In Death's Shadow

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Saturday morning I slept late. I awoke awash in a sea of regret with a hangover the size of a satellite map of Hurricane Floyd. Paul had already gone to his office at the Academy, thank goodness, so he wasn't there to waggle a finger and say "I told you so."

I took three aspirin to deaden the pain caused by whatever was knocking my prefrontal lobes against my temporal lobes and lay down on the sofa until the jackhammering stopped.

Somewhere in all the confusion, two lost thoughts came together with a drum roll and a crash of cymbals. If Nick Pottorff worked for Jablonsky, then maybe Gail Parrish could tell me something about him. Besides, Gail owed me. The last time we'd talked, she promised to call me back, and I still hadn't heard from her.

I waited until ten, then telephoned Jablonsky's office.

The phone rang six times before somebody picked up. "Mutually Beneficial, how may I help you?" The voice was an octave deeper, decades older, and three times more sophisticated than Gail's.

"This is Hannah Ives," I said. "I'm returning Gail Parrish's call."

"I'm sorry, madam, but Gail Parrish is no longer with the firm." The woman spoke with an Oxbridge accent so obviously fake that I wanted to crawl down the telephone line and slap it out of her.

I sat back in the hard kitchen chair, stunned. "But I just talked with Gail last week!"

"Would you like to speak with Mr. Jablonsky, madam? Perhaps he can help." I hated the woman. Instantly. She sounded like Margaret Thatcher, with a cold.

"I don't want to talk to Mr. Jablonsky," I insisted. "I want to talk to Gail."

"I'm sorry I can't be of more help, madam, but they didn't tell me anything at the temporary agency, just that the receptionist had moved to Las Vegas."

"I beg your pardon?" I clenched my fist, trying to keep my voice under control.

"Miss Parrish has moved to Las Vegas," she repeated, slowly and distinctly, as if I had the IQ of a garden gnome.

Las Vegas? Hah! That was a pile of manure. More than likely Gail figured out she was working for a crook. Maybe she quit before the cops could show up with squad cars whoop-whoop-whooping to measure her boss for a bright orange one-piece. But there wasn't any point in arguing. Unless the new receptionist was Jablonsky's wife or sainted mother, there was no reason for her to know any more about the missing receptionist than I did.

I advised myself to stay calm. "Did Gail leave a forwarding address?" I inquired.

"None that I'm aware of," she said. "Shall I put you through to Mr. Jablonsky, then?"

That was the last thing I needed, for Jablonsky to think that Gail and I had become friends. It wouldn't help Gail any, either, wherever she was. "No, no. Don't bother. I'll just call Gail at home."

"Very well," the woman said, barely concealing her exasperation with an "if you knew her home phone number all along why are you getting testy with me" kind of long-suffering sigh. "Is there anything else?"

"No, thank you."

"Thank you for calling Mutually Beneficial," the woman droned, and hung up.

"Suck eggs," I said into the dead air.

I didn't waste any time pulling the Annapolis phone book down from the shelf. I turned to the P's. There were plenty of Parrishes, George, and several Parrishes, Gerald, but no listing for Parrish, Gail, or Parrish, G.

Of course not, dummy. Gail is house-sitting. Unless I could remember the name of the homeowners, I was fresh out of luck.

But Gail had never mentioned the name of the people she was house-sitting for, only that they lived in Eastport and were blue water sailors.

Gail had an ex-boyfriend, I recalled. Even if he knew her present whereabouts, though, it would do me not one damn bit of good, because Gail had never told me his name, either.

One thing I was one hundred percent sure of: Gail had not moved to Las Vegas. She loved Annapolis. She was saving money for a sailboat. I'd never been to Las Vegas, but I'd seen the ads on TV. I didn't think you could do much sailing in the Nevada desert unless you wanted to launch your boat in the Grand Canal at the Venetian Casino and Resort or tack your way around the dancing fountains at the Bellagio.

My hopes were raised when I remembered that Gail had telephoned me the week before and that her number might still be in the memory chip of my telephone. But, alas, when I went to the phone and scrolled through the menu, the number that popped up was Jablonsky's, and I was reminded that she'd called me from Jablonsky's office, not from home.

