t mean to tell you your business,” Lou said, “but my take was that Dr. Washington wants you to emphasize any potential natural cause of death you find. The rest can be left to interpretation. For some reason it makes a difference in this case. It’s the real world versus the world of make-believe.”
   “Well, you seem pretty blasй about fudging the details,” Laurie said. “In Pathology we’re supposed to be dealing with the truth.”
   “Come on,” Lou said. “What is the truth? There are shades of gray in most everything in life, so why not in death? My line of work happens to be justice. It’s an ideal. I pursue it. But if you don’t think politics sometimes plays a lead role in how justice is applied, you’re kidding yourself. There’s always a gap between law and justice. Welcome to the real world.”
   “Well, I don’t like it one bit,” Laurie said. All this was reminding her of the concerns about compromise she’d had when she’d arrived a half hour earlier.
   “You don’t have to like it,” Lou said. “Not many do.”
   Laurie flipped open the file on Duncan Andrews. She leafed through the papers until she came to the investigator’s report. After reading for a few moments, she looked up at Lou. “I’m beginning to get the big picture,” she said. “The deceased was some kind of financial whiz kid, a senior vice president of an investment banking firm at only thirty-five. And on top of that there is a note here that says his father is running for the U.S. Senate.”
   “Can’t get much more political than that,” Lou said.
   Laurie nodded, then read more of the investigator’s report. When she got to the section noting who had identified the deceased at the scene, she found a name, Sara Wetherbee. In the space left to describe the witness’s relationship to the deceased, the investigator had scrawled: “girlfriend.”
   Laurie shook her head. Discovering a loved one dead from drugs carried an ugly resonance for her. In a flash her thoughts drifted back seventeen years to when she was fifteen, a freshman at Langley School. She could remember the bright sunny day as if it had been yesterday. It was midfall, crisp and clear, and the trees in Central Park had been a blaze of color. She’d walked past the Metropolitan with its banners snapping in the gusty wind. She’d turned left on Eighty-fourth Street and entered her parents’ massive apartment building on the west side of Park Avenue.
   “I’m home!” Laurie called as she tossed her bookbag onto the foyer table. There was no answer. All she could hear was the traffic on Park peppered by the inevitable bleat of taxi horns.
   “Anybody home?” Laurie called and heard her voice echo through the halls. Surprised to find the apartment empty, Laurie pushed through the door from the butler’s pantry into the kitchen. Even Holly, their maid, was nowhere to be seen. But then Laurie remembered that it was Friday, Holly’s day off.
   “Shelly!” Laurie yelled. Her older brother was home from his freshman year at college for the long Columbus Day weekend. Laurie expected to find him either in the kitchen or the den. She looked in the den; no one was there, but the TV was on with the sound turned off.
   For a moment Laurie looked at the silent antics of a daytime game show. She thought it odd that the TV had been left on. Thinking that someone might still be home, she resumed her tour of the apartment. For some reason the silent rooms filled her with apprehension. She began to move faster, sensing a secret urgency.
   Pausing in front of Shelly’s bedroom door, Laurie hesitated. Then she knocked. When there was no answer, she knocked again. When there was still no answer, she tried the door. It was unlocked. She pushed open the door and stepped into the room.
   In front of her on the floor was her brother, Shelly. His face was as white as the ivory-colored china in the dining room breakfront. Bloody froth oozed from his nose. Around his upper arm was a rubber tourniquet. On the floor, six inches from his half-opened hand, was a syringe Laurie had seen the night before. On the edge of his desk was a glassine envelope. Laurie guessed what was inside because of what Shelly had told her the night before. It had to be the “speedball” he’d boasted of, a mixture of cocaine and heroin.
   Hours later the same day, Laurie endured the worst confrontation of her life. Inches from her nose was her father’s angry face with his bulging eyes and purpled skin. He was beside himself with rage. His thumbs were digging into her skin where he held her upper arms. A few feet away her mother was sobbing into a tissue.
   “Did you know your brother was using drugs?” her father demanded. “Did you? Answer me.” His grip tightened.
   “Yes,” Laurie blurted. “Yes, yes!”
   “Why didn’t you tell us?” her father shouted. “If you’d told us, he’d be alive.”
   “I couldn’t,” Laurie sobbed.
   “Why?” her father shouted. “Tell me why!”
   “Because . . .” Laurie cried. She paused, then said: “Because he told me not to. He made me promise.”
   “Well, that promise killed him,” her father hissed. “It killed him just as much as the damn drug.”
   Laurie felt a hand grip her arm and she jumped. The shock brought her back to the present. She blinked a few times as if waking from a trance.
   “Are you all right?” Lou asked. He’d gotten up and was holding Laurie’s arm.
   “I’m fine,” Laurie said, slightly embarrassed. She extracted herself from Lou’s grip. “Let’s see, where were we?” Her breathing had quickened. Perspiration dotted her forehead. She looked over the paperwork in front of her, trying to remember what had dredged up such old, painful memories. As if it had been yesterday, she could recall the anguish of the conflict of responsibility, sibling or filial, and the terrible guilt and burden of having chosen the former.
   “What were you thinking about?” Lou asked. “You seemed a long way off.”
   “The fact that the victim had been discovered by his girlfriend,” Laurie said as her eyes stumbled again onto Sara Wetherbee’s name. She wasn’t about to share her past with this lieutenant. To this day she had trouble talking about that tragic episode with friends, much less a stranger. “It must have been very hard for the poor woman.”
   “Unfortunately, homicide victims are often found by those closest to them,” Lou said.
   “Must have been a terrible shock,” Laurie said. Her heart went out to Sara Wetherbee. “I must say, this Duncan Andrews case is certainly not the usual overdose.”
   Lou shrugged. “With cocaine, I’m not sure there is a usual case. When the drug went upscale in the seventies, deaths have been seen in all levels of society, from athletes and entertainers to executives to college kids to inner city hoodlums. It’s a pretty democratic blight. A great leveler, if you will.”
   “Here at the medical examiner’s office, we mostly see the lower end of the abuser spectrum,” Laurie said. “But you’re right in general.” Laurie smiled. She was impressed by Lou. “What was your background before joining the police?”
   “What do you mean?” Lou asked.
   “Did you go to college?” Laurie asked.
   “Of course I went to college!” Lou snapped. “What kind of question is that?”
   “Sorry,” Laurie said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
   “And I don’t mean to be testy,” Lou said. “Sometimes I’m a bit self-conscious about where I went to school. I only got to go to a community college on the Island, not some Ivy League ivory tower. Where’d you go?”
   “Wesleyan University, up in Connecticut,” Laurie said. “Ever heard of it?”
   “Of course I’ve heard of it,” Lou said. “What do you think, all police officers are ignoramuses? Wesleyan University. I might have known. As Billy Joel says, you uptown girls live in an uptown world.”
   “How did you know I was from New York?”
   “Your accent, Doctor,” Lou said. “It’s as indelible as my Long Island Rego Park accent.”
   “I see,” Laurie said. She didn’t like to think she was such an open book. She wondered what else this man could tell about her from his years as an investigator.
   Laurie changed the subject. “Where you go to school matters less than what you do while you’re there,” she said. “You shouldn’t be sensitive about your college. Obviously you got a good education.”
   “Easy for you to say,” said Lou. “But thanks for the compliment.”
   Laurie looked down at the papers on her desk. Suddenly she felt a little guilty about her privileged background of a private secondary school, Wesleyan University, Columbia Medical School. She hoped she hadn’t sounded patronizing.
   “Let me take a quick look at the third case,” Laurie said. She opened the third folder. “Louis Herrera, age twenty-eight, unemployed, found in a dumpster behind a grocery store.” Laurie looked up at Lou. “Probably died in a crack house and was literally dumped. That’s the usual overdose we see. Another sad, wasted life.”
   “In some respects maybe more tragic than the rich guy,” Lou said. “I’d guess he had a lot fewer choices in life.”
   Laurie nodded. Lou’s perspective was refreshing. She reached for the phone and dialed Cheryl Myers down in the medical investigator’s department. She asked Cheryl to get all the medical records she could on Duncan Andrews. She told her that she hoped to find some medical problem that she might be able to relate to his pathology.
   Hanging up the phone, Laurie glanced over at Lou. “I can’t help it, but I feel like I’m cheating.” She stood up and gathered all the paperwork.
   “You’re not cheating,” Lou assured her. “Besides, why not wait until you have all the information, including the autopsy? Then you can worry about it. Who knows, maybe everything will work out.”
   “Good advice,” Laurie said. “Let’s get downstairs and get to work.”
   Normally Laurie changed into her scrub clothes in her office, but with Lou there, she opted to use the locker room. When they got off the elevator on the basement level, Laurie directed Lou into the men’s side while she went into the women’s. Five minutes later they met up in the hall. Laurie had on a layer of normal scrub clothes, then another impermeable layer, then a large apron. On her head she wore a hood. A face mask dangled from around her neck. Lou had on a single layer of scrubs, a hood, and he carried his face mask.
   “You look like one of the doctors,” Laurie said, eyeing Lou to make sure he’d put on the right clothing.
   “I feel like I’m going into surgery instead of to see an autopsy,” Lou said. “I didn’t wear all this the last time. You sure I have to wear this mask?”
   “Everyone in the autopsy room wears a mask,” Laurie said. “Because of AIDS and other infectious problems, rules have become much stricter. If you don’t wear it, Calvin will bodily throw you out.”
   They walked down the main corridor of the morgue, passing the stainless steel door to the walk-in cooler and past the long bank of individual refrigerated compartments. The refrigerator compartments formed a large U in the middle of the morgue.
   “This place is certainly grisly,” Lou commented.

   “I suppose,” Laurie said. “It’s less so when you’re used to it.”
   “It looks like a Hollywood set for a horror movie,” Lou said. “Whoever picked out these blue tiles for the walls? And what about the cement floor? Why isn’t there any covering? Look at all the stains.”
   Laurie stopped and gazed at the floor. Although the surface was swept clean, the stains were unspeakable. “It was supposed to be tiled long ago,” she said. “Somehow it got fouled up in New York City bureaucratic red tape. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”
   “And what are all those coffins doing here?” Lou asked. “That’s a nice touch.” He pointed to a stack of simple pine boxes piled almost to the ceiling. Others were standing on end.
   “Those are Potter’s Field coffins,” Laurie said. “There are a lot of unidentified bodies in New York City. After their autopsies we keep them in the cooler for a number of weeks. If they go unclaimed, they are eventually buried at city’s expense.”
   “Isn’t there someplace else they could store the coffins?” Lou asked. “It looks like a garage sale.”
   “Not that I know of,” Laurie said. “I guess I’ve never thought about it. I’m so used to seeing them there.”
   Laurie pushed into the autopsy room first, then held the door for Lou. In contrast to the previous morning, all eight tables were now occupied by corpses, each with a tag tied around its big toe. At five of the tables the posts were already under way.
   “Well, well, Dr. Montgomery is starting before noon,” one of the gowned and hooded doctors quipped.
   “Some of us are smart enough to test the water before we jump in the pool,” Laurie shot back.
   “You’re on table six,” one of the mortuary techs called out from a sink where he was washing out a length of intestine.
   Laurie looked back at Lou, who had paused just inside the door. She saw him swallow hard. Although he’d said he’d seen autopsies before, she had the feeling that he found this “assembly line” operation a bit overwhelming. With the gut being washed out, the smell wasn’t too good either.
   “You can go outside anytime,” Laurie said to him.
   Lou held up a hand. “I’m all right,” he said. “If you can take this, I can too.”
   Laurie walked down to table six. Lou followed her. A gowned and hooded Vinnie Amendola appeared.
   “It’s you and me today, Dr. Montgomery,” Vinnie said.
   “Fine,” Laurie said. “Why don’t you get everything we’ll need and we’ll get started.”
   Vinnie nodded, then went over to the supply cabinets.
   Laurie put out her note papers where she could get to them, then looked at Duncan Andrews. “Handsome-looking man,” she said.
   “I didn’t think doctors thought that way,” Lou said. “I thought you guys all switched into neutral or something.”
   “Hardly,” Laurie said. Duncan’s pale body lay in apparent repose on the steel table. His eyelids were closed. The only thing that marred his appearance aside from his pasty white color were the excoriations on his forearms. Laurie pointed to them. “Those deep scratches are probably the result of what’s called formication. That’s a tactile hallucination of bugs under or on the skin. It’s seen in both cocaine and amphetamine intoxication.”
   Lou shook his head. “I can’t understand why people take drugs,” he said. “It’s beyond me.”
   “They do it for pleasure,” Laurie said. “Unfortunately, drugs like cocaine tap into parts of the brain that developed during evolution as the reward center. It was to encourage behavior likely to perpetuate the species. If the war against drugs is to succeed, the fact that drugs can be pleasurable has to be admitted and not ignored.”
   “Why do I have the feeling you don’t think much of the Just Say No campaign?” Lou asked.
   “Because I don’t. It’s stupid,” Laurie said. “Or at least shortsighted. I don’t think the politicians who dreamed that scheme up have a clue to what growing up in today’s society is like, especially for poor urban kids. Drugs are around, and when kids try them and find out that drugs are pleasurable, they think the powers-that-be are lying about the negative or dangerous side as well.”
   “You ever try any of that stuff?”
   “I’ve tried pot and cocaine.”
   “Really?”
   “Are you surprised?” Laurie asked.
   “I suppose I am, to an extent.”
   “Why?”
   Lou shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose you don’t look the type.”
   Laurie laughed. “I guess he looks more the type than I do right now,” she said, pointing to Andrews. “But when he was alive I bet he didn’t look the type either. Yeah, I tried some drugs in college. Despite what happened to my brother, or maybe because of it.”
   “What happened to your brother?” Lou asked.
   Laurie looked down at the body of Duncan Andrews. She’d not meant to bring her brother into the conversation. The comment had slipped out as if she were talking with someone with whom she was close.
   “Did your brother overdose?” Lou asked.
   Laurie’s eyes went from Duncan’s corpse to Lou. She couldn’t lie. “Yes,” she said. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”
   “Fine,” Lou said. “I don’t mean to pry.”
   Laurie turned back to Duncan’s body. For a second she was immobilized by the thought it was her brother’s body before her on that cold table. She was relieved to be interrupted by Vinnie returning with gloves, specimen bottles, preservatives, labels, and a series of instruments. She was eager to get started and put these reveries behind her.
   “Let’s do it,” Vinnie said. He began applying the labels to the specimen jars.
   Laurie opened the gloves and put them on. She put on her goggles and began a careful exterior examination of Duncan Andrews. After looking at Duncan’s head, she motioned for Lou to step around to the other side of the table. Parting Duncan’s hair with her gloved hand, she showed Lou multiple bruises.
   “I’ll bet he had at least one convulsion,” Laurie said. “Let’s look at the tongue.”
   Laurie opened Duncan’s mouth. The tongue was lacerated in several locations. “Just what I expected,” she said. “Now let’s see how much cocaine this fellow has been using.” With a small flashlight and a nasal speculum, she looked up Duncan’s nose. “No perforations. Looks normal. Guess he hadn’t been sniffing much.”
   Laurie straightened up. She noticed Lou’s attention had been directed at a neighboring table where they were busy sawing off the top of a skull. Their eyes met.
   “You okay?” Laurie questioned.
   “I’m not sure,” Lou said. “You actually do this every day?”
   “On average, three or four days a week,” Laurie said. “You want to go outside for a while? I can let you know when we do DePasquale.”
   “No, I’ll be all right. Let’s get on with it. What’s next?”
   “I usually check the eyes,” Laurie said. She studied Lou. The last thing she wanted was for him to pass out and hit his head on the concrete floor. That had happened to a visitor once before.
   “Continue,” Lou urged. “I’m fine.”
   Laurie shrugged. Then she put her thumb and index finger on Duncan’s eyelids and drew them up.
   Lou gasped and turned away.
   For a moment even Laurie was taken aback. The eyes were gone! The pulpy red sockets were filled with pink-stained wads of gauze. It gave the corpse a ghastly appearance.
   “Okay!” Lou said. “You got me. You set me up and you got me. I’ll have to give you that.” He turned back to Laurie. The bit of facial skin visible between his mask and his hood was blanched. “Let me guess: this was some sort of initiation ordeal for the rookie.”
   Laurie let out a short, nervous laugh. “I’m sorry, Lou,” she said. “I’d forgotten the eyes had been taken. Truly. This was the case where the family was insistent that the deceased’s wishes to be an organ donor be honored. If the eyes can be harvested within twelve hours, they often can be used if there are no other contraindications. Occasionally it can even be longer than twelve hours if the body is chilled.”
   “I don’t mind being the butt of a joke,” Lou said.
   “But it wasn’t a joke,” Laurie insisted. “I’m sorry. Honest. I’d been called on this case yesterday. With everything else that’s happened, I’d forgotten. I just remembered this was a case where the victim took the cocaine IV. Let’s see if we can find the injection site.”
   Laurie rotated Duncan’s right arm palm up so she could examine its volar surface. Vinnie did the same with the left arm.
   “Here it is,” Laurie exclaimed, pointing to a minute puncture wound over one of the veins in front of the elbow area.
   “I didn’t know cocaine could be mainlined,” Lou said.
   “It’s taken into the body just about every way you can imagine and some you can’t,” Laurie said. “IV is not common, but it’s done.” As she spoke, her mind took her back to the night before she found Shelly dead in his bedroom. He’d just come home from Yale, and Laurie was in his room, eager to hear about college. His open Dopp kit was on his bed.
   “What’s this?” Laurie questioned. She held up a pack of condoms.
   “Give me that,” Shelly shouted, clearly peeved to have his baby sister find such a thing in his shaving kit.
   Laurie giggled as Shelly snatched the contraceptives from her hand. While Shelly was busy burying them in his top bureau drawer, Laurie looked into the Dopp kit to see what else she could find. But what she saw was more disturbing than interesting. Touching it ever so gingerly, Laurie lifted a 10 cc syringe from the bag. It was the needle she was to see the following day.
   “What is this?” she demanded.
   Shelly came over and tried to grab the needle, but Laurie evaded him.
   “You got this from Daddy’s office, didn’t you?” Laurie demanded.
   “Give me that or you are in serious trouble,” Shelly snapped. He trapped her against the wall.
   Laurie gripped the needle in both hands behind her back. Having grown up in New York City, she knew what it meant when a fellow teenager had a needle.
   “Are you shooting up?” Laurie asked.
   Shelly overpowered her and got the needle. He took it over to his bureau and hid it with his condoms. Then he turned back to his sister, who hadn’t moved.
   “I’ve tried it a couple of times,” Shelly said. “It’s called speedball. A lot of the guys at school do it. It’s no big deal. But I don’t want you to say anything to Mom or Dad. If you do, I’ll never talk to you again. You understand? Never.”
   Laurie’s momentary reverie was cut short by the booming voice of Calvin Washington. “What the hell is going on here?” he yelled. “Why haven’t you even started this case? I came in here to see if you found anything we can hang our hats on and you haven’t even started. Get busy.”
   Laurie sprang into action. She completed her external examination, noting only a few ecchymotic bruises on Duncan’s upper arms in addition to her other findings. Then she took a scalpel and expertly made the traditional Y-shaped incision from the points of the shoulders down to the pubis. With Vinnie helping, she worked silently and quickly removing the breastbone and exposing the internal organs.
   Lou tried to stay out of the way. “I’m sorry if I’ve slowed you down,” he said when Laurie paused, allowing Vinnie to organize the specimen bottles.
   “No problem,” Laurie said. “When we do DePasquale I’ll explain a bit more. I just want to get Andrews finished. If Calvin really gets mad there could be trouble.”
   “I understand,” Lou said. “Would you rather I leave?”
   “No, not at all,” Laurie said. “Just don’t get your feelings hurt when I ignore you for a while.”
   After Laurie inspected all the internal organs in situ, she used several syringes to take various fluids for toxicologic testing. She and Vinnie went through a precise procedure to make sure the right specimen got in the correctly labeled bottle. Then she began to remove the organs, one by one. She spent the most time on the heart, until eventually it, too, was removed.
   While Vinnie took the stomach and the intestines to the sink to wash them out, Laurie carefully went through the heart, taking multiple samples for later microscopic examination. She then took similar samples from some of the other organs. By then Vinnie was back. Without any encouragement, he began on the head, reflecting the scalp. After Laurie inspected the skull, she nodded to him to use the power vibrating saw to cut through the skull in a circular fashion just above the ears.
   Lou kept his distance when Laurie lifted the brain out of its skull and plopped it into a pan held by Vinnie. Wielding a long-bladed knife similar to a butcher’s, she began making serial cuts as if she were dealing with a slab of processed meat. It was all an efficient, well-practiced duet requiring little conversation.
   Half an hour later, Laurie led Lou out of the autopsy room. Leaving the aprons and gowns behind, they went up to the lunchroom on the second floor for coffee. They had about fifteen minutes while Vinnie took Duncan’s remains away and “put up” the next case, Frank DePasquale.
   “Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be eating anything for a few days,” Lou said when offered something from one of the several vending machines in the lunchroom. Laurie poured herself another cup of coffee. They sat at a Formica table near the microwave oven. There were about fifteen other people in the room, all engaged in animated conversation.
   Seeing other people smoking, Lou took out a box of Marlboros, a pack of matches, and lit up. When he noticed Laurie’s expression, he took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Okay if I smoke?” he asked.
   “If you must,” Laurie said.
   “Just one,” Lou assured her.
   “Well, Duncan Andrews didn’t have any pathology on gross,” she said. “And I don’t think I’m going to find anything on histology either.”
   “You can only do your best,” Lou said. “If worse comes to worst, dump it in Calvin’s lap. Let him decide what to do. As part of the brass, it’s his job.”
   “Whoever does the autopsy has to sign out on the death certificate,” Laurie said. “But maybe I can give it a try.”
   “I was impressed with the way you handled that knife in the autopsy room . . .” Lou said.
   “Thanks for your compliment,” Laurie said. “But why do I feel like I hear a “but’ coming?”
   “It’s just I’m surprised an attractive woman like yourself would choose this kind of work,” Lou said.
   Laurie closed her eyes and let out a sigh of exasperation. “That’s a rather chauvinistic comment.” She stared at Lou. “Unfortunately, it undermines your compliment. Did you mean to say, ‘What is a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?’ “
   “Hey, I’m sorry,” Lou said. “I didn’t mean it that way at all.”
   “Talking about my appearance and my abilities and relating the two makes a negative comment about both,” Laurie said. She took a sip of her coffee. She could tell that Lou was bewildered and uncomfortable. “I don’t mean to jump on you,” she added. “But I’m sick of defending my career choice. And I’m also sick of hearing my looks and my gender have anything to do with my position.”
   “Maybe I’d better just keep my trap shut,” said Lou.
   Laurie glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I think we should get downstairs. I’m sure Vinnie has DePasquale on the table.” She gulped down the rest of her coffee and stood up.
   Lou stubbed out his cigarette and hurried after her. Five minutes later they were back in their gowns, standing in front of the X-ray view box in the autopsy room, looking at the X-rays of Frank DePasquale. The AP and the lateral of the head showed the bright silhouette of the bullet resting in the posterior fossa.
   “You were right about the location of the bullet,” Laurie said. “There it is in the base of the brain.”
   “Gangland execution is very efficient,” Lou said.
   “I can believe it,” Laurie added. “The reason is that a bullet into the base of the brain hits the brainstem. That’s where the vital centers are for things like breathing and heartbeat.”
   “I suppose if I have to go, that’s one way I’d like it to be,” Lou said.
   Laurie looked at the detective. “That’s a pleasant thought.”
   Lou shrugged. “In my line of work you think about it.”
   Laurie glanced back at the X-ray. “You were also right about its being small caliber. I’d guess a twenty-two or a twenty-five at most.”
   “That’s what they usually use,” Lou said. “The more powerful stuff is just too messy.”
   Laurie led the way to table six, where Frankie’s mortal remains were laid out. The corpse was slightly bloated. The right eye was more swollen than the left.
   “He looks younger than eighteen,” Laurie said.
   “More like fifteen,” Lou agreed.
   Laurie asked Vinnie to roll the body over so they could look at the back of the head. With a gloved hand she parted his wet, matted hair and exposed a round entrance wound surrounded by a larger round area of abrasion. After taking some measurements and photographs, Laurie carefully shaved the surrounding hair to expose the wound completely.
   “It was obviously a close-range shot,” Laurie said. She pointed to the tight ring of gunpowder stippling around the punched-out center.
   “How close?” Lou asked.
   Laurie pondered for a moment. “I’d say three or four inches. Something like that.”
   “Typical,” Lou said.
   Laurie took another series of measurements and photographs. Then, with a clean scalpel, she carefully teased bits of the gunpowder residue from the depths of some of the small stippled puncture wounds. By tapping the scalpel blade against the inside of a glass collection tube, Laurie preserved this material for laboratory analysis.
   “Never know what the chemists can tell us,” she said. She gave the tubes to Vinnie to label.
   “We need a break,” Lou said. “I don’t care where it comes from.”
   When Vinnie was finished labeling the collection tubes, Laurie had him help her turn Frank back into a supine position.
   “What’s wrong with the right eye?” Lou asked.
   “I don’t know,” Laurie said. “From the X-ray it didn’t look like the bullet went into the orbit, but you never know.” The lid was a purplish color. Swollen conjunctiva protruded through the palpebral fissure. Gently, Laurie pulled up the eyelid.
   “Ugh,” Lou said. “That looks bad. The first case had no eyes; this one looks like the eye’s been run over with a Mack truck. Could that have happened when he was floating around in the East River?”
   Laurie shook her head. “Happened before death. See the hemorrhages under the mucous membrane? That means the heart was pumping. He was alive when this occurred.”
   Bending closer, Laurie studied the cornea. By looking at the reflection of the overhead lights off its surface, she could tell that the cornea was irregular. Plus, it was a milky white. Reaching over to the left eye, she lifted its lid. In contrast to the right, the left cornea was clear; the eye stared blankly at the ceiling.
   “Could the bullet have done that?” Lou asked.
   “I don’t think so,” Laurie said. “It looks more like a chemical burn the way it’s affected the cornea. We’ll get a sample for Toxicology. I’ll look at it closely in sections under the microscope. I have to admit, I haven’t seen anything quite like it.”
   Laurie continued her external exam. When she looked at the wrists, she pointed to them. “See these abrasions and indentations?”
   “Yeah,” Lou said. “What’s that mean?”
   “I’d say this poor guy had been tied up. Maybe the eye lesion was some kind of torture.”
   “These are nasty people,” Lou said. “What irks me is that they hide behind this supposed code of ethics when in reality it’s just a dog-eat-dog world. And what really irks me is that their screwing around tends to give all Italian-Americans a bad name.”
   As Laurie examined Frank’s hands and legs, she asked Lou why the Vaccarro and Lucia crime families were feuding.
   “For territory,” Lou said. “They all have to sleep in the same bed, Queens and parts of Nassau County. They are forever at each other’s throats for territory. They are in direct competition for their drugs, loan-sharking, gambling clubs, fencing, extortion rings, hot car rings, hijacking . . . You name it and they’re into it. They’re forever fighting and killing each other, but it’s a Mexican standoff so in a way they also have to get along. It’s a weird world.”
   “All this illegal activity goes on even today?” Laurie questioned.
   “Absolutely,” Lou said. “And what we know about is just the tip of the iceberg.”
   “Why don’t the police do something?”
   Lou sighed. “We’re trying, but it ain’t easy. We need evidence. As I explained before, that’s hard to get. The bosses are insulated and the killers are pros. Even when we’ve got the goods on them they still have to go through the courts, and nothing is guaranteed. We Americans have always been so worried about tyranny from the authorities, that we legally give the bad guys the edge.”
   “It’s difficult to believe so little can be done,” Laurie said.
   “Something can only be done if we get hard evidence. Take Frank DePasquale here. I’m ninety-nine percent sure Cerino and his crew are responsible for whacking him. But I can’t do anything without some proof, some break.”
   “I thought the police had informers,” Laurie said.
   “We have informers,” Lou agreed. “But nobody who really knows anything. The people that could really point a finger are more scared of each other than they are of us.”
   “Well, maybe I’ll come up with something with this post,” Laurie said, redirecting her gaze to Frank DePasquale’s corpse. “The trouble is that bodies in water tend to be washed of evidence. Of course, there is the bullet. At the very least I can give you the bullet.”
   “I’ll take whatever I can get,” Lou said.
   Laurie and Vinnie tackled the autopsy. At each step she explained to Lou what they were doing. The only difference between Frank’s autopsy and Duncan’s was the way Laurie did the brain. With Frank she was meticulously careful to follow the bullet’s path. She noted that it never came near to the swollen eye. She was also careful not to touch the bullet with a metal instrument. Once she’d retrieved it, she put it into a plastic container to avoid scratching it. Later, after it was dry, she marked it on its base, then photographed it before sealing it in a small envelope. The envelope was then attached to a property receipt, ready to be turned over to the police, meaning Sergeant Murphy or his partner upstairs.
   “It’s been quite a morning,” Lou said as they exited the autopsy room. “It’s been very instructive, but I think I’ll pass on your third case.”
   “I was surprised you tolerated two,” Laurie said.
   They paused outside the locker room. “I’ll go through the microscopic material on Frank DePasquale, and I’ll let you know if anything interesting turns up. The only thing that I think might be interesting is the eye. But who knows?”
   “Well, it’s been fun . . .” Lou said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
   Laurie looked into the lieutenant’s dark eyes. She had a feeling he wanted to ask her something else, but couldn’t seem to get it out. “I’m heading upstairs for another shot of coffee,” she said. “Would you care for another before you run off?”
   “Sounds good,” Lou said without hesitation.
   Up in the lunchroom they found themselves at the same table they’d occupied earlier. Laurie couldn’t understand why the confident Lou had become so fidgety and awkward. She watched while he took out his cigarettes and matches and fumbled to light up.
   “You’ve been smoking for a long time?” Laurie asked, just to make conversation.
   “Since I was twelve,” Lou said. “In my neighborhood it was the thing to do.” He shook out his match and took a long drag.
   “Have you ever considered stopping?” Laurie asked.
   “Absolutely,” Lou said. He blew smoke over his shoulder. “It’s easy to stop. I’ve been doing it weekly for a year. Seriously though, I do want to quit. But it’s hard at headquarters. Most everybody smokes.”
   “I’m sorry that we didn’t come up with a breakthrough with DePasquale,” Laurie said.
   “Maybe the bullet will help somehow,” Lou said. He dropped his cigarette into the ashtray while trying to balance it on the edge. “The ballistics people are pretty resourceful. Ouch!” Lou pulled his hand away from the ashtray. He’d burned his finger on his cigarette.
   “Lou, are you all right?” Laurie asked.
   “I’m fine,” Lou said too quickly. He tried again and this time succeeded in retrieving his cigarette.
   “You seem upset about something,” Laurie said.
   “Just have a lot on my mind,” Lou said. “But there is something I’d like to ask. Are you married?”
   In spite of herself, Laurie smiled and shook her head. “Now there’s a question out of the blue.”
   “I agree,” Lou said.
   “Also, under the circumstances, it’s not very professional,” Laurie said.
   “I can’t argue with that either,” Lou admitted.
   Laurie paused as she had a mini-argument with herself. “No,” she said finally. “I’m not married.”
   “Well, in that case . . .” Lou said, struggling for words, “ . . . maybe we could have lunch someday.”
   “I’m flattered, Lieutenant Soldano,” Laurie said uneasily. “But I usually don’t mix my private life with work.”
   “Nor do I,” Lou said.
   “What if I say maybe, and I’ll think about it?”
   “Fine,” Lou said. Laurie could tell he regretted having put the question to her. He stood up abruptly. Laurie got up, too, but Lou motioned for her to stay where she was. “Finish your coffee. I can testify that you need a break, believe me. I’ll just run downstairs, change, and be on my way. Let me hear from you.” With a wave, Lou left. At the door, he turned and waved again.
   Laurie waved back as Lou’s figure disappeared from view. He really was a bit like Colombo: intelligent yet lumbering and mildly disorganized. At the same time, he had a basic blue-collar charm and a refreshing, down-to-earth lack of pretense that appealed to her. He also seemed lonely.
   Finishing her coffee, Laurie got up and stretched. As she walked out of the lunchroom, she realized that Lou also reminded her a bit of her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Sean Mackenzie. No doubt her mother would find Lou equally as inappropriate. Laurie wondered if part of the reason she found herself attracted to such a type was because she knew her parents would disapprove. If that was true, she wondered when she’d get this rebelliousness out of her system for good.
   Pressing the down button on the elevator, it dawned on Laurie that after Lou had surprised her with his question, she’d failed to ask him if he were married. She decided that if he called, she’d ask. She checked her watch. She was doing fine: only one more autopsy to go and it was still before noon.

