The investigators

SEVENTEEN

"Seven-C," Mrs. Loretta Dubinsky, RN, answered the telephone on her desk.

Ward 7C was the private-patient section of the Psychiatric Division of University Hospital. Mrs. Dubinsky, a slight, very pale-skinned redhead who looked considerably younger than her thirty years, was the supervisory psychiatric nurse on duty.

"Dr. Amelia Payne, please," the caller said.

"Dr. Payne's not on the ward."

"I got to talk to her. Do you know where I can find her?"

"I suggest you try her office. In the morning."

"I got to talk to her tonight."

"I can give you the number of Dr. Payne's answering service."

"I got that. They don't know where she is."

Mrs. Dubinsky knew better than that. The way the answering service worked, they never said they didn't know where someone was, they asked the caller for their number, and said they would try to have Dr. Whoever try to call the caller back. Then-unless the caller said it was an emergency, and especially at this time of night; it was half past two-they would make a note on a card and keep it until Dr. Whoever called in for his messages.

If the caller said it was an emergency, same procedure, except that they would call the numbers Dr. Whoever had given them, where he could be reached in an emergency.

"Then I'm afraid I can't help you, sir," Mrs. Loretta Dubinsky, RN, said.

"Look, I got an important message for her."

"Then I suggest you call her in the morning."

"This won't wait until morning."

"I'm afraid it's going to have to, sir. There's nothing I can do to help you."

"Who are you?"

Mrs. Dubinsky replaced the telephone in its cradle.

Two minutes later-Paulo Cassandro having worked his way through the hospital switchboard again-the telephone rang again, and Nurse Dubinsky picked it up.

"Seven-C."

"Look, lady, you don't seem to understand. This is important. "

"Sir, I told you before," Mrs. Dubinsky said, her pale skin coloring, "that Dr. Payne is not on the ward, and that I have no idea where she is."

"I got to get a message to her."

"What is it?"

"Who are you? This is private, personal."

"My name is Dubinsky. I'm the nurse-in-charge."

"There's no doctor around there?"

"You want to give me the message or not?"

"Let me talk to a doctor," Cassandro said.

"I'm afraid that's not possible," Mrs. Dubinsky said.

"Let me talk to a goddamn doctor!"

Mrs. Dubinsky again replaced the handset in its cradle.

And two minutes later, the telephone ran again.

"Look, lady, I'm sorry I lost my temper. But this is really important."

"I will try to get a message to Dr. Payne. What is it?"

"I need to talk to a doctor. Could you please get one on the line?"

"I told you, sir, that's just not possible."

"Jesus Christ, will you get a goddamn doctor on the phone?"

Mrs. Dubinsky again replaced the handset in its cradle.

And two minutes later, the telephone rang again.

"Seven-C"

"You might as well get it through your goddamn head that I'm gonna speak to a goddamn doctor if I have to call every two minutes until the goddamn sun comes up!"

Mrs. Dubinsky, her facial skin now blotched with red spots, started to replace the handset in its cradle again, but at the last moment instead laid it on the plate glass on her desk.

Shaking her head, she got out of her chair, left the nurses' station, and walked down the corridor to her left, where she entered a room about halfway down. She walked to the bed, where a very small, thin, brown-skinned man in a medical smock was sleeping under a sheet.

She gently pushed his arm, and when he showed no sign of waking, pushed harder.

"Doctor?" she said.

Juan Osvaldo Martinez, M.D., opened his eyes and sat up abruptly.

"Sorry," Nurse Dubinsky said.

"There is a problem?"

"There's a nut on the phone who insists on speaking to a doctor."

Dr. Martinez's eyebrows rose in question.

"He won't give up, Doctor. He calls every two minutes."

He nodded his understanding, swung his feet off the bed, and sort of hopped to the floor.

He retraced his steps to the nurses' station and picked up the telephone.

"Dr. Martinez," he said.

There was no reply. He looked at Nurse Dubinsky and shrugged helplessly.

"No one on the line."

"Hang up. He'll call back," Nurse Dubinsky said with certainty.

Dr. Martinez hung up the phone. The two of them stared at it for two long minutes. It did not ring.

"Well," Dr. Martinez said, and shrugged again.

That figures, Nurse Dubinsky thought, after I wake this poor young man up, then this bastard decides to hell with it, he'll wait 'til morning.