Other than asking Jablonsky, then, I was running out of options.

I worried about Gail as I ran my Saturday errands. Had she discovered something about her boss that caused her to quit, using a move to Las Vegas as an excuse? Or, more chilling, had she discovered something about her boss that put her in danger? Had the lie about Las Vegas originated with Jablonsky?

The dry cleaners was a short, two-block walk down Prince George Street, but once I'd lugged the cleaning home and hung it up in the closet, I needed a car to take care of the other chores on my To Do list.

West Marine had telephoned to say that Paul's handheld GPS had been repaired and was ready for pickup, so my next destination was the shopping plaza near Hillsmere to retrieve the device. I continued to worry about Gail as I drove, wondering as I wound my way through Eastport if I was unknowingly passing by her house. Was she reading the Saturday paper in that yellow bungalow at the corner of State Street and Bay Ridge Avenue? Doing her laundry, as I needed to do, in the basement of that three-story brick town house at Chesapeake and Americana? I hoped so.

I waited patiently while the clerk at West Marine wrapped the GPS in bubble wrap, then I tucked it carefully into the bottom of my handbag. I drove west on Forest Drive, cutting over on Spa Road to West Street so I could return my overdue library books.

My civic duty done, my good name restored, I cut through the library parking lot and drove out the back along the old railroad right-of-way to Taylor and across Rowe Boulevard to Graul's, the market where I do the bulk of my shopping.

Graul's carries a marvelous assortment of gourmet items I can't seem to live without, and as usual I walked through my front door with shopping bags bulging after spending at least fifty dollars more than I planned. Saturday's "must have" was a round loaf of crusty olive bread, $3.75. I rest my case.

I put the groceries away, listened to my phone messages-only some Congressman's lackey wanting Paul's opinion on a prescription drug benefit for seniors (For!)-then gathered up the laundry, including the dirty linens from last night's picnic, and trudged downstairs to the laundry room.

As I sorted the whites from the darks, I noticed that one of the place mats had a plum-colored ring on it, probably from the base of a wineglass. I pre-treated the place mat with laundry spray, recalling, with embarrassment, how rude I'd been to Dennis the previous evening. Yet, even in the cold, sober light of day, his words still stung: the only thing you 're doing right.

I knew that everyone has a Constitutional right to protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, and I also knew that Dennis, as a cop, had to adhere to higher standards than I would. Yet the evidence I had collected against Steele and Jablonsky seemed, at least to me, much more than circumstantial. It seemed compelling. Still, there was no excuse for my taking Dennis's head off, even if it had been the wine talking. Dennis was my brother-in-law, and my guest. I'd have to call him to apologize.

I added detergent to the washer, punched a few buttons and started the machine, then took a quick detour to my office across the hall.

Ruth had sent me an e-card from the "Get Well Police." Har-de-har-har. Maybe I'd been drunker last night than I thought. I sent her a thank-you, and since I was already at BlueMountain.com, I picked out an e-card for Dennis: a Chesapeake Bay blue crab saying "Sony I've been so crabby." I personalized the e-card and sent it off, feeling slightly better about myself.

Emily had e-mailed that Jake was cutting a new tooth; Chico's wanted to offer me twenty-five percent off; Paul had forwarded several jokes from his usna.edu account, one of which, about a cat that survived a close encounter with a garbage disposal, made me laugh so hard I nearly fell off my chair.

I quickly deleted the obvious spam-Viagra (Deep discount!), eager teenage Russian brides, offers of creative ways to enlarge certain portions of my anatomy, none of which I possessed-until I got to an e-mail address I didn't recognize: sailingphool@aol.com. The subject line was "Hello, Hannah!"

I suspected it came from a gal I met at Womanship, a popular sailing school for women. (Their motto? Nobody yells!) Tina races a Cal25 and keeps urging me to sign up for the Annapolis Frostbite Series. Sailing in the summertime is a delight, but in November? If you have to wear long underwear, fleece pants, three sweaters, two pairs of mittens, foul weather gear, and plastic Baggies over your toes in order to stay warm, I draw the line.