   Laurie checked the address she’d jotted on a piece of paper, then looked up at the impressive Fifth Avenue apartment building. It was in the mid-Seventies, bordering on Central Park. The entrance had a blue canvas, scalloped awning that extended to the curb. A liveried doorman stood expectantly just behind the glazed, wrought-iron door.
   As Laurie approached the door, the doorman pushed it open for her then politely asked if he could help her.
   “I’d like to speak to the superintendent,” Laurie said. She unbuttoned her coat. While the doorman struggled with an old-fashioned intercom system, Laurie sat on a leather couch and glanced around the foyer. It was tastefully decorated in restrained, muted tones. An arrangement of fresh fall flowers stood on a credenza.
   It was not difficult for Laurie to imagine Duncan Andrews striding confidently into the foyer of his apartment building, picking up his mail, and waiting for the elevator. Laurie glanced over at the bank of mailboxes discreetly shielded by a Chinese wooden screen. She wondered which one was Duncan’s and if letters awaited his arrival.
   “Can I help you?”
   Laurie stood and looked eye-to-eye at a mustachioed Hispanic. Stitched into his shirt above his breast pocket was the name “Juan.”
   “I’m Dr. Montgomery,” Laurie said. “I’m from the medical examiner’s office.” Laurie flipped open the leather cover of her wallet to reveal her shiny medical examiner’s badge. It looked like a police badge.
   “How can I help you?” Juan asked.
   “I would like to visit Duncan Andrews’ apartment,” Laurie said. “I’m involved with his postmortem examination and I’d like to view the scene.”
   Laurie purposefully kept her language official. In truth, she felt uncomfortable about what she was doing. Although some jurisdictions required medical examiners to visit death scenes, the New York office didn’t. Policy had evolved to delegate such duties to the forensic medical investigators. But when Laurie was training in Miami, she had had a lot of experience visiting scenes. In New York, she missed the added information such visits afforded. Yet she wasn’t visiting Duncan’s apartment for such a reason. She didn’t expect to find anything that would add to the case. She felt compelled more for personal reasons. The idea of a privileged, accomplished young man ending his life for a few moments of drug-induced pleasure made her think of her brother. This death had stirred up feelings of guilt she’d suppressed for seventeen years.
   “Mr. Andrews’ girlfriend is up there,” Juan said. “At least I saw her go up half an hour ago.” Directing his attention to the doorman, he asked if Ms. Wetherbee had left. The doorman said she hadn’t.
   Turning back to Laurie, Juan added, “It’s apartment 7C. I’ll take you up there.”
   Laurie hesitated. She’d not expected anyone to be in the apartment. She really didn’t want to talk with any of the family members, much less Andrews’ girlfriend. But Juan was already in the elevator pressing the floor button and holding the door for her. Having presented herself in her official capacity, she felt she couldn’t leave.
   Juan pounded on the door to 7C. When it didn’t open immediately, he pulled out a ring of keys the size of a baseball and began flipping through them. The door opened just as he was about to insert a key.
   Standing in the doorway was a woman about Laurie’s height with blond, curly hair. She was wearing a sweatshirt over acid-washed jeans. Fresh tears stained her cheeks.
   Juan introduced Laurie as being from the hospital, then excused himself.
   “I don’t remember seeing you at the hospital,” Sara said.
   “I’m not from the hospital,” Laurie said. “I’m from the medical examiner’s office.”
   “Are you going to do an autopsy on Duncan’s body?” Sara asked.
   “I already have,” Laurie said. “I just wanted to see the scene where he died.”
   “Of course,” Sara said. She stepped back from the door. “Come in.”
   Laurie stepped into the apartment. She felt extremely uncomfortable knowing she was intruding on this poor woman’s grief. She waited while Sara locked the door. The apartment was spacious. Even from the foyer Laurie could see out over the leafless expanse of Central Park. Unconsciously she shook her head at the senselessness of Duncan Andrews’ taking drugs. At least on the surface his life seemed perfect.
   “Duncan actually collapsed right here in the doorway,” Sara said. She pointed at the floor by the door. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “Just before I knocked he pulled it open. It was as if he’d gone crazy. He was heading outside practically naked.”
   “I’m terribly sorry,” Laurie said. “Drugs can do that to people. Cocaine can make them feel like they’re burning up.”
   “I didn’t even know he took drugs,” Sara sobbed. “Maybe if I’d gotten over here faster after he called, it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if I’d stayed Sunday evening . . .”
   “Drugs are such a curse,” Laurie said. “No one is going to know the reason Duncan took them. But it was his choice. You can’t blame yourself.” Laurie paused. “I know how you feel,” she said at last. “I found my big brother after he’d overdosed.”
   “Really?” Sara said through her tears.
   Laurie nodded. For the second time that day Laurie had admitted a secret that she’d not shared with anyone for seventeen years. This job was getting to her, all right, but in a way she had never expected. The case of Duncan Andrews had touched her in a fashion no other case had ever done.

Chapter 4

   6:51 p.m., Tuesday
   Manhattan
   “Christ!” Tony exclaimed. “Here we are waiting again. Every night we wait. I thought last night when we finally caught that prick DePasquale, things would move along. But oh no, we’re back here waiting like nothing happened.”
   Angelo leaned forward and tapped the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray, then leaned back. He didn’t say anything. He’d promised himself earlier that afternoon to ignore Tony. Angelo regarded the busy street scene. People were heading home after work, walking their dogs, or coming back from the grocery store. He and Tony were parked in a loading zone on Park Avenue between Eighty-first and Eighty-second, headed north. Both sides of the street were filled with high-rise apartment buildings whose first floors were filled with professional office suites.
   “I’m going to get out and do some push-ups,” Tony said.
   “Shut the hell up!” Angelo snapped, despite his vow to disregard his partner. “We went over this last night. You don’t get out and do push-ups when we’re waiting for action. What’s the matter with you? You want a neon sign or something to let the cops know we’re sitting here? We’re not supposed to call attention to ourselves. Can’t you understand that?”
   “All right,” Tony said. “Don’t get pissed. I won’t get out!”
   In utter frustration, Angelo blew through pursed lips and beat a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel with the first two fingers of his right hand. Tony was wearing even for Angelo’s practiced calm.
   “If we want to hit the doctor’s office, why don’t we just go in there and do it?” Tony said after a pause. “It don’t make sense wasting all this time.”
   “We’re waiting for the secretary,” Angelo said. “We want to be sure the place is empty. Plus, she can let us in. We don’t want to break down any doors.”
   “If she lets us in, then she’s there and it’s not empty anymore,” Tony said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
   “Trust me,” Angelo said. “This is the best way to do what we have to do.”
   “Nobody ever tells me anything,” Tony brooded. “This whole operation is weird. Breaking into a doctor’s office is crazy. It’s even crazier than when we broke into the Manhattan Organ Repository. At least there we got a few hundred in cash. What the hell are we going to find in a doctor’s office?”
   “If it doesn’t take too long we can see if there’s any cash in here, too,” Angelo said. “Maybe we can also look for Percodan and stuff like that if it will make you happy.”
   “Hard way to get a few pills,” Tony muttered.
   Angelo laughed in spite of his aggravation.
   “What do you think about old Doc Travino?” Tony asked. “Do you think he knows what the hell he’s talking about?”
   “Personally, I have my doubts,” Angelo said. “But Cerino trusts him and that’s what’s important.”
   “Come on, Angelo,” Tony whined. “Tell me why we’re going in there. Isn’t Cerino happy with this doc?”
   “Cerino loves the guy,” Angelo said. “He thinks he’s the best in the world. In fact, that’s why we’re going in.”
   “But why?” Tony asked. “Tell me that and I’ll shut up.”
   “For some of the guy’s records,” Angelo said.
   “I knew it was crazy,” Tony said, “but not that crazy. What are we going to do with the guy’s records?”
   “You told me you would shut up if I told you what we were after. So shut up! Besides, you’re not supposed to ask so many questions.”
   “There, that’s just what I was complaining about,” Tony said. “Nobody tells me what’s going on. If I knew more about what was happening, I could do more; I could be more help.”
   Angelo laughed sarcastically.
   “I can tell you don’t believe me,” Tony complained. “But it’s true. Try me! I’m sure I’d have some suggestions, even for this job.”
   “Everything is going fine,” Angelo assured him. “Planning is not your strong suit. Whacking people is.”
   “That’s true,” Tony agreed. “That’s what I like best. Bam! It’s over. None of this complicated stuff.”
   “There’ll be enough whacking over the next couple of weeks to satisfy even you,” Angelo promised.
   “I can’t wait,” Tony said. “Maybe it will make up for all this waiting around.”
   “There she is,” Angelo said. He pointed ahead to a heavyset woman emerging from one of the apartment buildings. She was busy buttoning a red coat with one hand and holding a hat to her head with the other.
   “Okay, let’s go,” Angelo said. “But keep your piece out of sight and let me do all the talking.”
   Angelo and Tony got out of the car. They walked over to the woman just as she joined a cab line.
   “Mrs. Schulman!” Angelo called.
   The woman turned toward Angelo. Her distrustful hauteur evaporated as soon as she recognized the man. “Hello, Mr. . . .” she said, trying to remember Angelo’s name.
   “Facciolo,” Angelo offered.
   “Of course,” she said. “And how is Mr. Cerino getting along?”
   “Just great, Mrs. Schulman,” Angelo said. “He’s getting pretty good with his cane. But he asked me to come over here to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”
   “I suppose,” Mrs. Schulman said. “What is it you’d like to talk about?”
   “It’s confidential,” Angelo said. “I’d prefer if you came over to the car for a moment.” Angelo gestured toward the black Town Car.
   Obviously discomfited by this request, Mrs. Schulman muttered something about having to be somewhere shortly.
   Angelo slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and lifted his Walther automatic pistol just enough so Mrs. Schulman could see its butt.
   “I’m afraid I have to insist,” Angelo said. “We won’t take much of your time and afterwards we’ll be sure to drop you off someplace convenient.”
   Mrs. Schulman glanced at Tony, who smiled back. “All right,” she said nervously. “As long as it doesn’t take too long.”
   “That will be up to you,” Angelo said, motioning toward the car again.
   Tony led the way. Mrs. Schulman slid into the front seat when Tony opened the door for her with a courteous bow. Tony got in the back while Angelo climbed into the driver’s seat.
   “Does this have something to do with my husband, Danny Schulman?” Mrs. Schulman asked.
   “Danny Schulman from Bayside?” Angelo said. “Is he your old man?”
   “Yes, he is,” Mrs. Schulman said.
   “Who’s Danny Schulman?” Tony asked from the backseat.
   “He owns a joint in Bayside called Crystal Palace,” Angelo said. “A lot of the Lucia people go there.”
   “He’s very well connected,” Mrs. Schulman said. “Maybe you men would like to talk with him.”
   “No, this has nothing to do with Danny,” Angelo said. “All we want to know is if the good doctor’s office is empty.”
   “Yes, everyone has gone for the day,” Mrs. Schulman said. “I locked up as I usually do.”
   “That’s good,” Angelo said, “because we want you to go back inside. We’re interested in some of the doctor’s records.”
   “What records?” Mrs. Schulman asked.
   “I’ll tell you when we get inside,” Angelo said. “But before we go I want you to know that if you decide to do anything foolish, it’d be the last foolish thing you do. Do I make myself clear?”
   “Quite clear,” Mrs. Schulman said, regaining some of her composure.
   “This isn’t a big deal,” Angelo added. “I mean, we’re civilized people.”
   “I understand,” Mrs. Schulman said.
   “Okay! Let’s go,” Angelo said, and he opened his door.