"I'm sorry, Doctor."

"It is not a problem," Dr. Martinez said, and started back down the corridor.

He had taken a half-dozen steps when the telephone rang.

He picked it up.

"Seven-C, Dr. Martinez."

"You're a hard man to get on the goddamn phone, Doctor. "

"How may I help you?"

"I have a message for Dr. Amelia A. Payne."

"She's not here," Dr. Martinez said.

"The nurse told me that. That's why I wanted to talk to you."

"What is the message?"

"You got a pencil and paper?"

"Yes," Dr. Martinez said, although in fact he did not.

"Okay. Now, get this right. You ready?"

"Ready."

"To Dr. Amelia A. Payne. Your patient, Miss Cynthia Longwood… Am I going too fast for you?"

"No. Go ahead," Dr. Martinez said.

He had looked in on 723 just before going to an empty room to try to catch a little sleep. She had been awake. Privately, Dr. Martinez disagreed with her attending physician, Dr. Payne. If the Longwood girl had been his patient, he would have prescribed at least a mild sedative to help her through the night. She had recurring, and very disturbing, dreams, the consequence of which was that she slept very badly, did not get enough sleep, and thus dozed through the day.

If she had been his patient, he believed it would be best to have her rested when he spoke with her, trying to get to the root of her problem. But she was Dr. A. A. Payne's patient, not his. And he was a resident, and Dr. Payne was not only an adjunct professor of psychiatry, but held in the highest possible regard by the chief of Psychiatric Services, Aaron Stein, M.D., former president of the American Psychiatric Association.

Despite that, and his own genuine respect for her, Dr. Martinez felt that Dr. Payne was wrong when she told him that in cases like this the best sedation was the least sedation, and it was her call.

"Okay," the caller said. "She was stripped naked and orally raped by a policeman under circumstances that were themselves traumatic. You got that?"

"No. You were going too fast for me," Dr. Martinez said as he gestured to Nurse Dubinsky that he wanted to write something.

She pushed an aluminum clipboard to him, and when she saw that he was having trouble finding his own pen or pencil, handed him her own ballpoint.

"Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped," the caller began, very slowly, making it clear to Dr. Martinez that he was reciting-probably reading-what he was saying, "by a policeman under circumstances that were themselves traumatic. You got it all now, Doc?"

And what he had recited-probably read-didn't sound as if it had been written by the man on the telephone.

"I've got it now, thank you," Dr. Martinez said.

"Read it back to me."

"Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped by a policeman under circumstances that were themselves traumatic," Dr. Martinez recited.

Nurse Dubinsky's eyebrows rose, and she shook her head.

"That's it. You make sure Dr. Payne gets that."

"Of course. Just as soon as she comes in. And who should I say called?"

The caller laughed. "Nice try! Fuck you, Doc."

There was a click and the line went dead.

Dr. Martinez and Nurse Dubinsky looked at each other.

"Interesting," Dr. Martinez thought aloud.

"You believe that?"

"I don't believe the man who called wrote the message, " Dr. Martinez said. "I think he was reading it."

"Yeah," Nurse Dubinsky agreed. "He didn't sound as if he would say things like 'orally raped' or 'traumatic circumstances.' "

Dr. Martinez looked at his watch and wrote down the time.

"If I happen to be asleep-"

"You mean, 'are not at the moment available,' " Nurse Dubinsky interrupted him.

"Thank you, but no thank you," Dr. Martinez said. "What is it you say up here about 'calling a shovel'?"

"A spade a spade," she corrected him. "It's from playing cards."

"If Dr. Payne should come here in the morning, and I am sleeping, please wake me. I want to talk to her about this. I think we both should be available to her."

"Of course," Nurse Dubinsky said.

"This is very interesting," Dr. Martinez said. "I wonder who that man was? Not the policeman, certainly."

"That poor girl," Nurse Dubinsky said.

When Matt woke up, the first thing he saw was Susan's brassiere, which he had placed with the other contents of his trousers and jacket pockets on the bedside table.

He sat up in bed and reached for it, feeling more than a little chagrined. Taking it did not seem nearly so much a fine idea in the light of day as it had the night before.

"Jesus," he said aloud.

He examined the torn buttonhole on the strap.

Was I "mad with passion"? Or did that just happen, because we were like two squirming snakes on the seat of the Porsche?