But when I opened the e-mail, fingers poised to type "Brrrrrr, no way!" I was astonished to find the message was from Gail Parrish.

"Hey, Hannahmail! Snitched your address from Gil's Rolodex. Need to talk to you. Seriously. Call me at home. Gail."

Gail's signature line included a telephone number, thank goodness. I dialed it at once, but the line was busy. I was surprised that no voice mail kicked in, especially in this day and age, but then, it wasn't exactly Gail's telephone. It belonged to a couple of diehard sailors, and sailors, in my experience, don't always live on the cutting edge of technology.

Maybe it was busy because Gail was working on-line and had *70'd the call to keep voice mail from knocking her off-line. We both used AOL, so I added Sailingphool to Hannahmail's buddy list, then checked to see if Gail was logged on. She wasn't

Just to be sure, I sent her an instant message. I waited a few moments. Sent another one. Waited. There was no reply.

I went back to Gail's message and clicked on Reply.

"Dear Gail," I e-mailed back. “Tried to call. Line busy. Where the hell are you? Hannah."

At one o'clock I tried telephoning again, with equal lack of success. Gail could still be on-line, of course. I imagined her cruising the Internet, searching Yachtworld.com for the previously owned sailboat of her dreams, or for one in her price range, at least.

Although I was desperate to talk to Gail and wanted to hit my "redial" button every four or five minutes until she picked up, I had a problem. I had told Harrison Garvin on Friday that I was close to finishing my report. "Just a bit of tweaking here and there," I'd boasted. "It'll be on your desk first thing Monday morning."

Garvin had beamed. He was meeting with his management team on Wednesday, he said, and would move my report to the top of the agenda.

Now I had to make good on my promise.

I toasted a bagel for lunch, washed it down with the last of the coffee, located my security card and drove out to Victory Mutual.

Once I got settled in the cubicle I'd borrowed from Mindy, I tried Gail again. Busy. Damn the woman! She wanted to talk to me. I wanted to talk to her. The least she could do was stay off the phone.

Then again, maybe it wasn't Gail's fault. I decided if I hadn't been able to get through by three o'clock, I'd call the operator and ask her to check to see if the phone was out of order or off the hook. There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation. No use stewing about it

I logged onto Mindy's computer, and after several trial runs my SQL scripts finally ran flawlessly. I'd been massaging the data for so long that the results didn't surprise me, but I felt quite certain they would knock the socks off Harrison Garvin.

One data table proved that forty-five percent of the policies that had changed from personal to corporate ownership over the past five years had been reassigned to ViatiPro, and that sixty-two percent of that number had been paid, meaning the viator had died.

Another table showed that fully seventy-six percent of the total number of policies that had changed hands had been for amounts under $100,000. Clearly, ViatiPro wasn't the only investment company scrambling aboard the gravy train, but thanks to me, that train was about to come to a screeching halt.

I revised the script and reran it, this time limiting my results to policies for $100,000 or less that had been written during the past two years. Like most insurance companies, Victory Mutual had a two-year contestability period. If the company's investigators could prove any of the policies had been falsely obtained before the two years was up, the policies could be cancelled and crooks like Steele and his unwary investors would be left holding worthless pieces of paper. As far as I was concerned, Steele could take his lumps. It was the unwary investors-like my friend Mrs. Bromley-whom I felt sorry for.

In my opinion, the reports said it all, and in terms so clear that even my three-year-old granddaughter could understand. Nevertheless, I had to spend another hour converting the data I had collected into graphs and pie charts that Garvin could plug into the PowerPoint presentation he planned to show his team. I fiddled with the slide layouts and backgrounds for a while, then ran the slide show, sitting back and impressing myself with the results. Damn, Hannah, you haven't lost your touch.

When I was satisfied, I printed a paper copy of the presentation and slipped it under Donna's door. I also e-mailed the file to her as an attachment just in case she logged in over the weekend. Donna struck me as the type who liked to get a head start on her Mondays, and I was happy to oblige. In any case, there was no way I would take the report to Garvin without discussing it with Donna first. Although information on specific underwriters had not been captured in Victory Mutual's database, I had the feeling that when the actual policies were pulled, some of Donna's underwriters were going to have a lot of explaining to do. Donna deserved to be the first to know.