   “Hello, Miss Montgomery,” George said. George was one of the doormen at Laurie’s parents’ apartment house. He’d been there for decades. He looked sixty but he was actually seventy-two. He liked to tell Laurie that he’d been the one to open the cab door the day her mother had brought Laurie home from the hospital just days after her birth.
   After a brief chat with George, Laurie went on up to her parents’. So many memories! Even the smell of the place was familiar. But more than anything, the apartment reminded her of that awful day she’d found her brother. She’d almost wished her parents had moved after the tragedy, just so she wouldn’t have to be constantly reminded of her brother’s overdose.
   “Hello, dear!” her mother crooned as she let Laurie into the foyer. Dorothy Montgomery bent forward and offered her daughter a cheek. She smelled of expensive perfume. Her silver-gray hair was cut short in a style that was making the covers of women’s fashion magazines lately. Dorothy was a petite, vibrant woman in her mid-sixties who looked younger than her years, thanks to a second face-lift.
   As Dorothy took Laurie’s coat, she cast a critical eye over her daughter’s attire. “I see you didn’t wear the wool suit I bought for you.”
   “No, Mother, I did not,” Laurie said. She closed her eyes, hoping her mother wouldn’t start in on her this early.
   “At least you could have worn a dress.”
   Laurie refrained from responding. She’d chosen a jacquard blouse embellished with mock jewels and a pair of wool pants that she’d gotten from a mail order catalogue. An hour earlier she’d thought it was one of her best outfits. Now she wasn’t so sure.
   “No matter,” Dorothy said after hanging up Laurie’s coat. “Come on, I want you to meet everyone, especially Dr. Scheffield, our guest of honor.”
   Dorothy led Laurie into the formal living room, a room reserved exclusively for entertaining. There were eight people in the room, each balancing a drink in one hand and a canapй in the other. Laurie recognized most of these guests, four married couples who’d been friends of her parents for years. Three of the men were physicians, the other a banker. Like her own mother, the wives weren’t career women. They devoted their time to charities just as her mother did.
   After some small talk, Dorothy dragged Laurie down the hall to the library where Sheldon Montgomery was showing Jordan Scheffield some rare medical textbooks.
   “Sheldon, introduce your daughter to Dr. Scheffield,” Dorothy commanded, interrupting her husband in midsentence.
   Both men looked up from a book in Sheldon’s hands. Laurie’s gaze went from her father’s dour aristocratic face to Jordan Scheffield’s, and she was pleasantly surprised. She had expected Jordan to look more like her image of an ophthalmologist; that he’d be older, heavier, stodgy, and far less attractive. But the man who stood before her was dramatically handsome with sandy blond hair, tanned skin, bright blue eyes, and rugged, angular features. Not only didn’t he look like an ophthalmologist, he didn’t even look like a doctor. He looked more like a professional athlete. He was even taller than her father, who was six-two. And instead of a glenn plaid suit like her father was wearing, he had on tan slacks, a blue blazer, and a white shirt open at the collar. He wasn’t even wearing a tie.
   Laurie shook hands with Jordan as Sheldon made the introductions. His grip was forceful and sure. He looked directly into her eyes and smiled pleasantly.
   The fact that Sheldon liked Jordan was immediately apparent to Laurie as he pounded him on the back, insisting he get him some more of the special Scotch he usually hid when company came. Sheldon went to get the prized liquor, leaving Laurie alone with Jordan.
   “Your parents are extremely hospitable,” Jordan said.
   “They can be,” Laurie said. “They enjoy entertaining. They certainly were looking forward to your coming tonight.”
   “I’m glad to be here,” Jordan said. “Your father had nothing but nice things to say about you. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
   “Thank you,” Laurie said. She was mildly surprised to hear that her father had spoken of her at all, let alone spoken well. “Likewise,” said Laurie. “Frankly, you’re not what I’d expected.”
   “What did you expect?” Jordan asked.
   “Well,” said Laurie, suddenly slightly embarrassed, “I thought you’d look like an ophthalmologist.”
   Throwing his head back, Jordan laughed heartily. “And just what does an ophthalmologist look like?”
   Laurie was relieved when her father came back with Jordan’s refill, thus sparing her an explanation. Her father told Jordan that he wanted to show him some ancient surgical instruments in the den. As Jordan obediently followed his host, he sent a conspiratorial smile Laurie’s way.
   At dinner, Jordan was responsible for lightening the atmosphere. He managed to force even the most reserved of Laurie’s parents’ friends to open up. Hearty laughter filled the room for the first time in recent memory.
   Sheldon encouraged Jordan to tell certain stories he’d told Sheldon about his famous patients. Jordan was only too happy to oblige, and he recounted the stories in an exuberant, almost boastful manner that had everyone laughing. Even Laurie’s emotional day receded into the background as she heard Jordan’s amusing tales of the rich and famous who passed through his office each day.
   Jordan’s specialty was the anterior part of the eye, particularly the cornea. But he also did some plastic surgery, even cosmetic plastic surgery. He’d treated celebrities ranging from movie stars to royalty. He had everyone in stitches about a prince from Saudi Arabia who’d come to his office along with dozens of servants. Then he went on to name drop a few sports figures he was treating. Finally, he mentioned he’d even treated the occasional Mafioso.
   “As in Mafia?” Dorothy asked with horrified disbelief.
   “Absolutely,” Jordan said. “God is my witness. Honest-to-goodness mobsters. In fact just this month I’ve been seeing a Paul Cerino, who is obviously connected to the underworld over in Queens.”
   Laurie choked on her white wine at Jordan’s mention of Paul Cerino’s name. Hearing it for the second time that day startled her. The conversation stopped as everyone looked at her with concern. She waved off their attention and managed to say she was all right. Once she could speak again, she asked Jordan what he was treating Paul Cerino for.
   “Acid burns in his eyes,” Jordan said. “Someone had thrown acid into his face. Luckily he had been smart enough to rinse his eyes with water almost immediately.”
   “Acid! How dreadful,” Dorothy said.
   “It’s not as bad as alkali. Alkali can eat right through the cornea.”
   “Sounds ghastly,” Dorothy said.
   “How are Cerino’s eyes doing?” Laurie asked. She was thinking of Frank DePasquale’s right eye, wondering if that could be the beginning of the break that Lou had been hoping for.
   “The acid opacified both corneas,” Jordan said. “But the fact that he washed his eyes out saved the conjunctiva from extensive damage. So he should do well with corneal transplants which we’ll be doing soon.”
   “Does it frighten you to be involved with these people?” one guest asked.
   “Not at all,” Jordan said. “They need me. I’m of use to them. They wouldn’t harm me. In fact I find it all rather comical and entertaining.”
   “How do you know this Cerino is a mobster?” one of the other guests asked.
   Jordan gave a short laugh. “It’s pretty apparent. He comes in with several bodyguards who have obvious telltale bulges in their suits.”
   “Paul Cerino is a known mobster,” Laurie said. “He’s one of the midlevel bosses of the Vaccarro crime family, which is currently warring with the Lucia organization.”
   “How do you know that?” Dorothy asked.
   “This morning I autopsied a gangland-style execution victim. The authorities believe the murder was a direct result of the feud, and they would like nothing better than to associate the killing with Paul Cerino.”
   “How hideous!” Dorothy said with disdain. “Laurie, that’s enough! Let’s talk about something else.”
   “This isn’t appropriate dinner conversation,” Sheldon agreed. Then, turning to Jordan, he added: “You’ll have to excuse my daughter. Since she abandoned her medical education and went into pathology, she’s somewhat lost her sense of etiquette.”
   “Pathology?” Jordan questioned. He looked over at Laurie. “You didn’t tell me you are a pathologist.”
   “You didn’t ask me,” Laurie said. She smiled to herself, knowing that Jordan had been too busy talking about his own affairs to have asked about hers. “Actually I’m a forensic pathologist currently working for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner here in New York.”
   “Maybe we should talk about this season at Lincoln Center,” Dorothy suggested.
   “I don’t know much about forensics,” Jordan said. “We only had two lectures on it in medical school and before them we were told that the material would not be on the exam. So guess what I did?” Jordan pretended to fall asleep by snoring and allowing his head to drop onto his chest.
   Sheldon laughed at Jordan’s antics. “We only had one lecture and I cut it,” he confessed.
   “I think we should change the subject,” Dorothy said.
   “The problem with Laurie,” Sheldon said to Jordan, “was that she didn’t go into surgery, where she could have been dealing with the living. We have a gal in the thoracic program who’s unbelievable, as good as a man. Laurie could have done equally as well.”
   It took every ounce of self-restraint Laurie possessed not to lash out at her father’s inane, sexist remark. Instead, she calmly defended her specialty. “Forensics very much deals with the living, and it does it by speaking for the dead.” She told the story of the curling iron and how knowledge of the cause of that fatality could potentially save someone else’s life.
   When Laurie finished, there was an uncomfortable pause. Everyone looked down at their place settings and toyed with their flatware. Even Jordan seemed strangely subdued. Finally Dorothy broke the silence by announcing that dessert and cognac would be served in the living room.
   By the time the group had reassembled in the living room, Laurie was uncomfortable enough to consider leaving. As she watched the others fall effortlessly into conversations, she debated taking her mother aside and making the excuse that it was a “school night.” But before she could decide, a discreet maid hired for the evening appeared at Laurie’s side with her serving tray filled with brandy snifters. Accepting a cognac, Laurie turned her back on the group. With drink in hand, she slipped down the hall and into the den.
   “Mind if I join you?” Jordan had followed her from the living room.
   “Not at all,” Laurie said, mildly startled. She thought her exit had not been noticed. She tried to smile. She sat in a leather club chair while Jordan leaned comfortably against a massive rear-projection TV. Sounds of laughter drifted in from the living room.
   “I didn’t mean to make fun of your specialty,” he said. “I actually find pathology fascinating.”
   “Oh?” Laurie said.
   “I enjoyed the story about the curling iron,” he added. “I had no idea you could get electrocuted with such an appliance unless you dropped it in the tub while you were taking a bath.”
   “You might have said so at the time.” She knew she wasn’t being polite, but she wasn’t feeling particularly hospitable just then.
   Jordan nodded. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I felt a little inhibited by your parents. It’s pretty obvious they are not wild about your specialty choice.”
   “Is it that obvious?” Laurie asked.
   “Indeed,” Jordan said. “I couldn’t believe your father’s remark about that woman in their thoracic program. And your mother kept trying to change the subject of the conversation.”
   “You should have heard my mother’s comment the day I told her I was going into forensics. She said: “What will I tell people at the club who ask me what you do?’ That gives you a pretty good idea of her feelings. And my father, the quintessential cardiac surgeon! He thinks that anything other than surgery, specifically thoracic surgery, is for the weak, the timid, and the retarded.”
   “Not an easy pair to please. It must be hard on you.”
   “Frankly, I’ve caused them some heartache through the years. I was a pretty rebellious kid: dating rough types, riding motorcycles, staying out late, the usual. Maybe I trained my parents to be wary of everything I do. They’ve never been particularly supportive. In fact they’ve kind of ignored me, especially my father.”
   “Your father certainly speaks highly of you now,” Jordan said. “Practically every time I run into him in the surgical lounge.”
   “Well, it’s news to me,” Laurie said.
   “Anybody want more cognac?” Sheldon called. He’d stuck his head into the den, waving the bottle of cognac.
   Jordan said no. Laurie merely shook her head. Sheldon told them to give a yell if they changed their minds. Then he left them.
   “Enough,” said Laurie. “This is much too serious a conversation. I didn’t mean to put a damper on the evening.” She actually was sorry she’d revealed so much to Jordan. It wasn’t like her to confide in a relative stranger this way, similar to what she’d done with Lou Soldano. But she’d been feeling vulnerable all day, ever since she’d been assigned Duncan Andrews.
   “You didn’t put a damper on anything,” Jordan assured her. Then he looked at his watch. “Say,” he said. “It’s getting late, and I have surgery in the morning. My first case, at seven-thirty, is an English baron who sits in the House of Lords.”
   “Really,” Laurie said without much interest.
   “I think I’ll be calling it a night,” Jordan added. “I’d be delighted to give you a lift home. That is, of course, if you are intending to leave.”
   “I’d love a ride home,” Laurie said. “I’ve been thinking about leaving since we got up from the table.”
   After the appropriate goodbyes during which Dorothy let Laurie know her coat was far too thin for late fall, Jordan and Laurie left the party and waited at the elevator.
   “Mothers!” Laurie said once the doors had closed behind them.
   As they rode down, Jordan started talking about the parade of celebrities due in his office the next day. Laurie wasn’t sure if he was trying to impress her or merely cheer her up.
   Emerging from the building into the cold November air, Jordan switched the conversation to the surgical aspect of his practice. Laurie was nodding as if listening. In reality she was waiting for some signal from Jordan whether he’d parked his car to the north or to the south. For a moment they stopped directly in front of the building while Jordan told Laurie how many surgical cases he did in a year.
   “Sounds like you’re busy,” Laurie said.
   “Could be busier,” Jordan admitted. “If I had my way, I’d be doing twice the amount of surgery I’m doing now. Surgery is what I enjoy; it’s what I’m best at.”
   “Which way is your car?” Laurie finally asked. She was shivering.
   “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s right here.” He pointed to a long black limousine sitting directly in front of her parents’ building. As if on cue, a liveried driver leaped out and held the rear door open for Laurie.
   “This is Thomas,” Jordan said.
   Laurie said hello and slipped in the sleek automobile. Thomas looked as though he could have moonlighted as a bouncer; he was powerfully built. The limo’s interior was elegantly luxurious, complete with a cellular phone, dictaphone, and fax.
   “Well,” Laurie said, noticing all the equipment. “You look ready for business or pleasure.”
   Jordan smiled. He was clearly pleased with his style of living. “Where to?” he asked.
   Laurie gave her address on Nineteenth Street and they pulled out into traffic.
   “I never imagined you had a limo,” Laurie said. “Isn’t it a bit extravagant?”
   “Perhaps a bit,” Jordan agreed. His white teeth shone in the half-light of the car’s interior. “But there is a practical side to this ostentation. I do all my dictation work to and from work and even between work and the hospital. So in a sense, the car pays for itself.”
   “That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”
   “It’s not merely a rationalization,” Jordan said. He went on to describe other ways he’d organized his practice to boost his productivity.
   As Laurie listened she couldn’t help compare Jordan Scheffield with Lou Soldano. They couldn’t have been more opposite. One was self-effacing, the other arrogantly narcissistic; one was provincial, the other sophisticated; and where one could be awkward, the other was smoothly adroit. Yet despite their differences, Laurie found each attractive in his own way.
   As they turned onto Nineteenth Street, Jordan’s monologue stopped abruptly. “I’m boring you with all this shop talk,” he said.
   “I can see you are committed,” Laurie said. “I like that.”
   Jordan stared at her. His eyes sparkled.
   “I’ve truly enjoyed meeting you tonight,” he said. “I wish we’d had more time to talk. How about having dinner with me tomorrow night?”
   Laurie smiled. It had been a day of surprises. She’d not been dating much since her ninetieth breakup with Sean Mackenzie. Yet she found Jordan interesting despite his seemingly overbearing nature. Impulsively she decided it might be fun to see a little more of the man, even if her parents did approve of him.
   “I’d love to have dinner,” Laurie said.
   “Wonderful,” Jordan said. “How about Le Cirque? I know the maitre d’ there and he’ll give us a great table. Is eight o’clock okay?”
   “Eight is fine,” Laurie said, although she began to have second thoughts as soon as Jordan suggested Le Cirque. For a first date she would have preferred a less formal environment.

   “What the hell time is it?” Tony asked. “My battery must have died in my watch.” He shook his wrist, then tapped the crystal.
   Angelo extended his arm and glanced at his Piaget. “It’s eleven eleven.”
   “I don’t think Bruno’s coming out,” Tony said. “Why don’t we go in and see if he’s there?”
   “Because we don’t want Mrs. Marchese to see us,” Angelo said. “If she sees us then we got to do her too, and that’s not right. The Lucia people might do that kind of stuff, but we don’t. Besides, look. Here comes the punk now.” Angelo pointed to the front entrance of the tiny two-story row house.
   Bruno Marchese emerged into the night dressed in a black leather jacket, freshly pressed Guess jeans, and sunglasses. He paused for a moment on the front steps of the house to light a cigarette. Tossing the match into the shrubbery, he started toward the sidewalk.
   “Get a load of those shades,” Angelo said. “Must think he’s Jack Nicholson. My guess is that he’s going socializing. He should have stayed home. The trouble with you young guys is that your brains are in your balls.”
   “Let’s get him,” Tony urged.
   “Hold on,” Angelo said. “Let him round the corner. We’ll nab him when he walks under the railroad tracks.”
   Five minutes later they had Bruno cowering in the backseat, staring into Tony’s smiling face. The pickup had gone even more smoothly than it had with Frankie. The only casualty had been Bruno’s sunglasses, which ended up in the gutter.
   “Surprised to see us?” Angelo asked after they had driven a short while. Angelo looked at Bruno in the rearview mirror.
   “What’s this about?” Bruno demanded.
   Tony laughed. “Oh, a tough guy. Tough and dumb. How about I give him a few whacks with my gun?”
   “It’s about the Cerino incident,” Angelo said. “We want to hear about it from you.”
   “I don’t know anything about it,” Bruno said. “I never even heard of it.”
   “That’s funny,” Angelo said. “We’ve had it from a friend of yours that you were involved.”
   “Who?” Bruno asked.
   “Frankie DePasquale,” Angelo said. He watched Bruno’s expression change. The kid was terrified, and for good reason.
   “Frankie didn’t know crap,” Bruno said. “I don’t know anything about any Cerino incident.”
   “If you don’t know anything about it, how come you’re hiding out at your mother’s house?” Angelo asked.
   “I’m not hiding out,” Bruno said. “I got kicked out of my apartment so I’m just staying there a few days.”
   Angelo shook his head. They drove to the American Fresh Fruit Company in silence. Once they were there, Angelo and Tony brought Bruno to the same spot they’d brought Frankie.
   As soon as Bruno saw the hole in the floor, his tough-guy stance melted. “All right, you guys,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
   “That’s better,” Angelo said. “First sit down.”
   Once Bruno had complied, Angelo leaned toward him and said, “Tell us about it.” He took out a cigarette and lit up, blowing smoke up toward the ceiling.
   “I don’t know much,” Bruno said. “I only drove the car. I wasn’t inside. Besides, they made me do it.”
   “Who made you do it?” Angelo asked. “And remember, if you give me any bull now, you’ll be in deep trouble.”
   “Terry Manso,” Bruno said. “It was all his idea. I didn’t even know what was going on until after it was all over.”
   “Who else beside you, Manso, and DePasquale were involved in all this?” Angelo said.
   “Jimmy Lanso,” Bruno said.
   “Who else?” Angelo demanded.
   “That’s all,” Bruno insisted.
   “What did Jimmy do?” Angelo asked.
   “He went into the place early to locate the electrical panel,” Bruno said. “He made the lights go out.”
   “Who ordered this hit?” Angelo asked.
   “I told you,” Bruno said. “It was all Manso’s idea.”
   Angelo took another long pull on his cigarette, then tilted his head back as he blew out the smoke. He tried to think if there was anything else that he needed to ask this punk. When he decided there wasn’t, he glanced at Tony and nodded.
   “Bruno, I’d like to ask a favor,” Angelo said. “I’d like you to take a message back to Vinnie Dominick. Do you think you could do that for me?”
   “No problem,” Bruno said. A bit of his earlier toughness returned to the timbre of his voice.
   “The message is—” Angelo began. But he didn’t finish. The sound of Tony’s Bantam made Angelo flinch. When it wasn’t your own gun, it always sounded louder.
   Since they hadn’t tied Bruno to the chair, his whole body sagged forward and crumpled to the floor. Angelo stood over him and shook his head. “I think Vinnie will get the message,” he said.
   Tony looked at his gun with a mixture of admiration and pleasure, then took out a handkerchief and wiped the soot from the muzzle. “It gets easier every time I do it,” he said to Angelo.
   Angelo didn’t respond. Instead, he squatted down next to Bruno’s body and pulled out his wallet. There were several hundred-dollar bills and a few smaller denominations. He handed one of the hundreds to Tony. The rest he pocketed. Then he put the wallet back.
   “Give me a hand,” he told Tony. Together they carried Bruno over to the hole and tossed him into the river. Like Frankie, Bruno obligingly floated quickly away, pausing only momentarily against one of the pier’s piles. Angelo brushed off his trousers. Bruno’s body had kicked up some dust from the floor.
   “You hungry?” Angelo asked.
   “I’m starved,” Tony said.
   “Let’s go over to Valentino’s on Steinway Street,” Angelo said. “I’m in the mood for a pizza.”
   A few minutes later Angelo backed up the Town Car, then made a three-point turn to exit through the chain-link gate. At the junction of Java and Manhattan Avenue, he made a left, then gunned the car.
   “It’s amazing how easy it is to whack somebody,” Tony said. “I remember when I was a kid, I used to think it was a big deal. There was a guy who lived on the next block. We kids had heard that he’d bumped somebody off. We used to sit outside his house just to see him come out. He was our hero.”
   “What kind of pizza you want?” Angelo asked.
   “Pepperoni,” Tony said. “I remember the first time I whacked somebody I was so excited I got the trots. It even gave me bad dreams. But now it’s just fun.”
   “It’s work,” Angelo said. “I wish you’d understand that.”
   “Which list we going to work off of after we eat?” Tony asked. “The old one or the new one.”
   “The old one,” Angelo said. “I want to show the new one to Cerino just to be sure. No sense making work for ourselves.”

Chapter 5

   6:45 a.m., Wednesday
   Manhattan
   From where Laurie was standing she could see her brother heading for the lake. He was walking quickly; Laurie was afraid he might break into a run. She thought he knew about the mud and how dangerously deep it was. Yet he kept going as if he didn’t care.
   “Shelly!” Laurie cried. Either he was ignoring her or he couldn’t hear. Laurie yelled again as loud as she could but still he didn’t respond. She started running after him. He was only a step away from the horrid ooze. “Stop!” Laurie yelled. “Don’t go near the water! Stay away!”
   But Shelly kept walking. By the time Laurie reached the lakeside, he was already in black mud up to his waist. He had turned back toward shore. “Help me!” he cried.
   Laurie came to a stop just at the edge. She reached out for him, but their hands could not touch. Laurie turned and screamed for help, but no one was in sight. Turning back to Shelly, she saw that he had sunk up to his neck. There was pure terror in his eyes. As he sank further, his mouth opened and he screamed.
   Shelly’s scream merged into a mechanical ringing that pulled Laurie from her sleep. Still desperate to help Shelly, Laurie’s hand shot out and swept the Westclox from the windowsill. The same movement toppled a half-full glass of water and collided with the book she’d been reading the night before. The clock, the glass of water, and the book all fell to the floor.
   Laurie’s sudden movement and the crash of the things on the floor so surprised Tom that he leaped first to the top of the bureau, where he knocked off most of Laurie’s cosmetics, then to the valance over the window. Unable to make the top of the valance, Tom’s claws sank into the upholstered front, and the sudden weight brought the valance down.
   With the commotion and the noise Laurie was out of bed before she knew what she was doing. It was a few seconds before the sound of the alarm clock shocked her into full awake. Reaching down for it, she managed to shut it off.
   For a moment Laurie stood in the ruins of her room to catch her breath. She’d not had that particular nightmare for years, probably not since college, and its effect was more upsetting than the disarray of her room. Perspiration dotted her forehead, and she could feel her heart beating in her chest.
   After she’d sufficiently recovered, she went into the kitchen for the dustpan to clean up the broken glass. Next she picked up the cosmetics from the floor and stacked them on her bureau. The valance was too big a task. She decided to leave that for later in the day.
   She found Tom hiding under the sofa in the living room. After coaxing him out, she held him in her lap and stroked him for a few minutes until he started purring.
   About ten minutes later, she was about to step into the shower when the doorbell rang. “Now what?” she thought. Clutching a towel, she went to her intercom and asked who was there.
   “It’s Thomas,” a voice said.
   “Thomas who?” Laurie yelled back.
   “Dr. Scheffield’s driver,” the voice said. “I’m here to deliver something at the request of the doctor. He couldn’t come himself because he’s already in surgery.”
   “I’ll be right down,” Laurie said.
   Laurie quickly threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.
   “You’re early this morning.” Debra Engler was poised, as usual, at her door.
   Laurie was grateful when the elevator arrived.
   Thomas tipped his hat when he saw her. He said he hoped he hadn’t woken her. What he had for her was a long white box tied with a thick red ribbon. Laurie thanked him for the package and went back upstairs.
   Putting the box on the kitchen table, she untied the red bow, opened the box, and spread the inside tissue paper. Nestled within the paper were several dozen long-stemmed red roses. On top of the flowers was a card that said: Until tonight, Jordan.
   Laurie caught her breath. Never having been the recipient of such a flamboyant gesture, she didn’t know quite how to react. She wasn’t even sure if accepting them was appropriate or not. But what could she do? She couldn’t send them back.
   Reaching into the box, Laurie lifted one of the blossoms and smelled its springlike sweetness and looked at its deep ruby color. Even though the arrival of the roses confused her and made her feel uncomfortable, she also had to admit that it was romantic and flattering.
   Getting the largest vase she had, Laurie put half of the roses into water, then carried them into the living room. She put the vase on her coffee table. She thought she could get used to having cut flowers in her apartment. The effect was amazing.
   Returning to the kitchen, Laurie put the cover on the box and retied the ribbon. If a dozen roses could do so much for her apartment, she could only guess what they would do for her office.
   “Oh, my God!” Laurie said when she saw the time. In a panic, she tore off her clothes and jumped into the shower.
   It was almost eight-thirty before Laurie arrived at the medical examiner’s office, a good half hour later than usual. Feeling guilty, she went directly to the ID office even though, given the box of roses, she would have preferred to go to her office first.
   “Dr. Bingham wants to see you,” Calvin said as soon as he saw Laurie. “But get your butt back here on the double. We got a lot of cases to do.”
   Laurie put her briefcase and box of roses down on an empty desk. She was self-conscious about the roses, but if Calvin noticed, he didn’t give any indication. Hurrying back through the reception area, Laurie presented herself to Mrs. Sanford. Given her last time in the chief’s office, Laurie was apprehensive to say the least. She tried to imagine what he wanted this time, but she couldn’t.
   “He’s on the phone right this minute,” Mrs. Sanford said. “Would you care to sit down? It should only be a moment.”
   Laurie went over to a couch, but before she could sit down, Mrs. Sanford was speaking into her intercom: Dr. Bingham was ready to see her.
   Taking a deep breath, Laurie walked into the chief’s office. As she approached his desk, his head was down. He was writing. He made Laurie stand while he finished his note. Then he looked up.
   For a moment he studied her with his cold blue eyes. He shook his head and sighed. “After months of flawless work, you seem to have developed a penchant for trouble. Don’t you like your work, Doctor?”
   “Of course I like my work, Dr. Bingham,” Laurie said, alarmed.
   “Sit down,” Bingham said. He folded his hands and placed them resolutely on his blotter.
   Laurie sat down on the very edge of the chair facing Dr. Bingham.
   “Then perhaps you do not like working at this particular office,” he said. It was half question, half statement.
   “Quite the contrary,” Laurie said. “I love being here. What makes you think I don’t?”
   “Only because it is the only way I can explain your behavior.”
   Laurie returned his gaze evenly. “I have no idea what behavior you are referring to,” she said.
   “I’m referring to your visit yesterday afternoon to the apartment of the deceased, Duncan Andrews, where you apparently gained access by flashing your official credentials. Did you go there or have I been misinformed?”
   “I was there,” Laurie said.
   “Didn’t Calvin tell you that we have been getting some pressure from the mayor’s office about this case?”
   “He said something to that effect,” Laurie said. “But the only aspect of the case he discussed with me with regard to that pressure concerned the official cause of death.”
   “Wouldn’t that make you think that this was somehow a sensitive case and that maybe you should be as circumspect as possible in all respects?”
   Laurie tried to imagine who would have complained about her visit. And why? Certainly not Sara Wetherbee. While she was thinking she realized Dr. Bingham was waiting for a response. “I didn’t think that visiting the scene would upset anyone,” she said at last.
   “It is true you didn’t think,” Dr. Bingham said. “That is painfully obvious. Can you tell me why you went to visit this scene? After all, the body was gone. Hell, you’d already finished the autopsy. And on top of that we have medical investigators to do that type of thing; medical investigators whom we had warned not to meddle in this particular case. So that brings me back to the question: Why did you go?”
   Laurie tried to think of an explanation without becoming personal. She did not want to discuss her brother’s overdose with Dr. Bingham, particularly not now.
   “I asked you a question, Dr. Montgomery,” Bingham said when Laurie failed to respond.
   “I hadn’t found anything on autopsy,” Laurie said finally. “There was no pathology. I suppose I went in desperation to see if the scene might reveal a plausible alternative to the drugs the man had obviously taken.”
   “This is in addition to asking Cheryl Myers to look into the man’s medical history.”
   “That’s right,” Laurie said.
   “Under normal circumstances,” Bingham said, “such initiative might be commendable. But under the present circumstances it has added to the problems of this office. The father, who happens to be very politically connected, found out you were there and screamed bloody murder, as if we’re out to ruin his senatorial campaign. And all this is on top of the Central Park Preppy II case, which has already caused enough trouble with the mayor’s office. We don’t need any more. Do you understand?”
   “Yes, sir,” Laurie said.
   “I hope so,” Bingham said. He looked down at the work on his desk. “That will be all, Dr. Montgomery.”
   Laurie walked out of the chief’s office and took a deep breath. This was the closest she had ever come to being fired. Two unpleasant summonses to the chief’s office in three days. Laurie couldn’t help but think that one more time in front of Bingham and she would be out.
   “You and the chief square things away?” Calvin asked when Laurie reappeared.
   “I hope so,” Laurie said.
   “Me too,” Calvin said. “Because I need you in top form.” He handed her a pack of folders. “You’ve got four cases today. Two more overdoses like the Duncan Andrews case and two more floaters. Fresh floaters, I might add. I figured since you did the same kind of cases yesterday, you’d be the fastest today. There’s a lot of work for everyone. I had to give several people five cases, so consider yourself lucky.”
   Laurie flipped through the folders to make sure that they were complete. Then she took them, her briefcase, and her box of roses up to her office. Before she did anything else, she went to the lab and borrowed the largest flask she could find. Taking the roses from the box, she arranged them and filled the flask with water. After putting the flowers on the lab bench, she stepped back. She had to smile; they were so glaringly out of place.
   Sitting down at her desk, Laurie started with the first folder. She didn’t get far. The moment she opened it there was a knock on her door. “Come in,” she said.
   The door opened slowly and Lou Soldano poked his face in. “Hope I’m not bothering you too much,” he said. “I’m sure you didn’t expect to see me.”
   He looked as though he’d never gone to bed the previous night. He was wearing the same baggy, unpressed suit and he still hadn’t managed to shave.
   “You’re not bothering me,” Laurie said. “Come in!”
   “So how are you today?” he asked once he’d come in and sat down. He put his hat in his lap.
   “Except for a little run-in with the boss, I guess I’m fine.”
   “Wasn’t about my being here yesterday, was it?” Lou asked.
   “No,” Laurie said. “Something I did yesterday afternoon which I suppose I shouldn’t have. But it’s always easy to say that after the fact.”
   “I hope you don’t mind my coming back today, but I understand you have a couple more cases like poor Frankie’s. They were found almost in the same spot by the same night security guard. So I was back out at the South Street Sea Port at five in the morning. Wow!” he said, suddenly spotting Laurie’s flask. “Fancy flowers. They weren’t here yesterday.”
   “You like them?” she asked.
   “Pretty impressive,” Lou said. “They from an admirer?”
   Laurie wasn’t sure how to answer. “I guess you’d call him that.”
   “Well, that’s nice,” Lou said. He looked down at his hat and straightened the brim. “Anyway, Dr. Washington said he assigned the cases to you, so here I am. Do you mind if I tag along again?”
   “Not at all,” Laurie said. “If you think you can take several more autopsies, I’m glad to have you.”
   “I’m pretty sure at least one of the deaths is related to Frankie’s,” Lou said, moving forward in his chair. “The name is Bruno Marchese. Same age as Frankie and about the same position in the organization. The reason we know so much so quickly is that his wallet was found on his body, just as Frankie’s was. Obviously whoever killed him wanted the fact of his death to be immediately known, like an advertisement. When it happened with Frankie we thought it had been a lucky accident. When it happens twice, we know it’s deliberate. And it has us worried: something big might be about to happen, like an all-out war between the two organizations. If that’s the case, we’ve got to stop it. A lot of innocent people get killed in any war.”
   “Was he killed the same way?” Laurie asked as she went through the folders until she came across Bruno’s.
   “Same way,” Lou said. “Gangland-style execution. Shot in the back of the head from close range.”
   “And with a small-caliber bullet,” Laurie added as she finished with Bruno’s folder and picked up the phone. She dialed the morgue. When someone answered, she asked for Vinnie.
   “Are we together again today?” Laurie asked.
   “You’re stuck with me all week,” Vinnie said.
   “We got two floaters,” Laurie said. “Bruno Marchese and . . .” Laurie looked over at Lou. “What’s the name of the other one.”
   “We don’t know,” Lou said. “There’s been no ID.”
   “No wallet?” Laurie asked.
   “Worse than that,” Lou said. “Both the head and the hands are missing. This one they didn’t want us to identify at all.”
   “Lovely!” Laurie said sarcastically. “The post will be of limited value without the head.” To Vinnie she said, “I want to be sure Bruno Marchese and the headless man get X-rayed.”
   “We’re already working on it,” Vinnie said. “But it’s going to be a while. They’re in line. Busy down here today. There was some kind of gang war up in Harlem last night, so we’re knee deep in gunshot wounds. And by the way, the headless corpse is a woman, not a man. When will you be down here?”
   “Shortly,” Laurie said. “Make sure we have a rape-kit for the female.” She hung up and looked over at Lou. “You didn’t tell me one of the floaters was a woman.”
   “I didn’t have a chance,” Lou said.

