Naked Cruelty

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15 to MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4 1968
CHAPTER III

Prunella Balducci was in her late twenties, slim, fashionably dressed, and very pretty. Since she arrived at two in the afternoon, Carmine wasn’t there to take the edge off Desdemona’s awe: how could someone who looked like this earn a successful living managing emotionally crippled families?

A little tongue-tied, she took Prunella to see her quarters, the high square tower with its widow’s walk.

“Oh, this is wonderful!” cried Prunella. “Are you sure your daughter doesn’t mind not being able to come home until Christmas?”

“She’s a freshman pre-med at Paracelsus and doesn’t want it known that she’s a local,” Desdemona explained.

“And of course she’s busy making the adjustment from high school to college. Wise girl. Who’s her room-mate?”

“A black girl from Chicago, there on scholarship, poor as a church mouse. Another inhibition for Sophia, whose stepfather has dowered her with an enormous amount of money. Our girl is super-sensitive about appearing privileged, but she’s not allowed to give her money away. This is the first year that Paracelsus has taken women, and there are fifty of them-you must know that Chubb is finally admitting women?”

“Oh, sure. Go on, Mrs. Delmonico.”

“Desdemona, please. Half the freshman intake at Paracelsus has been women. I think Sophia’s glad she has Martina for a roomie. They like the same music-the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis, a whole lot more I don’t know or remember. Music seems to be a great bond. They both want to be surgeons, and you must know how impossible a dream that is for women. I suspect we’ll get Martina for Christmas-air fares are a problem.”

Desdemona put the suitcase she was carrying in a corner and smiled at her new colleague. “Coffee before I wake my monsters? For once in his life, Julian felt like a nap today, but I warn you! The moment Julian wakes, peace vanishes.”

In Prunella, Desdemona soon saw, Julian had met his match. Smart enough to know the effect of his eyes and his smile, he turned them and the charm on as soon as he woke.

“Oh, great!” he exclaimed. “I don’t have to go rowing.”

“Rowing?”

“Yes,” said Desdemona, who had forgotten all about the rowing and now came down with a gasp, a look of desperation. “I must explain to you, Prunella, that Julian hoped to sleep his way out of rowing, and that in turn would have meant Julian awake tonight.” She glared at her elder son, who seemed as innocent as any cherub Raphael ever painted. “Last year,” she went on, “things happened that made me realize I’d lost my physical fitness, but getting it back through a pregnancy and another baby proved impossible until Carmine came home with a two-man kayak. I used to hike, but shepherding Julian is beyond me-I’m too tall for toddlers, they kill my back. Carmine thought rowing would be feasible, and he was right. I sit in the back space, and both kids sit in the front space in special harnesses. Julian swims like a fish anyway, and I make him use a paddle, it’s good for developing his arms and shoulders. Alex lies in a weeny cradle. The trouble is that I’ve not had the energy or the enthusiasm to do it regularly. I did tell Julian this morning that if he wasn’t a good boy, we were going for a paddle.”

“Does this mean, Julian, that you haven’t been good?” asked Prunella in bored tones.

“I’m never good,” he said solemnly.

“Then you go rowing, Desdemona. I know you don’t feel like it, but you need the fresh air and the exercise,” said Prunella.

“Yes, Mommy, go rowing,” Julian said, voice like honey. “I can stay here with Prunella and do things I like.”

“No, you’re rowing with Mommy. Alex gets to stay behind.”

The huge feet planted themselves firmly apart on the floor. “I don’t want to go, so I won’t go!”

“That’s not good enough,” said Prunella. She seized Julian by one hand and looked at Desdemona, who was on the verge of tears. “Lead on, Mommy, to the kayak. No one’s getting out of this.”

Digging his heels in didn’t work, nor did much roaring and yelling; relieved of the authority but hugely comforted by the fact that it had not passed to Julian, Desdemona led the way down the path to the boatshed and unearthed the kayak. At sight of it Julian decided to get physical, and kicked out at Prunella’s shins: the next thing he was sitting on the hard ground with a thump, and Prunella was laughing at him!

“Do get up, Julian,” she said cheerfully. “You look silly.”

“Mommy, she tripped me up!”

“You deserved it,” said Desdemona, and gulped. Somehow it was easier when she had another adult to back her, and that adult was an acknowledged expert on how to deal with recalcitrant children. Prunella had managed to wound Julian’s dignity, his rather inflated idea of himself, and that part of him would continue to smart long after his bottom ceased to pain him.

In record time Desdemona was launching her craft, with a very co-operative Julian doing his share instead of whining; he was not about to be laughed at again by a stranger.

Who, by the time she had supervised his bath and clad him in pajamas, had already given him to know that she’d stomach none of his tricks. Mommy, she informed him, was sick, and he wasn’t helping any, so until Christmas he’d have to make do with her, Prunella. The trouble was that he quite liked her; she had such merry eyes, eyes that made him want to get on the right side of her. Mommy’s eyes were always dreary and uninterested-why hadn’t he seen that she was sick? He wasn’t very old, but he could well remember an interested, jolly Mommy.

“It’s too early for bed,” he said after a six o’clock dinner.

“Why?”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Oh, good! Then you can exercise your imagination after you go to bed. I’ll be there to listen.”

“Listen to my what?”

“Your imagination, silly! Everybody has one, so that’s your first task after you hit your bed-looking for it. When you’ve found it, I’ll help you exercise it.”

“Oh, not more exercise!”

“Exercise for your mind, Julian, not your body.”

His eyes should have been as dark as the rest of him; Julian Delmonico had taken after his father in bulk and coloring, and sported a mop of black curls as well as rather thin black brows and impossibly long black lashes. A remarkably handsome child, he had discovered that his looks could win him favors and treats-not to mention excuses for bad behavior. But it was the eyes that put the finishing touch on a striking appearance: the color of weak, milky tea, they were surrounded by a thin black ring that made them piercing, compelling. Well, thought Prunella Balducci, his mother and I have to inculcate some humility and sensitivity into this unpromising material, otherwise he’ll king it at St. Bernard’s Boys’ School and be ruined.

He’s had his first lesson: Mommy’s sick, and he didn’t see it. Now let’s see what imagination can do.

“What does an imagination look like?” he asked, curious.

“Anything you want. You’ll know it when you find it. Until you do, lying in bed is awful, isn’t it? Like a desert, dry and sandy. Once you find your imagination, you won’t mind going to bed, even if you’re not tired.”

“I still want to know what it looks like.”

“Imagination makes the desert vanish, become all kinds of places. Maybe it disappears and a depth-diving submarine appears-that’s imagination. During the day,” said Prunella, warming to her theme, “you and I will look at books full of pictures your imagination might like to hide in. Looking at books is like piling wood on a fire when the world’s all snow-the fire burns brighter and brighter. You’re going to love books, Julian.”

I don’t believe it, thought the listening Desdemona. She’s hooked him already, and she hasn’t even unpacked her bags.

When he walked in at six-thirty that evening, Carmine got a loving, intensely grateful kiss; his elder son was pestering Prunella to go to bed. Wasn’t it time yet?

For answer, she presented him to his father and mother for a goodnight kiss, then took his hand and led him away. “Phase two-a walk around East Circle to get the sleepy-bugs biting-and no, Julian. The more you badger me, the longer our walk.”

“Wow!” said Carmine, following his wife into the kitchen. “Doc Santini told me she was ruthless. Has Julian eaten yet?”

“Yes. Prunella insists on six o’clock for the children, so Alex gets a breast and Julian gets meat or fish and three veg. At least on his food I didn’t fall down. Prunella gave me full marks. I don’t over-cook the veg, nor give him bloody meat-blood can turn kids off their best source of protein, she says.”

“What about us?”

“We eat at seven-thirty. By then, Julian will be sound asleep. That, I’ll believe when I see it. She made me take him out in the kayak, but he’s not tired.”

“He will be. What’s for our dinner?”

“Swedish meatballs and mushroom risotto. And a salad.”

“Prunella’s going to want to stay forever. Did I tell you today that I love you?”

Her beautiful smile lit up those cool eyes. “Every day, as soon as you smell the dinner. I love you too. And thank you, thank you for Prunella.”

She was making up her “pickle solution” as she called it; he pressed his lips against her flushed cheek and stole away to visit the nursery.

His younger son was slumbering peacefully in his crib; when Carmine leaned down to kiss him, inhale the inimitable smell of properly cared for babies, two chubby arms came up to touch his face, and the eyes opened, too clouded with sleep to arouse fully. Daddy smiled into them, and they closed; the arms fell. Both his sons had strange eyes, Alexander James Delmonico’s even more peculiar than Julian’s: silvery-grey, with that black ring around the irises made them piercing, unsettling. Alex’s eyes reminded Carmine of Kemal Ataturk’s, exactly the same in an even darker face. Not an unpleasant similarity; Ataturk was regarded as the founder of modern Turkey, and had beaten a British army nearly half a million strong at Gallipoli during the First World War. Well, Alex wouldn’t have that tortured man’s life, but it was interesting. Blame Desdemona, really. Her extreme fairness had to show somewhere in her sons.

And back to the little sitting room adjacent to the kitchen, where they sat to have a drink before dinner and unwind. I am blessed, thought Carmine, taking the glass Desdemona held out.

He couldn’t wait any longer. Didus ineptus let himself into Melantha Green’s second floor apartment with his lock picks, then gazed around familiarly: he had been in here before. Melantha was another neat and tidy girl-he loathed mess!-who lived on her own and considered that her black belt in judo gave her all the protection she needed. So while other girls were fitting more locks, Melantha had decided that one dead-bolt was fine. As indeed it was, provided that the predator was an amateur with locks. Whereas this predator was an expert.

Today’s methodology was different. The piece of duct tape for a gag remained, but in place of twine there were manacles and chains. Appropriate, really. His first black woman, and his first venture with chains-chains probably not unlike those that had encumbered her slave ancestors. A fresh thought, not the one that had prompted him to switch to chains.

When the bedroom yielded no surface he could use, the Dodo located a folded up card table in the living room and carried it to the bedroom, there to employ it as a place to put his tools, neatly arranged. The silenced.22 went under a bed pillow, the duct tape, manacles and chains accompanied him back to the living room. There he began his careful transformation from just another guy into Didus ineptus: folding his clothes in a stack on top of his tennis shoes, removing a few items from his body, and then, admiring himself in the full-length mirror on the bedroom door, touching himself up with the greasepaint, a perfect color match to his skin. On went the surgeon’s gloves, after which he cleaned his prints from everything he had thus far touched.

Finally, about a quarter of six, he was ready, black silk hood over his head, poised behind the front door. He knew this one was a self-defense expert, so it was important not to give her any chance to use his body weight against him. She came in at five of six. The tape was over her mouth and the manacles snapped on her wrists within seconds; then he struck her on the jaw with a clenched fist. Her knees buckled. He propelled her, semi-conscious, to the toilet, pulled her panties down and sat her in place, a part of him astonished to see that those panties were sexy red lace. She groaned.

“Piss, Melantha,” he said. “You don’t move until you do.”

Sagging forward on the seat, she urinated. Didn’t the news programs say he never spoke? Why was he speaking to her?

The idea of the chains had come to him when he first set eyes on her bed, an old-fashioned brass one with stout posts and bars. While she was still groggy he tethered the manacle chains to the top of the bed.

“Manicure time,” he said.

Her feet went into socks, her fingernails were clipped down to the quick and collected. After which he left her bedroom and went to look at her bookshelves: hundreds of books! Melantha was a final year medical student at Chubb. There! That one was great, just right for his collection. He brought it back to the bedroom, drew up a chair, and sat down.

Melantha moaned; he was there at once. “Waking up, are we?” he asked, slapping her face. Her dark eyes rolled, then cleared; she gasped.

“Yes, I’m Didus ineptus,” he said, “and I’ve come to do all kinds of things to you.”

She couldn’t scream or talk back to him. The duct tape was in place. But she didn’t need to ask him her most important question; he had already answered it by speaking. Didus ineptus intended to kill her.