On my way back to my cubicle from Donna's office, I grabbed a Coke out of the vending machine in the staff lounge. I popped the top and took a long, refreshing swig. Then I logged onto the Internet and went to aol.com to check for any messages from Gail. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

I stared at the screen for a good two minutes, sipping my Coke and planning my next step. You're supposed to be good with computers, Hannah Ives. Don't just sit there, do something!

I put the Coke down and lifted my fingers to the keyboard. When in doubt, Google.

I Googled "Gail Parrish." There was an African-American playwright by that name, and a jazz musician, and a Gail Parrish who, according to a genealogy website, had married her first cousin in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1837. That would make her 166 years old. Not the Gail I was looking for.

I browsed through Google's features: calculators, street maps, spell checkers, phone books. When I clicked on phone books, I was delighted to see a new feature, Type in a phone number, with area code, and Google would look up the address for you. Hot damn!

I typed the telephone number Gail had given me into the Google search box. Reverting to an old childhood ritual, I crossed my fingers for luck, closed my eyes, and hit the Enter key.

When I opened my eyes again it was like magic: next to a telephone icon, the address of the house Gail had called me from was staring back at me from the screen. "Thank you," I breathed aloud to whatever angel had sprinkled me with fairy dust that afternoon.

Before it could disappear in some cataclysmic computer meltdown, I jotted the address down on a Post-it and lifted the note off the pad. Then I hightailed it out of Victory Mutual so fast that the barrier arm at the security turnstile scraped alarmingly across the canvas top of my convertible. It was some measure of my eagerness to see Gail that I didn't even care.

When I got to the address in Eastport, I found that Gail Parrish was living in a lovingly restored, three-story colonial in the third block of Second Street, a short walk from the Severn River. A yellow VW Beetle was parked out front. I'd seen a similar car in Jablonsky's parking lot, so I figured the VW belonged to Gail.

I parked my LeBaron behind the VW and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Gail's house had a porch the size of a postage stamp and a bright red door with a brass knocker shaped-no surprise, considering its owners-like an anchor. I trotted up the steps, lifted the anchor, and rapped loudly three times.

Nobody came to the door.

I looked around for a doorbell and finally found it, tucked into a space barely two inches wide between the door frame and the side of an oversize bronze mailbox. I stuck a finger into the crevice and pushed the bell.

No cheerful chimes, no clever tunes. From somewhere inside came a rude buzzing sound. No wonder they had installed the knocker. But still, nobody answered the door. Gail's car was out front, so where the hell was she?

There were all sorts of perfectly reasonable explanations.

Perhaps she was taking a bath. Or a nap.

Maybe she'd gone for a walk, or taken in a movie. The Eastport Cinema was less than a mile away.

Or somebody could have picked her up. Maybe her ex-was no longer an ex-? Had he come back into her life and swept her away to the Poconos for a weekend of romance and reconciliation?

I pulled the cell phone from my purse and punched Gail's number for what seemed the zillionth time. While I waited for the call to go through, I used my other hand to shade my eyes and peer through the front window. Although it was covered by sheer curtains, I could see enough through the glass to determine that there was nothing going on in the living room.

Gail's line was busy, surprise, surprise. Frustrated, I tossed the phone back into my purse.

I was heading around to check out the back of the house when something rubbed against my legs, scaring me witless. When I could breathe again, I looked down and saw that the culprit was a black and gray tabby. Gail mentioned she was taking care of the owners' cat. What was its name? Gail had told me, I was sure. Nemo? Nimitz?

I kneeled down and stroked the animal's soft, slate-colored fur. "What's your name, young fellow?" I fumbled for the tags that hung from the cat's collar. "Nitro," I read.

"Hey, Nitro old boy." Or was it a girl? With fur so thick, it was hard to tell. I rubbed Nitro behind the ears, then used the fingers of both hands to massage the bumps along his spine-a bit of pseudo shiatsu, modified for cats, that I'd picked up from Ruth.