  “Well, no matter,” Laurie said. “Unfortunately, the cases you are interested in won’t be first. I’m sorry.”
   “No problem,” Lou said. “I like to watch you work.”
   Laurie scanned the material in the folder on the headless woman. Then she perused one of the overdose folders. She’d only got as far as the investigator’s report before she reached for the last folder and scanned its investigator’s report. “This is amazing,” she said. She looked up at Lou. “Dr. Washington said these cases were the same as Duncan Andrews. I had no idea he was speaking so literally. What a coincidence.”
   “Are they cocaine overdoses?” Lou asked.
   “Yes,” Laurie said. “But that’s not what makes them such a coincidence. One’s a banker, the other an editor.”
   “What’s so amazing about that?” Lou asked.
   “It’s the demographics,” Laurie said. “All three were successful professionals, actively employed, young single people. Hardly the usual overdose we’re accustomed to seeing around here.”
   “Like I said: what’s so amazing about that? Aren’t these people the kind of yuppies who made coke popular? What’s the big surprise?”
   “The fact that they took cocaine is not the surprising aspect,” Laurie began slowly. “I’m not naive. Behind the veneer of material success can lie some pretty serious addictions. But as I told you the overdose cases we get in here are usually the truly down and out. With crack you see a lot of very impoverished, lower-class people. We do see more prosperous people from time to time, but usually by the time the drugs kill them, they’ve already lost everything else: job, family, money. These recent cases just don’t strike me as typical overdoses. It makes me wonder if there wasn’t some kind of poison in the drug. Now where did I put that article from the American Journal of Medicine?” she said, talking more to herself. “Ah, here it is.”
   Laurie pulled out a reprint of an article and handed it to Lou. “Street cocaine is always cut with something, usually sugars or common stimulants, but sometimes with weird stuff. That article is about a series of poisonings resulting from a kilo of cocaine cut with strychnine.”
   “Wow,” Lou said as he scanned the article. “That would be quite a trip.”
   “It’d be a quick trip in here to the morgue,” Laurie agreed. “Seeing three rather atypical OD cases with such strikingly similar demographics in two days makes me wonder if they each got the cocaine from the same contaminated source.”
   “I think it’s a long shot,” Lou said. “Especially with only three cases. And quite frankly, even if your hunch is right, I’m not that interested.”
   “Not interested?” Laurie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
   “With all the problems this city has, with all the violence and street crime going down, it’s hard for me to muster much sympathy for a trio of fancy pants who have nothing better to do with their leisure time than do illegal drugs. Frankly I’m much more concerned about poor slobs like that headless female floater we got downstairs.”
   Laurie was stunned, but before she could launch into a rebuttal, her phone rang. She was surprised to hear Jordan Scheffield on the other end when she picked up.
   “I finished my first case,” he said. “Went perfectly. I’m sure the Baron will be pleased.”
   “Glad to hear it,” Laurie said, glancing self-consciously at Lou.
   “Did you get the flowers?” Jordan asked.
   “Yes,” Laurie said. “I’m looking at them this very minute. Thank you. They were just what the doctor ordered.”
   “Very clever,” Jordan laughed. “I thought it would be an appropriate way to let you know that I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight.”
   “The gesture might fall into the same category as your limo,” Laurie said. “A bit on the extravagant side. But I appreciate your thinking of me.”
   “Well, I just wanted to check in. I’ve got to get back to surgery,” Jordan said. “See you at eight.”
   “I’m sorry,” Lou said once Laurie had hung up. “You could have told me it was a personal call. I would have stepped out into the hall.”
   “I usually don’t get personal calls here,” Laurie said. “It took me by surprise.”
   “A dozen roses. A limo. Must be an interesting guy.”
   “He is interesting,” Laurie said. “In fact, he said something last night that I think you’ll find interesting.”
   “That’s hard to believe,” Lou said. “But I’m all ears.”
   “The man on the phone is a doctor,” Laurie said. “His name is Jordan Scheffield. You may have heard of him. Supposedly he’s quite well known. At any rate, he told me last night that he has been taking care of the man you are so interested in: Mr. Paul Cerino.”
   “No fooling!” Lou said. He was surprised. He was also interested.
   “Jordan Scheffield is an ophthalmologist,” Laurie said.
   “Wait a sec,” Lou said. He held up a hand while he reached into his jacket and pulled out a tattered pad of paper and a ballpoint pen. “Let me write this down.” While he bit on his tongue, he wrote out Jordan’s name. Then he asked Laurie to spell ophthalmologist.
   “Is that the same as optometrist?” Lou asked.
   “No,” Laurie said. “An ophthalmologist is a medical doctor trained to do surgery as well as manage medical eye care. An optometrist is trained more to correct visual problems with eyeglasses and contact lenses.”
   “What about opticians?” Lou asked. “I’ve always mixed these guys up. No one ever explained it to me.”
   “Opticians fill the eyeglass prescriptions,” Laurie said. “Either from an ophthalmologist or an optometrist.”
   “Now that I have that straight,” Lou said. “Tell me about Dr. Scheffield and Paul Cerino.”
   “That’s the most interesting part,” Laurie said. “Jordan said that he was treating Mr. Cerino for acid burns of the eyes. Someone had thrown acid in Paul Cerino’s eyes to blind him.”
   “You don’t say,” Lou said. “That could explain a lot. Like maybe these two gangland-style executions of Lucia people. And what about Frankie’s eye? Could that have been acid?”
   “Yes,” Laurie said. “It could have been acid. It will be tough to determine since Frankie was in the East River, but on the whole, the damage to his eye was definitely consistent with an acid burn.”
   “Can you try to have your lab document that it was acid? This could be the start of the lucky breakthrough I’ve been praying for.”
   “Of course we’ll try,” Laurie said. “But like I said, his having been in the river might make it tough. We’ll also examine the bullet in the present case. Maybe it will match the one from Frankie.”
   “I haven’t been this excited for months,” Lou said.
   “Come on,” Laurie said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
   Together they went down to the lab. Laurie found the director, a toxicologist, Dr. John DeVries. He was a tall, thin man with gaunt cheeks and an academic’s pallor. He was dressed in a soiled lab coat several sizes too small.
   Laurie made introductions, then asked if any of the results on the previous day’s cases were available.
   “Some might be,” John told her. “You have the accession numbers?”
   “Absolutely,” Laurie said.
   “Come in my office,” John said. He led them to his office, a narrow cubbyhole filled with books and stacks of scientific journals.
   John leaned across his desk and punched a few keys on his computer. “What are the accession numbers?” he asked.
   Laurie gave Duncan Andrews’ number and John entered it.
   “There was cocaine in the blood and urine,” John said, reading off the screen. “And apparently in high concentration. But this was only by thin-layer chromatography.”
   “Any contaminants or other drugs?” Laurie asked.
   “Not so far,” John said, straightening up. “But we’ll be using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry as soon as we have time. We got a lot of work around here.”
   “This was a cocaine overdose case but it’s a little atypical in that the deceased did not appear to be a habitual user. And if he did use drugs—which his family swears he didn’t—it wasn’t interfering with his life. The man was very successful, a solid citizen: the kind of person you do not expect to overdose. So his death was unusual perhaps, but not extraordinary. Cocaine can be an upscale drug. But now I’ve got two more OD’s with similar profiles the very next day. I’m concerned that a batch of cocaine may be poisoned with some kind of contaminant. That’s what may be killing these seemingly casual users. I’d really appreciate it if you ran the samples sooner rather than later. We might be able to save some lives.”
   “I’ll do what I can,” John said. “But as I told you, we’re busy. Was there another case you wanted to know about now?”
   Laurie gave Frank DePasquale’s accession number and John consulted the screen. “Only a trace of cannabinoid in the urine. Otherwise, nothing on screening.”
   “There was a sample of eye tissue,” Laurie said. “Find anything there?”
   “Hasn’t been processed yet,” John said.
   “The eye appeared burned,” Laurie added. “We now suspect acid. Could you look for acid? It might be important if we can document it.”
   “I’ll do what I can.”
   Laurie thanked John, then motioned for Lou to follow her to the elevator. As they walked, Laurie shook her head. “It’s like squeezing water out of a stone to get information out of him,” she complained.
   “He seems exhausted,” Lou said. “Or he hates his job. One of the two.”
   “In his defense, he is busy,” Laurie said. “Like everything else here, his funding is limited and getting progressively worse, so he’s stretched thin when it comes to staff. But I hope he can find the time to search for a contaminant in the drug cases. The more I think about it the more sure I am.”
   When they got to the elevators, Laurie glanced at her watch. “I have to get a move on!” She lifted her eyes to Lou. “I can’t afford to have Dr. Washington mad at me as well as Dr. Bingham. I’ll be out pounding the pavement, looking for a new job.”
   Lou gazed into her eyes. “You really are upset about these overdose cases, aren’t you?”
   “Yes, I am,” Laurie admitted. She averted her eyes and glanced up at the floor indicator. Lou’s comment brought up the memory of the nightmare she’d had that morning. She hoped that he wouldn’t mention her brother. Thankfully the elevator door opened, and they boarded.
   They changed into scrub clothes and entered the main autopsy room. It was a beehive of activity; every table was occupied. Laurie saw that even Calvin was working at table one. Things were definitely hopping for him to be there; it was not customary for Calvin to do routine cases.
   Laurie’s first case was on the table. Vinnie had taken the liberty of getting all the paraphernalia he anticipated she’d need. The deceased’s name was Robert Evans, aged twenty-nine.
   Laurie set out her papers and switched into her professional persona, beginning her meticulous external exam. She was halfway through when she realized that Lou was not across from her. Raising her head, she saw him standing to the side.
   “I’m sorry I haven’t been including you,” she said.
   “I understand,” Lou said. “You do your thing. I’m fine. I can tell that you are all very busy. I don’t want to be in the way.”
   “You won’t be in the way,” Laurie said. “You wanted to watch, so come over and watch.”
   Lou stepped around the table being careful where his feet touched the floor. His hands were clasped behind his back. He looked down at Robert Evans. “Find anything interesting?” he asked.
   “This poor fellow convulsed just like Duncan Andrews,” Laurie said. “He has all the consequent bruises and badly bitten tongue to prove it. He also has something else.
   Look here in the antecubital fossa. See that blanched puncture mark? Remember seeing that on Duncan Andrews?”
   “Sure,” Lou said. “That was the intravenous site where he mainlined the cocaine.”
   “Exactly,” Laurie said. “In other words, Mr. Evans took his cocaine the same way Mr. Andrews did.”
   “So?” Lou questioned.
   “I told you yesterday that cocaine can be taken lots of ways,” Laurie said. “But sniffing, or the medical term, insufflation, is the usual recreational route.”
   “What about smoking?” Lou asked.
   “You’re thinking of crack. Cocaine hydrochloride, the salt, is poorly volatile and can’t be smoked. For smoking it has to be converted to its free base: crack. The point is that although the usual form of cocaine can be injected, it usually isn’t. The fact that it had been used that way on both these cases is curious, not that I know what to make of it.”
   “Wasn’t it common in the sixties to shoot cocaine?” Lou asked.
   “Only when it was combined with heroin in what they call speedball.” Laurie closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and let it out with a sigh.
   “Are you all right?” Lou asked.
   “I’m fine,” Laurie said.
   “Maybe what we’re seeing is the beginning of a new fad,” Lou suggested.
   “I hope not,” Laurie said. “But if it is, it’s much too deadly to be a fad for long.”
   Fifteen minutes later, when Laurie plunged the scalpel into Robert’s chest, Lou winced. Despite the fact that Robert was dead and that there was no blood, Lou could not dismiss the idea that the razor-sharp knife was cutting into human tissue just like his own skin.
   With no pathology apparent, Laurie finished the internal aspect of Robert Evans’ autopsy in short order. While Vinnie took the body away and brought in Bruno Marchese, Laurie and Lou went to the X-ray view box to look at Bruno’s X-rays and the one of the headless woman.
   “The bullet is in just about the same location,” Laurie said, pointing to the bright dot inside the outline of Bruno’s skull.
   “Looks like slightly larger caliber,” Lou said. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s from the same gun.”
   “I’ll be impressed if you’re right,” Laurie said.
   Laurie put up Bruno’s full-body X-ray. She scanned the film with a practiced eye. When she saw no abnormalities she replaced it with the X-ray of the unfortunate woman.
   “It’s a good thing we took this X-ray,” Laurie said.
   “Oh?” Lou said, staring at the foggy-appearing shadows.
   “You mean you don’t see the abnormality?” Laurie asked.
   “No,” Lou said. “At the same time I don’t know how you doctors can see much in these things. I mean a bullet jumps out at you, but the rest just looks like a bunch of smudges.”
   “I can’t believe you can’t see it,” Laurie said.
   “All right, I’m blind,” Lou said. “So tell me!”
   “The head and the hands!” Laurie said. “They’re gone.”
   “You miserable slut!” Lou laughed in a forced whisper to keep those at a nearby table from hearing.
   “Well, it’s an abnormality,” Laurie teased.
   Finished with the X-rays, Laurie and Lou returned to the table just in time to help Vinnie move Bruno from the gurney onto the table. Lou started to help, but Laurie shooed him away since he was not gloved. To save time, Laurie started out with the body prone.
   The entrance wound looked much like Frankie’s although the diameter of the stippling was slightly larger, suggesting the gun had been a bit farther away. After taking all the appropriate photographs and samples, she and Vinnie turned the body supine.
   The first thing Laurie did then was check the eyes. They were normal.
   “After what you said upstairs I was hoping the eyes might tell us something,” Lou said.
   “I was hoping as well,” Laurie admitted. “I’d love to give you that break you need.”
   “It still might be important,” Lou said. “If Paul Cerino had acid thrown in his eyes, and if Frank DePasquale did too, it’s certainly a link. I think it’s worth my while to take a trip out to Queens and have a chat with Paul.”
   After finishing the rest of the external exam, Laurie accepted a knife from Vinnie and began the internal. Again, with no pathology, it went very quickly.
   As soon as Bruno’s autopsy was completed, Vinnie rolled him away and brought in the second floater. As Laurie helped Vinnie transfer the body to the table, someone from a nearby table called out: “Where’d that body come from, Laurie? Sleepy Hollow?”
   After the laughter died down, Lou leaned over to Laurie’s ear. “That was crude,” he whispered teasingly. “Want me to go over and slug the guy?”
   Laurie laughed. “Black humor,” she said. “It has always played a role in pathology.”
   Laurie inspected the woman’s severed limbs and neck. “The mutilation was done after death,” she said.
   “That’s comforting,” Lou said. He felt his tolerance was getting lower with every case. He was having more trouble dealing with this dismembered body than with the others.
   “The decapitation and the removal of the hands was done crudely,” Laurie said. “Look at the rough saw marks on the exposed bones. Of course some of this tissue appears to have been eaten by fish or crabs.”

  Lou forced himself to look even though he would have preferred not to. He was feeling slightly nauseated.
   “The rest of the torso looks okay,” Laurie said. “No human bite marks.”
   Lou swallowed again. “Would you have expected bite marks?” he asked weakly.
   “If rape was involved,” Laurie said, “then bite marks are occasionally seen. You have to think about them, otherwise you can miss them.”
   “I’ll try to remember that,” Lou said.
   Laurie carefully inspected the chest and abdomen. The only finding of note was a right upper quadrant scar following the line of the ribs.
   “This could turn out to be important for ID purposes,” Laurie said, pointing at the scar. “I’d guess it was a gallbladder operation.”
   “What if the body is never identified?” Lou asked.
   “It will stay in the walk-in cooler for a number of weeks,” Laurie said. “If by then we still don’t know who she is, she’ll end up in one of those pine coffins in the hall.”
   Laurie opened up the rape-kit and spread out the contents. “Most of this is probably academic after the body has been in the river, but it’s still worth a try.” As she took the appropriate samples, she asked Lou if he thought the case was related to Frank’s or Bruno’s.
   “I can’t be sure, but I have my suspicions. I have a number of people including police divers out looking for the heads and hands. I’ll tell you one thing: whoever dumped this woman didn’t want her to be identified. Given the East River’s tidal and current patterns, the fact that she was found in the same general vicinity as Frankie and Bruno suggests she was dumped from the same place. So, yeah, I think there could be a connection.”
   “What do you think the chances are of finding the head or the hands?” Laurie asked.
   “Not great,” Lou said. “They could have sunk where the body was dumped or they might not have been dumped in the river.”
   Laurie had moved on to the internal portion of the autopsy. She noted that the victim had had two surgeries in the past: a gallbladder removal, as Laurie had surmised, and a hysterectomy.
   With three of her four cases out of the way before noon, Laurie felt comfortable enough with her progress to suggest that she and Lou have a quick cup of coffee. Lou happily agreed, saying he could use the fortification after the morning’s ordeal. Besides, he would have to leave to get back to his office. Having seen the autopsies of the two “floaters,” he couldn’t rationalize any more time. He jokingly told Laurie that she’d have to do the second overdose without his assistance.
   After taking off her goggles, apron, and gown, Laurie took Lou up to the coffeemaker in the ID room. It was just one floor up, so they used the stairs. Laurie sat in a desk chair while Lou sat on the corner of a desk. Just as happened the previous day, Lou’s demeanor suddenly changed when he was about to leave. He became clumsy and self-conscious. He even managed to spill some of his coffee down the front of his scrub shirt.
   “I’m sorry,” he said, dabbing at the coffee spots with a napkin. “I hope it doesn’t stain.”
   “Don’t be silly, Lou,” Laurie said. “These scrub clothes have had lot worse stains than coffee.”
   “I guess you’re right,” he said.
   “Is something on your mind?” Laurie asked.
   “Yeah,” Lou said. He stared into his coffee. “I wanted to know if you’d like to grab a bite to eat tonight. I know a great place down in Little Italy on Mulberry Street.”
   “I’d like to ask you a question,” Laurie said. “Yesterday you asked if I was married. You never said whether you’re married.”
   “I’m not married,” he said.
   “Have you ever been married?” Laurie asked.
   “Yeah, I was married,” Lou said. “I’ve been divorced for a couple of years. I have two kids: a girl seven and a boy five.”
   “Do you ever see them?”
   “Of course I see them,” Lou said. “What do you think? I wouldn’t see my own kids? I get ’em every weekend.”
   “You don’t have to be defensive,” Laurie said. “I was just curious. Yesterday I realized after you’d left that you’d asked me about my marital status without telling me yours.”
   “It was an oversight,” Lou said. “Anyway, how about dinner?”
   “I’m afraid I have plans tonight,” Laurie said.
   “Oh, fine,” said Lou. “Give me the third degree about my marital and parental status, then turn me down. I suppose you’re seeing the fancy doctor with the roses and the limo. Guess I’m not quite in his league.” He stood up abruptly. “Well, I better be going.”
   “I think you’re being overly sensitive and silly,” Laurie said. “I only said I was busy tonight.”
   “Overly sensitive and silly, huh? I’ll keep that in mind. It’s been another illuminating morning. Thank you so very much. If you come up with anything interesting on any of the floaters, please give me a call.” With that, Lou tossed his Styrofoam cup into a nearby wastebasket and walked out of the room.
   Laurie remained in her seat for a moment, sipping her coffee. She knew that she’d hurt Lou’s feelings, and that made her feel uncomfortable. At the same time she thought he was being immature. Some of that “blue collar” charm she’d noted the day before was wearing thin.
   After finishing her coffee, Laurie returned to the autopsy room and her fourth case of the day: Marion Overstreet, aged twenty-eight, editor for a major New York publishing house.
   “You want anything special for this case?” Vinnie asked. He was eager to get under way.
   Laurie shook her head no. She looked at the young woman on the table. Such a waste. She wondered if this woman would have gambled with drugs if she could have anticipated such a terrible price.
   The autopsy went quickly. Laurie and Vinnie worked well together as a team. Conversation was kept to a minimum. The case was remarkably similar to both Duncan Andrews’ and Robert Evans’, down to the fact that Overstreet had injected the cocaine, not snorted it. There were only a few minor surprises that Laurie would have Cheryl Myers or one of the other forensic investigators check out. By twelve forty-five Laurie walked out of the main autopsy room.
   After changing to her street clothes, Laurie took it upon herself to carry the specimens from each of the day’s cases to Toxicology. She hoped to have another chat with the resident toxicologist. She found John DeVries in his office eating his lunch. An old-fashioned lunch box with a Thermos built into its vaulted cover was open on his desk.
   “I finished the two overdoses,” Laurie said. “I’ve brought up their toxicology samples.”
   “Leave the samples on the receiving desk in the lab,” he told her. He held an uncut sandwich in both hands.
   “Any luck finding a contaminant in the Andrews case?” she asked hopefully.
   “It’s only been a few hours since you were here last. I’ll call you if I find anything.”
   “As soon as possible,” Laurie encouraged. “I don’t mean to be a bother. It’s just that I’m more convinced than ever that a contaminant of some sort is involved. If there is, I want to find it.”
   “If it’s there, we’ll find it. Just give us a chance, for Chrissake.”
   “Thanks,” Laurie said. “I’ll try to be patient. It’s just that—”
   “I know, I know,” John interrupted. “I get the picture already. Please!”
   “I’m out of here,” Laurie said. She put her hands in the air to signify her surrender.
   Back in her office, Laurie ate some of the lunch, dictated the morning’s autopsies, and tried to tackle some of her paperwork. She found she couldn’t take her mind off the drug overdose cases.
   What worried her was the specter of more cases. If there was some source of contaminated cocaine in the city, it meant there would be more deaths. At this point the ball was in John’s court. There was nothing more she could do.
   Or was there? How could she prevent more deaths? The key lay in warning the public. Hadn’t Bingham just lectured her on the fact that they had social and political responsibilities?
   With that thought in mind, Laurie picked up the phone and called the chief’s office. She asked Mrs. Sanford if Dr. Bingham might have a moment to see her.
   “I believe I could squeeze you in,” Mrs. Sanford said, “but you have to come immediately. Dr. Bingham is due at a luncheon at City Hall.”
   When she entered Bingham’s office, she could tell the chief medical examiner was not prepared to give her more than a minute of his time. When he asked her what it was she wanted, Laurie outlined the facts surrounding the three cocaine overdose cases as succinctly as possible. She emphasized the upscale demographics, the fact that none of the victims appeared to have been in the depths of addiction, and that all three had mainlined the drug.
   “I get the picture,” Bingham said. “What’s your point?”
   “I’m afraid that we are seeing the beginning of a series,” Laurie said. “I’m concerned about a toxic contaminant in some cocaine supply.”
   “With only three cases, don’t you think that’s a rather fanciful leap?”
   “The point is,” Laurie said, “I’d like to keep it at three cases.”
   “An admirable goal,” Bingham said. “But are you certain about this alleged contaminant? What does John have to say?”
   “He’s looking,” Laurie said.
   “He hasn’t found anything?”
   “Not yet,” Laurie admitted. “But he’s only used thin-layer chromatography so far.”
   “So I guess we have to wait for John,” Bingham said. He stood up.
   Laurie held her seat. Having come this far, she wasn’t about to give up yet. “I was thinking that maybe we should make a statement to the press,” Laurie said. “We could put out a warning.”
   “Out of the question,” Bingham said. “I’m not about to gamble the integrity of this office on a supposition based on three cases. Aren’t you coming to me a little prematurely? Why don’t you wait and see what John comes up with? Besides, making that kind of statement would require names, and the Andrews organization would have the mayor at my throat in an instant.”
   “Well, it was just a suggestion,” Laurie said.
   “Thank you, Doctor,” Bingham said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late as it is.”
   Laurie was chagrined Bingham didn’t give her suggestion more credence, but without more conclusive proof she could hardly force the issue. She only wished there was something she could do before more of the same kind of overdoses showed up on her schedule.
   It was then she had a thought. Her training in forensics in Miami had involved direct on-the-scene investigation. Maybe if she toured any future scenes, some critical clue might present itself.
   Laurie went to the forensic medical investigative department, where she found Bart Arnold, chief of the investigators, sitting at his desk. Between two of his innumerable telephone conversations, she told him that she wanted to be notified if any more overdoses were called in that were similar to the three that she had had. She was very explicit. Bart assured her that he’d let the others know, including the tour doctors who took calls at night.
   Laurie was about to return to her office when she remembered that she should also request that the autopsies of any similar overdoses be assigned to her. That meant seeing Calvin.
   “It always worries me when one of the troops wants to see me,” Calvin said when Laurie poked her head in his office. “What is it, Dr. Montgomery? It better not be about scheduling your vacation. With the current case load, we’ve decided to cancel all this year’s vacations.”
   “Vacation! I wish!” Laurie said with a smile. Despite his gruff manner, she had a genuine fondness and respect for Calvin. “I wanted to thank you for assigning me those two overdose cases this morning.”
   Calvin raised an eyebrow. “Well, this is a first. No one ever thanked me for assigning him a case. Why do I have the feeling there’s more to this visit?”
   “Because you are naturally suspicious,” Laurie teased. “I truly have found the cases interesting. More than interesting. In fact I’d like to request that any other similar case that comes in be assigned to me.”
   “A grunt looking for work!” Calvin said. “It’s enough to make a poor administrator’s heart glow. Sure. You can have all you want. Just so I don’t make any mistakes, what do you mean by similar? If you took all our overdoses you’d be here ’round the clock.”
   “Upscale overdose or toxicity cases,” Laurie said. “Just like the two you gave me this morning. People in their twenties or thirties, well educated, and in good physical condition.”
   “I’ll personally see that you get them all,” Calvin said cheerfully. “But I have to warn you now. If you put in for overtime, I’m not paying.”
   “I’m hoping there will be no overtime,” Laurie said.
   After saying goodbye to Calvin, Laurie returned to her office and sat down to work. The positive meeting with Calvin had compensated for the meeting with Bingham, and with a modicum of peace of mind, Laurie was able to concentrate. She was able to accomplish more work than she’d expected and signed out a number of cases including most of the weekend’s autopsies. She even had time to counsel a devastated family about the “crib death” of their infant. Laurie was able to assure them they were not at fault.
   The only problem that intruded during the early afternoon was a call from Cheryl Myers. She told Laurie that she’d been unable to find any medical conditions in Duncan Andrews’ past. His only brush with a hospital had occurred nearly fifteen years ago when he broke his arm during a high school football game. “You want me to keep looking?” Cheryl asked after a pause.
   “Yes,” Laurie said. “It can’t hurt. Try to go back to his childhood.” Laurie knew that she was hoping for nothing less than a miracle, yet she wanted to be complete. Then she could turn the whole problem over to Calvin Washington. She decided Lou had been right: if the powers-that-be wanted to distort the record for political expediency, they should do it themselves.
   By late afternoon Laurie’s thoughts drifted back to the drug cases. On a whim she decided to check out where Evans and Overstreet lived. She caught a cab on First Avenue and asked to go to Central Park South. Evans’ address was near Columbus Circle.
   When the cab arrived at the destination, Laurie asked him to wait. She hopped out of the cab to get a good look at the building. She tried to remember who else lived around there. It was some movie star, she was sure. Probably dozens of stars lived nearby. With a view of the park and its proximity to Fifth Avenue, Central Park South was prime real estate. In Manhattan it didn’t get much better than that.
   Standing there, Laurie tried to picture Robert Evans striding confidently down the street and turning into his building, briefcase in hand, excited about the prospects of a social evening in New York. It was hard to jibe such an image with so untimely and profligate a demise.
   Getting back in the cab, Laurie directed the driver to Marion Overstreet’s: a cozy brownstone on West Sixty-seventh Street a block from Central Park. This time she didn’t even get out of the car. She merely gazed at the handsome residence and again tried to imagine the young editor in life. Satisfied, she asked the confused driver to take her back to the medical examiner’s office.
   After the confrontation with Bingham that morning over her visit to Duncan Andrews’ apartment, Laurie had not intended going inside either victim’s building. She’d merely wanted to see them from the outside. She didn’t know why she’d had the compulsion to do so, and when she got back to the medical examiner’s, she wondered if it had been a bad idea. The excursion had saddened her since it made the victims and their tragedies more real.
   Back in her office, Laurie ran into her office-mate, Riva. Riva complimented Laurie on the beauty of her roses. Laurie thanked her and stared at the flowers. In her current state of mind, they had changed their ambience. Although they had suggested celebration that morning, now they seemed more the symbol of grief, almost funereal in their appearance.