He raped her for hours, vaginally and anally, with penis and fist, using his cord around her neck time and time again, retiring to his chair to read, returning for another assault. He pinched, pummeled, pounded.

“I am not a pervert,” he said to her. “My only instruments belong to my body.”

Melantha’s mind began to wander as the strangulations went on; so intent was he on what he was doing that he almost missed the change begin in her eyes. She was lying half on her stomach, but this next one would be the last. He flipped her over-the chains allowed that-and pulled the hood from his head. The eye slits were too frustrating to retain it at such a moment. When she died, her eyes must be looking into his face. And, in case this was the ultimate of all experiences, he paused to snap on a condom. Buried in her, choking her, eyes locked on hers, he watched the life slowly die until he understood that all he had left was her shell. The bitch had escaped him! The orgasm never came.

As he left the bed, tossing the unfilled condom on to the card table, the front door lock gave a dull thunk as the dead bolt turned and fell back. The Dodo’s hand went under the pillow and emerged holding the.22 pistol.

“Melantha? Hi, honey,” said a man’s voice.

He was halfway across the living room when the Dodo shot him in the throat, and he collapsed, dying, in a gurgling heap. But that was not satisfactory. Reaching him, the Dodo stood over him and shot him between the eyes.

That taken care of, the Dodo unchained the lifeless girl and replaced everything in his knapsack, tucking his souvenired book down in one pocket. The load was heavier now that he had added chains to it, but on the whole the weight was worth it. He had almost come inside her; that he would definitely come later as he held the book he knew, but it was a disappointment nonetheless.

At four in the morning Didus ineptus stole out of the place, wriggling on his elbows across the grass of the backyard until he reached the shelter of the side fence, down which grew a row of small pines. There he waited long enough to be sure that he was undetected, then he crawled on hands and knees to the front boundary. On his feet now, he ran across the road and into the deep shadows of the street’s maple trees. From there, it was a short run to Persimmon Street, where his car was parked. As soon as he reached it he got in and put the knapsack on the back seat floor. But he didn’t drive away. No, he’d wait until other cars were growling into life; only then would he drive away. A good night, all considered. He had always wondered how he would cope with an intruder. Now he knew. No sweat.

The bodies were not discovered until noon, when a friend had gone to see why Melantha hadn’t attended the morning’s rounds; she was meant to be presenting a case to Prof. Baumgarten-important.

And Helen was back with the Dodo.

“It isn’t a question of your winning any victories,” Carmine said to her icily, “it’s simply that I need manpower, and you know the case. But don’t you ever play another trick like the one you did on Lieutenant Goldberg. If you do, you’re out one second later, and your father will know why.”

She said nothing, just hastened to report to Delia; her luck that Nick’s wife had succumbed to a critical illness, and he was on compassionate leave. Knowing how he disliked her, she shrank from their confrontation once he was back at work. Oh, pray Imelda Jefferson was okay! The Dodo’s victims were black!

With two women as his team, Carmine drove to Spruce Street in Carew. One corner of his mind yearned for Nick, but that was impossible. Black victims? It made no sense.

For Helen, the crime scene came as a shock that she was too professional to betray, and she was relieved to learn that her stomach was a strong one. A patrolman had been forced to race outside and throw up, but not Helen MacIntosh!

“Tell me what you see, Helen,” Carmine commanded.

“A black male, mid to late twenties, shot first in the throat, then finished off with a bullet to the brain. If the head shot had been first, he wouldn’t have needed the throat shot. Whoever did it is a top marksman who made a mess of this guy’s throat from fifteen feet away, to silence him, obviously. He administered the coup de grâce standing over the victim-entry is straight in, not angled,” said Helen. “I guess this is her boyfriend and that he has a key. I can’t hazard much of a guess as to time of death. Have we beaten the Medical Examiner?”

“Just,” came Patrick O’Donnell’s voice from the doorway. He took a liver temperature and examined both wounds. “I’d say he died at two in the morning, cuz. No earlier, but not much later.” He fished in pockets until he found a wallet and gave it to Carmine, then vanished toward the bedroom.

“Dr. Michael Tolbin,” said Carmine. “From his library card, a general surgery resident. Jesus, the waste! The country can’t afford to lose two young doctors-senseless!” He went in Patrick’s wake, the women following.

A worse shock for Helen. Melantha was lying stretched out on the bed in an X position, belly up, covered with the crimson marks of forming bruises. Around her wrists were angry rings that didn’t suggest any kind of twine or wire; they were too broad and indistinct. Her face was blue and congested, the tongue protruding, the eyes open and so dark that it was difficult to discern an iris.

“She fought for every breath,” said Helen huskily.

“That she did,” said Patrick. “She died about the same time as the young man in the living room-a matter of minutes between them, I’d estimate. She was restrained with handcuffs, probably connected to chains, but her legs were free. This bed screams S & M-not that I’m implying that, only that it served the Dodo’s purposes admirably. Melantha probably thought it was unusual in a pretty way. There are other pieces of Benares brass. Feet in socks, nails pared down-it’s definitely the Dodo. He’s escalated-this isn’t accidental, he arrived to kill. That probably means he spoke to her, may not have worn his hood. Is there a book missing?”

“Impossible to tell,” said Delia, coming in. “The shelves are overflowing. Oh, the waste! Their whole lives ahead of them, so much work to get this far! Melantha would have had her M.D. in six more months. Her thesis is on meningococcal meningitis. She’s twenty-five. Chubb Medical School! That means she was one of the best of her year nationwide.”

“As today is Wednesday, October 16, he’s still on a three-week cycle. What a way to die,” said Helen.

No one answered. Helen drew a long, sobbing breath. “I’m okay,” she said. “Just spitting mad.”

“Delia, you’ll have to stay here after the bodies are removed and go over this apartment with a fine-toothed comb,” Carmine said. “Keep Helen as assistance.”

He left; Delia looked at Helen. “Tell me what you see.”

“On the girl? Greasepaint, there. And there?” She looked puzzled. “If he uses greasepaint, I don’t understand how he doesn’t leave slathers of it behind.” She went red, but labored on. “I mean, sex with her, skin on skin? Even if it’s a rape, sex is intimate physical contact. He’s naked and she’s naked. So why isn’t there more greasepaint?”

“He cleaned her up with xylene,” said Patrick, packing his case. “It’s an effective reagent for something oil-based, but it also says his own skin is on the delicate side. He’s probably not of Mediterranean origins. Why not alcohol for his delicate skin? Because it’s overrated as an organic solvent, and he’s careful. However, he’s neither a chemist nor a pharmacologist. Maggie had no Dodo administered drugs in her system, and I’ll bet this girl won’t either. He does it on surprise, brute strength and, for want of a better word, natural techniques. In one way he’s a colossal psychopath, yet he uses no metal instruments of torture. Fingers, fists, feet. I suspect he despises rapists as sickos and doesn’t think of himself as abnormal. The strangling ligature has to fit within his definition of normality, so I’m guessing it’s made from human hair.”

“His own?” Delia asked.

“More likely his mother’s.” Patrick picked up his cases and departed.

“Why did Dr. O’Donnell call the Captain ‘cuz’?” Helen asked.

“Their mothers are sisters,” said Delia.

“I never knew that! Does my father?”

“I have no idea,” said Delia, sounding bored.

The two women worked in silence, each taking half of the bedroom, the floor of which was covered in one of those annoying carpets that show every mark. Helen stared at it closely.

“Delia, take a look at this.”

Delia came, inspected. “Something with four legs sat here.

“That’s what I thought. Don’t tell me he brought his own dinky table!” Helen said, a little incredulously.

“More likely that he transported a table from somewhere else in the apartment-don’t leap to the madder conclusions first.”

This time Helen’s flush was pure mortification; lips tight, she left the bedroom to search for a table that fitted the marks. When none did, she checked again, and found the card table tucked in a niche to one side of the living room window. “Bingo!”

They opened it and stared at its green baize, which bore a number of marks and stains; there was still a faint reek of xylene. Smears of greasepaint marred the baize in several places.

“Paul will be able to get enough to match the color,” said Delia in quiet triumph.

“What’s this?” Helen asked, pointing to a spot that also showed marks, but these were colorless. She sniffed. “Condom lubrication, do you think?”

“I do, but there’s no trace of semen. His mutton gun jammed.” Delia began to fold the table. “We’ll take it with us,” she said. “I wonder what else is here? We have to find it before the fingerprint boys arrive.”

But the apartment yielded nothing else.

“Where did he wait for her?” Helen asked.

“Behind the front door, I suspect. With Maggie Drummond, it was a wing chair, but there’s no hiding place in Melantha Green’s living room. He jumped her literally as she was entering, which might suggest that these photos are right-Melantha had martial arts skills.”

“Do you think three weeks is his cycle, Delia? Do you?”

“It seems likely, but that’s speculation best suited for one of the Captain’s think-tanks, if you mean the direction his future assaults are going to take.”

“Think-tanks? I’ll be excluded!” Helen cried. “I want my own think-tank here and now, with you, Delia-with you! Why do we always wait for the men to lead, tell me that? It’s obvious to me that this girl wouldn’t have had time for a party since last year, if then. Added to which, she was in a serious relationship with a surgical resident who wouldn’t be going to parties either. They would have met on the ward, not at a Mark Sugarman party. Nick’s wrong, but he’s a man, so he’s believed.”

Delia was watching her, and frowning. “Stop thinking about this murder for a moment, Helen, and think about your own conduct. What you’re doing right now is passing the buck to Nick for your exclusion from the Captain’s inner circle, just as if he’s not entitled to have one. You’re restless, impulsive and ambitious. I don’t blame the Captain for keeping you in your place, silly girl. You push too hard. There’s one American saying that I just love: shape up, or ship out.”

A silence fell; Helen’s face was beet-red. “I’m sorry.”

“I hope so.”

Suddenly Delia looked indignant. “I love and esteem our boss, but he can be thoughtless. He’s buzzed off in our wheels. We are stranded.”

“No, we’re not,” said Helen in a more cheerful voice. “I did a deal with the cop who got sick-if he brought my Lamborghini here, I promised not to breathe a word about his weak stomach.”

“Clever chicken! Just answer me one question: how are we going to get a card table into a Lamborghini?”

“We aren’t. I asked my queasy cop to hang around in case we had any bulky evidence to transport.”

At six that evening, dressed in the shortest of miniskirts and with her wonderful legs sheathed in shimmering lilac pantyhose, Helen was sitting on a stool in Buffo’s Wine Cellar waiting for Kurt von Fahlendorf. None of the staring young men would have believed for a second that this glorious young woman had spent her afternoon pursuing the aftermath of a particularly brutal murder. It was very unlike Kurt not to be doing the waiting; he was obsessed by gentlemanly conduct.

He came clattering down the area steps not two minutes later and perched himself on the vacant stool next to her, leaning to kiss her on the cheek. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Muons.”

“Of course it’s muons. It’s always muons,” she said with a smile, and leaned to kiss his lips, which pleased him. “Are there any other ill-behaved sub-atomic particles?”

“Loads of them. That’s the thrill-finding new ones. We do, all the time. What are you drinking?”

“The house red, but I haven’t tasted it yet.”

“A glass of house red,” he said to the bartender. “You look amazingly lovely, Helen.”

“Do I? Good lord! I wonder if that makes me a ghoul?”

“I wish you wouldn’t make remarks that mean absolutely nothing to me. What is a ghoul?”

She ignored the question. “Do you know a light-colored black medical student named Melantha Green, Kurt?”

His brow creased. “Melantha Green? From Mark’s parties would be the only place, but… No, I do not remember a light-colored Negro girl. Well, you know there are Negroes at Mark’s parties-this is New England, not the South. But though I have been going to Mark’s parties for years and you, for eight months only, someone with a name like Melantha would be memorable.”

“That’s a pity, we need background. Melantha was raped and strangled by the Dodo last night.”

Even in Buffo’s dim light Helen could see that Kurt had gone pale. He was not a morbid or prurient type.