Nitro purred like a well-tuned car. He stretched extravagantly, then rolled onto his back, reclining like an odalisque on the concrete sidewalk. "Ah, you are a girl," I observed, massaging down the full length of the shameless hussy's tail. "So, Nitro, anybody home but you?"

Nitro closed her eyes. Her nose drew ecstatic little figure eights in the air. I imagined her little kitty brain saying, "Don't talk, woman. Keep on rubbing."

I was working on one of Nitro's front paws, caked with dirt, when a woman stepped out of the house next door. Her eyes flitted in my direction. As I watched, she meandered down the sidewalk, then bent to fetch her Saturday morning paper, pressing one hand against the small of her back as if she were in pain.

"Excuse me," I called out, "but have you seen Gail?"

Gail's neighbor straightened. "She was out in the yard this morning, trimming the hedge." The woman waved her newspaper vaguely at the boxwood hedge that separated Gail's driveway from her own. Lying on the ground next to the hedge about halfway down the drive was a pair of electric hedge trimmers. A bright orange power cord snaked across the concrete and was plugged into an outlet in the foundation of the house.

"Golly," I said. "Why would Gail go off and leave an expensive piece of equipment like that lying on the ground?"

The neighbor shrugged. "Maybe she got interrupted and just forgot they were out here." She grinned. "Happens to me all the time. Know what I call it?"

I shook my head. "No, what do you call it?"

"Losing the rabbit."

I smiled at the odd but strangely apt allusion to hunting. "I find myself losing the rabbit a lot these days."

The woman limped back up her walk. "Hysterectomy," she said in response to my unasked question.

"Ouch, sorry," I said.

She shrugged. "Oh, well. What'cha gonna do?"

"Did you notice if Gail had any visitors?"

"No, sorry, I didn't."

I advanced several steps onto her lawn. "Look, I'm kinda worried. Gail emailed that she wanted me to call her about something important, but when I telephoned, the line was busy. It's been busy for five hours." I had a sudden thought. "Your circuits aren't down, are they?"

"Not that I know of." She reached into the pocket of her sweater and pulled out a portable phone. She punched a button and put the phone to her ear. "Nope. Got a fine dial tone."

"That's what I was afraid of. Frankly, I'm more than a little worried. Gail's car's on the street so she should be at home."

"You knocked?

I nodded.

"Maybe she's in the bathtub."

“For five hours?"

She raised a finger. "The Frasers gave me a key ages ago. They were away a lot on weekends, you know, sailing, and they asked me to feed the cat." She bobbed her head in Nitro's direction. "I see you've already met Nitro."

"Oh, yes." For all intents and purposes, the cat had passed out, cold, in a patch of sun on the warm cement. "You said something about a key?" I prodded.

"Oh! There I go again, losing the rabbit. If you'll wait a minute, I'll go see if I can find it."

"That'd be great. Thanks!"

She handed me the newspaper. "Here, take a look at this while you wait."

I'd barely had time to scan the headlines before she returned, waving a key. "Got it!" she crowed. "My name's Cindy, by the way."

"I'm Hannah."

"Nice to meet you, Hannah."

"Likewise." We had started up the walk, side by side, but I stopped and turned to face her. "Cindy, I really appreciate this. I'm sure it'll turn out to be nothing, but-"

"Oh, I understand completely," Cindy said. "I worked with this woman once, never late, never took a sick day, never once in three years! Then one day, she didn't show up for work. Didn't call in. Didn't answer the phone." She touched my arm. "I called the po-lice," she drawled.

"What happened?"

"Well, it took some major league convincing, but they finally agreed to send an officer to meet me at her apartment. We pounded and pounded on the door. Eventually got the super to open up." Cindy and I had reached the porch.

"And?"

"She was home, all right. Sitting on the floor in her bathrobe, like a zombie, surrounded by dirty laundry, spoiled food, unwashed dishes, and bags and bags of garbage."

"Gross." I waited for Cindy to climb the steps. "What was the matter with her?"