   Lou Soldano was still irritated as he drove over the Queensboro Bridge from Manhattan to Queens. He felt like such a fool having set himself up so conveniently for rejection. What had he been thinking, anyway? She was a doctor, for Chrissake, who’d grown up on the East Side of Manhattan. What would they have talked about? The Mets? The Giants? Hardly. Lou was the first to admit that he wasn’t the most educated guy in the city, and except for law enforcement and sports, he didn’t know much about most other things.
   “Do you ever see your kids?” Lou said out loud, doing a mockingly crude imitation of Laurie’s much higher voice. With a short little yell, Lou pounded the steering wheel and mistakenly honked the horn of his Chevrolet Caprice. The driver in front of him turned around and threw him a finger.
   “Yeah, to you too,” Lou said. He felt like reaching down and putting his emergency light on the dashboard and pulling the guy over. But he didn’t. Lou didn’t do things like that. He didn’t abuse his authority, although he did it in his fantasy on a regular basis.
   “I should have taken the Triborough Bridge,” he mumbled as the traffic bogged down on the Queensboro. From the last third of the bridge all the way to the juncture with Northern Boulevard it was stop and go, and mostly stop. It gave Lou time to think about the last time he had seen Paul Cerino.
   It had been about three years previously when Lou had just made detective sergeant. He was still assigned to Organized Crime at the time and had been pursuing Cerino for a good four years. So it was a surprise when the operator at the station had said that a Mr. Paul Cerino was on the line. Confused as to why the man he was after was calling him, Lou had picked up the phone with great curiosity.
   “Hey, how you doing?” Paul had said as if they were the best of friends. “I have a favor to ask of you. Would you mind stopping at the house this afternoon when you leave work?”
   Having been invited to a gangster’s house had been such a weird occurrence that Lou had been reluctant to tell anybody about it. But finally he’d told his partner, Brian O’Shea, who’d thought he’d gone crazy for accepting.
   “What if he’s planning on doing you in?” Brian asked.
   “Please!” Lou had said. “He wouldn’t call me up here at the station if he was going to bump me off. Besides, even if he decided to do it, he wouldn’t get anywhere near it himself. It’s something else. Maybe he wants to deal. Maybe he wants to finger somebody else. Whatever it is, I’m going. This could be something big.”
   So Lou went with great expectations of some major breakthrough that he thought might even have resulted in a commendation by the chief. Of course the visit was against Brian’s better judgment, and Brian insisted on going with him but waiting in the car. The deal had been that if Lou didn’t come out in a half hour, Brian was going to call in a SWAT team.
   It was with a lot of anxiety that Lou had mounted the front steps of Cerino’s modest house on Clintonville Street in Whitestone. Even the house’s appearance added to Lou’s unease. There was something wrong about it. With the huge amount of money the man had to be making from all his illegal activities plus his only legal endeavor, the American Fresh Fruit Company, it was a mystery to Lou why he lived in such a small, unpretentious house.
   With a final glance back at Brian, whose concerns had only served to fan Lou’s anxiety to a fevered pitch and with a final check to make sure his Smith and Wesson Detective Special was in its holster, Lou rang the front bell. Mrs. Cerino had opened the door. Taking a deep breath, Lou had entered.
   Lou laughed heartily, bringing tears to his eyes. The experience was still capable of doing that after three years. While still laughing, Lou glanced into the car immediately to his left. The driver was looking at him as if he were crazy, laughing as he was in such abominable traffic.
   But the traffic notwithstanding, Lou could still laugh at the shock he had had when he’d stepped into Cerino’s house that day expecting the worst. What he had unexpectedly walked into was a surprise party for himself in celebration of his having been promoted to detective sergeant!
   At the time Lou had been recently separated from his wife, so the promotion had gone unnoticed except at the station. Somehow Cerino had heard about this and had decided to give him a party. It had been Mr. and Mrs. Cerino and their two sons, Gregory and Steven. There’d been cake and soda. Lou had even gone out to get Brian.
   The irony of the whole thing had been that Lou and Paul had been enemies for so long they had almost become friends. After all, they knew so much about each other.
   It took Lou almost an hour to get out to Paul’s, and by the time he mounted the front steps, it was just about the same time of day as when Paul had thrown the surprise party. Lou could remember it as if it had been yesterday.
   Looking through the front windows, Lou could see that the living room lights were on. Outside it was getting dark even though it was only five-thirty. Winter was on its way.
   Lou pressed the front doorbell and heard the muted chimes. The door was opened by Gregory, the older boy. He was about ten. He recognized Lou, greeted him in a friendly fashion, and invited him inside. Gregory was a well-mannered boy.
   “Is your dad home?” Lou asked.
   No sooner had he asked than Paul appeared from the living room in his stocking feet clutching a red-tipped cane. A radio was on in the background.
   “Who is it?” he asked Gregory.
   “It’s Detective Soldano,” Gregory said.
   “Lou!” Paul said, coming directly toward Lou and extending a hand.
   Lou shook hands with Paul and tried to see his eyes behind a pair of reflective sunglasses. Paul was a big man, moderately overweight, so that his small facial features were sunk into his fleshy face. He had dark hair cut short, and large, heavily lobed ears. On both cheeks were red patches of recently healed skin. Lou guessed it had been from the acid.
   “How about some coffee?” Paul said. “Or a little wine?” Without waiting for a response, Paul yelled for Gloria. Gregory reappeared with Steven, the younger Cerino. He was eight.
   “Come in,” Paul said. “Sit down. Tell me what’s been happening. You married yet?”
   Lou followed Paul back into the living room. He could tell that Paul had adapted well to his reduced visual acuity, at least in his own home. He didn’t use the cane to navigate to the radio to turn it off. Nor did he use it to find his favorite chair, into which he sank with a sigh.
   “Sorry to hear about your eye problem,” Lou said, sitting opposite Paul.
   “These things happen,” Paul said philosophically.
   Gloria appeared and greeted Lou. Like Paul, she was overweight—a buxom woman with a kind, gentle face. If she knew what her husband did for a living, she never let on. She acted like the typical, lower-middle-class suburban housewife who had to scrimp to get along on a budget. Lou wondered what Paul did with all the money he had to be accumulating.
   Responding to Lou’s positive reply regarding coffee, Gloria disappeared into the kitchen.
   “I heard about your accident just today,” Lou said.
   “I haven’t told all my friends,” Paul said with a smile.
   “Did this involve the Lucia people?” Lou asked. “Was it Vinnie Dominick?”
   “Oh no!” Paul said. “This was an accident. I was trying to jump-start the car and the battery blew up. Got a bunch of acid in my face.”
   “Come on, Paul,” Lou said. “I came all the way out here to commiserate with you. The least you can do is tell me the truth. I already know that the acid was thrown into your face. It’s just a matter of who was responsible.”
   “How do you know this?” Cerino asked.
   “I was specifically told by someone who knows,” Lou said. “In fact it ultimately came from a totally reliable source. You!”
   “Me?” Paul questioned with genuine surprise.
   Gloria returned with an espresso for Lou. He helped himself to sugar. Gloria then retreated from the room. So did the boys.
   “You have awakened my curiosity,” Paul said. “Explain to me how I was the source of this rumor about my eyes.”
   “You told your doctor, Jordan Scheffield,” Lou said. “He told one of the medical examiners by the name of Laurie Montgomery, and the medical examiner told me. And the reason I happened to be talking to the medical examiner was because I went over there to watch a couple of autopsies on homicide victims. The names might be familiar to you: Frankie DePasquale and Bruno Marchese.”
   “Never heard of them,” Paul said.
   “They are Lucia people,” Lou said. “And one of them, curiously enough, had acid burns in one of his eyes.”
   “Terrible,” Cerino said. “They certainly don’t make batteries the way they used to.”
   “So you’re still telling me that you got battery acid in your eyes?” Lou asked.
   “Of course,” Paul said. “Because that’s what happened.”
   “How are the eyes doing?” Lou asked.
   “Pretty good, considering what could have happened,” Paul said. “But the doctor says I’ll do fine as soon as I have my operations. First I have to wait a while, but I’m sure you know about that.”
   “What are you talking about?” Lou said. “I don’t know anything about eyes except how many you got.”
   “I didn’t know much either,” Paul said. “At least not before this happened. But I’ve been learning ever since. I used to think they transplanted the whole eye. You know, like changing an old-fashioned-type radio tube. Just plug the thing in with all the prongs in the right place. But that’s not how it works. They only transplant the cornea.”
   “That’s all news to me,” Lou said.
   “Want to see what my eyes look like?” Paul asked.
   “I’m not sure,” Lou said.
   Paul took off his reflective sunglasses.
   “Ugh,” Lou said. “Put your glasses back on. I’m sorry for you, Paul. It looks terrible. It looks like you have a couple of white marbles in your eyes.”
   Paul chuckled as he put his glasses back on. “I would have thought a hardened cop like you would have felt satisfaction that his old enemy took a fall.”
   “Hell no!” Lou said. “I don’t want you handicapped. I want you in jail.”
   Paul laughed. “Still at it, huh?”
   “Putting you away is still one of my ultimate goals in life,” Lou said agreeably. “And finding that acid burn in Frankie DePasquale’s eye gives me some hope. At this point it looks mighty suspicious that you were behind the kid’s murder.”
   “Aw, Lou,” Paul said. “It hurts my feelings that you’d think something nasty about me after all these years.”

Chapter 6

   8:45 p.m., Wednesday
   Manhattan
   At first Laurie thought the experience was unique enough to be tolerable, but as the time approached eight forty-five she began to get irritated. Thomas, Jordan’s driver, had shown up exactly at the agreed-upon time, eight o’clock, and had rung Laurie’s bell. But when Laurie got down to the car, she learned that Jordan was not there. He was still in surgery doing an emergency operation.
   “I’m supposed to take you to the restaurant,” Thomas had said. “Dr. Scheffield will be meeting you there.”
   Taken by surprise with this situation, Laurie had agreed. She’d felt strange entering the fancy restaurant by herself, but she was quickly put at ease by the maitre d’, who had been expecting her. She’d been discreetly ushered to a waiting table wedged among others near to the window. Next to the table stood a wine stand icing down a bottle of Meursault.
   The sommelier had appeared instantly and had shown Laurie the label of the wine. After she’d nodded, he’d opened it, poured her a dollop, waited for her OK, then filled her glass. All this had been accomplished without words.
   Finally at five minutes before nine, Jordan arrived.
   He came into the room with a flourish, and although he waved a greeting at Laurie, he didn’t join her immediately. Instead he weaved his way through the crowded room, stopping at several tables to say hello. Each group of diners greeted him with gusto; animated conversation and smiles followed in his wake.
   “Sorry,” he said, finally sitting down. “I was in surgery, but I guess Thomas told you as much.”
   “He did,” Laurie said. “What kind of emergency surgery was it?”
   “Well, it wasn’t exactly an emergency,” Jordan said, nervously rearranging his place setting. “My surgery has picked up recently, so I have to squeeze standby cases in whenever the operating room can give me a slot. How’s the wine?”
   The wine steward had reappeared and gave Jordan a taste of the wine.
   “The wine is fine,” Laurie said. “Seems that you know a lot of people here.”
   Jordan took a sip of his wine and for a moment he looked pensive while he swished it around inside his mouth. He nodded with satisfaction after he swallowed, motioned for his glass to be filled, then looked at Laurie. “I usually run into a few of my patients here,” he said. “How was your day? I hope it was better than mine.”
   “Some sort of trouble?” Laurie asked.
   “Plenty of trouble,” Jordan said. “First, my secretary, who’s been with me for almost ten years, didn’t show up in the morning. She’s never not shown up without calling. We tried calling her but there was no answer. So scheduling got all fouled up by the time I came in from the hospital. Then, to make matters worse, we discovered that someone had broken into the office the night before and had stolen our petty cash as well as all the Percodans we kept on hand.”
   “How awful,” Laurie said. She remembered how it had felt to be robbed. Her room at college had been ransacked one day. “Any vandalism?” she asked. Whoever had broken into her room had smashed what they couldn’t carry away.
   “No,” Jordan said. “But strangely enough the burglar rifled through my records and used the copy machine.”
   “That sounds like more than a simple robbery,” Laurie said.
   “That’s what makes me uneasy,” Jordan said. “The petty cash and the few Percodans I could care less about. But I don’t like the thought of someone in my records, not with the high accounts receivable I have. I’ve already called my accountant to run a tape; I want to make sure there isn’t some big change. Have you looked at the menu?”
   “Not yet,” Laurie said. Her irritation was fading now that Jordan had arrived.
   Responding to Jordan’s gesture, the maitre d’ appeared with two menus. Jordan, who ate there frequently, was full of suggestions. Laurie ordered from the daily specials menu attached to the main menu.
   She thought the food was wonderful although the frenetic atmosphere made it difficult for her to relax. But Jordan seemed in his element.
   While they were waiting for dessert and coffee, Laurie asked Jordan about the effects of acid in the eye. He warmed to the request immediately, going on at length about the cornea’s and the conjunctiva’s responses to both acid and alkali. Laurie lost interest halfway through his discourse, but her gaze remained steady. She had to admit: he was an attractive man. She wondered how he maintained such a fabulous tan.
   To Laurie’s relief, the arrival of dessert and coffee interrupted Jordan’s impromptu lecture. As he began his flourless chocolate cake, he changed the subject. “I probably should be thankful those crooks didn’t take any of the valuables last night, like the Picassos in the waiting room.”
   Laurie set her coffee cup down. “You have Picassos in your waiting room?”
   “Signed drawings,” Jordan said casually. “About twenty of them. It’s truly a state-of-the-art office, and I didn’t want to scrimp on the waiting area. After all, that’s the place the patients spend the most time.” Jordan laughed for the first time since he’d sat down.
   “That’s even more extravagant than the limo,” Laurie said. Actually, she felt more strongly than she let on. The idea of such ostentation in a medical setting seemed obscene, especially given the runaway cost of medical care.
   “It’s quite an office,” Jordan said proudly. “My favorite feature of it is that the patients move. I don’t go to them, they come to me.”
   “I’m not sure I understand,” Laurie said.
   “Each one of my five examining rooms is built on a circular mechanism. You’ve seen these revolving restaurants at the tops of certain buildings. It’s kind of like that. When I push a button in my office, the whole thing turns and the examining room I want lines up with my office. Another button lifts the wall. It’s as good as a ride in Disneyland.”
   “Sounds very impressive,” Laurie said. “Expensive but impressive. I suppose your overhead is pretty high.”
   “Astronomical,” Jordan said. He sounded proud of it. “So high that I hate to take a vacation. It’s too expensive! Not the vacation itself, but letting the office sit idle. I also have two operating rooms for outpatient procedures.”
   “I’d like to see this office sometime,” Laurie said.
   “I’d love to show it to you,” Jordan said. “In fact, why not now? It’s just around the corner on Park Avenue.”
   Laurie said she thought that was a great idea, so as soon as Jordan took care of the bill, they were off.
   The first room they entered was Jordan’s private office. The walls and furniture were entirely of teak, waxed to a high gloss. The upholstery was black leather. There was enough sophisticated ophthalmological equipment to outfit a small hospital.
   Next they entered the waiting room, which was paneled in mahogany. Just as Jordan had said, the walls were lined with Picasso drawings. Down a short hall from the waiting room was a circular room with five doors on its perimeter. Opening one, Jordan asked Laurie to sit in the examining chair.
   “Now stay right there,” he said before leaving the room.
   Laurie did as she was told. Next thing she knew, she felt like the room was moving. Then the movement—real or imagined—stopped abruptly and the lights in the room began to dim. Simultaneously, the far wall rose. Its disappearance effectively joined Laurie’s examination room to Jordan’s private office. Jordan was sitting at his desk, backlit, and leaning back in his chair.
   “What’s that line about not having Mohammed go to the mountain, but the mountain going to him? Same principle applies here. I like my patients to feel they are in powerful hands. I actually believe it makes them heal more quickly. I know that sounds a bit hocus-pocus, but it works for me.”
   “I’m impressed,” Laurie said. “Obviously I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Where do you keep your records?”
   Jordan took Laurie through another door that led from his office into a long hall. At the end of the hall was a windowless room with a bank of file cabinets, a copy machine, and a computer terminal.
   “All the records are in the file cabinets,” he said. “But most of the material is duplicated on the computer on hard disk.”
   “Are these the records that the burglars went through?” Laurie asked.
   “They are,” Jordan said. “And that’s the copy machine. I’m very meticulous about my records. I could tell someone had been in them because the contents in some had been put out of order. I know the copy machine was used after we closed because I have my secretary record the number from the machine at the end of each day.”
   “What about Paul Cerino’s record?” Laurie asked. “Was that disturbed?”
   “I don’t know,” Jordan said. “But it’s a good question.”
   Jordan flipped through his “C” drawer and pulled out a manila folder.
   “You were right,” he said after paging through. “This one was disturbed as well. See this information sheet? It’s supposed to be in the front. Instead it’s in the back.”
   “Is there any way to tell if it had been copied?”
   Jordan thought for a moment but shook his head. “Not that I can think of. What’s going through your mind?”
   “I’m not sure,” Laurie said. “But maybe this supposed burglary should convince you to be a bit more careful. I know you think taking care of this Cerino character is mildly entertaining, but you have to understand that he is apparently one nasty man. And maybe even more important, he has some very nasty enemies.”
   “You think Cerino could have been responsible for my break-in?” Jordan asked.
   “I truly don’t know,” Laurie said. “But it’s possible, one way or the other. Maybe his enemies don’t want you to fix him up. There are all sorts of possibilities. The only thing I do know is that these guys play for keeps. Over the last two days I’ve done autopsies on two young men who’d been murdered gangland style, and one of them had what looked like acid burns in his eye.”
   “Don’t tell me that,” Jordan said.
   “I’m not trying to scare you just to scare you,” Laurie said. “I’m only saying this so that you will think about what you are getting yourself involved with by taking care of these people. I’ve been told that the two major crime families, the Vaccarros and the Lucias, are currently at each other’s throats. That’s why Cerino got the acid slung in his face. He’s one of the Vaccarro bosses.”
   “Wow,” Jordan said. “This does put a different complexion on things. Now you got me worried. Luckily I’ll be operating on Cerino soon, so this will all be behind me.”
   “Is Cerino scheduled?” Laurie asked.
   Jordan shook his head. “Not exactly,” he said. “I’m waiting on material, as usual.”
   “Well, I think you should do it as soon as possible. And I wouldn’t advertise the date and the time.”
   Jordan put the contents of Cerino’s file back into its proper order and replaced it in the file drawer. “Want to see the rest of the office?” he asked.
   “Sure,” Laurie said.
   Jordan took Laurie deeper into the office complex, showing her several rooms devoted to special ophthalmologic testing. What impressed her most were the two state-of-the-art operating rooms complete with all the requisite ancillary equipment.
   “You have a fortune invested here,” Laurie said once they’d reached the final room, a photography lab.
   “No doubt about it,” Jordan agreed. “But it pays off handsomely. Currently I’m grossing between one point five and two million dollars a year.”
   Laurie swallowed. The figure was staggering. Although she knew her father, the cardiac surgeon, had to have a huge income to cover his life-style, she’d never before been slapped with such an astronomical figure. Knowing what she did about the plight of American medicine and even the shoestring budget the medical examiner’s office ran under, it seemed like an obscene waste of resources.
   “How about coming by and seeing my apartment?” Jordan said. “If you like the office, you’ll love the apartment. It was designed by the same people.”
   “Sure,” Laurie said, mainly as a reflex. She was still trying to absorb Jordan’s comment about his income.
   As they retraced their route through the office, Laurie asked after Jordan’s secretary. “Did you ever hear from her?”
   “No,” Jordan said, obviously still angry about the no-show. “She never called and there was never any answer at her home. I can only imagine it has something to do with her no-good husband. If she’d not been such a good secretary, I would have gotten rid of her just because of him. He has a restaurant in Bayside, but he’s also involved with a number of shady deals. She confided in me in order to borrow bail on several occasions. He’s never been convicted, but he’s spent plenty of time on Rikers Island.”
   “Sounds like a mobster himself,” Laurie said.
   Once they got into the back of the car, Laurie asked Jordan his missing secretary’s name.
   “Marsha Schulman,” Jordan said. “Why do you ask?”
   “Just curious,” Laurie said.
   It didn’t take long for Thomas to pull up to the private entrance of Trump Tower. The doorman opened the door for Laurie to get out, but she held back.
   “Jordan,” she said, looking at him in the dim light of the interior of the limo, “would you be angry if I asked for a raincheck on seeing your apartment? I just noticed the time, and I have to get up for work in the morning.”
   “Not at all,” Jordan said. “I understand perfectly. I’ve got surgery again myself at the crack of dawn. But there is a condition.”
   “Which is?”
   “That we have dinner again tomorrow night.”
   “You can put up with me two evenings in a row?” Laurie asked. She’d not been “rushed” like this since high school. She was flattered but wary.
   “With pleasure,” Jordan said, humorously affecting an English accent.
   “All right,” Laurie said. “But let’s pick a place not quite so formal.”
   “Done,” Jordan said. “You like Italian?”
   “I love Italian.”
   “Then it will be Palio,” Jordan said. “At eight.”