“Oh, Helen! The poor thing!”

“A thing is certainly what the Dodo made of her. Try to imagine it, Kurt! All the fire and energy a black woman must have poured into her life, then a sick psycho just-ended it! Put a cord around her neck and throttled her in stages as he raped her over and over. And I never knew that black skins can show bruises-oh, it was awful!”

Kurt retched, clapped a hand over his mouth. “Helen, please! I know these things happen and I know you deal with them, but I-I cannot bear to hear of them!”

“I’m sorry, Kurt, I didn’t mean to upset you. I get angry and indignant about some things, especially rape.”

“Drink your wine-Buffo has uncorked a good red for a change. And let us alter the subject, eh? I am not very strong of the stomach,” he said, his English becoming more stilted as he grew more upset. “I will not ask you about your day, but about your mother and father. Are they perhaps well?”

She laughed, humor restored. “‘Perhaps’ is a word you can’t apply to that pair,” she said, chuckling. “They’re never unwell, especially with a presidential election scant weeks away. Dad is terrified that Richard Nixon will get in.”

“Why is that necessarily bad?” he asked.

She eyed his noble, impassive face in some amusement, then shook her head. “You’re too foreign to understand,” she said.

“Tell me about your father, Helen. I am aware that to be the President of Chubb is a prestigious position, but your papa seems more important than that.”

Helen shrugged, blew a rude noise with those fabulous ice-pink lips. “Dad’s a perfect illustration of the fact that the job can make the man, but that the man can also make the job. He’s got the word they applied to John F. Kennedy-charisma. No matter how important the men in a room might be, when my father walks in, they pale. Something in him, not something anyone can cultivate. Added to which, he’s got genuine ancestors-something most Americans have to scratch for. Not merely one of his antecedents, but three of them came over on the Mayflower-well, he couldn’t be President of Chubb without a Mayflower connection. And Mom has connections too-she’s Cleveland, Ohio rich, like a bunch of great American families.” She stopped, grinning. “There! Does that help, Kurt?”

“Yes, I think so. You must arrange a dinner with your parents, Helen. It’s time I met them.”

Her heart sank, then soared. What did meetings matter?

“Sure,” she said, and sipped her wine.

“Have you time for dinner? We could eat here, or anywhere else you fancy.”

“Here would be fine,” she said, keeping her sigh of despair inward; what was the sense in dating Kurt von Fahlendorf, when he all but threw up at the mere mention of rape or murder?

I need a cop or a doctor for a mate, she told herself-a man who’ll relish my telling him all about my day, a man who understands danger, blood, death. Kurt likes things that whizz around at near the speed of light and collide-which makes him far more dangerous than anybody else I know, though he’d never see that.

And what was he talking about now? Oh, no! No, please, no! He was on a ponderous fishing expedition to find out which precious stone she liked best-diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald?

“Listen here, Kurt,” she said pugnaciously, “don’t you dare go getting ideas about buying me a ring! When I put a ring on my finger, I’ll do the choosing-hear me? The man’s sole function will be to pay for it.” She gave a giggle. “There! That’s tidied up. Let’s look at the menu, I’m starving.”

Heavens! he thought. Rape and murder all afternoon, and she is hungry!

Food, however, soothed them both. Buffo’s wasn’t one of Holloman’s top restaurants, but it served well-cooked Hungarian fare; Buffo was a Hungarian who had fled after the Russians crushed the 1956 rebellion, and was still a passionate patriot.

Stomachs full of schnitzel (Kurt) and goulash (Helen), heads pleasantly buzzing from the wine, the couple left at ten.

“Do we leave your Lamborghini here, or my Porsche?” Kurt asked outside. “Let it be the Lamborghini, my darling Helen! Come home with me for coffee.”

She shook her head in the way he had come to associate with an unbendable negative. No matter how he pleaded or what new, brilliant argument he produced, Helen didn’t want to prolong the evening. A fair man, Kurt could understand why; her afternoon must have been traumatic. So he watched her leap nimbly into the car, and stood as she roared away down South Green Street. Other open sports cars didn’t survive ten minutes on a Holloman street, yet Helen’s Lamborghini bore a charmed life.

Shoulders hunched, Kurt walked the half block to where his metal-roofed black Porsche was parked, unlocked it, took the steering wheel lock off, and finally, after several adjustments to the dashboard, drove away.

“There goes Professor von Fahlendorf’s Porsche,” said a patrol cop to his new (and rather stupid) companion as they cruised the other way up South Green Street.

“Do we chase it?” the jerk asked.

“What for? He’s not speeding or weaving.”

Which little incident made them the last people to see Kurt von Fahlendorf, who never made it home.

She was obliged to do it, she admitted. On that same mild Wednesday evening Amanda Warburton invited her nephews over to her apartment for a home-cooked meal.

Things went better than she had expected; when she descended to let them into the garage beneath Busquash Condominiums she found herself gazing at a pewter-colored Bentley, and had to admire it. No more clunkers for the twins, obviously!

“It’s ten years old and it guzzles gas,” said Robbie as they walked to the elevator, “but we should worry! Gas is dirt-cheap. We like the lines of this model.”

“Rightly so,” she said. “You have good taste.”

She continued this theme as the twins dutifully gushed over her huge apartment. “Having good taste,” she said as she led them from her burgundy and pink bedroom, “why the drama of black and white? I would have thought a trying color combination to live in the middle of, surely?”

“Shock value,” said Gordie, sitting where he could see the view, illuminated by a waning moon.

“Explain that to me.”

“We’re movie people,” Robbie said, uncorking wine, “and we understand the importance of the personal image. A key element is difference-be unusual, eccentric even, if your talents are not those of a Paul Newman or a Rock Hudson.”

“Where do your talents lie?” she asked, moving around her kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind, boys, but I had our dinner catered by Sea Foam-shrimp cocktails and roast beef.”

“Wonderful!” chorused the twins.

They ate, she noted, with an appearance of enthusiasm, but left a good amount uneaten.

“We have to watch our weight,” Gordie confided.

“Let’s go back to your talents,” she said, pouring coffee-at least she could make that! Except, she discovered, that it wasn’t something called decaffeinated, so they drank very little. She was beginning to gain the impression that West Coasters were riddled with dietary superstitions that, if Robbie and Gordie were anything to go by, did not have the imagined effects.

“Talents,” said Robbie, drinking camomile tea. “The one that’s appreciated at the moment is our acting, but we have scads of aspirations.” He looked coy. “We can’t talk about them-it would tempt Fate.” One boneless-looking hand waved around. “All we can say is that we have a very big project coming to fruition.”

“Does it require me to put in money?” Amanda asked warily.

The gooseberry eyes opened wide. “Amanda dear, no! We need millions! In other words, we need a top Hollywood producer.”

“Gordie, are you sure you wouldn’t like some camomile tea?”

Robbie put his cup down and rose. “We must be going, dear Amanda. You’re sure you don’t mind our dropping the ‘aunt’?”

She laughed. “Since I’m only a few years older than you, I prefer not being an aunt.” While Gordie gathered their coats, she looked at Robbie. “Where are your hearts?”

He understood immediately. “In our prosperity. The Bentley. Flying first class. In walking down the red carpet at a premiere and being cheered by the crowd.”

“General fame and fortune,” she said.

“In a nutshell, yes. But I didn’t mention the biggest. In winning the first twinned Oscar.”

“It’s laudable, and I wish you very, very well.”

After the twins departed Amanda sat at her glass wall and thought for a long time, chiefly about her money, her will, and the glass teddy bear.

She picked up the phone and dialed. “Did I wake you, Hank? Then how about coming over for some coffee and devil’s food cake?”

He arrived in twenty minutes, smiling broadly. “Don’t the twins eat dessert?” he asked.

“They eat very little of anything except things I didn’t have-what a world the West Coast must be! I mean, why drink coffee at all if you want the caffeine removed? And if you strip all the fat off meat, it doesn’t roast well, and why would you want to fry a bean twice? I gave up.” She looked down at the dog and cat, sitting at Hank’s feet. “Frankie and Winston are glad to see you. Robbie and Gordie squealed and ran away. I had to put the animals in the spare bedroom.”

In answer, he picked Winston up-a struggle. “Winston, you have been conning Marcia into thinking Amanda isn’t feeding you-I swear your weight’s gone up to twenty pounds.”

They sat at the plate-glass window. It was after midnight and the half moon was overhead, pouring an intangible, gold-hued light down upon Busquash Inlet; the leaves of the trees glinted with colored highlights, fully turned now in preparation for a season’s sleep. Some sea creature broke the burnished surface of the water in ominous, ever-widening ripples, and a romantic soul with a yen for the fires of winter had lit one, its smoke writhing in delicate tendrils toward the stars. Even here, eighty miles from New York City, they were dimmed and the sky yellowed by a million urban lamps. Lovely or ugly, according to your tastes.

By mutual consent they turned away from the window. Hank gave Amanda his customary tender kiss, smiled at her, and started for her front door.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

On Thursday Nick came back from his compassionate leave looking worn and harried, but Imelda had come through having an aneurysm on the non-dominant middle cerebral artery clipped, and seemed to have no others to explode in the future. The Jefferson clan had rallied, so that, the operation itself over, Nick was free to go to work. Two grandmothers had moved into his house to prepare it for the invalid, and he was underfoot.

“I can’t even do the marketing,” he complained to Carmine.

“Here, you’re definitely useful,” said Carmine.

“What’s Helen’s status?”

“Delia thinks she’s been punished enough, so I returned her to duty as a full trainee yesterday, when Melantha was found.”

“Fair enough,” said Nick, grimacing. “What’s with the Dodo and a black woman?”

“No one knows, nor can the psychiatrists come up with a theory,” Carmine said, frowning. “I am assured that in the few cases of multiple murder that we know of, the killer has never crossed a racial frontier, though rape is cloudier. But now this sicko is killing, so how do we categorize him? Admittedly his rape victims have been of all persuasions and all Caucasian origins, but Melantha is a black woman, avowedly so. It doesn’t seem to have fazed him-my feeling is that to him, her color isn’t even important.”

“Christ! He is sick.”

The two women were summoned as soon as Nick was fully up to date; Nick found enough amusement to smile, eyes resting on a remarkably restrained Delia, wearing rust, navy and black.

“Why won’t you listen when I talk about the source of the Dodo’s knowledge about Carew women?” Nick asked, sounding exasperated.

All eyes swung to him. “Hit us,” said Carmine.

“Parties. Delia and I keep telling you that Carew is famous party country. Until Leonie was raped, Mark Sugarman gave regular parties. Mason Novak was another party giver, usually in conjunction with Dapper Dave, as their backyards abut. Von Fahlendorf is too exclusive to be a collaborator, but he has thrown an occasional party. Those four are all Gentleman Walkers, but there are other famous party givers too.”

“Right on, Nick,” said Delia, beaming.

“You’ve got my ears, Nick. Keep on going,” said Carmine.

“For starters, tongues get loose. The booze flows, and there is always pot. The men are in charm-the-women mode, there are loads of couples huddled in corners or on sofas letting their hair down about themselves. I’m not describing orgies. No one tries to find a place to engage in sex-sex follows after a couple has left the party, if you get my meaning. The party itself is a gab-fest. Talk, talk, talk. Cheap wine or spirits, finger food, loud music, a chance to unwind among like-minded souls. It’s amazing what people say about themselves under the influence of intoxicants or hallucinogens, even when people don’t know each other. What if the Dodo goes to Carew parties, cruises in search of women he fancies, then gets them in a corner and quizzes them, all charm and honey like a psychiatrist?”

Nick stopped, greeted by a profound silence.

Finally Carmine spoke. “That’s a valid theory, Nick. It makes sense. We’ve found no common threads that would give the Dodo information on any official level, and we know he has his victims summed up. Maybe he can learn enough about a woman at a party-it’s surprising how much information can be exchanged in a half hour. He’d also be in a position to steal keys, or take wax impressions of them. All the victims have been outgoing women before they were attacked, and some know Gentleman Walkers well. Mark Sugarman might keep invitation lists-dollars to dimes, he’s a hoarder.”

