“Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything,” Benton said on the phone, talking to Scarpetta’s administrative assistant, Bryce. “I was just wondering when you looked at it first thing, what might have entered your mind . . . Really . . . That’s a very good point . . . Well, that’s interesting. I’ll tell her.”

He hung up.

Scarpetta was only halfway paying attention to whatever he and Bryce had been discussing. She was far more interested in several photographs of Terri Bridges’s master bathroom, and had placed them in a row on a space she’d cleared on Benton’s desk. They showed a spotless white ceramic-tile floor and a white marble countertop. Next to a sink with ornate gold fixtures was a built-in vanity arranged with perfumes, a brush, and a comb. Attached to the rose-painted wall was a gold-framed oval mirror, and it was askew, but so slightly it was barely perceptible. As far as she could tell, it was the only thing in the bathroom that looked even remotely disturbed.

“Your hair,” Benton said to her as his printer woke up.

“What about it?”

“I’ll show you.”

Another close-up of the body, this one taken from a different angle after the towel had been removed. Terri’s achondroplastic features were more typical than Oscar’s. She had a somewhat flattened nose and pronounced forehead, and her arms and legs were thick and about half the length they ought to be, her fingers thick and stubby.

Benton swiveled around and removed a sheet of paper from the printer, and handed it to her.

“Do I have to look at that again?” she said.

It was the photograph from this morning’s Gotham Gotcha column.

“Bryce said for you to take a good look at your hair,” Benton said.

“It’s covered,” she said. “All I can see is a little fringe of it.”

“His point. It used to be shorter. He showed the photo to Fielding, who shares his opinion.”

She ran her fingers through her hair, realizing what Bryce and Fielding meant. Over the past year, she’d let her hair grow out another inch.

“You’re right,” she said. “Bryce—Mr. Hygiene—is always nagging me about it. It’s that in-between length where I can’t completely cover it, and yet it’s not long enough to tuck in. So there’s always a little fringe of it exposed.”

“He and Fielding both say the same thing,” Benton said. “This photograph was taken recently. As recently as the past six months, because both of them believe this was taken since they started working for you. They’re basing this on the length of your hair, the watch you’re wearing, and the face shield is the same type you use.”

“It’s just a face shield. Not like our fancy safety glasses with different neon-colored frames to cheer up the place.”

“Anyway, I’m inclined to agree with them,” Benton said.

“That says something. Because, obviously, if it was taken in Watertown, they’re on the list of suspects. And they don’t recall noticing anybody else taking it?”

“That’s the difficulty,” Benton said. “Everybody and their brother who’s through your place, as I pointed out earlier, could have done it. You can tell from your demeanor, the expression on your face, that you had no idea it was being taken. A quick picture taken with a cell phone. That’s my guess.”

“It wasn’t Marino, then,” she said. “He’s certainly not been within camera range.”

“I suspect he hates having that column on the Internet even more than you do, Kay. It wouldn’t make any sense to think Marino’s behind this.”

She looked through more photographs of Terri Bridges’s body on the bathroom floor, perplexed by the thin gold chain around her left ankle. She handed a close-up to Benton.

“Oscar told the police he’d never seen it before,” he said. “And since you don’t seem to know where it came from, I’m going to conclude that either Oscar told you he knew nothing about it or he didn’t mention it at all.”

“Suffice it to say, I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “But it doesn’t look like something she’d wear. For one thing, it doesn’t fit. It’s much too tight. Either she’d had the bracelet for a long time and had gained weight, or someone gave it to her without realizing or even caring what size she needed. I don’t think she bought it for herself, in other words.”

“So I’ll make my sexist comment,” Benton said. “A man is more likely to make a mistake like that than another woman. Had a woman bought this for her, she likely would be aware that Terri has thick ankles.”

“Oscar knows all about dwarfism, of course,” Scarpetta said. “He’s extremely body-conscious. He’s less likely to buy the wrong size because he’s intimately familiar with her.”

“That, and he denied having ever seen the bracelet before.”

“If the person you were in love with would see you only once a week at a predetermined time and place of her choosing, what might enter your mind after a while?” Scarpetta said.

“She’s seeing someone else,” Benton said.

“Another question. If I’m asking about the bracelet, what does that imply?”

“Oscar never mentioned it to you.”

“I suspect Oscar has a deep-seated fear that Terri was seeing someone,” Scarpetta replied. “To consciously deal with that would be to inflict an injury he can’t endure. I don’t care how shocked he was when he discovered her body, if that’s really what happened. He should have noticed the ankle bracelet. His not bringing it up says far more than if he had volunteered it, in my opinion.”