   Vinnie Dominick paused outside of the Vesuvio Restaurant on Corona Avenue in Elmhurst and took advantage of his reflection in the window to smooth his hair and adjust his Gucci tie. Satisfied, he motioned to Freddie Capuso to open the door.
   Vinnie’s nickname since junior high school was “the Prince.” He’d been considered a handsome fellow whom the neighborhood girls had found quite attractive. His features were full but well sculpted. Favoring a tailored look, he heavily moussed his dark hair and brushed it straight back from his forehead. He looked considerably younger than his forty years and, unlike most of his contemporaries, he prided himself on his physical prowess. A high school basketball star, he’d kept his game over the years, playing three nights a week at St. Mary’s gym.
   Entering the restaurant, Vinnie scanned the room. Freddie and Richie crowded in behind him. Vinnie quickly spotted whom he was looking for: Paul Cerino. The restaurant still had a few diners since its kitchen stayed open until eleven, but most of its clientele had already departed. It was a good location and time for a meeting.
   Vinnie walked to Paul’s table with the confidence of one meeting an old, good friend. Freddie and Richie followed several steps behind. When Vinnie reached the table, the two men sitting with Paul stood. Vinnie recognized them as Angelo Facciolo and Tony Ruggerio.
   “How are you, Paul?” Vinnie asked.
   “Can’t complain,” Paul said. He stuck out a hand for Vinnie to shake.
   “Sit down, Vinnie,” Paul said. “Have some wine. Angelo, pour the man some wine.”
   As Vinnie sat down, Angelo picked up an open bottle of Brunello from the table and filled the glass in front of Vinnie.
   “I want to thank you for agreeing to see me,” Vinnie said. “After what happened last time, I consider it a special favor.”
   “When you said it was important and involved family, how could I turn you down?”
   “First I want to tell you how much I sympathize with your eye problem,” Vinnie said. “It was a terrible tragedy and it never should have happened. And right now in front of these other people I want to swear on my mother’s grave I knew nothing about it. The punks did it on their own.”
   There was a pause. For a moment no one said anything. Finally Cerino spoke. “What else is on your mind?”
   “I know that your people whacked Frankie and Bruno,” Vinnie said. “And even though we know this we have not retaliated. And we’re not going to retaliate. Why? Because Frankie and Bruno got what they deserved. They were acting on their own. They were out of step. And we’re also not going to retaliate because it is important for you and me to get along. I don’t want a war. It gets the authorities up in arms. It makes for bad business for us both.”
   “And how do I know I can trust this gesture of peace?” Cerino asked.
   “By my good faith,” Vinnie answered. “Would I ask for a meeting like this at a place of your choosing if I wasn’t serious? Furthermore, as another token of my desire to settle the matter, I’m willing to tell you where Jimmy Lanso, the fourth and final guy, is hiding out.”
   “Really?” Cerino asked. For the first time in the conversation he was genuinely surprised. “And where might that be?”
   “His cousin’s funeral parlor. Spoletto Funeral Home in Ozone Park.”
   “I appreciate your openness in all of this,” Paul said. “But I have the feeling that there is more.”
   “I have a favor to ask of you,” Vinnie said. “I want to ask you as a colleague to show some good faith to me. I want to ask you to spare Jimmy Lanso. He’s family. He’s a nephew of my wife’s sister’s husband. I’ll see to it that the punk is punished, but I’d like to ask you as a friend not to whack him.”
   “I’ll certainly give it serious thought,” Paul said.
   “Thank you,” Vinnie said. “After all, we are civilized people. Kids can make mistakes. You and I have had our differences, but we respect each other and understand our common interests. I’m sure that you will take all this into account.” Vinnie stood up.
   “I’ll take everything into consideration,” Paul said.
   Vinnie turned around and walked out of the restaurant.
   Paul lifted his wineglass and took a sip. “Angelo,” he called over his shoulder. “Did Vinnie touch his wine?”
   “No,” Angelo said.
   “I didn’t think so,” Paul said. “And he calls himself civilized?”
   “What about Jimmy Lanso?” Angelo asked.
   “Kill him,” Cerino said. “Take me home, then do it.”
   “What if it is a setup?” Angelo asked.
   Paul took another sip of his wine. “I seriously doubt it,” he said. “Vinnie wouldn’t lie about family.”
   Angelo did not like the situation at all. The idea of a funeral home gave him the creeps. Besides, he didn’t trust Vinnie Dominick to tell the truth whether it was about family or business. In Angelo’s opinion there was a good chance this was a setup, despite Cerino’s thoughts to the contrary. And if it was a setup, it was going to be very dangerous to go breaking into the Spoletto Funeral Home. Angelo decided this was a good occasion to let Tony take the lead. And Tony was so eager, he’d no doubt be pleased. He’d been crying for a year that he was never able to do something on his own.
   “So what’s your take?” Angelo asked once he and Tony were parked across the street from the funeral parlor. It was a rather large, white clapboard building with Greek columns supporting a small front porch.
   “I think it’s perfect,” Tony said. His eyes sparkled with excitement.
   “Don’t you feel it’s a little creepy?” Angelo asked.
   “Nah,” Tony said. “My uncle’s cousin had a home. I even worked there for a summer when I needed a job for the parole board. The work is definitely not your usual nine to five, but for what we have in mind, I think it’s convenient. We whack him, they embalm him. It’s all done in-house.” Tony laughed.
   “You get it?”
   “Of course I get it,” Angelo snapped.
   “Well, let’s do it,” Tony said. “I can see a light on in the back. Must be the embalming room. That must be where Lanso’s hiding out.”
   “You say you worked in a funeral home?” Angelo asked as he scanned the neighborhood for signs of trouble.
   “For about two months,” Tony said.
   “Since you’re familiar with this kind of place maybe you should go in first.” He hoped it would sound as if the idea had just occurred to him. “Once you get Lanso cornered, you can flip the light on and off. Meanwhile I’ll hang out here and make sure it isn’t a setup.”
   “Sounds great,” Tony said. With that, he was off.

   Getting up from the cot, Jimmy Lanso stepped over to the tiny TV and turned down the sound. He thought he’d heard a noise again, just like he had the last couple of nights. He listened intently but he didn’t hear anything except his own heart thumping in his chest and a slight ringing in his ears from all the aspirin he’d been taking. Not having slept for sixty or so hours except short snatches, he was a nervous, exhausted wreck. He’d been hiding out in the funeral home ever since he and Bruno abandoned their pad in Woodside after Frankie didn’t return or call.
   The last month had been a nightmare for Jimmy. Ever since the stupid acid episode, he’d been living in constant fear. Up until the dirty deed actually went down, he’d been convinced that his part in it would “make” his career. Instead, he seemed to have guaranteed his own death. The first terrible shock was Terry Manso’s getting killed trying to get into the car. And now he’d heard that both Frankie and Bruno had ended up floating in the East River. It couldn’t be long before they got him, too.
   Jimmy’s only hope was that his uncle had talked to Vinnie Dominick, his brother-in-law by marriage, and Vinnie had promised to take care of things. But until Jimmy heard that everything was copacetic, he couldn’t relax, not for a second.
   Jimmy heard a slight thump in the embalming room. It was not his imagination. With the TV turned down it had been as clear as day. He froze, wondering if he’d hear the sound again. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. When all remained quiet, he mustered the courage to check it out by stepping over to the door of the utility room he was using to hide out.
   Opening the door as soundlessly as possible, Jimmy let his eyes slowly roam around the unilluminated embalming room. There was a series of high windows along one wall that allowed some light in from a streetlamp, but most of the room was lost in shadow.
   Jimmy could see the two shrouded corpses that his cousin had embalmed that evening since they were on gurneys pushed against the wall opposite the windows. Their white sheets seemed to glow in the half-light. In the center of the room was the embalming table, but Jimmy could just make out its outline. Against the far wall was a large, glass-fronted cabinet that loomed out of the shadows. On the wall below the windows were several porcelain sinks.
   With trembling fingers, Jimmy reached into the room and switched on the light. Immediately he saw the source of the noise. A large rat was on the embalming table. Disturbed in its foraging, it stared at Jimmy with angry, gleaming eyes. Then it leaped from the table and scampered to a grate in the floor and disappeared down a drain.
   Jimmy felt disgusted and relieved at the same time. He hated rats, but he also hated hiding in a funeral home. The place gave him the willies and reminded him of all the horror comic books he’d read as a child. His imagination had conjured up all sorts of explanations for the noises he’d been hearing. So seeing a rat was far better than seeing one of the embalmed corpses stalking around the room like Tales From the Crypt.
   Stepping out into the embalming room, Jimmy hurried over to a large metal box the size of a small trunk. Pushing it along the floor, he used it to cover the grate where the rat had disappeared. With that accomplished, he headed back toward his room. But he didn’t get far. He heard another slight thump through the door to the supply room.
   Thinking the rat had surfaced in the supply room, Jimmy grabbed the broom that he’d been using on his clean-up chores. Planning on beating the crap out of the rat, he threw open the supply room door. He even took a step forward before he froze. Blood drained from his face. In front of him was an upright figure whose features were lost in shadow.
   A muffled scream issued from between Jimmy’s lips as he staggered back. The broom slipped from his hands and fell to the tiled floor with a clatter. Jimmy’s wildest fears had become a reality. One of the corpses had come alive.

  “Hi, Jimmy,” said the figure.
   Panic could not overcome paralysis in Jimmy’s brain. He stood rooted to the floor as the figure in front of him stepped from the shadows of the supply room along with a cold breeze from an open window.
   “You look a little pale,” Tony commented. He was holding his gun, but it was pointed toward the floor. “Maybe you’d better climb up on that old porcelain table and lie down.” Tony pointed with his free hand toward the embalming table.
   “They made me do it,” Jimmy slobbered when he comprehended he was not dealing with a supernatural creature but rather a live human being obviously associated with Cerino’s organization.
   “Yeah, sure,” Tony said in a falsely consoling tone of voice. “But get on the table just the same.”
   As Jimmy stepped over to the embalming table with shaky legs, Tony walked over to the wall switch and turned the light on and off several times.
   “On the table!” Tony commanded when he noticed that Jimmy was hesitating.
   With some effort Jimmy got himself up on the table, sitting on the edge.
   “Lie down!” Tony snapped. When Jimmy did so, Tony walked over and looked down on him. “Great place to hide out,” he said.
   “It was all Manso’s idea,” Jimmy blurted out. His head was propped up on a black rubber block. “All I did was turn the lights off. I didn’t even know what was going down.”
   “Everybody says it was Manso’s idea,” Tony complained. “Of course he’s the only one who didn’t make it from the scene. Too bad he’s not around to defend himself.”
   A thump in the supply room heralded Angelo’s entrance. He came into the room warily, looking like a caged animal. He did not like the funeral home. “This place stinks,” he said.
   “That’s formaldehyde,” Tony said. “You get used to it. You don’t even smell it after a while. Come over and meet Jimmy Lanso.”
   Angelo walked over to the embalming table, eyeing Jimmy with contempt. “Such a little prick,” he said.
   “It was Manso’s idea,” Jimmy insisted. “I didn’t do anything.”
   “Who else was involved?” Angelo demanded. He wanted to be sure.
   “Manso, DePasquale, and Marchese,” Jimmy said. “They made me go.”
   “Nobody wants to take any responsibility,” Angelo said with disgust. “Jimmy, I’m afraid you’ve got to go for a little ride.”
   “No, please,” Jimmy begged.
   Tony leaned over and whispered into Angelo’s ear. Angelo glanced over at the embalming equipment, then back down at Jimmy cowering on the embalming table.
   “Sounds appropriate,” Angelo said with a nod. “Especially for such a gutless piece of dog turd.”
   “Hold him down,” Tony said with glee. He darted over to the embalming equipment and turned on a pump. He watched the dials until sufficient suction was produced.
   Then he wheeled the aspirator over to the table.
   Jimmy observed these preparations with growing alarm. Having avoided watching any of the embalming procedures his cousin had performed, he had no idea what Tony was up to. Whatever it was, he was sure he wasn’t going to like it.
   Angelo leaned across his chest and held his hands down. Without giving Jimmy a chance to guess what was happening, Tony plunged the knife-sharp embalming trocar into Jimmy’s abdomen and roughly rooted the tip around.
   With a stifled scream Jimmy’s face seemed to pull inward as his cheeks went hollow and pale. The canister on the aspirator filled with blood, bits of tissue, and partially digested food.
   Feeling queasy, Angelo let go of the boy and turned away. For a second Jimmy’s hands tried to grab the trocar from Tony, but they quickly went limp as the boy lapsed into unconsciousness.
   “What do you think?” Tony asked as he stepped away to view his handiwork. “Pretty neat, huh? All I’d have to do is pump him full of embalming fluid with the embalming machine and he’d practically be ready for the grave.”
   “Let’s get out of here,” Angelo said. He felt a little green. “Wipe off any prints from that machine.”
   Five minutes later they retraced their steps and climbed back out the window. They’d considered using the door but decided against it in case it was wired.
   Once in the car, Angelo began to relax. Cerino had been right. Dominick hadn’t been lying. It hadn’t been a setup. As he pulled away from the curb, Angelo felt a sense of accomplishment. “Well, that’s the end of the acid boys,” he said. “Now we have to get back to real work.”
   “Did you show the second list to Cerino?” Tony asked.
   “Yeah, but we’ll still start from the first list,” Angelo said. “The second list will be easier.”
   “Makes no difference to me,” Tony said. “But what do you say we eat first? Sitting around the Vesuvio made me hungry. How about another pizza?”
   “I think we’d better get one job done first,” Angelo said. He wanted to put a little distance between the grisly scene at the Spoletto Funeral Home and his next meal.

   Embroiled again in the recurrent nightmare about her brother sinking into the bottomless black mud, Laurie was thankful for her alarm’s jangle that pulled her from her deep sleep. Barely awake she reached over to the alarm and turned it off. Before she could retract her arm back into the warm covers, the alarm went off again. That was when Laurie realized it wasn’t the alarm. It was the telephone.
   “Dr. Montgomery, this is Dr. Ted Ackerman,” the caller said. “I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, but I’m the tour doctor on call and I got a message that I should call you if a certain kind of case came in.”
   Laurie was too bewildered to respond. Glancing down at the clock she saw it was only two-thirty in the morning. No wonder she was having a tough time getting her bearings.
   “I just got a call,” Ted continued. “It sounds like the demographics you had mentioned. It also sounds like cocaine. The deceased is a banker, aged thirty-one. The name is Stuart Morgan.”
   “Where?” Laurie asked.
   “Nine-seventy Fifth Avenue,” Ted said. “Do you want to take the call or shall I just go? I don’t mind either way.”
   “I’ll go,” Laurie said. “Thanks.” She hung up the phone and stood up. She felt miserable. Tom, on the other hand, seemed pleased to be awake. Purring contentedly, he rubbed against her legs.
   Laurie threw on some clothes and grabbed a camera and several pairs of rubber gloves. She left her apartment still buttoning her coat and dreaming of returning home to climb back in bed.
   Outside, Laurie found her street deserted, but First Avenue had traffic. In five minutes she was in the back of a taxi with an Afghani freedom fighter for a driver. Fifteen minutes later she got out of the cab at 970 Fifth. An NYPD car and a city ambulance were pulled up on the sidewalk. Both vehicles had their emergency lights blinking impatiently.
   Inside, Laurie flashed her medical examiner’s badge and was directed to Penthouse B.
   “You the medical examiner?” a uniformed policeman asked with obvious amazement when Laurie entered the apartment and again showed her badge. His name tag read “Ron Moore.” He was a muscular, heavyset fellow in his late thirties.
   Laurie nodded, feeling little tolerance or reserve for what was coming.
   “Hell,” Ron said, “you don’t look like any of the medical examiners I’ve ever seen.”
   “Nonetheless I am,” Laurie said without humor.
   “Hey, Pete!” Moore yelled. “Get a load of what just walked in. A medical examiner who looks more like a Playboy Bunny!”
   Another uniformed but younger-appearing policeman poked his head from around a doorway. His eyebrows went up when he saw Laurie. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
   He had a handful of correspondence in both hands.
   “Who is in charge here?” Laurie questioned.
   “I am, honey,” Ron said.
   “My name is Dr. Montgomery,” Laurie said. “Not honey.”
   “Sure, Doc,” Ron answered.
   “Who can give me a tour of the scene?” Laurie asked.
   “Might as well be me,” Ron said. “This here’s the living room, obviously. Notice the drug paraphernalia on the coffee table. The victim apparently injected himself there, then went into the kitchen. That’s where the body is. You get to the kitchen through the den.”
   Laurie took a quick look around the apartment. It was tiny but beautifully decorated. From her spot in the foyer, she could see the living room and part of the den. In the living room two large windows with a southern exposure afforded an extraordinary view. But more than the view, Laurie was interested in the clutter on the floor. It appeared that the room had been ransacked.
   “Was this a robbery?” Laurie asked.
   “Nah,” Ron said. “We did this. Part of our usual thorough investigation, if you know what I mean.”
   “I’m not sure I do,” Laurie said.
   “We’re always exhaustive in our search,” Ron said.
   “For what?” Laurie demanded.
   “For proper identification,” Ron said.
   “You didn’t notice all these diplomas here on the foyer walls?” Laurie questioned while making a sweeping gesture. “The name seems to be rather obvious.”
   “Guess we didn’t see them,” Ron said.
   “Where’s the body?” Laurie asked.
   “I told you,” Ron said. “It’s in the kitchen.” He pointed toward the den.
   Laurie walked ahead, avoiding the debris on the floor, and stepped into the den. All the drawers to the desk were open. The contents looked as if they’d been roughly gone through.
   “I suppose you were looking for identification in here as well?” she said.
   “That’s right, Doc,” Ron said.
   Passing through the den, Laurie walked to the threshold of the kitchen. There she stopped. The kitchen was as messy as the other rooms. The entire refrigerator was emptied, including its shelves. Laurie also noticed some clothing scattered across the floor. The refrigerator’s door was slightly ajar. “Don’t tell me you were looking for identification in here as well?” she asked sarcastically.
   “Hell, no!” Ron said. “The victim did this himself.”
   “Where’s the body?” Laurie asked.
   “In the refrigerator,” Ron said.
   Laurie stepped to the refrigerator and opened the door. Ron wasn’t kidding. Stuart Morgan was wedged into the refrigerator compartment. He was almost naked, clothed only in Jockey shorts, a money belt, and socks. His face was bone white. His right arm was raised, his hand balled into a tight fist.
   “I can’t understand why he wanted to climb into the refrigerator,” Ron said. “Weirdest thing I’ve seen since I joined the force.”
   “It’s called hyperpyrexia,” Laurie said, staring at Stuart Morgan. “Cocaine can make people’s temperature go sky high. The users get a little crazy. They’d do anything to get their temperature down. But this is the first one I’ve seen in a refrigerator.”
   “If you’ll release the body we can let the ambulance boys take Stuart away,” Ron said. “We’re pretty much done otherwise.”
   “Did you touch the body?” Laurie asked suddenly.
   “What are you talking about?” Ron said nervously.
   “Just what I said. Did you or Pete touch the body?”
   “Well . . .” Ron said. He didn’t seem inclined to answer.
   “It’s a simple question.”
   “We had to find out if he were dead,” Ron said. “But that was pretty easy since he was cold as one of those cucumbers on the floor.”
   “So you merely reached in and felt for a pulse?” Laurie suggested.
   “That’s right,” Ron said.
   “Which pulse?” Laurie asked.
   “The wrist,” Ron said.
   “The right wrist?” Laurie asked.
   “Hey, you’re getting too specific,” Ron said. “I can’t remember which wrist.”
   “Let me tell you something,” Laurie said as she removed the lens cap from her camera and started taking pictures of the body in the refrigerator. “See that right arm in the air?”
   “Yeah,” Ron said.
   “It’s staying up in the air because of rigor mortis,” Laurie said. Her camera flashed as she took a photo.
   “I’ve heard of that,” Ron said.
   “But rigor mortis develops after the arm has been flaccid for a while,” Laurie said. “Does that suggest something to you about this body?” Laurie took another photo from a different angle.
   “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ron said.
   “It suggests that the body was moved after death,” Laurie said. “Like perhaps out of the refrigerator and then back. And it had to be several hours after death because it takes about two hours for rigor mortis to set in.”
   “Well, isn’t that interesting,” Ron said. “Maybe Pete should hear about this.” Ron went to the door to the den and yelled for Pete to come into the kitchen. When he did, Ron explained what Laurie had told him.
   “Maybe this guy’s girlfriend pulled him out,” Pete suggested.
   “This overdose was found by the deceased’s girlfriend?” Laurie asked. The torture drug abusers put their loved ones through was horrible.
   “That’s right,” Pete said. “The girlfriend called 911. So maybe she pulled him out.”
   “And then stuffed him back in?” Laurie questioned with skepticism. “Hardly likely.”
   “What do you think happened?” Ron asked.
   For a moment Laurie stared at the two policemen, wondering what approach she should take.
   “I don’t know what to think,” she said finally. She pulled on her rubber gloves. “But for now I want to examine the body, release it to the hospital people, and go home.”
   Laurie reached in and touched Stuart Morgan’s body. It was hard, due to the rigor mortis, and cold. As she examined him, it was obvious that his other limbs were in unnatural positions as well as the right arm. She noticed an IV site in the antecubital fossa of the left arm. Except for the refrigerator, the case certainly seemed uncannily similar to the Duncan Andrews, Robert Evans, and Marion Overstreet overdoses.
   Straightening up, Laurie turned to Ron. “Would you mind helping me lift the body out of the refrigerator?” she asked.
   “Pete, you help her,” Ron said.
   Pete made an expression of annoyance but accepted the rubber gloves from Laurie and put them on. Together they lifted Stuart Morgan from the refrigerator and laid him out on the floor.
   Laurie took several more photos. To her trained mind, it was obvious from the attitude of the body that the rigor mortis had taken place while the body had been in the refrigerator. That much was clear. But it was also clear that the position the body was in when she found it was not the position it had been in originally.
   As she was photographing the body, Laurie noticed that the money belt was partially open. Its zipper was caught on some paper money. She moved in for a close-up.
   Putting her camera aside, Laurie bent down to examine the money belt more closely. With some difficulty, she managed to work the zipper loose and open the pouch. Inside were three single dollar bills with torn edges from having been caught in the zipper.
   Standing up, Laurie handed the three dollars to Ron. “Evidence,” she said.
   “Evidence of what?” Ron said.
   “I’ve heard of cases where police steal from the scenes of accidents or homicides,” Laurie said. “But I’d never expected to be confronted by such an obvious case.”
   “What the hell are you talking about?” Ron demanded.
   “The body can be moved, Sergeant Moore,” Laurie said. “And I am supposed to extend an invitation to you to come and see the autopsy. Frankly, I hope I never see you again.”
   Laurie snapped off her rubber gloves, threw them in the trash, grabbed her camera, and left the apartment.