“Well,” said Delia, looking as if she regretted her dreary choice of colors, “pounds to peanuts, the Dodo is a charmer.”

Carmine’s eyes creased at the corners in amusement. “Do tell, Delia! C’mon, give us more.”

“He has sufficient animal magnetism to attract whomever he fancies,” she said, cheeks flushed with pleasure, but not forgetting to give Nick a look of intense gratitude. “He gets her into a corner, and persuades her to tell him the story of her life, complete with enough personal details for him to identify her. She tells him about her obsessions-all his victims have been anal types, according to Freud. Perhaps they aren’t the full obsessive-compulsive disaster, but they’re definitely on the cusp. For instance, none of them would use a public toilet. Hence the Dodo’s marching them to their toilets-he knew they’d be dying to go. And that suggests an extremely skilled technique as he quizzed them at a party. He presented as no threat, yet as a masculine man. That’s a difficult act.”

“I don’t think he sounds very masculine,” Helen said.

“No, dear, you’re wrong,” said Delia patiently. “He must be stuffed with masculinity, otherwise women would deem him creepy or slimy. I imagine that he waited until the girl was tiddly, stoned-whatever-before he made his move, so that her tongue was loose and her brain not sufficiently alert to remember the encounter the next day. He’s clever, Helen.”

Patrick O’Donnell walked in, his blue eyes bright, his fair and freckled face sober. “Good work finding the table, ladies,” he said to Delia and Helen. “It confirms his techniques, though it doesn’t give us any fresh information apart from the condom. Paul is trying to match the color of the greasepaint.”

“Was she drugged?” Carmine asked.

“All the results aren’t in, but there’s nothing in her blood relevant to the attack. The number of rapes is impossible to tell, but he used his fist more this time. She is shockingly bruised and torn, particularly around the anus. Though it seems he does not attain orgasm, he must be an extremely fit man to sustain so many erections. Fist plays an increasing part, but we know from his living victims that he uses his penis constantly.”

“What about the chains, Patsy?” Carmine asked.

“As he cases their apartments ahead of time, it may be that the brass bed gave him the idea, so we can’t write cuffs and chains down as a permanent change in his method. If there is a next time and the bed’s an ordinary one, he might use twine.”

“The Dodo is a forensic desert,” Carmine said gloomily.

“Yes, cuz, I’m afraid he is.”

Carmine’s phone rang as the meeting broke up. “Don’t go!” he barked at Helen as he hung up. “There’s a parcel for you at the front desk,” he said. “I’ve asked that it be sent up. In the meantime, do you have a report on the Warburton twins yet?”

She jumped. “Yes, sir! They’re in my notebook.”

“Fetch it, please.”

Her answer was to heft the shoulder bag onto a chair seat, scrabble, and triumphantly produce a thick exercise book bound in navy-blue, with the Holloman PD coat of arms on it. “Here, sir. I put it all in my notebook.”

“Good,” he said, surprised, skimming through it. “What’s with the colored inks?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, looking confused. “My own convenience, Captain. Black is for straight narration; crime scenes are in blue, significant facts are red, anything environmental or chemical is in green, and my own theories and hypotheses are in purple.”

He glanced up, face expressionless. “Original,” he said, “but I can see why it’s a help. Keep this one for the glass teddy bear, but use a separate notebook for the Dodo. And don’t hesitate to get empty ones from Stores.”

“No, sir.” He was curious about her parcel-well, good! She was livid. Which one of her friends was playing a joke? A young cop came in, holding a package not much larger than a matchbox, though he was clearly unsure whether to give it to its addressee, Helen, or Carmine, her boss. Carmine nodded at her, which the cop took to mean he should give it to her. “Sit down, Helen, for God’s sake!” Carmine said. “I won’t chew you out for opening your parcel. Sit, sit!”

She did so, clumsily, having forgotten her bag was on the chair, but eventually she got herself organized, and sneaked a peek at him as he flicked the pages of her notebook. It was entertaining him. She could see what the unknown joker had sent her. Very well wrapped! Corners squared, the whole exercise done without any scotch-tape-just string, expertly tied. When she got the paper off, she found one of those big matchbox tins that held proper matches-the kind a cowboy used to light by scraping the match on his boot. Who? She struggled to open the tin, seeing the point of Carmine’s contention on her first day that long nails were not for women cops unless they were Delia’s-now her nails, he had explained gravely, could double for crowbars.

Carmine was caught in Helen’s narrative-whatever it did or did not do, Miss Procter’s taught excellent English: Helen had style. Came a strangled gasp, a choke; he looked up immediately, and in alarm.

Face drained of color, she was staring at him blindly, a sheet of paper in her right hand, the box still in her left.

Carmine moved around his table and took the box before it could fall. Its lid was flopped open, he gaped at an amputated finger. The brown wrapping paper was tipping off her lap, that had to be rescued first.

“What is this?” he barked.

She mutely handed him the paper.

WE HAVE KURT VON FAHLENDORF. YOU HAVE HIS LEFT LITTLE FINGER. INFORM HIS FAMILY THAT THEY ARE TO DELIVER THE SUM OF TEN MILLION AMERICAN DOLLARS TO THE SWISS BANK ACCOUNT WHOSE NUMBER IS ATTACHED. THE SUM MUST BE LODGED BY FRIDAY, 25TH OCTOBER, AT NOON, GREENWICH TIME. IF IT IS NOT PAID, KURT VON FAHLENDORF WILL DIE.

He put the box down on his table carefully. “Have you any reason to believe this finger does belong to Kurt?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

Carmine picked up his phone, dialed an extension. “Paul, bring your fingerprint gear to my office right this second.” A keen glance informed him that his trainee wasn’t going to pass out; her color was returning, awareness filling her eyes.

“Kurt is on a green card, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then his prints will be on file with Immigration and Naturalization in Washington, D.C. That means we can identify the finger as his or not his very quickly. I think it’s best we do this before notifying anyone, from Kurt’s family to the FBI.”

“Sir, isn’t that weird? The note was sent to a cop! It says nothing about not notifying the FBI! Don’t they care?”

“It seems not. I agree, Helen. Very weird kidnappers.”

Delia and Nick came in together and froze at once into attention; Carmine gave them the gist of the matter in a few sentences, by which time Paul had arrived.

“Facsimile the print, his name and social security number to the exact right number at Immigration and Naturalization-Nick, get that done, please.”

“Have you had breakfast, Helen?” Delia asked.

“Uh-no, just coffee. I usually wait for morning coffee break and have a Danish.”

“Then there’s nought to do until we get word about the identification of the fingerprint,” Delia said briskly. “Paul has the letter, we have a xerox of it, and I suggest we repair to Malvolio’s to discuss our moves. Please, Carmine?”

“A good idea,” said Carmine.

The diner was fairly crowded, but they got a big booth down the back and enough privacy to talk. Carmine studied the note. “Typed on an electric machine. The only prints will be yours and mine, Helen. Nor will the wrapping paper yield any information. Delia?”

“It’s not an IBM,” said Delia positively. “An Olivetti, I’d guess. The phraseology is educated-succinct and with some attempt at style. The date is European-day ahead of month-and how many Americans are familiar with Greenwich Mean Time? West Germany is an hour ahead of GMT, as I remember, but daylight savings might be a muddle, as various countries finish at quite different dates. The writer is specific-we have Kurt’s left little finger. The kidnappers use plural number, but that’s usual. Solo kidnappings are mostly women who snatch babies left in buggies at supermarkets.”

“What I want to know,” said Carmine, eating an apple Danish, “is why the ransom note came to you, Helen. The letter makes it clear that Kurt’s family hasn’t been told-you’re to do that. Are you and Kurt so hot an item that his family knows about you? Come on, eat another Danish. You need your strength.”

“I don’t know what Kurt may have told his family in Munich,” Helen said soberly, “but here in Holloman we’re just an item, rather than a hot one. For instance, we’re not lovers, and most of Kurt’s colleagues know that. He’s thirty-four and looking for a wife, not a mistress.”

“Would his family be under the same impression?” asked Nick.

“It’s possible. Last night we had dinner together, and he dropped heavy hints about what kind of engagement ring I’d like. I flew right at him! I’d choose my engagement ring, I said-all my fiancé had to do was pay for it. Typical Kurt, he took that literally. It didn’t even cross his mind that I might have been turning his proposal down.” Her eyes filled with sudden tears. “Oh, I’m hard!”

“If you don’t want him, hard’s better,” said Delia.

“Well, I think we have to assume that Kurt’s family deems you his future wife,” Carmine said. “If Delia’s right about the note, then the kidnapping is German-orchestrated.”

“The Swiss bank account confirms that,” said Nick. “How would an American gang of kidnappers get inside the fortress of a Swiss bank? Answer: they couldn’t. And ten million dollars? That’s a massive ransom! The kidnappers must know that we won’t get any information out of the bank. I mean, even Nazi gold is still sitting in some Swiss banks, even though everyone must know it will never be collected. Wow, the interest it must have accrued in twenty-plus years!”

“Have you accepted the fact yet, Helen, that if the finger belongs to Kurt, you’re going to have to call his family?” asked Carmine. “Is his father still alive?”

“Yes, the Graf is still alive, and I have realized it.”

“Is Graf a first name?”

“No, it’s a title. The English equivalent would be Baron. But I won’t be calling him, he’s too senile. Kurt’s sister, Dagmar, runs the family now,” said Helen.

“Fill us in a little on the von Fahlendorfs, Helen.”

“The Graf’s first name is Erich. After he escaped from the East he finally got a chance to do something with his Italian wife’s fortune-they kept very quiet while Hitler was in power. The Baroness financed the Baron’s first factory, in Munich. He was a genius chemist who invented a process for dying synthetic fibers. Now, twenty years later, Fahlendorf Farben has a dozen factories scattered all over West Germany.”

“How come the Baroness kept her money ungarnished through the Third Reich?” Nick asked, frowning.

“Her father deposited it in a Swiss bank, of course. The day after Mussolini signed the Pact of Steel with Hitler. The Milanese nobility seem to have run rings around Mussolini.”

“More Miss Procter’s history, Helen?” Carmine asked, smiling.

“Oh, definitely, sir.”

“Where does Kurt come into this?” Nick demanded.

“Helen’s getting there,” Carmine said softly.

“Kurt’s aptitude for mathematics showed very early, though he’s not musical, and as he grew older he inclined to physics. It was Dagmar took after the Baron, had the chemistry. She’s five years older than Kurt, and went from university into Fahlendorf Farben as a research chemist. She’s better than the old man, so Kurt was free to do what he loves-particle physics. The Baron consented when he was told Kurt was potential Nobel material.”

“Are they snobs, then?” Nick asked.

“Insufferable snobs,” said Helen without hesitation. “Old Prussian junker stock, very conscious of the bloodline. They were Catholic Social Democrats, hence the disapproval of Hitler.”

“Is Dagmar married?” Carmine asked.

“Yes. The Baron and Baroness dislike him-he’s low-born. More importantly, he’s not in Dagmar’s class when it comes to the chemical innovations Fahlendorf Farben must produce if it’s to stay ahead of the competition-insecticides, fertilizers, new plastics, oil substitutes. They met in Bonn, at university. In 1951, a year after they were married, Josef changed his name to von Fahlendorf, and struck a deal with the Baron, who wasn’t senile then. In return for changing his name, he’d be paid a fat salary, no questions asked, no accountability. Kurt loathes Josef, mostly because he’s hurt Dagmar so badly. No mistresses-fraud. She caught him selling her trade secrets in unpatented formulae to Fahlendorf Farben’s chief rival. Luckily she found out before the papers were handed over. Josef was sent to the Fahlendorf Farben equivalent of Siberia, though he still has an office and a fat pay check. That’s because his name is von Fahlendorf, as far as I can gather, and the old Baron tends to protect him for the sake of the grandchildren.”