“He fears it was a gift from someone else,” Benton said. “Of interest to us, of course, is if she really was seeing someone else. Because that person could be her killer.”

“Possibly.”

“It could also be argued that Oscar killed her because he discovered she was seeing someone else,” Benton said.

“Do you have any reason to think she was?” she asked.

“I’m going to accept that you don’t know the answer, either. But if she was, and he gave her a piece of jewelry, why would she wear it when Oscar was coming over?”

“I suppose she could say she bought it herself. But I don’t know why she’d wear it at all. It didn’t fit.”

She looked at another photograph of clothing in the tub, as if dropped there: pink bedroom slippers, and a pink robe slit open from the collar to the cuffs, and a red lacy bra, unhooked in front with the straps cut.

She leaned across the desk, handing the photograph to him.

“Most likely her wrists were already bound behind her back when the killer removed her robe, her bra,” she said. “That would explain cutting the straps, cutting open the sleeves.”

“Suggesting she was quickly subdued by her assailant,” he said. “A blitz attack. She didn’t see it coming. Whether it was after she opened her door, or after he was already inside her apartment. He bound her so he could control her. Then he dealt with getting her clothing off.”

“He didn’t need to cut her clothing off if his goal was to sexually assault her. All he had to do was open the front of her robe.”

“To induce terror. Total domination. All consistent with a sadistic sexual homicide. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t Oscar. Doesn’t mean it was.”

“And the absence of her panties? Unless they’re simply not mentioned in the report. Rather unusual to have a bra on under your robe, but no panties. I’m assuming they’ll check the scissors for fibers to see if that’s what was used to cut off her clothing. As for any fibers that might be on whatever Oscar was wearing? One would expect fibers from her body, from the towel, to have been transferred to him while he was sitting in there, holding her.”

She found several photographs of kitchen scissors on the floor next to the toilet. Nearby was the flex-cuff, or disposable restraint, that had bound her wrists. It was severed through the loop. Something about it bothered her. She realized what it was, and she handed the photograph to Benton.

“Notice anything unusual?” she asked.

“Back in my early days with the FBI, we used handcuffs, not flex-cuffs. And needless to say, we would never use flex-cuffs on patients.”

It was his way of admitting he wasn’t an expert.

“This one’s colorless, almost transparent,” she said. “Every flex-cuff I’ve ever seen is black, yellow, or white.”

“Just because you haven’t seen it . . .”

“Of course. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“Possibly there are new versions of them and new companies making them all the time, especially since we’ve got a war going on. Cops, the military, carry them in clip cases on their belts, have dozens in their vehicles. Great for rapid application to multiple prisoners. Like most things these days, easy to get on the Internet.”

“But extremely difficult to remove,” Scarpetta said. “That’s the point I’m about to make. You couldn’t cut through flex-cuffs with kitchen scissors. Requires special cutters with compound leverage, like a Scarab.”

“Why didn’t Morales say anything?”

“Maybe he’s never tried to cut through flex-cuffs with scissors,” Scarpetta said. “Good chance a lot of cops haven’t. First time I got in a body bound in flex-cuffs, it took a damn rib cutter to get them off. Now I keep a Scarab in the morgue. Homicides, deaths in custody, suicides with flex-cuffs around wrists, ankles, necks. Once you pull the strap through the locking block, there’s no going back. So either the kitchen scissors were staged to make it appear they were used to cut off the flex-cuff, when in fact something else was used, or this colorless strap on the bathroom floor isn’t a flex-cuff. Did the police find any other straps like this one in her house?”

Benton’s hazel eyes watched her closely.

“You know as much or as little as I do,” he said. “Whatever’s in the report and evidence inventory. But clearly, any other straps would have been collected and documented unless Morales is the worst cop on the planet. So I think the answer’s no. Which brings us back to premeditation. The killer brought flex-cuffs to the apartment. Maybe he used the same thing around her neck, maybe not.”

“We can say he all we want,” Scarpetta said. “But Terri Bridges was very small. It’s possible a woman could have subdued her easily. For that matter, a kid could have, male or female.”

“An unusual crime, if a female did it. But it could explain why Terri felt safe opening her door. Unless, once again, Oscar staged the scene to look like a sexual homicide, when in fact it’s something else.”

“The missing ligature,” Scarpetta said. “That doesn’t feel staged. It feels as if the killer took it for a reason.”