Cindy turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. "Severe depression. She had to be hospitalized. Never did come back to work."

"Sad," I said. "Although I'm pretty certain we won't find Gail like that!"

Cindy laughed. "Oh, no way! She's just about the most outgoing person I know."

We were standing in the living room. "Gail?" I called out. "It's Hannah. Gail?"

Directly on our right a flight of stairs led to the second floor. "I'll check upstairs," I volunteered, remembering Cindy's recent surgery. "Can you look around down here?"

Cindy nodded.

While Cindy limped off in what I assumed would be the direction of the dining room, I climbed the stairs to the second floor. Nothing seemed out of place in the master bedroom and bath.

Across a narrow hallway were two smaller bedrooms. If the unmade bed was any indication, Gail appeared to be using the larger of the two rooms. I opened her closet. Since I wasn't familiar with Gail's wardrobe, it was hard to tell if anything was missing, but every hanger had something hanging on it.

In the bathroom, a towel had been draped to dry over the shower curtain rod, as if Gail planned to reuse it. A makeup bag yawned open on top of the toilet tank, and a toothbrush stood at attention in a cup on the bathroom sink. The bristles were still wet.

If Gail were on her way to Las Vegas, I hoped she took a lot of cash, but not for gambling. She'd need to buy some new clothes and a toothbrush once she got there.

I checked the remaining bedroom, but like the master bedroom, it appeared untouched, so I trotted back downstairs and joined Cindy in the kitchen. I found her standing at the sink, her back to me. The odor of burnt coffee hung in the air.

"Phew! That smells awful!"

"Pot boiled dry. Probably forgot to turn it off before she left." Cindy had filled the coffeepot with soapy water and was swirling it around. "Did you find anything upstairs?"

"Nope. Guess I was worried over nothing."

While Cindy took a Brillo pad to the pot, I glanced around the kitchen. With the exception of a mug and spoon sitting out on the polished granite countertop next to the fridge, Gail's kitchen was practically spotless.

"Is this it?" I asked.

Cindy ripped two sheets of paper towel off the roll, spread them out on the counter and inverted the coffeepot over them to drain. "Yup. Except for a little laundry room in the back. Judy Fraser used to put together flower arrangements on a table back there, but Gail fixed it up real nice for her computer."

"Was Gail on the computer a lot?"

"God, yes. She buys and sells antique jewelry on eBay." Cindy's brows scrunched together. "Didn't you know?"

Nitro saved me the embarrassment of having to admit I didn't know about Gail's jewelry business when the cat suddenly appeared, meowing pitifully. She trotted over to Cindy and rubbed against her ankles.

"You hungry, Nitro, baby? Poor kitty." Cindy opened a cupboard next to the sink and pulled out a plastic canister of dried cat food. She dumped a half scoop of kibble into Nitro's bowl, then grinned up at me. "She's a regular P-I-G!"

Something about the cat was bothering me. "Did you let Nitro in?" I asked.

"She's got a cat flap," Cindy explained.

"Duh," I said.

Cindy replaced the cat food canister. "Yeah, Gail's always complaining about how slow the dial access is. She's getting cable real soon." Cindy swept the mug and spoon into the sink. "We can check out the laundry room if you want." Clearly, Cindy thought it would be a complete waste of time.

"Let's," I said. "Just to make sure."

I followed Cindy down a narrow hallway, past a powder room no larger than a phone booth. At the end of the hallway was a swinging door, like on a Wild West saloon. Cindy pushed through the door, faltered, and took a step backward. Her hands flew to her face and a horrible keening sound-half scream, half moan-leaked out from between her fingers.

It had to be bad news.

I elbowed Cindy aside and stepped into the room.

It was worse, far worse, than anything I could have imagined.

Gail Parrish lay on her left side on the white tile floor, curled into a fetal position. Next to her was an overturned chair.

I couldn't pretend Gail had merely fainted. Under her body, a pool of blood had spread, running downhill on one side until it disappeared under the washing machine. On the other, where a filing cabinet and a table leg met the floor, the blood had formed a puddle. Small white boxes and cotton squares seemed to be floating like tiny boats on the incarnadine sea, and the floor all about was littered with computer printouts, bubble wrap, padded mailers, and packing tape, as if someone had made a clean sweep of the tabletop. The whole obscene pool was beginning to darken and dry at the edges.