“How many children do Dagmar and Josef have?” Carmine asked.

“Four. Two boys, then two girls. Aged between fifteen and seven. The youngest, a girl, is by far the most intelligent. The children have been taught to despise their father,” Helen said.

“What was Josef’s name before he became a von Fahlendorf?” Delia asked.

“I haven’t been able to find out, I think because the family is busy playing ostrich-they want the world to believe that the guy really is a von Fahlendorf cousin of some kind.”

“Could you find out, Deels?” Carmine asked.

“If it were in Britain, yes, sir, but not in either of the Germanys. Just what are you thinking?”

“If this could possibly be a family job.”

“Nothing would surprise me,” said Helen, trying to sound cool.

“Ten million dollars!” Delia exclaimed. “Can they raise that?”

“I honestly don’t know! How do I break the news?”

“As a cop does,” Carmine said. “Sympathetically, warmly, yet dispassionately.”

“But will they be able to raise the money, Captain?”

“It’s a perfect scheme,” said Delia. “Kidnappings inevitably disintegrate over payment of the ransom-it’s so difficult to retrieve from the drop spot undetected. Whereas here there is no drop spot, just a Swiss bank account number. The money never enters the U.S.A., and the Swiss will never divulge information about their clients.”

“Once the money’s deposited, we can’t touch anyone,” Nick said. “The whole thing sucks.”

Carmine slid out of the booth, reaching for his wallet. “No, this is on me.”

Helen didn’t speak until they reached Carmine’s office. “I’ve made up my mind, Captain,” she said then. “I’ll talk to Dagmar, but I’m not going to drop any hints that the kidnapping might be a family job. Dagmar is the logical one.”

“A good decision,” said Carmine, sitting down.

Nick came in on their heels. “The finger belongs to Kurt von Fahlendorf,” he said. “It’s been verified twice over.”

The phone rang: Paul Bachman. Carmine put it on the speaker. “There are no prints except yours and Helen’s on the package,” Paul said. “Patrick says the finger was amputated eight to nine hours ago. There are no drugs in the blood, so they cut it off cold turkey. No cauterization either. Kurt will have lost some blood, though not a major bleed. Patrick suggests that the only first aid might have been to pack the hand afterward.”

“They mean business,” Carmine said. “If we don’t find him, he’s a dead man. Payment of the ransom won’t alter that. They’ve taken a mature, highly intelligent man trained to look for things smaller than atoms. They daren’t release him.” The amber eyes stared into Helen’s soul. “You can’t betray this when you speak to Dagmar, Helen. The family has to make its decision as to payment or non-payment in the belief that there’s a chance Kurt will be found alive. You’re not empowered to communicate what we might know is fact, as fact. At this stage, nothing is proven.”

“I understand,” Helen said, staring at the railroad clock on the wall facing Carmine. “It’s nine a.m. here, which means it’s three p.m. in Munich.” She reached into her huge bag and drew out a black notebook: her own property. “I have Dagmar’s work number as well as her home one. Kurt gave them to me in case anything ever happened to him.” She laughed wryly. “He meant a car or a skiing accident, not a kidnapping.”

“Fred’s rigged up this red phone through a tape recorder,” said Carmine. “On speaker, we’ll hear every word said. The recorder switches on automatically the moment the receiver’s picked up. Go to it, Helen, and don’t let us put you off. We have to be here.” He handed her the red receiver.

Dagmar was at work, and answered the phone herself; the number Kurt had given Helen was a private line.

The von Fahlendorf daughter’s initial reaction was incredulity, followed by all the emotions associated with a practical joke. Only when they had worn themselves out did Dagmar begin to suspect that her caller was serious. At the same moment Helen reached the end of her tether.

“Listen, ma’am,” she said, “I’m handing you over to our chief of detectives, Captain Carmine Delmonico. Maybe you’ll believe him-he’s a man!”

She subsided muttering while Delia patted her soothingly and Carmine talked to Dagmar, who, perhaps because she associated police with men, now seemed to understand Kurt’s situation and peril thoroughly.

“What’s concerning all of us in Holloman is the size of the ransom,” Carmine said. “Have you any hope of raising it?”

“Oh, yes,” said the clear voice in its German accent, “it is already collected.”

“No kidding! How did that coincidence happen?”

“It is the foundation of a trust fund for my children,” said Dagmar. “My mother has retired from the company, and the ten million represents her capital, which she insisted be put into American dollars. Of course it will go to pay Kurt’s ransom-we can always set up another trust fund for the children later.”

“I see.” Carmine’s mind was racing. “First of all, ma’am, I do assure you that your brother has been kidnapped. His finger established his identity, as the kidnappers knew it would. I must warn you that the odds of getting Kurt back alive are not good, but there is a chance. The Holloman end will be devoted to a search aimed at finding him, because we have our doubts that the kidnapping masterminds are in America. We think they may be German, and that the kidnappers don’t care who is brought in to solve the American end because it can’t make any difference to the ransom. That’s going straight from Munich to Zurich.”

“Typically American!” she said in an icy voice. “Blame anyone but yourselves.”

“There’s no blame attached to us, Frau von Fahlendorf!” said Carmine, voice equally icy. “We’re the whipping boy. What’s your husband’s real name?”

“Von Fahlendorf,” she said.

“No, before he changed it.”

“That is no one’s business except his.”

“For someone whose blood brother is in terrible danger, you seem to have strange priorities, ma’am.”

“Don’t call me ma’am!” she snapped. “Helen, what is the account number, and the name of the bank?”

Carmine shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no, ma’am, you don’t get that information until it’s time to pay the ransom.”

She hung up.

“What a bummer!” Nick exclaimed. “The Dodo escalates to murder, and a day later a foreign national who is a Chubb professor of physics is kidnapped. It stretches us thin, boss.”

“Too thin,” said Carmine grimly. “I’ll have to go see the Commissioner in a minute, but first-priorities. The Dodo has to be worked, even though his victim is dead. We don’t know if von Fahlendorf is dead yet, so we proceed on the assumption that he’s alive. That’s not impossible, because a lot of kidnappers kill passively by imprisoning their victim somewhere impregnable and then not giving them food or water. Three days without water, three weeks without food. Not a terribly accurate rule of thumb. If the prison’s insulated, sheltered and full of air, the victim will survive at least a week unwatered. Therefore our first priority is searching for Kurt.” He hunched his shoulders, sank his chin onto his chest and thought for what seemed an eternity; it was probably three or four minutes. Then he sighed. “I can’ t run the Dodo and the kidnapping,” he said flatly. “As a completely new case, the kidnapping goes to Corey and his team, with Helen tacked on to liaise between us and Kurt’s family as well as with other agencies like the FBI.”

Helen’s face betrayed her dismay, but she had learned from her conflict with Abe Goldberg; she nodded willingly.

“When and if Abe and his team can be freed up, we’ll have two teams spearheading the search for Kurt. Helen, keep me in the loop at all times. You’re my trainee, not a part of Corey’s team-understand?”

“Yes, sir.” She looked directly at Carmine. “Will the FBI be a help or a hindrance, Captain? Cops dislike them.”

“They won’t bother the Holloman PD,” said Carmine, unfazed. “If the kidnappers were known criminals, the FBI would be a big help, but we know they’re not. I’d be willing to take a hefty bet that they’re German nationals who visited the U.S.A. with only one purpose-to snatch Kurt. Further, the kidnappers knew that Dagmar von Fahlendorf had liquidated her mother’s investments to form a trust fund for the grandchildren. Again, it screams a German operation. Our real task is to find Kurt before the ransom money has to be paid.”

“Do you seriously think that she’s involved?” Delia asked.

“No, but I don’t trust her security, Deels. If she leaves the name of the bank and account number lying around, and the kidnapper has access to the ten million, the transfer might take place ahead of time. So-she doesn’t get it until her Friday twenty-five.”

“What if the FBI tell her?” Helen asked.

“After I’ve explained, they won’t.”

From Silvestri’s office Carmine went to Corey’s, two floors down. He was on his own.

When Carmine entered Corey looked up, grinned, and pushed a file across his desk. His long, dark face was suffused with triumphant content.

“The Taft High arms cache case,” he said. “Closed.”

“That’s great, Cor. Fill me in.”

“It wasn’t as bad as we originally thought, though Buzz is still muttering that there’s more to it. All I can say is that if there is more, we can’t find evidence of it, including Buzz. The story as we have it is that someone in the Black Brigade got spooked into thinking there was a raid coming, and gave his little brother the cache of guns he had in their home. The kid hid them at the Taft High gym, and, as you know, Principal White found them.”

“Why does Buzz think there’s more to it, Cor?”

“He believes the Black Brigade has thrown off a splinter group composed of less patient, more violent soldiers who don’t think Wesley le Clerc is doing it any more than Mohammed el Nesr. Both le Clerc and el Nesr preach that violence for the sake of violence is a waste of manpower, but the splinter group is tired of waiting for the country’s entire black population to erupt. The guns weren’t supposed to be at the school for more than a few hours in transit-they’d been bought with the proceeds of a bank holdup in Middletown, and there are a shitload more than were found.”

“But there’s no proof?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Then the case is closed. But keep an eye peeled, huh?”

“Sure, always. What have you got. for me now?”

“A kidnapping.”

Corey sat bolt upright, staring at Carmine as at the Angel Gabriel. “A kidnapping?” he squawked, gasping.

“Yes, and not a baby snatching outside a supermarket.” Corey following avidly, Carmine told him the story of Professor Kurt von Fahlendorf, including the direction his own theories were taking.

“Is it possible that von Fahlendorf himself is a part of it?” Corey asked.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m picking his brother-in-law, but I don’t expect to get much co-operation from the Munich cops.” He leaned forward across Corey’s desk. “I’m giving you Helen MacIntosh because she knows Kurt better than anyone else here, and because she’s the liaison between Kurt’s family and all the cops on this side of the Atlantic.”

“He’s already dead, Carmine.”

“I agree, but we have to pretend he’s alive. And, Cor?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep decent notes. That’s a direct order. This case has the potential to wind up in a civil court with the State or the County accused of some kind of malfeasance. And don’t glare at me! You’ve brought cautions on your own head. If Morty Jones takes a drink, he’s off the force. Understood?”

Corey managed to nod civilly, but the anger burned inside. “Sure, Carmine.” He thought of something. “I guess the FBI will be here to trip us up?”

“Is assassination the flavor of the year? Sure the FBI will be here. I expect you to co-operate with its agents, okay?”

“We’ll give them whatever we get.”

“Good,” said Carmine, knowing it was a lie. “Helen will be here shortly to fill you in on the details.” He walked out, very relieved that Corey was finally shaping up.

A kidnapping! The ultimate crime, the hardest to solve, the most satisfying yet frustrating case to run, thought Corey. He frowned. What was this about, he, a lieutenant, having to wait to be briefed by a lowly trainee? Still, he knew Carmine. If the boss said she knew the most, then she did. Unwilling to sit waiting for her like a patient for his doctor, Corey got up and went to the office of his two team members.

Buzz was filling in the despised time sheets, a task Corey had handed to his precise second-stringer when he realized that the guy actually enjoyed filling in forms. When told what was in the offing, Buzz swelled in satisfaction.

“Where’s Morty?” Corey asked.

Buzz Genovese shrugged. “Try Cells. Virgil Simms is in charge since Vasquez shifted everyone around, and Virgil’s an old pal of Morty’s. I’ll call if you like.”

“No,” Corey said quickly. “I need some exercise, I’ll go find him for myself. You can go to my office. We have to wait for the princess.”

The cells and the offices attached to brief incarceration were on the ground floor of the County Services annex, which had been due for demolition ten years ago but was still waiting-and still functioning. It contained all kinds of antique gear for long-abandoned police techniques, like two massive bathtubs wherein raving lunatics were once submerged until the men in white coats could come and remove them to the asylum. The record of every drunk held overnight was on a file card in a special room together with arrests on more serious charges of everything from arson to murder.