He raised it to his nose and sniffed it. There was a very faint odor of Susan-or her perfume? Same thing? — on it.

Do I really love her? Or do I have a fatal case of penis erectus?

How could I possibly love her? Christ, I hardly know her. And what we've done most of the time is either fight or lie to each other.

But if I don't love her, where did this Susie-and-me-against — the-whole-goddamned-world feeling come from?

And does she love me? Or is this because she knows I'm onto her and fucking the cop, under the circumstances, seems a more logical thing to do than docilely putting out your wrists to have them cuffed?

And where is Susie now? Waking up and getting ready to go to work, to wait for my call, or already on an airplane headed for San Josй, Costa Rica, having stopped only long enough to call Chenowith from a pay phone in the airport to tell him the cops are onto him for his bank jobs?

Could she have been faking what happened to us in the car? Or in bed?

Why not? I got my sex education from two sources. Dad telling me about how not to knock up some decent girl, and Amy telling me the important stuff, including that because the female is smaller and weaker than the male, nature has equipped them with superior mental mechanisms to even things up. They lie much better than men, according to Amy. And, Amy said, they are entirely capable of allowing themselves to get knocked up if that's the only way they see to get the male of their choice to the altar. And to do that, they are entirely capable of pretending a far greater physical fascination with, sexual reaction to, the male than is actually the case. They can and do fake orgasms.

Was that what Susie was up to? Convincing me that I was the greatest thing since Casanova in the sack because that made more sense than getting herself hauled off?

It is entirely possible, Matthew the Innocent, that you have been played like a violin by a really tough female who had trouble not laughing out loud at your naпvetй.

Particularly when I wanted to keep her brassiere. Jesus!

Am I that fucking stupid? Face it, you are.

And how am I going to explain this to Peter Wohl? "Sorry, boss. I was thinking with my pecker. You know how it is"?

Will I be allowed to resign? Or are they going to prosecute me for being an accessory? They'll prosecute me. And they damned well should. I have betrayed that oath I took. What cops are supposed to do is get the bad guys, not help them walk from a multiple murder. I forgot that oath until just now.

And if all this is true, and logic tells me that it is, why don't I believe it? Why do I think that when, after carefully casing the First Harrisburg Bank amp; Trust Building to make sure the FBI doesn't have somebody watching the safe-deposit-box vault, and I call her office, she will be there, waiting for my call to come get the bank loot she's holding for Chenowith?

Because I am the fucking fool of fame and legend, thinking with my dick?

Or because I think that she loves me, and I love her, and she's the best thing that's ever happened to me?

Well, Matthew Payne, if you're going to go down in flames, you're really going to go down in flames. You're going to play this little scenario out to the end, believing what you saw in Susie's eyes-not only that she didn't know Chenowith was going to blow up the science building but, more important, that she loves you back-until Special Agent Leibowitz puts the cuffs on your wrists and starts reading you your Miranda rights.

He put Susan's brassiere back on the bedside table and picked up the telephone. He ordered orange juice, milk, coffee, a breakfast steak, two eggs sunny-side up, hash brown potatoes, and an English muffin.

"Since I know you are going to rush this right up, which means I will be in the shower, I will leave the door ajar," he said, and hung up. And then he added, aloud, "After all, the condemned man is entitled to the quick delivery of his last meal."

While he was shaving, he heard the sound of the cart being rolled into the room. He stuck his head out the bathroom door and called to the waiter, "Forge my name and add fifteen percent for the tip."

When he had finished shaving and combing his hair, he left the bathroom naked, and en route to the chest of drawers for his underwear lifted the cover over the steak and eggs.

"To hell with it," he announced to himself. "I'm hungry. "

And then he pulled a chair to the cart and sat down naked.

He had just dipped the first piece of steak into one of the egg yolks when there was a knock at the door.

"Shit," he muttered, got up, stood behind the door and opened it.

Maybe it's the newspaper.

It was Miss Susan Reynolds. She smiled at him somewhat shyly, met his eyes momentarily, and then looked away.

I love her. It's as simple as that. Otherwise, I couldn't possibly be this happy-maybe "thrilled" is a better word-to see her.

"Come in my parlor, my beauty, as the spider said to the fly."

"I wasn't sure if you'd be up," she said as she walked into the room. The first thing she saw was his reflection in a mirror, and then the room-service cart.