   “I can’t eat another bite,” Tony said as he pushed the remains of a pizza away from him. He pulled the napkin from his collar where he’d tucked it and wiped his mouth of tomato stains. “What’s the matter. You don’t like pepperoni? You’re eating like a bird.”
   Angelo sipped his San Pellegrino mineral water. Its fizz tended to settle his stomach which was still churning from the Spoletto Funeral Home visit. He’d tried several bites of the pizza, but it hadn’t appealed to him. In fact it made him nauseated, so he’d been impatient for Tony to finish.
   “You done?” Angelo asked Tony.
   “Yeah,” Tony said, sucking his teeth. “But I wouldn’t mind having a coffee.”
   They were sitting in a small all-night Italian pizza joint in Elmhurst, not far from the Vesuvio. There was a handful of customers sitting at widely spaced Formica tables despite the fact it was three-thirty in the morning. An old-fashioned juke box was playing favorites from the fifties and sixties.
   Angelo had another mineral water while Tony had a quick espresso.
   “Ready?” Angelo asked when Tony’s empty espresso cup clanked against the saucer. Angelo was eager to get going, but felt he owed it to Tony to relax for a while. After all, they had been busy.
   “Ready,” Tony said with a final wipe with his napkin. They stood up, tossed some bills on the table, and walked out into the cold November night. Tucking their heads into their coats, they dashed for the car. It had started drizzling.
   With the motor running to get the heater up to temperature, Angelo took the second list from the glove compartment and scanned it. “Here’s one in Kew Garden Hills,” he said. “That’s nice and convenient, and it should be fast and easy.”
   “This is going to be fun,” Tony said eagerly. He burped. “Love that pepperoni.”
   Angelo put the sheet back into the glove compartment. As he pulled out into the deserted street, he said, “Working at night sure makes it easier to get around town.”
   “The only problem is getting used to sleeping all day,” Tony said. He pulled out his Beretta Bantam and screwed the silencer on over the muzzle.
   “Put that thing away until we get there,” Angelo said. “You make me nervous.”
   “Just getting ready,” Tony said. He tried to jam the gun back into the holster, but with its silencer it didn’t quite fit. The butt stuck out of his jacket. “I’ve been looking forward to this part of the operation because we don’t have to be so careful pussyfooting around.”
   “We still have to be careful,” Angelo snapped. “In fact we always have to be careful.”
   “Calm down,” Tony said. “You know what I mean. We won’t have to worry about all that crazy stuff. Now it’s going to be fast and we leave. I mean, boom, it’s over and we’re out the door.” He pretended to shoot a pedestrian with his index finger extended from his hand, sighting down his knuckle.
   It took them a while to find the house, a modest, two-story affair made of stone and stucco with a slate roof. It was situated on a quiet street that dead-ended into a cemetery.
   “Not bad,” Tony said. “These people must have a few bucks.”
   “And possibly an alarm system,” Angelo said. He pulled over to the side of the road and parked. “Let’s hope it’s nothing complicated. I don’t want any complications.”
   “Who gets whacked?” Tony asked.
   “I forgot,” Angelo said. He reached over to the glove compartment and took out the second list. “The woman,” he said after locating the name. He returned the list to the glove compartment. “And let’s get this straight so there will be no confusion: I’ll do her. They’ll probably be in bed, so you cover the man. If he wakes up, whack him. You understand?”
   “Of course I understand,” Tony said. “What do you think I am? An imbecile? I understand perfectly. But you know how much I enjoy this stuff, so how’s about I do her and you cover the man.”
   “Jesus H. Christ!” Angelo said. He took out his gun and attached a silencer. “This is work, not some turkey shoot. We’re not here to have fun.”
   “What difference does it make if you whack her or I whack her?” Tony asked.
   “Ultimately, no difference at all,” Angelo said. “But I’m in charge, and I’m shooting the woman. I want to make sure she’s dead. I’m the one who has to answer to Cerino.”
   “So you think you can shoot someone better than me?” Tony said. He seemed insulted.
   “For Chrissake, Tony,” Angelo said. “You can do the next one. How about we take turns?”
   “Okay, that’s fair,” Tony said. “Share and share alike.”
   “Glad you approve,” Angelo said. Then, looking briefly up at the ceiling of the car, he added: “I feel like I’m back in kindergarten. All right, let’s go!”
   They climbed out of the car, crossed the street, and melted into the dense, wet shrubbery surrounding the house in question. Arriving at the back door, Angelo studied it carefully, running his hand over the architrave, peering through the cracks with a small flashlight, and inspecting the hardware. He straightened up.
   “No alarm,” Angelo said with amazement, “unless it’s something I haven’t seen.”
   “You want to go through a window or a door?” Tony asked.
   “The door should be easy enough,” Angelo said.
   With his pocketknife Tony made short work of the caulking around one of the glass panes bordering the door. With a pair of needle-nosed pliers, he pulled out the wire brads, then lifted the pane out. Reaching inside, he unbolted the door and turned the knob.
   The door opened with only a minor squeak of protest. No alarms sounded and no vicious dogs barked. Angelo silently stepped inside, holding his gun up alongside of his head. He let his eyes roam around the room. It seemed to be a family room with gingham-covered couches and a large-screen television. He listened for a minute, then lowered his gun. After testing for alarms, he began to relax. Everything seemed to be fine; the place was there for the taking.
   Motioning for Tony to follow, Angelo moved silently to the front entrance hall. Together the two men crept up a grand circular staircase. The stairs led them to an upstairs corridor with a half-dozen doors opening onto it. Each of the doors was slightly ajar save for one. Trusting his instincts, Angelo made his way straight for it. When he was sure Tony was right behind him, he tried the door. It pushed open at his touch.
   Loud snores came from the bed against the far wall. Angelo wasn’t sure who was snoring, but once he was convinced both were still sound asleep, he motioned for Tony to follow him. Together they advanced to the bed.
   It was a king-sized bed covered with a down-filled comforter. In the bed were a man and a woman of late middle age. They were both on their backs, their arms at their sides.
   Angelo veered to the right to be on the same side as the woman. Tony went to the opposite side. The victims did not stir. Angelo motioned for Tony’s attention, pointing toward his Walther in the half-light of the bedroom, indicating that he was about to dispatch the woman and that Tony should keep his eye on the man.
   Tony nodded. And as Angelo brought up his gun to bear on the sleeping, female head, Tony did the same across the bed. Angelo advanced the gun to the point where he’d be unable to miss, aiming at the temple, just above and in front of the ear. He wanted the bullet to penetrate into the base of the brain, approximately where it would end up if he were able to shoot her from behind.
   The report was loud in relation to the silence that prevailed in the room, but when compared with normal noise, it was a soft, hissing thump, like a fist striking a pillow.
   Hardly had Angelo recovered from the wince he made after pulling the trigger when there was another similar hissing thump. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man’s head rebound off the pillow, then settle back. A dark stain that looked black in the half-light began to spread.
   “I couldn’t help it,” Tony said. “I heard you shoot and I couldn’t help pulling the trigger myself. I like it. It gives me such a rush.”
   “You’re a goddamn psychopath,” Angelo said angrily. “You weren’t supposed to shoot the guy unless he moved. That was the plan.”
   “What the hell difference does it make?” Tony said.
   “The difference is that you have to learn to follow orders,” Angelo snapped.
   “All right already,” Tony said. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. Next time I’ll play exactly how you say.”
   “Let’s get out of here,” Angelo said. He started toward the door.
   “How about looking around for some cash or valuables?” Tony asked. “After all, we’re here.”
   “I don’t want to take the time,” Angelo said. At the door to the hall he turned. “Come on, Tony! We’re not here to turn a profit. Cerino’s already paying us enough.”
   “But what Cerino doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” Tony said. He picked up a wallet on the night-table along with a Rolex watch. “How about I take a souvenir?”
   “Fine,” Angelo said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
   Three minutes later they were speeding away.
   “Holy crap!” Tony exclaimed.
   “What’s the matter?”
   “There’s over five hundred big ones in here,” Tony said, waving the bills in the air. He already had the gold Rolex watch on his wrist. “Add that to what Cerino is paying us and we’re doing okay.”
   “Just be sure to get rid of that wallet,” Angelo said. “It could finger us for sure.”
   “No problem,” Tony said. “I’ll drop it in the incinerator.”
   Angelo pulled up to the curb and put the car in park.
   “Now what?” asked Tony.
   Angelo leaned over and took the list out of the glove compartment. “I want to see if there’s anybody else in this area,” he said. “Bingo,” Angelo said after a brief perusal.
   “Here’s two in Forest Hills. That’s right around the corner. We can do both before dawn no problem. I’d say that’d make it a pretty good night.”
   “I’d say it’d make it a fabulous night,” Tony said. “I’ve never made this kind of money.”
   “All right!” Angelo said, studying a map. “I know where both of these houses are.
   Expensive part of town.” He placed the map and the list down on the center console, put the car in gear, and drove off.
   It took less than half an hour for Angelo to cruise past the first house. It was a large white mansion set far back from the street. Angelo guessed the house sat on at least two acres. Several leafless elms lined a long, curving driveway.
   “Which one this time?” Tony asked as he gazed up at the big house.
   “The man,” Angelo said. He was trying to decide where to leave the car. In such a ritzy part of town there weren’t many vehicles parked on the street. In the end, he decided to drive right up the driveway since it looped behind the house. He could park so that the car wasn’t visible from the street. He turned his lights off as he came up the drive, hoping the darkened car wouldn’t attract any attention.
   “Now remember,” Tony said as they prepared to move in. “This time it’s my turn.”
   Angelo looked to the heavens as if to say, “Why me, God?” Then he nodded and the two went to the house.
   The white mansion proved more difficult than the more modest stone house. The white mansion had several overlapping alarm systems that took Angelo some time to figure out as well as neutralize. It was a half hour before they broke out a whole sash in a window into a laundry room.
   Angelo went in first to make sure there were no infrared detectors or lasers. When he determined the coast was clear, Tony climbed over the windowsill.
   They stayed together and moved slowly through the kitchen, where they could hear a TV playing in a nearby room.
   As carefully as possible they moved toward the sound. It was coming from a room off the front hall. Angelo went first and peered around the corner.
   The room was a den with a wet bar built into one wall, a giant rear-projection TV in another. In front of the TV was a chintz-upholstered chesterfield. Asleep in the center of the couch was an enormously overweight man, dressed in a blue bathrobe. His stubby, surprisingly skinny legs stuck out from beneath the corpulent mass of his abdomen and were propped up on a hassock. On his feet were leather slippers.
   Angelo pulled back to talk with Tony. “He’s asleep and alone. We’ll have to assume the wife, if there is one, is upstairs.”
   “What are we going to do?” Tony questioned.
   “You wanted to whack him,” Angelo said. “So go in and do it. Just do it right. Then we’ll check on the woman.”
   Tony smiled and stepped beyond Angelo. His gun with the silencer in place was in his right hand.
   Rounding the corner, Tony boldly strode into the den. He went directly up to the man on the couch. Pointing the gun at the man’s temple just above the ear, he purposefully bumped the man’s thigh with his leg.
   The man sputtered as his heavily lidded eyes struggled up. “Gloria, dear?” he managed.
   “No, honey, it’s me—Tony.”
   The hissing thump knocked the man over onto his right side on the couch. Tony leaned over and placed the muzzle of his silencer at the base of the skull and fired again. The man didn’t move.
   Tony straightened up and looked back at Angelo. Angelo waved for him to follow him. Together they went up the stairs. On the second floor they had to search through several rooms before finding Gloria. She was fast asleep with the lights on but with black eyeshades over her eyes and earplugs in her ears.
   “Looks like she thinks she’s a movie star,” Tony said. “This is going to be a snap.”
   “Let’s go,” Angelo said. He gave Tony’s arm a tug.
   “Aw, come on,” Tony said. “She’s like a sitting duck.”
   “I’m not going to argue,” Angelo snarled. “We’re getting out of here.”
   Back in the car, Tony pouted while Angelo checked the fastest route to the next house. Angelo didn’t care how long Tony brooded. At least it kept him quiet.
   The final house was a two-story row house with a metal awning forming a carport in front of the single-car garage. A small chain-link fence demarcated a postage-stamp-sized lawn that contained two pink flamingo statues.
   “The man or the woman?” Tony asked, breaking his silence for the first time.
   “The woman,” Angelo said. “And you can do her if you want.” He was feeling magnanimous with the evening’s work drawing to a close.
   Breaking into the final house was a breeze. They did it from the alleyway, going through the back door. To their surprise they found the husband sleeping on the couch with an empty six-pack on the floor next to him.
   Angelo told Tony to go upstairs by himself and that he’d keep his eye on the man. Angelo could see Tony’s eager smile in the half-light, and he thought the kid’s appetite for “whacking” was insatiable.
   Several minutes later Angelo could barely hear the silenced report of Tony’s gun, followed quickly by another shot. At least the kid was thorough. A few minutes after that Tony reappeared.
   “The guy move?” Tony asked.
   Angelo shook his head and motioned for them to leave.
   “Too bad,” Tony said. His eyes lingered a second on the sleeping man before he turned to follow Angelo out the door.
   On the back stoop Angelo stretched and looked up at the brightening sky. “Here comes the sun,” he said. “How about some breakfast?”
   “Sounds great,” Tony said. “What a night. It doesn’t get any better than this.” As he walked to the car he unscrewed his silencer from his gun.

Chapter 7

   7:45 a.m., Thursday
   Manhattan
   Although she hadn’t slept much thanks to her late-night call, Laurie made it a point to arrive at work a little early to compensate for having been late the day before. It was only seven forty-five as she mounted the steps to the medical examiner’s office.
   Going directly to the ID office, she detected a mild electricity in the air. Several of the other associate medical examiners who usually didn’t come in until around eight-thirty were already on the job. Kevin Southgate and Arnold Besserman, two of the older examiners, were huddled around the coffeepot in heated debate. Kevin, a liberal, and Arnold, an arch-conservative, never agreed on anything.
   “I’m telling you,” Arnold was saying when Laurie squeezed through to get herself some coffee, “if we had more police on the streets, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.”
   “I disagree,” Kevin said. “This kind of tragedy—”
   “What happened now?” Laurie asked as she stirred her coffee.
   “A series of homicides in Queens,” Arnold said. “Gunshot wounds to the head from close range.”
   “Small-caliber bullets?” Laurie asked.
   Arnold looked at Kevin. “I don’t know about that yet.”
   “The posts haven’t been done yet,” Kevin explained.
   “Were they pulled out of the river?”
   “No,” Arnold said. “These people were asleep in their own homes. Now, if we had more police presence—”
   “Come on, Arnold!” Kevin said.
   Laurie left the two to their bickering and went over to check the autopsy schedule. Sipping her coffee, she checked at who was on autopsy besides herself and what cases were assigned. After her own name were three cases, including Stuart Morgan. She was pleased. Calvin was sticking by his promise.
   Noting that the other two cases were drug overdose/toxicity cases as well, Laurie flipped through the investigator’s reports. She was immediately dismayed to see that profiles of the deceased resembled the previous suspicious cases. Randall Thatcher, thirty years old, was a lawyer; Valerie Abrams, thirty-three, was a stockbroker.
   The day before she’d feared there’d be more cases, but she’d hoped her fears wouldn’t materialize. Obviously that wasn’t to be the case. Already there were three more. Overnight her modest series had jumped one hundred percent.
   Laurie walked through Communications on her way to the medical forensic investigative department. Spotting the police liaison office, she wondered what she should do about the suspected thievery at the Morgan apartment. For the moment she decided to let it go. If she saw Lou she might discuss the matter with him.
   Laurie found Cheryl Myers in her tiny windowless office.
   “No luck so far on that Duncan Andrews case,” Cheryl told her before she could say a word.
   “That’s not why I stopped by,” Laurie said. “I left word last evening with Bart that I wanted to be called if any upscale drug overdose cases came in like Duncan Andrews or Marion Overstreet. I was called last night for one. But this morning I discovered there were two others that I wasn’t called on. Have you any idea why I wasn’t called?”
   “No,” Cheryl said. “Ted was on last night. We’ll have to ask him this evening. Was there a problem?”
   “Not really,” Laurie admitted. “I’m just curious. Actually I probably couldn’t have gone to all three scenes. And I will be handling the autopsies. By the way, did you check with the hospital about the Marion Overstreet case?”
   “Sure did,” Cheryl said. “I spoke with a Dr. Murray and he said that they were just following policy orders from you.”
   “That’s what I figured,” Laurie said. “But it was worth a check. Also, I have something else I’d like to ask you to do. Would you see what kind of medical records you can get, particularly surgical, on a woman by the name of Marsha Schulman. I’d love to get some X-rays. I believe she lived in Bayside, Queens. I’m not sure of her age. Let’s say around forty.” Ever since Jordan had told Laurie about his secretary’s husband’s shady dealings and arrest record, she’d had a bad feeling about the woman’s disappearance, particularly in view of the odd break-in at Jordan’s office.
   Cheryl wrote the information down on a pad on her desk. “I’ll get right on it.”
   Next Laurie sought out John DeVries. As she’d feared, he was less than cordial.
   “I told you I’d call you,” John snapped when Laurie asked about a contaminant. “I’ve got hundreds of cases besides yours.”
   “I know you’re busy,” Laurie said, “but this morning I have three more overdoses like the three I had before. That brings the body count to a total of six young, affluent, well-educated career people. Something has to be in that cocaine, and we have to find it.”
   “You’re welcome to come up here and run the tests yourself,” John said. “But I want you to leave me alone. If you don’t, I’ll have to speak to Dr. Bingham.”
   “Why are you acting this way?” Laurie asked. “I’ve tried to be nice about this.”
   “You’re being a pain in the neck,” John said.
   “Fine,” Laurie said. “It’s wonderful to know we have a nice cooperative atmosphere around here.”
   Exasperated, Laurie stalked out of the lab, grumbling under her breath. She felt a hand grip her arm and she spun around, ready to slap John DeVries for having the nerve to touch her. But it wasn’t John. It was one of his young assistants, Peter Letterman.
   “Could I talk to you a moment?” Peter said. He glanced warily over his shoulder.
   “Of course,” Laurie said.
   “Come into my cubbyhole,” Peter said. He motioned for Laurie to follow him. They entered what had originally been designed as a broom closet. There was barely enough room there for a desk, a computer terminal, a file cabinet, and two chairs. Peter closed the door behind them.
   Peter was a thin, blond fellow with delicate features. To Laurie he appeared as the quintessential graduate student, with a marked intensity to his eyes and demeanor.
   Under his white lab coat was an open-necked flannel shirt.
   “John is a little hard to get along with,” he said.
   “That’s an understatement,” Laurie answered.
   “Lots of artists are like that,” Peter continued. “And John is an artist of sorts. When it comes to chemistry and toxicology in particular, he’s amazing. But I couldn’t help overhearing your conversations with him. I think one of the reasons he’s giving you a hard time is to make a point with the administration that he needs more funding. He’s slowing up a lot of reports, and for the most part it makes little difference. I mean the people are dead. But if your suspicions are right it sounds like we could be in the lifesaving business for a change. So I’d like to help. I’ll see what I can do for you even if I have to put in some overtime.”
   “I’d be grateful, Peter,” Laurie said. “And you’re right.”
   Peter smiled self-consciously. “We went to the same school,” he said.
   “Really?” Laurie said. “Where?”
   “Wesleyan,” Peter said. “I was two years behind you, but we shared a class. Physical chemistry.”
   “I’m sorry but I don’t remember you,” Laurie said.
   “Well, I was kinda a nerd then. Anyway, I’ll let you know what I come up with.”
   Laurie returned to her office feeling considerably more optimistic about mankind with Peter’s generous offer to help. Going through the day’s autopsy folders, she came up with only a few questions on two of the cases similar to her question about Marion Overstreet. Just to be thorough she called Cheryl to ask her to check them out.
   After changing in her office, Laurie went down to the autopsy room. Vinnie had Stuart Morgan “up” and was well prepared for her arrival. They started work immediately.
   The autopsy went smoothly. As they were finishing the internal portion, Cheryl Myers came in holding a mask to her face. Laurie glanced around to make sure Calvin wasn’t in sight to complain that Cheryl had not put on scrubs. Happily he wasn’t in the room.
   “I had some luck with Marsha Schulman,” she said, waving a set of X-rays. “She’d been treated at Manhattan General because she worked for a doctor on the staff. They had recent chest film which they sent right over. Want me to put it up?”
   “Please,” Laurie said. She wiped her hands on her apron and followed Cheryl over to the X-ray view box. Cheryl stuck the X-rays into the holder and stepped to the side.
   “They want them back right away,” Cheryl explained. “The tech in X-ray was doing me a favor by letting them out without authorization.”
   Laurie scanned the X-rays. They were an AP and lateral of the chest taken two years before. The lung fields were clear and normal. The heart silhouette looked normal as well. Disappointed, Laurie was about to tell Cheryl to remove the films when she looked at the clavicles, or collarbones. The one on the right had a slight angle to it two-thirds along its length, associated with a slight increase in radiopacity. Marsha Schulman had broken her collarbone sometime in the past. Though well healed, there had definitely been a fracture.
   “Vinnie,” Laurie called out. “Get someone to bring the X-ray we took on the headless floater.”
   “See something?” Cheryl asked.
   Laurie pointed out the fracture, explaining to Cheryl why it appeared as it did. Vinnie brought the requested X-ray over to the view box. He snapped the new film up next to Marsha Schulman’s.
   “Well, look at that!” Laurie cried. She pointed to the fractured clavicle. They were identical on both films. “I think we’re looking at the same person,” she said.
   “Who is it?” Vinnie asked.
   “The name is Marsha Schulman,” Laurie said, pulling down the X-rays from the Manhattan General and handing them to Cheryl. Then she asked Cheryl to check if Marsha Schulman had had a cholecystectomy and a hysterectomy. She told her it was important and asked her to do it immediately.
   Pleased with this discovery, Laurie started her second case, Randall Thatcher. As with her first case of the day, there was essentially no pathology. The autopsy went quickly and smoothly. Again Laurie was able to document with reasonable certainty that the cocaine had been taken IV. By the time they were sewing up the body, Cheryl was back in with the news that Marsha Schulman had indeed had both operations in question. In fact, both had been performed at Manhattan General.
   Thrilled by this additional confirmation, Laurie finished up and went to her office to dictate the first two cases and to make several calls. First she tried Jordan’s office, only to learn that Dr. Scheffield was in surgery.
   “Again?” Laurie sighed. She was disappointed not to get him right away.
   “He’s been doing a lot of transplants lately,” Jordan’s nurse explained. “He always does quite a bit of surgery, but lately he’s been doing even more.”
   Laurie left word for Jordan to call back when he could. Then she called police headquarters and asked for Lou.
   To Laurie’s chagrin, Lou was unavailable. Laurie left her number and asked that he return her call when he could.
   Somewhat frustrated, Laurie did her dictation, then headed back to the autopsy room for her third and final case of the day. As she waited for the elevator she wondered if Bingham might be willing to change his mind about making some kind of public statement now that there were six cases.
   When the elevator doors opened, Laurie literally bumped into Lou. For a moment they looked at each other with embarrassment.
   “I’m sorry,” she said.
   “It was my fault,” Lou told her. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
   “I was the one who wasn’t looking,” Laurie said.
   Then they both laughed at their self-conscious behavior.
   “Were you coming to see me?” Laurie asked.
   “No,” Lou said. “I was looking for the Pope. Someone said he was up here on the fifth floor.”
   “Very funny,” Laurie said, leading him back to her office. “Actually I just this minute tried to call you.”
   “Oh, sure!” Lou teased.
   “Honest,” Laurie said. She sat down at her desk. Lou took the chair he’d been in the day before. “I made an ID on the headless floater that was found with Marchese. The name is Marsha Schulman. She is Jordan Scheffield’s secretary.”
   “You mean Dr. Roses? She was his secretary?” Lou pointed at the flowers, which had not lost any of their freshness.
   “One and the same,” Laurie said. “Just last night he told me that she’d not shown up for work. But he also told me that her husband, who’s no Boy Scout, has ties to organized crime.”
   “What’s the husband’s name?” Lou asked.
   “Danny Schulman,” Laurie said.
   “Could that be the Danny Schulman who owns a restaurant in Bayside?” he asked.
   “That’s the one,” Laurie said. “Apparently he’s had several brushes with the law.”
   “Damn right he has. He’s associated with the Lucia crime family. At least they used his place to run some of their operations like fencing stolen goods, gambling, that sort of thing. We picked up old Danny-boy hoping he’d finger some of the higher-ups, but the guy took the fall without talking.”
   “You think his wife might have gotten killed because of his business?” Laurie asked.
   “Who knows?” Lou admitted. “Threats could have been made, warnings not heeded. I’ll certainly look into that angle.”
   “What a nasty business,” Laurie said.
   “That’s an understatement,” Lou said. “And speaking of nasty business, have you gotten any results on Frankie DePasquale’s eyes? Could they document acid?”
   “I’m afraid I haven’t heard back yet. Dr. DeVries has not been terribly accommodating. I don’t think he’s looked at the specimen yet. But there is some good news: a young assistant of his is going to help me on the q.t. I think I’ll finally start getting some results.”
   “I hope so,” Lou said. “Something big is about to happen in the Queens crime world. There were four gangland-style slayings there last night. People shot in their own homes. And on top of that a friend of Frankie’s and Bruno’s was killed in a funeral home in Ozone Park. Whatever tensions were brewing are bubbling big time.”
   “I’d heard there were a number of homicides in Queens,” Laurie said.
   “One couple was shot right in their bed while they were sleeping. The other two, one man and one woman, were sleeping as well. As far as we can tell, none of these people had any previous association with organized crime.”
   “Sounds like you’re not convinced.”
   “I’m not. The manner in which they were killed is almost an indictment. Anyway, I’ve got three separate detective teams working on the three cases, and this is in addition to the organized crime unit who is doing the same. We have so many people out there they are running into each other.”
   “Sounds like the Vaccarro and Lucia families are moving toward a showdown,” Laurie said. “But you know something? Somehow mobsters offing mobsters doesn’t bother me so much. At least not as much as the deaths of the accomplished people I’m seeing with this rash of cocaine overdoses. I’ve got three more today. That makes six.”
   “I guess we view things from a different perspective,” Lou said. “I feel just the opposite. As far as I’m concerned, I can’t get too overly sympathetic about rich, privileged people doing themselves in trying to get high. In fact I couldn’t care less about druggies of any sort ODing, because they are the ones that create the demand for drugs. If it weren’t for the demand there wouldn’t be a drug problem. They’re more to blame for this current national disaster than the starving peasant down in Peru or Colombia growing coca leaves. If the druggies knock themselves off, all the better. With each death there is that much less demand.”
   “I can’t believe I’m hearing you correctly,” Laurie snapped. “These are productive members of society that we are losing. People on whom society has spent time and money educating. And why are they dying? Because some bastard put a contaminant in the drug or cut it with something lethal. Stopping these unnecessary deaths is a lot more important than stopping a bunch of gangsters from killing each other. Hell, they’re the ones who are doing a service to society.”
   “But not only gangsters get hurt when crime wars break out,” Lou yelled. “Besides, organized crime reaches way down into our lives. In a city like New York it is all around us. Take trash collection—”
   “I don’t care about trash collection!” Laurie yelled. “That’s the most stupid comment that I—”
   All of a sudden Laurie stopped in midsentence. She realized she’d become angry, and that getting angry at Lou was ridiculous.
   “I’m sorry for raising my voice,” Laurie said. “I sound like I’m mad at you, but I’m not. I’m just frustrated. I can’t get anyone else to share my concern about these particular overdose deaths—not even you—and I think future deaths are preventable. But at the rate I’m going we’re like to have forty more ODs before anybody blinks about them.”
   “And I’m sorry for raising my voice,” Lou said. “I suppose I’m frustrated too. I need some kind of break. Plus I have the police commissioner breathing down my back. I’ve only been a lieutenant on homicide for a year. I want to save lives, but I also want to save my job. I like being a policeman. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
   “Speaking of police,” Laurie said, changing the subject, “I had a little shock last night I wanted to share with you. I’d like your advice.”
   Laurie described the experience she’d had the night before at Stuart Morgan’s apartment. She tried to be as objective as possible since there had been no hard evidence. Yet as she told the story, especially with the three dollars remaining in the money belt, she became even more convinced that the uniformed patrolmen had stolen things from the Stuart Morgan apartment.
   “That’s too bad,” Lou said dejectedly.
   There was a pause. Laurie looked at Lou expectantly.
   “Is that all you can say?” Laurie questioned finally.
   “What else can I say? I hate to hear stories like that, but it happens. What can you do?”
   “I thought you’d demand to know the names of the officers involved so that you could reprimand them and—”
   “And what?” Lou asked. “Get them fired? I’m not going to do that. You have to expect a little thievery once in a while with the kind of money the typical uniformed patrolman pulls down. A few bucks here and there. It’s like incentive pay. Remember, police work is Godawful frustrating as well as dangerous. So it’s not so surprising. Not that I personally condone it, but you have to expect some.”
   “That sounds like convenient morality,” Laurie said. “When you start allowing the “good guys’ to break the law, where do you stop? And not only is this kind of thievery morally objectionable, it’s also a disaster from a medical-legal point of view. These guys mucked around with a scene, distorting and destroying evidence.”
   “It’s bad and it’s wrong, but I’m not about to make an issue about this kind of illicit behavior at a drug overdose scene. I’d feel differently if it had been a homicide. I’m sure the officers would too.”
   “I can’t believe what a double standard you have! Any drug user can drop dead as far as you’re concerned, and if cops steal from a victim before the M.E. arrives, so much the better.”
   “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Lou said, “but this is just the way I feel. You asked me how I felt, I’ve told you. If you want to pursue the matter, I suggest you call Internal Affairs at police headquarters and tell the story to them. Me, I’d rather concentrate on serious bad guys.”
   “Once again I can’t believe I’m hearing you correctly,” Laurie said. “I’m floored. What am I, too naive?”
   “I take the fifth amendment,” Lou said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “But I tell you what. Why don’t we discuss it further this evening. How about dinner tonight?”
   “I have plans,” Laurie said.
   “Of course,” Lou said. “How silly of me to think you might be available. I suppose it is Dr. Roses again. But don’t tell me. What’s left of my ego couldn’t take it. With his limo and all, he’s probably taking you to those places where I couldn’t afford to check my coat. Like I said yesterday, let me know if your lab decides to do any of the tests that might show anything. Ciao!”
   With that, Lou got up and left the room. Laurie was happy to see him go. He could be so irritating. If he wanted to take personally her turning him down for that evening, he was welcome to. What did he expect her to do? Drop everything?
   She was about to call Internal Affairs as Lou had facetiously suggested, but before she could pick up the receiver, the phone rang. It was Jordan returning her call.
   “I hope you didn’t call to cancel for tonight,” he said.
   “Nothing like that,” Laurie said. “It’s about your secretary, Marsha Schulman.”
   “You mean my former secretary,” Jordan said. “She didn’t show up or call this morning either, so I’m in the process of replacing her. I already have a temp.”
   “I’m afraid she’s dead,” Laurie said.
   “Oh, no!” Jordan said. “Are you serious?”