There were twelve terrifyingly white cells, each twenty by twenty feet, equipped with a toilet and inadequate bench-bunk-beds covered in stained mattress ticking down three of the walls. The whiteness, achieved by tiles, dated back to the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century, and meant that the slightest hint of dirt showed up like neon signs in a black void. It was general practice to put the night’s takings in as few cells as possible; less mess to clean up later.

No place, however, for a woman. Of the weaker sex the Cell Sergeant saw few; when one did arrive, she was put in a proper room, albeit one easy to clean and not good enough for a lady. It had a toilet with a seat on it behind a screen, a wash basin, and three proper single beds, though the mattress ticking didn’t vary. She was issued with a towel and bed linen. No mirrors, of course. Usually these poor creatures were plunged into a despair so deep that a shard from a broken mirror would have spelled freedom in death. Few of Holloman’s whores were arrested; the female intake varied from wives who had killed their husbands or lovers to child abusers.

A man pushing forty, Sergeant Virgil Simms was sitting in his office wading through the mountains of paper this new Captain of Uniforms was generating. When Corey came in he sighed, and inclined his head toward the women’s cell.

“Sleeping it off?” Corey asked.

“I doubt that,” Simms said loyally; he and Morty had gone through the academy together, served on patrol as partners, kept up their friendship. “The new housekeeper’s giving him hell, so are his kids. The only place he seems to be able to sleep is down here. Sorry, Cor.”

“Not your fault. Thanks for helping. Our boss isn’t very sympathetic.”

Corey walked into the women’s cell to find Morty sprawled on one bed in an attitude that suggested either booze or bone-tiredness; he didn’t stink of Jack or Jim, so maybe Virgil was right, he couldn’t sleep in the hell of his home.

“Morty!” Corey called, shaking his shoulder. “Morty, it’s time to wake up. Have a shave and comb your hair-we’ve got a new case, and it’s a doozy. I need you alert! The Captain’s going to be watching us, and he’s put a spy with us-Princess Helen. She’ll be reporting everything to him. And go home later, find a clean shirt. You look like something the cat dragged in.”

He caught the elevator upstairs; he’d been gone twenty minutes. Buzz strolled in and sat; Morty, looking reasonable, entered on his heels. All three men were waiting when Helen, looking flustered, came in.

“You’re late,” said Corey: put her in her place, tell her that she wasn’t going to be the kingpin around here.

“My apologies,” she said, but offered no excuses. Then she proceeded to give them a description of the case that, Corey had to admit, could not be faulted. “I’m here with you because I know Kurt very well, and the kidnapper is using me as the go-between. Beyond that, I’m strictly a trainee,” she said, winding up her presentation.

“Thanks.” said Corey, “First, I want you to come with me to an interrogation room-yeah, yeah, I know the Powers That Be want them called interview rooms, but the old name suits me fine. Whatever you know about Kurt von Fahlendorf and his family is best put on tape and transcribed. We’re going to have the FBI all over us, and I want something to slap on my desk in front of their head honcho. It’ll save us a lot of time as well. Buzz and Morty, listen in and ask your own questions.”

Off they went, Helen’s head spinning; Corey’s detecting techniques were certainly different from Carmine’s!

Nor was Corey easy on her, either because she was one of their own, or because her father was the President of Chubb University and she had a trust fund five times bigger than the von Fahlendorf ransom. He grilled her mercilessly for two hours as to her relationship with Kurt-thank God she wasn’t sleeping with him! Who his other friends were, how much she knew about the people he worked with, why the son of an industrial chemist had gone into particle physics, what his habits were, his favorite colors, his favorite music, why he’d bought a pre-Revolutionary house-it went on and on. She answered calmly and lucidly, and was sufficiently intelligent to keep the threads separated in her mind-no contradictions or uncertainties in Helen MacIntosh’s testimony! To her surprise, she was asked to read the typed version and sign it as an affidavit. Smiling slightly, she obliged. Corey was loading both barrels for the advent of the FBI by giving them twenty tangents to fly off on.

“Shrewd, but it won’t answer,” she said. “By the way, Corey, has anyone told you recently what a prick you are?”

Looking taken aback, Corey took her affidavit and left; she was not surprised to find that he chose to go to lunch with Morty and Buzz. The word was getting around too. Soon the papers, radio and TV would be sniffing, and the kidnapping would go public.

Delia was eating alone; Helen slid in opposite her and ordered a burger and fries.

“I just told Corey Marshall he was a prick.”

“Accurate,” said Delia, enjoying Yankee pot roast.

“He grilled me for two hours, then brought in these people to rubber-stamp my statement as an affidavit.”

“You could have said no.”

“Wasn’t worth it.”

“Carmine had to break into Kurt’s house,” mumbled Delia through a mouthful of mashed potato. “The Porsche was locked in the garage, and his keys and wallet were on his hall table. That means he got home.” Her eyes followed Carmine as he entered Malvolio’s, sought out Corey. “Corey’s being told now.”

Helen put her pager on the table. “In case Munich calls.”

“I hope they don’t call you in the middle of the night.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Helen said cheerfully as she bit into her burger. “I go back to sleep in seconds.”

Carmine slid into the booth next to Helen. “Is it usual for Kurt to leave his keys and wallet on the hall table?” he asked, his body language telling those who watched that it was Delia he questioned, not Helen.

Who got the message and picked up a French fry. “Yes, sir, it’s usual. Just as he always locks up the Porsche.”

“You’d better come with me as soon as you’re finished eating, Helen. I want you to check Kurt’s house, including the guest quarters, with particular regard to foreign presences.”

“How do I explain my delinquency to Lieutenant Marshall?”

“I already have.”

“Then as soon as Delia is finished, I’m ready, sir.”

“No one has stayed here, Captain,” Helen said to Carmine after touring Kurt’s premises thoroughly. “Nothing is out of place. It also looks as if Kurt’s wearing the outfit he wore when we went to Buffo’s last night.”

“How long have the von Fahlendorfs been planning to set up this trust fund?” Carmine asked as he locked the front door.

“It’s a mystery to me. Kurt’s never mentioned it.”

“Would you have expected him to under normal circumstances?”

She paused halfway down the path. “Yes, I think I would… Kurt’s not secretive. I don’t mean that he runs off at the mouth, but a trust fund is an important thing. Yes, he’d discuss it.”

“Which means one of two things: that he wasn’t told, or that the idea is a very recent one. Does Dagmar tend to cut Kurt out because he’s elected to live in a foreign country and pursue a foreign career?” Carmine asked.

“I think Dagmar loves Kurt very much,” Helen said slowly, “but I also think that a part of her condemns him for leaving the Fatherland. When Kurt talks of her, there’s always an underlying tone of sadness. Once he told me that the family felt that if he was brilliant enough to be a Nobel contender in physics, he could have done the same in chemistry.”

“And could he?”

“No!” she said scornfully. “Kurt’s narrow, and his gifts are mathematical. Chemistry is terra incognita to him.”

“They should have had a Prunella Balducci when Kurt was less than two years old,” said Carmine.

“Eh?”

“No matter.”

“How intensive is the search for Kurt going to be, Captain?”

“That depends on the FBI. They take the lead in kidnappings.”

“Are they on their way?”

“They’ll be at County Services by the time we get back.”

Robert and Gordon Warburton came galloping down the path from their house just as Carmine and Helen were about to climb into the Fairlane.

“Captain, Captain!” said Robbie breathlessly, “is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“That Kurt’s been kidnapped.”

“Yes, it is. Did you see him last night?”

“Not see,” said Gordie. “Heard.”

“What did you hear, Gordon?” Carmine asked.

“The Porsche coming home about one in the morning-Wednesday to Thursday, that is. Late for Kurt!”

“Why did you hear it and not Robert?”

“I’m on Kurt’s side of the house. Robbie hears Mason Novak come and go-his garage is in his backyard.”

“Are you sure you didn’t look, Gordon?” Carmine pressed.

“Wellll… When he grated his gears, I confess I did get up to have a look, Captain. I mean, Kurt never grates his gears!”

“An observation I confirm, Gordon,” said Helen.

“What did you see?” Carmine asked.

“Not Kurt, for sure! Two people, a woman and a man. They got out of the Porsche and played with the remote as if they’d never seen one before. When the door went up, they got back into the car and drove in. I went back to bed,” said Gordie.

“Did you get a look at them?” Helen asked eagerly.

“Since there’s a lamp post there, yes. The woman was about forty, the man younger. She wore what looked like dark red, but she had a hat with a veil on her head, so her features were a mystery. I think her hair was dark. Certainly she had a good figure. The man deferred to her. He had thick, wavy dark hair and a handsome face, but don’t ask me to identify him in a line-up because I couldn’t do it.” He giggled. “Handsome is as handsome does, Captain.”

Carmine growled. “Keep on like this, Gordon, and you won’t be half as handsome.”

“Ooo-aa!”

“Did either of you see Kurt on Wednesday?” Helen asked.

“Yes, around five-thirty. The Porsche was parked on the kerb and he came running out of the house dressed for a date, we thought,” said Robbie. “Very smart!”

“They’re weirdos,” said Carmine as he and Helen drove away. “At first I thought they were bent. Now I don’t think the homo act is real. Though they’re not straight.”

“Think of pretzels,” said Helen, grinning.

“Let’s both write reports, huh? That way, yours will end up with Corey Marshall, who’ll shove it at the Feds.”

“Anything you say, Captain.”

“Your journals are excellent, by the way.”

She went pink. “Truly?”

“Oh, yes. I especially like the colored inks.”

“Well, I’m long-winded, so having different colors makes it easier to find a specific passage.”

“I may adopt it myself.”

She went pinker.

Of course the case was huge, not to mention very complicated. The person kidnapped was a foreign national resident in the United States; his father, who was paying the ransom, lived in West Germany; and the ten million dollars were bypassing the United States on a much shorter journey between Munich and Zurich. Worse, none of the police forces involved had any jurisdiction over a large and prestigious Swiss bank.

“It’s brilliant,” said Carmine to Desdemona that night as they got ready for bed. His eyes, at once appreciative and caring, had noted that his wife looked calmer, fresher, more alive.

“If you put that nightie on, it’s only going to get ripped off,” he said, climbing into his side of the big bed.

She giggled and draped it over a convenient chair. “There! I can grab it in an emergency. Having children rather inhibits nudity.” She slid into bed and gave a luxurious stretch that had him wanting her more urgently than he had planned; he groaned, rolled over and buried his face in her neck.

“Carmine, stop! You know that drives me wild! I want to say something,” she said in a low voice, yanking at his head until he gave up and lay still to listen. “Now I understand why the second child can be perilous. You were right to want to wait a year or two longer. Prunella says some women need quite an amount of time to get their hormones back to normal, and she thinks I am one such. I’ve been-I’ve been down in the dumps since Alex was born, and I got myself in a terrible muddle. It all went to Julian, I haven’t given Alex the attention he should have. But, you know, I couldn’t see it! Not until I had a few heart-to-hearts with Prunella, anyway. Normally I’m efficient enough to cope with whatever comes along, so these past six months have been a shock. But I’m getting better now, dear love, I truly am. With Prunella to take the brunt of Julian and teach him a routine, I have enough time and energy to love Alex the way he has to be loved. He’s not a scrap like Julian, and this time with him is vital.” She sighed, stroking Carmine’s hair. “Our elder son is a handful, and I now understand that old saying better-there’s no training for politics or parenthood.”

“Well, it’s not hard to see that you’re feeling much better,” he said, zeroing in on her neck again.

“No, no, wait! I want to thank you, Carmine, for being not only understanding, but finding the answer to my depression. East Holloman is one vast extended family, you have access to all sorts of people. And I thank you for setting the network in motion. How else would I ever have found a Prunella?”

“Finished?”

“Yes.”

He went back to driving her wild by kissing her neck, his arms around her, her legs around him. How great it was to make love to a six-foot-three wife!