"My God!" she said.

"A little birdie told me you were coming, and I wanted to be ready."

"I was talking about the food," Susan said. "But now that you mention it, put your pants on."

"Do I have to?"

"Do you always eat that much for breakfast?"

"My mother taught me that the most important meal of the day is breakfast," Matt said solemnly.

"I'm surprised you're not as fat as a house."

"May I offer you a little something while I put my pants on?"

"All I had at the house was a glass of orange juice," she said.

"Help yourself," he said, and started for the chest of drawers.

He saw, reflected in the mirror, that she was watching him. He put an innocent look on his face and covered his crotch with both hands. Susan shook her head and smiled.

The telephone rang.

He sat on the bed and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"I hope you were sound asleep," Jack Matthews voice said.

"Why, Special Agent Matthews of the FBI!" Matt said. "What a joy it is to hear your melodious voice!"

Susan looked frightened, decided Matt was pulling her leg again, shook her head in resignation, and then, when he nodded, signaling that he was indeed talking to an FBI agent, looked frightened again.

Matt signaled for her to come to the bed.

"Are you alone? Can you talk?"

"I am alone and I can talk," Matt said.

He swung his feet into the bed to give Susan room to sit down. She took one of the pillows and laid it over his midsection. Then she sat on the bed. Matt held the handset away from his ear so that Susan could hear Matthews.

"Were you out with the Reynolds woman last night?"

"Indeed I was."

"What times?"

"Jack, you're not my mother."

"Just answer the question, for Christ's sake, Matt."

"She picked me up at the hotel about half past six and dropped me back off here just before midnight. We drove out to Hershey, to the hotel. We had clam chowder, roast beef, and asparagus. Did you know, Jack, that asparagus is an aphrodisiac?"

"Don't tell me it worked. You're not doing anything really stupid with that woman, are you, Matt?"

"No," Matt said, and looked into Susan's eyes. "I'm not doing anything stupid with that woman, Jack. Did you call up for a report on my sex life, or did you have something on your mind?"

"You didn't call."

"I had nothing to report. I have nothing to report now, so, if you will excuse me, Jack, I will return to my breakfast. The eggs are getting cold."

"The Ollwood woman called the Reynolds woman twice last night. Called herself 'Mary-Ellen Porter.' Called at six fifty-five and again at eleven thirty-two."

"If she called herself 'Mary-Ellen Porter,' how do you know it was the Ollwood woman?"

"We ran a voiceprint, of course," Matthews said, just a trifle condescendingly.

"Excuse me," Matt said. "I should have known. A voiceprint."

"And she called the Reynolds woman at her office yesterday morning. At 9:44."

"You've got a tap on the Reynolds woman's office phone?"

"Well, sort of."

"What exactly does 'sort of' mean?"

"We have an agent in her office. Not on this, something else. But she's an agent-"

"She's an agent?" Matt interrupted.

"I'm not supposed to bring you in on any of this, Matt."

"What the hell, I'm only a lousy local cop, right? Tell me as little as possible?"

"There's a lot of fraud in the welfare system. Including some people in the Department of Social Services on the take. The programs are federally assisted, so that makes it fraud against the government. So we have somebody in there. What's she's done is rig a simple tap, a small recorder. "

"Has the amateur wiretapper got a name?"

"That, I'm not going to tell you. Sorry, Matt, that's none of your business."

"Good-bye, Jack."

"Shit!" Matthews said. "Don't hang up!"

"What's her name, Jack?"

"Veronica Haynes," Matthews said.

Susan exhaled audibly. Matt put his hand on her shoulder, and somehow Susan wound up lying beside him, with her face in his neck.

"Well, maybe this is your business after all," Matthews said. "What happens is the Ollwood woman calls the Reynolds woman, who gives her a number. Almost certainly of a phone booth. Always a different one-you'd be surprised how many phone booths there are within a five-minute walk of the Department of Social Services Building. She uses some kind of code for the number, so we never can find it until too late. Anyway, once she gives her the number, the Reynolds woman goes to the phone booth, and the Ollwood woman calls her there."

"So you can't get a tap on the phone booth?"

"No. I told you. We never can locate it until too late."

"So you don't have a tape recording of what they talk about?"

"Obviously not."

"They could be talking about anything? Something innocent? Like babies, for example?"