Gail had to be dead. Nobody could lose that much blood and survive.

"Call 911!" I screamed. "Now!"

I knelt down and pressed my fingers to the vein in Gail's neck, praying for a pulse. Nothing moved under my fingers, and Gail's neck was rigid and cold. Her face was turned to one side so that her hair fell softly over her cheek. Instinctively, I reached out and smoothed it back behind her ear, like I might have done for a sleeping child, but regretted the gesture at once. Beneath that curtain of lustrous, mahogany hair, Gail's eyes stared, vacant and unseeing.

My head swam alarmingly, and I fell back against a table leg, my blood pounding in my ears so loudly that it nearly drowned out Cindy's moaning. Breathe in, breathe out! Gradually, as I got my breathing under control, I realized that the moaning was coming from deep within my own throat, not Cindy's. Poor, poor Gail! What had she done to deserve this?

By then I was practically huddled under the table, but from that vantage point I could see the cause of all the blood: a small, round hole near Gail's left breast. I'd never seen a gunshot wound before, but I was certain that was what it was. If what I'd seen on TV was any indication, a small hole meant a small caliber bullet, probably at close range.

I glanced around quickly, but didn't see a gun. That didn't mean there wasn't a gun; it could very well be hidden under the mess of printouts and bubble wrap, but I knew better than to muck about with a crime scene any more than was necessary in order to give aid to the victim. Not that there was anything I or the paramedics could do to help save Gail now.

Except for the whine of an attic fan, the house was oddly silent. I'd almost forgotten about Cindy. "Have you called 911?" I yelled again.

Cindy's answer was a wail and the sound of painful retching coming from the powder room. I'd have to make the call myself. I found my purse where it had fallen to the floor, pulled out my cell phone and punched 911.

The 911 operator was a pro: calming me down, soliciting details, and issuing instructions all at the same time. Once she had determined that Gail's assailant was no longer in the house, she said, "Don't move, don't touch anything. The police are on their way."

Don't move. I wouldn't, couldn't, leave my friend.

Too stunned to cry, I sat on the floor next to her, knees drawn up and pressing into my chin.

Don't touch anything. Who's to know? I thought. I reached out and took Gail's ice cold hand in mine, almost believing that if I held it tightly enough, rubbed it briskly enough, I might coax some warmth back into those frozen fingers.

Was all this my fault? Had Gail been killed because of something she was going to tell me? Did somebody intend to silence her… forever?

A tear ran hotly down my cheek. Then another. And another.

"Ma'am? Ma'am?"

Who the hell was that? It took me a moment to realize that the operator was still on the line, trying to get my attention through the cell phone pressed to my ear.

"Yes? I'm here."

"The police are turning into your street right now," she said.

"Uhhhhhh," I managed. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the table leg, willing the nightmare away.

"They're on the porch now," she advised. "The next knock you hear will be Officer Tracey."

I turned my head toward the swinging doors, imagining Officer Tracey moseying through, strong, silent, and dependable, like Gary Cooper in High Noon.

But Tracey didn't knock, he buzzed, and at the front, not the laundry room door. The raucous sound seemed a vulgar intrusion in the otherwise respectful silence of the house. It must have taken Cindy by surprise, too, because she screamed an interminable, bloodcurdling, Friday the 13th kind of scream. Even today, it haunts my dreams.

"It's okay, Cindy!" I screamed back. "It's the police. Please, go let them in!"

After a moment I heard Cindy's rapid footsteps receding down the hall, and I began to relax. Officer Tracey will be here soon. Officer Tracey will help me. Officer Tracey will find out who killed Gail.

And then I saw them: paw prints. Kitty prints, to be precise. Kitty prints that meandered through the gore, circled the overturned chair, trotted over a computer printout and faded, step by bloody step, before disappearing into the hall.

That wasn't mud I had been working out of Nitro's toes, it was Gail's blood.