Though wives of any kind were far from Carmine’s mind the next morning, when the FBI hit town. No Ted Kelly this time, of course, as espionage was not on the menu; this team was led by Special Agent Hunter Wyatt, a very different kind of man and investigator. Of medium height and build, he moved well; his face was studious down to a pair of wire-rimmed glasses behind which genuinely grey eyes regarded the world with what appeared to be a deep-rooted skepticism. Carmine liked him, and took him off to Malvolio’s for coffee.

“Beats cop coffee,” he explained, “and you’ll be getting plenty of that. Unless you have an expense account bigger than a Holloman cop’s, Malvolio’s is the best place to eat.”

“This suits me fine. Fill me in,” said Hunter Wyatt.

Privately deciding that if you had a name like Hunter Wyatt you were a shoo-in for a career in law enforcement, Carmine filled him in. “Tell me my bones are wrong,” he ended.

“I can’t. Your bones are right. Number one, this isn’t an American operation. The kidnapping occurred here, but it was carried out by foreign nationals. Number two, I think we have to suspect that Herr Josef von Fahlendorf is the mastermind, even if he didn’t leave Munich. Number three, we’re not going to find Kurt von Fahlendorf alive, the usual way-he’ll be left in an impregnable prison without food or water. That might be a car trunk or a cellar or something so weird that its nature hasn’t occurred to us. They don’t dare leave him alive because he’s a mature man of undeniable genius. He’s used to looking for the tracks of unknown particles on backgrounds that are one mass of loops, whorls, curves and paths, which makes him the kind of guy who’ll notice a tiny bump in a smooth wall or the faintest seam where a door used to be. He probably has superlative hearing, and who knows what sounds may have percolated into his prison?”

“You’re the expert, Hunter, so what kind of prison might Germans have chosen?” Carmine asked.

“Not a car trunk, I’d say. They’d gravitate toward something like a cellar, except that ordinary cellars conduct sound, so it would have to be isolated from things that produce noise. I’d go for a quarry or some underground prison. I notice that this coast on army maps is riddled with old gun emplacements-very German! My guess is that the guy is in Connecticut, and not far enough away from Holloman for the kidnappers to need an Interstate. If Gordon Warburton is right and the kidnappers are a man and a woman, that reduces their physical strength. Either there are three or four of them, the unknowns male, or the duo you picked is strange. Why a woman? When we know that, Carmine, we’ll know it all.”

“Yeah, especially given that Kurt wasn’t drugged. If they needed to render him unconscious, they did it with a blow or blows to the head,” said Carmine. “They chopped off his finger while he was out to it, and by the time he woke up, he was imprisoned.”

“An hour,” Wyatt said immediately. “He was seen by your two patrolmen at ten on Wednesday night. By eleven-thirty at the latest, he was locked up, one finger gone. Why no drugs?”

“My guess is that they’re amateurs,” Carmine said. “Their German experience didn’t include garage doors opened by a remote, and their lack of drugs suggests that they labored under the misapprehension that our customs people might have searched them scrupulously. People always assume that the unknown world behaves exactly the same as the world they know. German customs is very severe, especially if there’s a suspected link to East Germany. So let’s assume there is a link to the East.”

Hunter Wyatt had been scribbling in his notebook; he looked up with a smile. “Want to join the FBI, Captain?”

“And lose the network my wife admires? No, thanks.”

“It seems to me,” Hunter Wyatt said, “that we should expend our energies on finding Kurt von Fahlendorf.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Has Corey Marshall given you all our information?”

“Yes. He’s a good cop-has to be to grill the girl the way he did, considering who she is. She has to be a good cop too, because she co-operated all the way. The kidnappers aren’t afraid of being found, or of Kurt’s being found. What kind of guy is von Fahlendorf? A jock? A nerd? He looks like a movie star.”

“He does look like a movie star. But according to Helen MacIntosh he’s not into how he looks. In fact, he seems to be what his profession would indicate-a nerd.”

“Then every available law enforcement individual in Holloman should be looking for Kurt von Fahlendorf. If we find him alive, he’ll be an ideal witness.”

“If,” Carmine cautioned, “he remembers people and events.”

Leaving Hunter Wyatt with Corey and his team, Carmine went to see the Commissioner.

Who had already held two press conferences, but, typical John Silvestri, played his cards shrewdly; the action, he pointed out, would certainly be in and around Holloman, but also as far afield as Munich and certain huge American cities.

“As far as the journalists are concerned, there’s a certain thrill to this case,” the Commissioner said. “It’s big money, foreign nationals, German involvement, da de da de da. I led the sharks a dance.”

“You can also feed them people like the Terrible Twins Robert and Gordon Warburton,” Carmine said, finding a grin. “As the twins are actors, they’ll relish the publicity attached to living next door to the kidnapped man.”

“Thank you, thank you,” said Silvestri with a purr.

“Now I have to discuss what we’re going to do, John. Hunter Wyatt agrees that we’re not going to find the kidnappers here in America, so he’s willing to join forces with Holloman and other police departments who volunteer to look for Kurt. I don’t know how you want to publicize this, but our aim is to find Kurt alive, before lack of water kills him. So I need the uniforms, of course, if Fernando’s willing. We divide the county up into blocks and allocate searchers to every one of them. If people like the Gentleman Walkers want to volunteer, I can do with them. But it has to be a search under rigid control, or we’ll miss sections and repeat others. If Fernando’s willing, I’d like him to take charge in conjunction with Hunter Wyatt. Detectives is not in a position to assume command-among other cases, we still have the Dodo.”

“You won’t have opposition from Fernando,” the Commissioner said in the voice that told Carmine he, and no one else, would be in overall command. “I’ll start by getting the cops of neighboring counties on the job in their territory.”

And that, thought Carmine, hurrying away, is why I love John Silvestri. He never pussyfoots around, it’s straight for the throat. Unless, that is, he’s holding a press conference, when he’s smoother than Marzullo’s butter-cream.

Next, Corey Marshall and his team. At first Corey was inclined to take the news of searching as a demotion, but after some persuasive talking, Carmine managed to make him see that locating the victim was actually more praiseworthy than apprehending the kidnappers, and was also a task that the FBI did not feel beneath it. It was highly likely, Carmine hinted, that in finding Kurt, they would have a fantastic lead to the kidnappers, sitting smugly in West Germany.

Morty Jones, he noticed as he left, was looking ghastly. Carmine rolled an eye at Helen, who unobtrusively followed him out.

“What’s with Morty?”

“He was served with papers from a lawyer’s office yesterday, but he won’t open them. Just lugs them around.”

“They’ll be divorce papers. Why won’t he open them?”

“I honestly don’t know. Those three guys hate me. They think I’m your spy or snitch or something.”

“Ignore that, and keep me informed.”

“I feel like a snitch,” she muttered.

“Don’t. You aren’t. I’m worried about Morty.”

“Okay.” She went off to the Ladies-yes, she was smart! Corey wouldn’t know she’d snitched to the boss. But humiliating for her, Carmine thought, having to slink around corners. She was a snitch, but of the noble kind.

On the surface, things were going well for Morty Jones. Delia had come through with an excellent woman to keep his house in far better shape than Ava had, he was forced to admit. Milly worked eight to five Mondays to Fridays, did the washing and ironing, left a hot meal for them at night, and in a very few days had washed or sent to the cleaner’s every drape, curtain, blanket and bedspread his home possessed. All of which made his kids happy. She was a cheerful person who asked about their day at school as if it really interested her, and saw to it that they did their homework. Milly also cooked delicious food.

But she couldn’t make Morty happy. She wasn’t Ava-sloppy, self-absorbed Ava, so glamorous as she flitted around in satin and feathers and high-heeled mules, bestowing kisses and apologies on the kids because she hadn’t made their lunches or found them clean clothes-oh, Ava, Ava!

He had no idea what was in the envelope the process server had dropped on him yesterday afternoon, but his heart was leaden. So leaden, in fact, that he couldn’t nerve himself to open the packet no matter how he tried. All Thursday night at home he had stared at it, then brought it in this morning still intact. He must open it, he must!

“Cor, I don’t feel well,” he whispered as soon as he had a little privacy. “I got to open these papers, but not here, not with that nosey little bitch sniffing around. Can I go down to Virgil? He’s on, and I got privacy there.”

“Sure,” said Corey absently, only half hearing.

Virgil was busy discharging a tank full of drunks, but nodded toward the women’s cell and left Morty to what he imagined was a much needed nap; the guy looked fucked.

But the papers and photographs that spilled out of the cheap brown envelope were not conducive to a nap. Ava was suing for divorce alleging cruelty, and asking for full custody of the kids, who, she stated, were not fathered by Morty. She was also asking for every cent he had in the world. Apparently it didn’t matter that everything was in his name!

There were two groups of photographs, both in color: one was of a full length, naked Ava covered in hideous bruises, particularly nasty on her lower trunk and private parts; the other consisted of head shots showing a taped up nose in a swollen face black with bruises and cut around the mouth. Oh, Jesus, had he done that to her? She’d gone to the hospital emergency, then she’d found herself a lawyer. She wanted the kids! She wanted the house! She wanted his income and his savings! And there it was in full color, what he had done to her. Supported by, said a letter, witnesses as well as many photographs.

His career was over; Captain Delmonico had an absolute loathing for men who beat their wives. His chances of happiness were over. Oh, Ava, Ava! Why did you screw around? Who will believe that I only ever touched you that once, you whore, you sad bitch, you any man’s cunt? They’ll believe you. They always believe the woman. They’ll say I made up the screwing around. Oh, Ava, Ava! Why?

He sat down on a naked bed, buried his face in his hands and wept, wept, wept…

Virgil Simms looked in, sighed, and went back to his work.

“We won’t wait for Morty,” Corey said. “He’s not well, went to lie down. The sooner we start to search our block, the sooner Fernando will allocate us a fresh slice.”

“May I have my own wheels?” Helen asked.

Corey eyed her warily; she was too pushy, reminded him of Maureen. “Is that stupid little wop car wired to base?”

“Naturally,” she said, brows rising haughtily.

“Okay, then-but keep in touch, hear me? Buzz, you want to ride with me, or go on your own?”

“On my own,” Buzz said quickly. “We’re just looking, we don’t need brute strength. If one of us finds something, it’s a find for the whole team.”

“I can live with that,” Corey said, moving doorward.

“Sir, may I check up on Morty first?” Helen asked.

She really was a pest! “Okay, okay, whatever!” he snapped, and departed.

Helen clattered down the stairs in her nun’s shoes-not very silent, for all their practicality-and crossed the courtyard that led to the old annex and the cells.

She pushed open the door and beheld Virgil Simms in his glass-fronted office, head bent, working away.

“Hi, Virgil,” she said. “How’s Morty?”

“Asleep by now, I guess. His wife served him divorce papers and he’s real cut up.”

“Oh, poor Morty! Did he tell you?”

“Didn’t need to. The papers were all around him on the bed. He’s much better off without the bitch, but he refuses to see it. It’s more than his loving her. I think he’s terrified she’ll take him to the cleaners. Morty’s tighter than a fish’s ass.”

The roar of a.38 going off in an enclosed space destroyed their conversation; they went rigid.

“Morty!” Virgil cried, leaping around his desk.

He was out the door and running down the hall in a flash, toward a door at its end. He charged through it and stopped, Helen cannoning into him.

“Jesus, Morty!”

Helen shoved him to one side so she could see Morty Jones sitting on the edge of a bed, sagging forward, his.38 still in his hand, his brains a surreal pattern on the wall behind him.

“Get out of here, Virgil,” she rapped, pushing him through the door and closing it on two uniforms hurrying toward them. “You,” she said to one of them, “go back and guard the main entrance. No one is to come into Cells. And you,” she said to the other, “stay here outside this door. Don’t let anyone in.”

Virgil Simms looked on the verge of collapse; Helen got him into his office chair and picked up the phone.

“Captain Delmonico? Please come immediately to the Cells, and bring Captain Vasquez with you. There’s been an accident.”