"Where are you going? We know goddamn well what they're talking about. Setting up a meeting."

"What I'm driving at is that you have nothing incriminating in these telephone calls, right?"

"I guess you're right," Matthews said after a moment's hesitation. "So what? It's not as if we need it."

"What exactly have you got to tie the Reynolds woman to the bombing?"

"Accessory after the fact. You know that."

"Did she have anything to do with the bombing itself?"

"She doesn't have to. If she willingly aided the bombers, same thing. Why are you asking?"

"Maybe she could be reasoned with," Matt began.

"Forget it. (a) They're determined to try all of these people. And (b) you're not authorized to make any kind of a deal."

"Right. All I am is the local cop who does only what he's told to do, right?"

"That's it, Matt. You understood that going in."

"So what did the Ollwood woman say on the phone, if anything?"

"Nothing worth anything. What we think is significant is that she's called so often. Twice last night. What you have to do is alert us when you think she's going to meet these people. We'll take it from there."

"Put a tail on her? Like those two clowns who tailed me?"

"What the hell is the matter with you? Why are you so belligerent?"

"Nothing personal, Jack. I guess I just don't like the Imperial FBI telling me only those things you decide the dumb local cop can handle."

"It's not that way, Matt, and you should know it."

"That's what it feels like. Now, unless there's something else, can I finish my breakfast?"

"You will call me if you learn anything, right?"

"Yeah, but don't hold your breath. I'm not getting close."

"All you have to do is stick as close to her as possible, and call me when you even suspect she's going to meet with Chenowith."

"Yeah, that I remember."

"Are you going to see her today?"

"Probably."

"Try."

"Yes, sir."

"Watch yourself, buddy. Behind that innocent face and those magnificent teats is a really dangerous bitch."

"Good-bye, Jack."

Matt pushed himself up far enough so that he could hang up the telephone, then lay back down again. Through the entire process, Susan didn't move her face from his neck.

" 'Magnificent teats'?" Susan quoted Jack Matthews. She seemed close to tears.

"Like I said, fair maiden," Matt said, gently, "the cops are onto you."

"You sounded like you and that man are friends," Susan said.

"We are. Jack's a good guy."

"They have the telephones in my house tapped?"

"Yes, they do. And the local cops are watching your place in the Poconos. I didn't know about the tap on your office phone, or that they had an agent in your office. It's lucky I didn't call over there and say something indiscreet. "

"Do you think I am, Matt, 'a really dangerous bitch'?"

"You can't blame Jack for that, honey," Matt replied. "He knows you're helping these people. And he knows they're dangerous. And he hasn't, the FBI hasn't, been able to lay a hand on you so far. In his mind, you're dangerous."

"You have any second thoughts last night, Matt?"

"About us?"

"Yes."

"Not last night. I woke up wondering whether you would be in the office when I called there this morning, or on a plane to San Josй, Costa Rica."

"San Josй, Costa Rica?"

"Foreign country of choice for fleeing felons," Matt said. "They don't believe much in extradition."

"And what are you thinking now?"

"That we don't have much time. We have to get that bank money out of your safe-deposit box right away. Do you talk to this FBI woman? Is she curious about where you go, and why?"

"Until three minutes ago, I thought it was simple feminine curiosity. Why?"

"Tell her you're going to have lunch with me. I'm sure those bastards told her about me. If not vice versa. Then come to the bank, get the money out of the box, and give it to me. I don't think, if they're onto you having the money in the bank, that they will think you'd try to move it when you were going to be with me."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I haven't figured that out yet. One thing at a time. I'll buy a briefcase before I go to the bank. They gave me an office to use, and we can move it from your purse to my briefcase in there. That way, you won't have the money if they should grab you as you leave the bank. I don't think that's likely, but I wouldn't be surprised if that lady agent coincidentally had to cash a check about the time you'd be here."

Susan nodded, almost absently, her acceptance of that.

"If I tell you where you can find Bryan, will you help Jennifer get away?"

"No," Matt said. "I can't do that, honey."

"You said Costa Rica doesn't believe in extradition?"

"I won't let you let yourself in for another aiding-and-abetting charge," Matt said. "For one thing, it would tie you closer to the bombing and the bank robberies, and there's a chance-not much of a chance, but a chance-that maybe we can do something about that. And if you helped her in getting out of the country, they'd learn about it, and really go after you. I can't let you do anything like that."