“Maybe a souvenir,” Benton said. “The ligature, an item of lingerie such as her panties. A mechanism for the actualization of violent fantasy after the fact. He winds back the tape, replays what he did, because it gives him sexual gratification. A type of behavior rarely associated with domestic homicides. Souvenirs usually indicate a sexual predator who objectifies his victim, a stranger or distant acquaintance. Not a boyfriend, a lover. Unless we’re talking about staging.” He made that point again. “Oscar’s extremely bright. He’s calculating and quick.”

Calculating and quick enough to return to his car and toss in his coat, making sure his story about being attacked as he was entering her house, and his torn T-shirt and injuries, was plausible to the police. But when did Oscar do that, assuming it was true? Scarpetta guessed it was after he raked his nails over his own flesh and struck himself with the flashlight, then realized it wasn’t possible to explain the injuries if they were inflicted while he was wearing a coat.

“Souvenirs,” Scarpetta said. “Maybe a killer who takes souvenirs and leaves one. If we consider the possibility that the ankle bracelet was put on the body by the killer, possibly after the murder. Like the silver rings in that case you had in California years ago. Four coeds, and in each homicide, the killer put a silver ring on the victim’s wedding finger. But the symbolism of a silver ring strikes me as completely different from an ankle bracelet.”

“One is possession—as in, with this ring, I make you mine,” Benton said. “The other is control—as in, I’m putting a shackle around your ankle. I own you.”

More photos: a table set for two. Candles, wineglasses, linen napkins in blue napkin rings, and dinner and bread plates and salad bowls. In the center of the table, a flower arrangement. Great attention to details, everything perfectly appointed, perfectly matched, and centered and straight but lacking in imagination and warmth.

“She was obsessive,” Scarpetta observed. “A perfectionist. But she went to trouble for him. I think Oscar mattered to her. Was there music playing when the police arrived?”

“Nothing in the report.”

“The television on? There’s one in the living room, but it’s off in the photograph. Any hint as to what she might have been doing when someone arrived at her door? Other than cooking at some point during the afternoon?”

“What you see in the photos, what’s in the reports, is pretty much all we know.” He paused. “Because you’re the only one Oscar would really talk to.”

She scanned the report out loud. “Oven set at two hundred, a whole chicken inside, suggesting it was cooked. She was just keeping it warm. Fresh spinach in a pot, hadn’t been cooked yet. Stove off.”

Another photo: a black plastic flashlight on the carpet near the front door.

Another photo: clothing neatly laid out on a bed. A low-cut sweater, red. Looked like cashmere. Red pants. Looked like silk. Shoes? No sign of them. No sign of her panties.

Another photo: no sign of makeup on Terri’s suffused face.

Scarpetta reconstructed: Terri was going to dress festively and provocatively in bright red that was soft to the touch. She had on a sexy bra, a not-so-sexy robe and slippers, perhaps waiting until shortly before Oscar arrived to put on makeup and finish getting dressed, alluringly, in red. Where were her shoes? Maybe she didn’t always wear them indoors, especially in her own apartment. Where were her panties? Some women don’t wear panties. Maybe she was one of them. But if so, Scarpetta found that inconsistent with what Oscar had told her about Terri’s obsession with cleanliness, with “germs.”

“Do we know if she had a habit of not wearing panties?” she asked Benton.

“Got no idea.”

“And shoes. Where are they? She’d gone to so much trouble to pick out what she was going to wear, but no shoes? Three possibilities. She hadn’t picked them out yet. The killer took them. Or she didn’t wear shoes in the house. And that’s curious and a little hard for me to accept. Someone obsessive-compulsive about neatness, cleanliness, isn’t likely to walk around barefoot. And when she was in her robe, she had on slippers. Wasn’t barefoot then. Someone obsessive-compulsive about dirt and bacteria is likely to wear panties.”

“I wasn’t aware she was obsessive-compulsive,” Benton said.

Scarpetta realized she’d revealed something she shouldn’t have.

“Oscar didn’t talk about her when I evaluated him, as you know.” Benton wasn’t going to let go of her indiscretion. “I didn’t pick up on anything that might indicate Terri was obsessive-compulsive, or overly vigilant about cleanliness, neatness. Beyond what you see in the photos. And yes, you can tell she’s very organized and tidy. That’s been suggested, but not to the degree of a compulsion. So if she wasn’t likely to walk around barefoot and without panties, we’re back to the possibility of a killer who took souvenirs. That points away from Oscar. For him to remove those from the scene, then hurry back to be there when the police arrived, strikes me as far-fetched.”

“I’m inclined to agree.”

“You don’t think Oscar did it, do you?” Benton said.

“I think the police had better not make the assumption that the killer is a, quote, deranged little person safely locked up here on the prison ward. That’s what I think,” she said.