Carmine and Fernando arrived together five minutes later, staring in some amazement at the young woman who had apparently assumed command.

“No one’s come in or gone out, but I haven’t called the Medical Examiner yet,” she said, forehead dewed with sweat. “Sergeant Jones ate his gun five minutes ago. Sergeant Simms and I heard the report. There was nothing we could do for Sergeant Jones, so we closed the door on him, came here, and called you at once.”

“We?” asked Captain Vasquez.

“Yes, sir, we,” Helen said steadily.

“Why are you here at all, Miss MacIntosh?” Fernando asked.

“I was worried about Sergeant Jones, sir, because I thought he had been served with divorce papers.”

“Why look for him here?”

“I understand that in his shock he came looking for Sergeant Simms, sir. Or so my enquiries indicated.”

“When Morty appeared I thought he was going to pass out, sir, so I told him to rest in the women’s cell,” said Virgil Simms.

“Let’s look,” said Fernando.

The two captains gazed at the ruin of Morty Jones, whose body still remained as it had been when he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The door opened and Patrick O’Donnell walked in.

“Jesus, Carmine, didn’t anyone suspect this was coming?”

“Yes, I did,” said Carmine. “Unfortunately I was howled down by his lieutenant.” He peered at the papers on the bed, drew a glove out of his pocket and picked up the full length photograph of Ava Jones. “Someone’s touched this up,” he said to Fernando Vasquez.

“The poor bastard!” Fernando said. “Why didn’t he wait until he had a legal opinion? The touching up is amateurish, it would never hold up in court.”

“Too late now,” Carmine said. “Did he suffer, Patsy?”

“I would say, not at all, cuz. The bullet went through the vital structures of the brain stem, from the exit wound.”

Fernando drew Carmine aside. “What’s with his being allowed to use the women’s cell?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” said Carmine with complete truth. “I can tell you that Morty and Virgil Simms have been pals since academy days. They worked a patrol car together for years, too. Simms hasn’t been down here more than a few weeks, I understand?”

“True. But we do have a sick bay, Carmine. I’ll have to question Miss MacIntosh.”

Carmine stared at him blankly. “Why?”

“She was down here at the time.”

“Under specific orders from me. I asked her to keep an eye on Morty after I learned he’d been served with papers I assumed were divorce. Miss MacIntosh is needed where everyone we can spare is needed, Fernando-looking for Kurt von Fahlendorf.”

The Captain of Uniforms thought for a moment, then nodded. “Very well, I’ll take your word for it.”

“You’d better!” said Carmine, none too pleased. “I’m not used to its being doubted, and nothing gives you the right to doubt it. New brooms ought to save their bristles for genuine corruption. This is not corruption, it’s a tragedy.”

He jerked his head at Helen as he passed the Cells office on his way out, his expression flinty; Helen scrambled to keep up as he strode away.

“Did you fix Virgil up with a watertight story?” he asked. “If Captain Vasquez suspects liquor’s involved-”

The eyes gazing up at him were limpid blue pools. “Yes, of course, sir. It’s too complicated for a new captain of uniforms.”

“Good. Now go do what you were going to do.”

While I, he thought, clean up the shambles that the death of Morty Jones is going to make. He will have died intestate; men like Morty don’t make wills, or plan for the future. That means his cop-fucking wife won’t get everything, though if he’d made a will he would probably have named her sole legatee. His kids will inherit at least half, and Ava is no stranger to Child Welfare; they won’t let a court give Ava power over the kids’ share. Oh, Jesus, what a mess!

That stupid, horny wife! Why did Morty love her?

When Carmine tried to find Corey, he was told that Lieutenant Marshall was out searching for Kurt von Fahlendorf.

“I failed to take adequate precautions,” he told Silvestri a few moments later.

“Nonsense, Carmine! It’s a rare cop who’s killed in the line of duty, though the statistics are creeping up every year, whereas cops who eat their gun are common. The work’s hard, and all too often thankless. How many women do you know who can put up with a police marriage? Damned few! My Gloria, Danny’s Netty, your Desdemona, Abe’s Betty. Looks like Fernando’s Solidad. A few yeah, but it’s worst for the cops with unsuitable wives.”

“You’re right, John, it’s Ava at fault. Screwing cops for a hobby! I wonder what her real name is? Bertha? Gertrude?”

“You don’t think it’s Ava?”

“The only Ava I know is Ava Gardner.”

“A movie star. But stop blaming yourself, Carmine. If a rookie like Helen MacIntosh could see this coming, Corey should have. Helen’s turning out a good girl.”

“Far better than I’d hoped. The NYPD lost a fine detective when it stuck her in Traffic. Resourceful too.”

However, Carmine didn’t inform the Commissioner that her resourcefulness ran to concocting leakproof stories for cell sergeants moved by pity to break the rules for an old friend.

“I’d better find an address for Ava,” Carmine said.

There was a bunker light in the ceiling just to one side of the trapdoor; a dim bulb burned behind extremely thick glass and a steel cage, though Kurt’s keen eyes discerned faint hints of more powerful wiring. The original light hadn’t been this one.

He was hungry, but far thirstier. As best he had calculated, he was somewhere in the second twelve hours of his captivity; his watch was on his wrist, but broken. Vaguely he remembered skidding on Persimmon Street and getting out of his car to see if he had collided with anything. Then came a hard blow to his head, and then-nothing. The most horrifying part of a painful arousal had been the throbbing in his left hand, roughly bound in his own handkerchief-his little finger was gone! Amputated! Dislodging the blood-soaked linen to find this out had started the stump bleeding again, and he had wrestled to seal it using his right hand and his teeth; but it ached badly, and the fabric was wet again. Why had they done that?

There was no food of any kind, but a half-gallon container of water was sitting on the ground in one corner, and an empty bucket in another. Without thinking he had drunk deeply, even spilled some of the water down his shirt front before suddenly realizing that when it was gone, he had no guarantee of more. His head pounded, his eyes felt gritty and sore.

He could hear nothing. No wind whined or howled, no fluid coursed through pipes or a stream bed, no traffic roared either near or far, no 60-cycle hum came from overhead wires or buried power cables, no rattle of jack-hammers or ponderous grope of caterpillar tracks came to his ears. Nothing. Nothing! Nor could he feel even the faintest flutter of vibration. As for sight-without the bunker light he would be blind.

How long he sat huddled in a corner he couldn’t know, save that he dozed, even slept deeply once. Then he got to his feet and began to pace, up and down, up and down, up and down… A wasted, futile activity! Faltering, he sat down on the concrete floor with a thump that hurt his sacrum, and started to weep. But that accomplished nothing either; sniffling, he rummaged in his hip pocket for his other handkerchief. It wasn’t there, they must have used it on his hand, then thrown it away. A pencil fell out, rolled a tiny distance, and stopped; swiping his face with his bound hand, Kurt considered what the pencil had done, and concluded that the floor was almost perfectly level. At least in that spot.

Checking the level of the floor took some time; he felt occupied, at least. One hand out, he stroked a wall. Plaster, quite smooth. Unpainted, which was interesting. Who would go to so much trouble to plaster a wall, then leave it unpainted or unpapered? Another mystery. From that he passed to emptying out every one of his pockets: three in his jacket, one in his shirt, five in his trousers. No wallet or keys, though he had had them in the Porsche after Buffo’s. His plunder was typical, he thought wryly: a total of fifteen German-made 2B pencils; four red ball-point pens; a Faber-Castell eraser; a notebook on a spiral wire; a Swiss Army knife; a set of jeweler’s screwdrivers in a clear plastic case; and a bottle of Liquid Paper white-out.

A consuming thirst was drying out his mouth and he was finding it increasingly difficult to wet it with a new secretion of spit, so he shut it as tightly as he could. He wasn’t a physiologist, no, but he did understand that an open mouth was drier than a closed one. Since he was alone and had no need to speak, he would keep his mouth permanently shut. Until, he thought ironically, death ensued. For he knew now that he was meant to die.

How to pass the time? That was the worst, the vainest question of all-until he really looked at his treasure trove of pencils and pens, his eraser and white-out.

I will use the walls to do mathematics! he thought, suddenly excited. I will go back over all my equations and check that they are right. Some of my peers insist I am wrong, and I have refuted them in the comfort of my study, using proper blackboards that must be erased. But here, in this place, I cannot do that. I’ll write very small, and not erase one single step. By the time I am too weak to hold a pencil, I will have left my entire career behind on these walls. And when my pencils grow blunt, I will sharpen them with my Swiss Army knife. I may never need the implement that gets a stone out of a horse’s hoof, but I will make great and fine use of the blade.

He stood in the center of the room and surveyed his prison keenly: where to begin? Yes, that far left-hand corner! One wall at a time. He was so excited that he knocked his left hand against a wall as he spun around; the bleeding increased. Sparing it no more than an angry glance, Kurt von Fahlendorf ignored it as he went to the designated spot and started below a very large infinity sign written in red ball-point. His chapters would be in red, a little like Helen and her colored journals.

“When I heard,” said Desdemona, tramping through the forest alongside Carmine, “that almost everybody was working alone, I decided that it wouldn’t do Julian or Alex any harm to spend a few days with Prunella. It’s impossible for me to hike these days, so don’t you dare send me home.”

She had topped the ridge in front of him like a glorious figurehead on a mighty ship of the line, he had thought, winded; as he watched her come down the slope to join him; his knees went weak, it was all he could do to stay upright. What a woman! A goddess! And she’s mine!

“Today is one day I don’t need to be alone,” he said. “I guess you’ve heard about Morty Jones?”

“Yes. Netty Marciano called me. So did John Silvestri, who says you’re blaming yourself too much.”

“How do people box themselves so tightly into a corner that the only way out is to eat a gun?” he asked.

“Suicide is the ultimately selfish act, my love, you know that. Think what a mess Morty’s left behind. No will, even, so Netty says. He and Ava should have made wills on their wedding day as we did. Quitting this earth is complicated when there are children and property involved, and worse with a vengeful, greedy wife. Though Ava is going to have to look elsewhere for lovers than the Holloman PD, according to Netty. The ranks have closed against her. The poor little children are in a bit of a limbo-Ava’s more interested in what money she can get.”

“And here was I thinking that when Danny retired, Netty’s sources would dry up. I’m glad they haven’t. Many’s the time she’s given us a lead.” Carmine sighed. “Like you, I grieve for the kids. I sometimes think people should have to have a license to produce them. Whatever, it shouldn’t have happened to Morty, he didn’t have the strength to deal with Ava. The thing is, how do I approach Corey?”

She paused, shading her eyes; the sun was past its zenith. “Is that a shack down here?”

“It is. It won’t yield anything, Desdemona, but we leave no stone unturned.”

“You approach Corey as you ought,” she said as their pace increased. “He’s earned some censure, no doubt of that.”

“I dread bad feelings. Stay back behind this tree until I make sure the coast is clear.”

“Of course you dread bad feelings!” she shouted at his back. “You’re a good boss, and good bosses are soft as well as hard. I suffer because I have to watch you suffer, but I’ll do what I can to help. Like a favorite dinner,” she said slyly.

“Terrible woman! Food is not uppermost in my mind.”

“It will be, by dinner time.”

They examined the shack, long decayed; it had no cellar or stouter compartment.

“We’re working toward North Rock, aren’t we?” Desdemona asked as they walked on.

“Yes, into the cleft where the deserted mansion is.”

“Do you think-?”

“We’ll reach it tomorrow, but we won’t find Kurt there. Would you use it if you were a kidnapper, knowing it will be gone over the way a chimpanzee picks for lice? A whole week has to elapse between demand and ransom payment-no, they’ve stashed Kurt in a place virtually impossible to find.”

“Oh, Carmine!” she cried. “People are so diabolical-and so greedy! I can understand the Dodo better, killing for sexual urges he can’t control. But greed? It’s-it’s despicable, and that’s worse than monstrous!”

“Murder of any kind is diabolical.” Carmine gave his wife a shrewd glance. “The shadows are too long, lovely lady. Let’s go home to our kids.”