"I just can't turn Jennie in!" she said.

"Does she trust you?"

"Of course."

"Then tell her to turn herself in. A good lawyer, and a babe in arms, might get her out of the murder rap."

"She'd never betray Bryan."

"Tell her to start thinking about her baby. They take babies away from women doing life without possibility of parole."

"You mean when she calls?"

" 'I can't meet you, Jennifer, because I don't want to be responsible for them taking your baby away from you.' Something like that. Sow the seed."

"I don't know," Susan said doubtfully.

"Have you any better ideas?"

She shook her head, then started to cry.

"That's not going to do any good. And I don't want that lady FBI agent to get on the phone and tell her boss you came to work looking like you'd been crying. They might interpret that as meaning something."

That speech had the precisely opposite reaction to the one Matt had hoped for. It seemed to open a floodgate.

He tried to comfort her, fully aware as he did so that comforting a weeping woman was not among his social skills.

When she was finished, she pushed herself away from him, sat up, and knelt on the bed. There was a box of Kleenex on the bedside table, and she blew her nose loudly.

"Sorry," she said.

"Honey, you're just going to have to get used to the idea that your friend Jennifer is beyond salvation."

"I know," Susan said. "That's not what I was crying about."

"Then what?"

"Us," she said. "Where the hell were you, my precious beloved, when I needed you? To deliver that Jennie-made-the — wrong-choice speech, to tell me 'I won't let you get yourself in for an aiding-and-abetting charge'?"

"I wish I had been there," Matt said. "Jesus, I can't believe how someone as intelligent as you are has fucked yourself up like this!"

"Truth, they keep saying, is stranger than fiction," Susan said.

Matt didn't reply.

"What are you thinking now?" Susan asked.

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do. I thought about that in the wee hours last night. I've got to start thinking about how things really are, not how I wish they were."

"That's a start," he said.

"So what were you thinking just now?"

"How things really are?" he asked. "The naked truth?"

She nodded.

"I want to take your clothes off," Matt said.

"Just like that?"

"You asked."

She pushed herself off the bed and stood up.

"I'll take them off," she said. "You tend to rip them."

"If you don't want-" Matt began, now chagrined.

"When I was crying, honey," Susan interrupted, "I was thinking, Why doesn't he put his hand up my dress when I desperately want him to, need him to?"

Matt had a sudden, unpleasant thought.

What that could be is, "I will fuck a gorilla and pretend I love it if it will keep me from going to the slam."

Three minutes later, as he lay spent on top of her, he knew that wasn't true and was deeply ashamed of himself.

Officer Paul Thomas O'Mara stood in the door to Inspector Peter Wohl's office, waited until Wohl had finished speaking on the telephone, and then announced, "There's a Dr. Payne on three, Inspector. You want to talk to her?"

"I think I can find time to work the good doctor into my busy schedule, Tommy, " Wohl replied. "Thank you very much, and please close the door."

Then he picked up his telephone and punched the Line Three button.

"Peter?"

"I have this problem, Doctor," he began. "I wake up in the morning, alone in my bed-"

"You want to buy me lunch?"

"You have the same problem, do you? Your place or mine?"

"Here."

"You're at home?"

"I'm at the hospital."

"The last time we ate there, as I recall, the guy playing the violin was on strike, the champagne was warm, and they were out of everything but dry sandwiches and ice cream in little paper cups. Doesn't Ristorante Alfredo seem a much better idea?"

"You have trouble remembering that I work for a living, don't you?"

"I've offered to take you away from all that."

"This is serious, Peter."

"You haven't had another case of introspection, have you? While I'm gnawing on a dry sandwich, you're not going to give me that 'this is just not going to work out, Peter' speech, are you?"

"I don't think I will," she said chuckling, "but that's not what I want to talk to you about."

"Okay, Doc. What time?"

"When can you get away?"

"Anytime from right now."

"You could come right now?"

"The never-ending war against crime will have to wait. My lover calls."

"God, you're as bad at Matt."

"If this is about him, I don't have anything to tell you. I just finished talking to Jack Matthews-I was talking to him when you called-and he said that as of half past seven this morning, Matt had nothing to report."

"It's not about Matt. Can you come right now?"

"You sound serious. Yeah. I can be there in fifteen minutes."