   Laurie explained how she had made the identification of the headless corpse with the chest X-ray, and the fact of the two surgeries.
   “The forensic medical investigators are following up to make the identification even more certain,” Laurie said, “but with what we have already, I think we can be quite confident.”
   “I wonder if that bastard husband was involved,” Jordan wondered aloud.
   “I’m sure the police will be looking into the possibility,” Laurie said. “Anyway, I thought you should know.”
   “I’m not sure I want to know,” Jordan said. “What horrible news.”
   “Sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings,” Laurie said.
   “It’s not your fault,” Jordan said. “And I had to be told. Anyway, I’ll still see you at eight.”
   “Eight it is.”
   Laurie hung up and dialed Internal Affairs. She spoke to a disinterested secretary who took down the details of her story, promising to pass them along to her boss.
   Laurie sat at her desk to compose her thoughts before returning to the autopsy room for her last case. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed. It felt as if every aspect of her life—personal, professional, ethical—was spinning out of control.

   “I’m Lieutenant Lou Soldano,” Lou said politely. He passed his credentials to the bright-eyed secretary at the reception desk.
   “Homicide?” she asked.
   “That’s right,” Lou said. “I’d like to speak with the doctor. I only need a few minutes of his time.”
   “If you’ll have a seat in the waiting room, I’ll let him know you’re here.”
   Lou sat down and idly flipped through a recent edition of The New Yorker. He noticed the drawings on the walls, especially one that was blatantly pornographic. He wondered if someone had actually chosen them or if they had come with the office. Either way, thought Lou, there was no accounting for some people’s taste.
   Other than the drawings, Lou was impressed with the waiting room. The walls were paneled with mahogany. A tasteful, inch-thick oriental carpet covered the floor. But then Lou already knew the good doctor did quite well for himself.
   Lou looked at the faces of the patients who paid for this opulence, plus the limo and the roses. There were about ten in the waiting room, some with eyepatches, some who looked totally healthy, including one middle-aged woman draped in jewels. Lou would have loved to ask her what she was there for, just to get an idea, but he didn’t dare.
   Time passed slowly as one by one the patients disappeared into the depths of the office. Lou tried to contain his impatience, but after three-quarters of an hour, he began to get irritated. He began to think it was a deliberate snub on Jordan Scheffield’s part. Although Lou didn’t have an appointment, he’d expected to be seen relatively quickly, perhaps to schedule a future visit if it were needed. It wasn’t every day a detective lieutenant from Homicide dropped by someone’s office. Besides, Lou hadn’t planned on taking much of the doctor’s time.
   Lou’s reason for the visit was twofold. He wanted to find out more about Marsha Schulman, but he also wanted to talk about Paul Cerino. It was a kind of fishing trip; the doctor might be able to fill him in on some details he didn’t yet know. He resisted the nagging thought at the back of his mind: he was really there to check out the guy who was seeing Doctor Laurie Montgomery every night for dinner.
   “Mr. Soldano,” the secretary said at last, “Dr. Scheffield will see you now.”
   “It’s about time,” Lou mumbled as he got to his feet and tossed his magazine aside. He walked toward the door being held open by the secretary. It wasn’t the same door that all the patients had disappeared into.
   After a short hall, Lou was shown into Jordan’s private office. He strode into the center of the room. Behind him he heard the door close.
   Lou looked at the top of Jordan’s blond head. The doctor was writing in a record.
   “Sit down,” Jordan said without looking up.
   Lou debated what he wanted to do. The idea of disregarding what sounded more like a command than an offer appealed to him, so he stayed where he was. His eyes roamed the office. He was impressed and couldn’t help compare the environment with his own utilitarian, metal-desked, peeling-walled rathole. Who said life was fair? Lou mused.
   Redirecting his attention to the doctor, Lou couldn’t tell much other than that the man was well groomed. He was dressed in a typical doctor white coat that appeared to be whiter than white and starched to boardlike stiffness. On his ring finger he wore a large gold signet ring, probably from some fancy school.
   Jordan finished his writing and meticulously organized the pages of the record before folding over its cover. Then he looked up. He appeared genuinely surprised that Lou was still standing in the middle of his office, hat in hand.
   “Please,” Jordan said. He got to his feet and gestured toward one of the two chairs facing his desk. “Sit down. Sorry to have made you wait, but I’m tremendously busy these days. Lots of surgery. What can I do for you? I suppose you are here about my secretary, Marsha Schulman. Tragic situation. I hope you people are planning on looking into her husband’s probable involvement.”
   Lou’s eyes traveled up to Jordan’s face. He was dismayed the man was so tall. It made him feel short by comparison, although he was almost six feet himself.
   “What do you know about Mr. Schulman?” Lou asked. With Jordan’s more cordial offer, Lou sat down. Jordan did the same. Lou listened while Jordan told all he knew about Marsha’s husband. Since Lou already knew considerably more than Jordan, he took the time to observe the “good” doctor, noticing things like a mild yet probably fake English accent. Before Jordan had even finished talking about Danny Schulman, Lou had decided that Jordan was a pompous, affected, arrogant creep. Lou couldn’t understand what a down-to-earth girl like Laurie could see in him.
   Lou decided it was time to change the subject. “What about Paul Cerino?” he asked.
   Jordan hesitated for a moment. He was surprised at the mention of Paul’s name. “Pardon me for asking,” he said, “but what does Mr. Cerino have to do with anything?”
   Lou was glad to see Jordan squirm. “I’d appreciate your telling me all you know about Mr. Cerino.”
   “Mr. Cerino is a patient,” Jordan said stiffly.
   “I already know that,” Lou said. “I’d like to hear how his treatment is coming along.”
   “I don’t talk about my patients,” Jordan said coldly.
   “Really?” Lou asked, raising his eyebrows. “That’s not what I’ve heard. In fact, I have it from a reliable source that you’ve been discussing Mr. Cerino’s case in detail.”
   Jordan’s lips narrowed some.
   “But we can leave that subject for the moment,” Lou said. “I also wanted to ask if you or any of your staff had been the subject of any extortion attempt.”
   “Absolutely not,” Jordan said. He laughed nervously. “Why would anyone threaten me?”
   “When you start involving yourself with people like Cerino, things like extortion have a way of happening. Could your secretary have been threatened in some way?”
   “For what?”
   “I don’t know,” Lou said. “You tell me.”
   “Cerino wouldn’t want to extort me or any of my employees. I’m taking care of the man. I’m helping him.”
   “These organized-crime people think differently than normal people,” Lou said. “They consider themselves special and above the law: in fact above everything. If they don’t get exactly what they want, they kill you. If they do get what they want but decide they don’t like you or they owe you too much money, they kill you.”
   “Well, I’m certainly giving them what they want.”
   “Whatever you say, Doc. I’m just trying to explore all the angles. You’ve got one dead secretary and somebody whacked her rather brutally. And whoever did it didn’t want anyone finding out who she was anytime soon. I want to know why.”
   “Well, all I can tell you is I’m quite certain Marsha’s disappearance, or death, hasn’t anything to do with Mr. Cerino. Now if you’ll kindly excuse me, I have patients to attend to. If you have any additional questions, perhaps you should contact me through my attorney.”
   “Sure, Doc, sure,” Lou said. “I’ll be on my way. But a word to the wise: I’d be very careful where Paul Cerino is concerned. The Mafia may seem glamorous when you read about them or see them in the movies, but I think you’d develop a different point of view if you got a glimpse of what Mrs. Schulman looks like now. And one last piece of advice. I’d be careful about sending him a bill. Thank you for your time, Doctor.”
   Lou walked out of the building, embarrassed to an extent that he had come. It had been a worthless encounter that had only annoyed him. He couldn’t stand pompous silver-spoon-fed fools like Jordan Scheffield. If he got into trouble with Paul Cerino, it was his own fault. He was so full of his own self-importance that he couldn’t see the danger.
   Half an hour later Lou arrived at his office at police headquarters. For a moment he stood on the threshold, surveying the mess within. His digs were a far cry from Jordan Scheffield’s posh surroundings. The furniture was the usual gray metal, city issue with the burns from innumerable cigarettes left on the edges and with stains from spilled coffee. The floor was dried and cracked linoleum. The walls had been painted years previously in a pale green that had blistered from a water leak from the floor above. Papers and reports were stacked on every horizontal surface, since the file cabinets were full.
   Lou had never thought much about his office, but today it seemed oppressively dingy. It was irrational, he knew, but he got mad at the smug doctor all over again.
   Just then Harvey Lawson, another detective lieutenant on the force, interrupted Lou’s thoughts. “Hey, Lou,” Harvey called, “you know that broad you were talking about yesterday? The one from the medical examiner’s office?”
   “Yeah?”
   “I just heard she called Internal Affairs. Made some beef about two uniformed guys stealing from an overdose scene. What do you think of that?”
   Tony and Angelo were back in Angelo’s Town Car. They were parked across the street from the Greenblatt Pavilion of Manhattan General Hospital. The Greenblatt Pavilion was the fancy part of the hospital where pampered, wealthy patients could order from special menus that included amenities such as wine, provided their doctors permitted such treats as part of their diet.
   It was 2:48 in the afternoon and Tony and Angelo were exhausted. They’d hoped to sleep after their busy night, but Paul Cerino had other plans for them.
   “What time did Doc Travino say we should pull this off?” Tony asked.
   “Three o’clock,” Angelo said. “Supposedly that’s the time there’s most confusion in the hospital. That’s when the day shift of nurses are getting ready to leave and the evening shift is just coming on.”
   “If that’s what the doc says, it’s good enough for me.”
   “I don’t like it,” Angelo said. “I still think it’s too risky.” He surveyed the vicinity with wary eyes. There was a lot of activity and plenty of cops. In the ten minutes they’d been parked there, Angelo had spotted three squad cars cruising by.
   “Think of it as a challenge,” Tony suggested. “And think about all the money we’re getting.”
   “I like working at night better,” Angelo said. “And I don’t need any challenges at this point of my life. Besides, I should be sleeping right this minute. I shouldn’t be working when I’m so tired. I might make a mistake.”
   “Lighten up,” Tony said. “This should be fun.”
   But Angelo wouldn’t let it go. “I got a bad feeling about this job,” he said. “Maybe we should just go home and sleep. We got another big night ahead of us tonight.”
   “Why don’t you wait here and I’ll go in by myself. I’ll still split the money with you.”
   Angelo bit his lip. It was tempting to send the kid into the hospital alone, but if anything went wrong he knew Cerino would be furious. And even under the best circumstances, if Tony went in by himself, there was a good chance things would go awry. Reluctantly, Angelo came to the conclusion that he really didn’t have a choice.
   “Thanks for the offer,” Angelo said, scanning the neighborhood once more, “but I think we should do this together.” It was then that Angelo turned to Tony and saw, to his horror, that Tony had his gun out. He was checking the magazine.
   “For Chrissake!” Angelo shouted. “Put your goddamn gun away. What if someone was to walk by the car and see you monkeying around with that thing? There’s cops all over this place.”
   “All right already,” Tony exclaimed. He clicked the magazine back into his gun and slipped the gun into its holster. “You are in one hell of a bad mood. I looked around before I took my piece out. What do you think I am, a moron? There’s nobody anywhere near this car.”
   Angelo closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. His headache was getting worse. His nerves were frayed. He hated being so tired.
   “It’s getting close to three,” Tony said.
   “All right,” Angelo said. “You remember the plan of what we’re going to do when we get inside the hospital?”
   “I remember what we’re supposed to do,” Tony repeated. “No problem.”
   “All right,” Angelo said again. “Let’s do it.”
   They got out of the car. Angelo gave one more glance around the immediate area. Satisfied, he led Tony across the street and into the lobby of bustling Manhattan General Hospital.
   Their first stop was the hospitality shop, where Angelo purchased two bunches of cut flowers. Handing one to Tony, Angelo carried the other. Taking the flowers back to the entrance area, they waited in line for information.
   “Mary O’Connor,” Angelo said politely once it was his turn.
   “Five zero seven,” the desk attendant told him after consulting her computer screen.
   Joining the crowd at the elevators, Tony leaned toward Angelo and whispered: “So far so good.”
   Angelo glowered at Tony again, but said nothing. Nurses just coming on duty had them surrounded. It was no time for a reprimand. At the fifth floor Angelo and Tony got off the elevator along with three nurses.
   Angelo waited to see which way the nurses went, then chose the opposite direction. He immediately saw that room 507 was the other way, but he walked until the nurses had reached the busy nurses’ station before retracing his steps.
   Angelo behaved as if he knew exactly where he was going. He sauntered past the nurses’ station without so much as a glance in its direction.
   Once beyond the nurses’ station, it was easy to find 507. Slowing down, Angelo glanced inside. Satisfied that no staff was in the room, he stepped over the threshold and looked at the woman in the bed. She was watching a TV mounted on a mechanical arm attached to the bed frame.
   The woman had an eyepatch over one eye. Her unprotected eye switched its attention from the TV to Angelo. She gave him a questioning look.
   “Good afternoon, Mrs. O’Connor,” Angelo said affably. “You have a visitor.”
   Angelo waved for Tony to come into the room.
   “Who are you?” Mrs. O’Connor asked.
   Tony came smiling into the room with his bouquet of flowers out in front of him. Mrs. O’Connor’s eyes went from Angelo to Tony. She smiled.
   “I think you must have the wrong room,” she said. “Maybe the wrong O’Connor.”
   “Oh?” Angelo questioned. “Aren’t you the O’Connor who’s scheduled for surgery later today?”
   “Yes,” Mrs. O’Connor said, “but I don’t know either of you. Do I?”
   “I can’t imagine you do,” Angelo said. He stepped back to the door and looked up and down the hall. The nurses’ station was still a flurry of activity. No one was coming the other way. “I think it’s time for Mrs. O’Connor’s treatment.”
   Tony’s smile broadened. He laid his flowers on the night table.
   “What treatment?” Mrs. O’Connor asked.
   “Relaxation therapy,” Tony said. “Let me take your pillow.”
   “Did Dr. Scheffield order this?” Although she was suspicious, Mrs. O’Connor did not resist as Tony pulled the pillow from beneath her head. She wasn’t accustomed to second-guessing her physicians.
   “Not exactly,” Tony said.
   The confession emboldened Mrs. O’Connor. “I’d like to speak with Nurse Lang,” she began to say. But she didn’t get a chance to finish. Tony crammed the pillow down over her face, then sat on her chest.
   A few muffled sounds followed, but Mrs. O’Connor didn’t struggle for long. She kicked several times, but the move seemed less defensive than an uncontrollable reaction to being deprived of air.
   Angelo acted as lookout throughout. He kept his eyes on the nurses’ station. No problem there. The nurses were engrossed in conversation. Angelo looked down the hall in the other direction. His heart missed a beat when he spotted a middle-aged woman approaching 507 pushing a cartful of water pitchers. She was only fifteen feet away.
   Stepping back into the room, Angelo closed the door. Tony hadn’t quite finished dispensing his “treatment.” He was still sitting on top of Mrs. O’Connor.
   “Someone’s coming!” Angelo warned him. He pulled his gun from his pocket and fumbled with the silencer.
   Tony kept pressure on the pillow. There was a knock at the door.
   Angelo motioned toward the bathroom. “Come on,” he urged in a whisper when Tony failed to follow him in. After another ten seconds there was a second knock. Tony reluctantly lifted the pillow. Mary O’Connor was blue and motionless. Her unpatched eye stared blankly at the ceiling.
   Frantically Angelo motioned for Tony to join him in the bathroom as a third knock sounded. Then, as the door to the hall opened, Tony pushed off the bed and crowded into the bathroom, forcing Angelo to straddle the toilet. Tony pulled the bathroom door partially closed as the woman with the cart of water pitchers entered the room.
   Angelo had his gun ready. The silencer was in place. He did not like the idea of using it, but he was afraid he didn’t have any choice. With the bathroom door open a fraction of an inch, he was able to watch as the woman switched O’Connor’s water pitcher for a fresh one. He held his breath. The woman was only a few feet away. His plan was to wait for her to spot Mrs. O’Connor before he made his move. To his surprise, the woman disappeared from view without so much as a glance in Mrs. O’Connor’s direction.
   After waiting for a full minute, Angelo told Tony to take a careful peek.
   Slowly Tony opened the bathroom door enough so that he could get his head around the door.
   “She’s gone,” Tony said.
   “Let’s get out of here,” Angelo said.
   Exiting the bathroom, Tony paused at the bedside. “You think she’s dead?” he questioned.
   “You can’t be that blue and still be alive,” Angelo said. “Come on. Grab your flowers. I want to be long gone before they find her.”
   They made it to the car without incident. Angelo was thinking it was a good thing he’d gone in. Trigger-happy Tony would have left a trail of bodies in his wake.
   Angelo was just pulling away from the curb when Tony confided in him. “Smothering wasn’t bad. But I still like shooting them better. It’s surer, quicker, and definitely more satisfying.”

   Lou took out a cigarette and lit up. He didn’t even feel like smoking particularly. He was just interested in killing time. The meeting was to have started half an hour earlier but officers were still drifting in. The subject was the three gangland-style executions that had occurred in Queens overnight. Lou had thought the cases would have inspired a sense of urgency in the department, but three detectives were missing.
   “Screw them,” Lou said finally, referring to the missing officers. He motioned to Norman Carver, a detective sergeant, to start. Norman was nominally in charge of the investigation, although in point of fact the three units covering the cases were acting independently.
   “I’m afraid we don’t have much,” Norman said. “The only link we’ve established between the three cases, other than the manner of murder, is that each of the men was involved in the restaurant business in one way or another, either as an owner, partner, or supplier.”
   “That’s not much of an association,” Lou commented. “Let’s review each case.”
   “The first one was the Goldburgs in Kew Gardens,” Norman said. “Both Harry and Martha Goldburg were shot dead in their sleep. The preliminary report suggests two guns were involved.”
   “And Harry’s occupation?” Lou asked.
   “Owned a successful restaurant here in Manhattan,” Norman said. “Place is called La Dolce Vita. East side. Fifty-fourth. He was partners with an Anthony DeBartollo. So far we’ve come up with no problems, financial or personal, involving the partnership or the restaurant.”
   “Next,” Lou said.
   “Steven Vivonetto of Forest Hills,” Norman said. “Owned a chain of fast-food joints all over Nassau County called Pasta Pronto. Again no financial problems that we’ve come across, but these are all just preliminaries.”
   “And finally.”
   “Janice Singleton, also of Forest Hills,” Norman said. “Married to Chester Singleton. He has a restaurant-purveyor business and was recently picked up by the Vivonetto chain as a supplier. Again, no financial problems. In fact things had been looking up with the Pasta Pronto account.”
   “Who’d been supplying the Pasta Pronto before Singleton?” Lou asked.
   “Don’t know that yet,” Norman said.
   “I think we should find that out,” Lou said. “Did the Singletons and the Vivonettos know each other personally?”
   “We haven’t established that yet,” Norman said. “But we will.”
   “What about any organized-crime associations?” Lou asked. “The way these people were killed certainly suggests as much.”
   “That’s what we thought when we started,” Norman said. He glanced around at the five other men in the room. They all nodded. “But we’ve found almost nothing. A couple of the restaurants that Singleton supplied have some loose association, but nothing major.”
   Lou sighed. “There’s got to be some connection linking the three.”
   “I agree,” Norman said. “The slugs we got from the medical examiners suggest that Harry Goldburg, Steven Vivonetto, and Janice Singleton were shot with the same gun, Martha Goldburg from another. But that’s not the ballistics report. It’s just from preliminary examination. But they were all the same caliber. So we have a strong suspicion the same people were behind all three murders.”
   “What about burglary?” Lou asked.
   “Relatives of the Goldburgs say that Harry had a big gold Rolex. We haven’t found it. Also his wallet could not be located. But at the other scenes, nothing seems to have been taken.”
   “Seems that the answer has to be in the restaurant connection,” Lou said. “Get detailed financial statements on all the operations. Also try to find out if these guys had been subjected to extortion or other threats. And do it sooner rather than later. The commissioner is on my back.”
   “We’ve got people working around the clock,” Norman said.
   Lou nodded.
   Norman handed a typewritten sheet to Lou. “Here’s a summary of what I just told you. Sorry for the typos.”
   Lou read it over quickly. He took a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. Something big and bad was going on in Queens. There was no doubt about it. He wondered if these murders could have had anything to do with Paul Cerino. It seemed unlikely. But then Lou thought of Marsha Schulman. He wondered if any of the deceased were acquainted with her husband, Danny. It was a long shot, but there was a chance he was the connecting thread.