"Please, then, Peter."

"No farewell declaration of affection?"

"I'll be in my office."

"I guess not," Peter said. "But nevertheless, I will come instantly, borne on the wings of love."

"Oh, God," Amy said and hung up.

Inspector Wohl swung his feet, clad in highly polished loafers, off his desk and left his office. Officer O'Mara stood up at his desk.

"Until further notice, I'll be with Dr. Payne at University Hospital," Wohl told him. "You have her number. Try to keep everybody in Special Operations from knowing that."

"Yes, sir. You're unavailable."

"I didn't say that, Tommy," Wohl said patiently. "Just use a little discretion. Don't tell everybody who calls where I am."

"Yes, sir."

Detective Harry Cronin of South Detectives, who had been on the job for nineteen years, and a detective for thirteen, cleverly deduced it was going to be a bad day when he went into his kitchen at approximately 10:30 A.M. and found the kitchen table bare, not even a tablecloth.

Normally, before she went to work, Mrs. Cynthia Koontz Cronin, to whom Detective Cronin had been married for eighteen years, set the table for his breakfast. Patty was a technician in the Pathological Laboratory of Temple University Hospital, and left the house at half past six or so.

Normally, the Bulletin would be neatly folded beside the table setting, there would be a flower in a little vase Patty had bought at an auction house on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, and there would usually be a little note informing him there was scrapple, or Taylor ham, in the fridge.

Detective Cronin was more than a little hungover-when he'd gone off the job at midnight the night before, he had stopped off at the Red Rooster bar, run into Sergeant Aloysius J. Sutton of East Detectives, and had had several more belts than had been his intention-and further cleverly deduced that his coming home half in the bag probably had something to with the bare kitchen table.

He opened the refrigerator door. The one thing he decided he could not face right now was taking an unborn chicken from its shell and watch it sizzle in a frying pan. Neither did he completely trust himself to slice a piece of Taylor ham from its roll without taking part of a finger at the same time.

He reached for a bottle of Ortlieb's. It would settle his stomach.

He carried it into his living room and looked around for the Bulletin. It was nowhere around, which he deduced indicated that Patty was really pissed.

What the hell, he decided, he'd lie on the couch and see what was on the tube, and get up around noon, go get a cheese steak or something for lunch, and return to the house prepared to apologize to Patty for having run into Sergeant Sutton and having maybe one more than he should have.

"Good morning," Peter said when Amy waved him into her comfortably furnished office.

The sunlight coming into her office from behind her showed him that beneath her white nylon medical smock, Amelia A. Payne, M.D., was wearing only a skirt and underwear.

The psychiatric wing of University Hospital was often overheated, and this was not the first time he had noticed this was her means of dealing with it.

He found this erotically stimulating, but from the look on her face he knew that he should not mention it.

"Good morning," she said and did not get up from her desk.

"Why do I suspect that you're not going to throw yourself in my arms?"

"Because I'm not. Peter, this is a hospital."

"Love, I have heard, cures all things."

"The medical term for what ails you is 'retarded mental development,' " she said but she smiled for a moment, then pushed a sheet of paper across her glass topped desk toward him.

He picked it up and read, "Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped by a policeman under circumstances that were themselves traumatic."

He looked at her, his eyebrows raised questioningly.

"I'm on thin ice ethically with this, Peter," she said. "Please don't push me. Right now, I'm wondering whether I should have gone to Denny Coughlin with this."

"I'm glad you came to me," he said seriously. "Okay, Doctor, tell me more, starting with, is this your medical opinion?"

"No. But I believe it."

"Where did this come from?" he asked, waving the sheet of paper.

"It was left as a telephone message for me at quarter to two this morning," Amy said.

"By whom?"

Amy shrugged.

"This woman is a patient of yours?" Peter asked, and when Amy nodded, thought out loud: "Then it obviously came from someone who (a) knew that and (b) was not a relative or family friend-they would have told you-and (c) is trying to be helpful-maybe-without getting himself involved-certainly."

Amy nodded and said simply, "Yes."

"You think this happened?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

"You want to tell me why?"

"Just before I called you, I spoke with Cynthia."

"And she said she had been…"

"I raised the subject obliquely," Amy said. "Very obliquely. That was enough to send her back to square one. I had to sedate her, and I really didn't want to."

"How do you define 'square one'?"

"Hysteria, drifting in and out of catatonia. The problem here, Peter, is that this is a precursor to schizophrenia. Once that line is crossed, it's often very difficult to bring people back. That's what I want desperately to avoid here."

"In other words, you've got a sick girl on your hands."

"Who-this is where I'm on thin ethical advice, telling you this-was already living with something pretty hard to deal with before this happened to her."

"You going to tell me what?"

"Peter, this might be, very probably is, a violation of physician-patient confidentiality. The only reason I decided I could tell you is because she doesn't know I know."

"Know what?"

"Cynthia Longwood is your typical Main Line Presbyterian Princess. From Bala Cynwyd. Her father is Randolph Longwood, the builder. She doesn't remember it, but I've seen her at the Rose Tree Hunt Club."

"So, being a very nice girl, the… oral rape… really affected her?"

"Whose maternal grandfather is Vincenzo Savarese, the gangster."

"Jesus!" Wohl said genuinely surprised. "How do you know that?"

"Another confidentiality about to be violated," Amy said. "When they brought her in here, I thought, God forgive me, that she was the typical Main Line Princess who had a fight with her boyfriend, and whose parents wanted nothing but the best, damn the cost, for their lovesick princess. I had really sick people to try to help, and declined to attend her."

"I don't quite follow that, honey."

From her face, Peter saw that this was not the time to address A. A. Payne, M.D., using a term of endearment.

"When her grandfather heard about that, he showed up in Dad's office and begged him to beg me to see her. He did-he called me, he didn't beg-and out of either a desire to do Dad a favor, or out of morbid curiosity, I agreed to see her."

"I'll be damned!" Peter said. "Do you think that call came from Savarese?"

"I think that's possible, don't you?"

"What do you want from me, Amy?"

"In the best of all possible worlds, I would be able to go tell Cynthia that the bastard who did this to her has been arrested and will never bother her again. She has recurring nightmares, in which I really think she relives the horror of this over and over again. And the brain, protecting itself, keeps trying to push the memory into a remote corner. And the result of that could damned well be schizophrenia."

"I can't really offer much hope on that score. Presumably she hasn't given you a description of the 'traumatic circumstances,' much less a description of the cop?"

"No. But-and here we go again, violating physician-patient confidentiality-her blood workup showed traces of morphine, or its derivatives."

"She's an addict?"

"How do you define that? Was Penny Detweiler an addict? Two days before she put that needle in her arm, I did her blood, it came back clean, and I was able to tell myself she was past the worst of her addiction. Possibly Cynthia is psychologically addicted. Sniff a couple of lines and it doesn't seem to matter that Grandpa is a gangster and that all your friends are likely to find that out tomorrow. Or today. And your life will be ruined."

"You like this girl, don't you?"

"Yeah, and I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to be professionally detached."

"You think the 'already traumatic circumstances' had something to do with drugs?"

Amy shrugged.

"That would seem to make sense, wouldn't it?"

"Who took the message?"

"The supervisory nurse and the resident. You want to talk to them?"

"Yeah."

"I thought you might want to. I asked them to stick around."

"I'd like your permission to talk to Denny about this, Amy."

"Thank you for asking my permission," she said. "I was afraid you'd feel you have to go to him, with or without my permission."

"Denny can be trusted, honey," he said. "I don't know if we can find the animal who did this, but we'll damned well try."

She shrugged resignedly. "Now that I've told you, I feel better. Not comfortable, but better."

"Is there a boyfriend? A girlfriend?"

"There is-maybe was-a boyfriend. I don't know his name. And he hasn't been to see her. Or even called."

"That's interesting. Maybe if I can find him, and that shouldn't be hard, I can get something out of him."

"All I want you to do, Peter, is remember that I have a very sick girl on my hands to whom irreparable damage can be done if-"

"Honey, I understand," Peter said.

"You want to see Dr. Martinez and Loretta Dubinsky now?"

Peter nodded.

"They're crapped out in a room down the hall," she said. "I'll take you."

" 'Crapped out'? Doctor, you really should watch your mouth!"

"Fuck you, Peter," she said.

"I love it when you talk dirty," he said.

"I know," she said. "That's why I do it."

She got up from behind her desk and started for the door. He waved her ahead of him. She stopped and touched his cheek.

"And, goddamn it, I don't want to, but I guess I do love you."