“Oscar isn’t crazy—not a nice word, but I’m using it. He doesn’t have a personality disorder. Isn’t sociopathic, narcissistic, borderline. His SCID revealed an inclination toward anger and avoidance, and it appears something triggered paranoia and reinforced his feeling that he needs to disaffiliate himself from others. In summary, he’s afraid of something. He doesn’t know who to trust.”

Scarpetta thought of the CD Oscar claimed to have hidden in his library.

In Murray Hill, Marino walked along a dark, tree-lined street, looking through the eyes of a predator.

Terri Bridges’s brownstone was tucked between a playground and a doctor’s office, both closed last night. Across the street, on either side of her peculiar neighbor’s two-story building, were a French bistro and a bakery, also closed last night. He had checked, had carefully researched the area, and had come to the same conclusion that Morales had: When Terri opened her door to her killer, there was no one watching.

Even if someone happened to walk past, the person probably had no idea what he was looking at when a lone figure climbed the steps and buzzed the front door, or opened it with a key. Marino suspected the truth of the matter was the perpetrator had stayed out of sight until he was sure no one was in the area, and that returned Marino’s thoughts to Oscar Bane.

If his intention was to kill Terri last night, it didn’t matter if he was spotted. He was her boyfriend. He was supposed to have dinner with her, or people would assume he was, and parking his Jeep Cherokee right out front was smart because that would be the normal thing to do if he had no violent intentions. After talking to Bacardi, there was no doubt about what type of crime Marino was dealing with. This was exactly what it appeared to be—a sexually motivated premeditated act committed by someone whose murder kit included bindings, a lubricant, and a ten-karat-gold ankle bracelet.

Either Oscar was innocent or he was going to be hard as hell to catch, because he had every reason to show up at Terri’s house late yesterday afternoon. By all appearances, Terri was expecting him for dinner. By all appearances, she was expecting a romantic evening with him. The crime scene so far seemed virtually useless, because remnants of Oscar would be everywhere, including on Terri’s dead body. The perfect crime? Maybe, were it not for one oddball thing: Oscar’s insistence, which predated Terri’s death by a month, that he was being spied on, brainwashed, that his identity had been stolen.

Marino thought about Oscar’s ranting and raving over the phone. Unless he was psychotic, why would he draw attention to himself like that if he were a serial killer who had already murdered at least two people?

Marino felt guilty and worried. What if he had listened to Oscar more carefully, maybe encouraged him to come to the DA’s office and sit down with Berger? What if Marino had even halfway given him the benefit of the doubt? Would he still be walking down this dark sidewalk on this cold, windy night?

His ears were getting numb, his eyes watering, and he was furious with himself for drinking so many Sharp’s. As Terri’s building came into view, he noticed her apartment lights were on, the drapes drawn, and a marked car was parked in front. Marino imagined the cop sitting inside the apartment, securing the scene until Berger decided to release it. He imagined the poor guy bored out of his mind. What Marino wouldn’t give to borrow the bathroom, but you don’t borrow anything at a crime scene.

At the moment, the only public bathroom was the great outdoors. Marino kept his scan going, looking for a good spot as he walked closer to Terri’s building. He noticed that the lanterns at either side of the entryway were on, and recalled from Morales’s report that they had been off last night when the police had arrived shortly after six.

Marino thought of Oscar Bane again. It made no difference if anyone had seen him well enough to identify him later. He was Terri’s boyfriend, had keys to her building, and he was expected. If the outside lights weren’t on when he arrived, then why not? By five p.m., when he allegedly arrived, it would have been completely dark out.

Marino supposed it was possible that the lights had been on when he’d arrived, and for some reason, he’d turned them off as he’d entered the building.

Marino stopped half a block away from the brownstone, staring at the entrance on East 29th. He imagined himself the killer, imagined what it would have been like to approach Terri’s apartment building. What would he have seen? What would he have felt? Yesterday had been cold and damp, and extremely windy with gusts up to twenty-five miles an hour, making it very unpleasant for people to be out walking, about as unpleasant as it was right now.

By three-thirty in the afternoon, the sun was below the buildings and trees, and the entryway would have been cast in shadows. It was unlikely the lanterns would have been on that early, whether they were on a timer or not. By mid-afternoon, anybody inside the apartment building probably would have had his lights on, making it obvious to a predator which tenant might be home.

Marino hurried to the playground. He was relieving himself against the dark front gate when he spotted a dark, bulky shape on the brownstone’s flat roof. The shape was near the faint silhouette of the satellite dish, and then the shape moved. Zipping up his pants, he reached into his coat pocket for his gun and crept around to the west side of Terri’s apartment. The fire escape was a narrow ladder, straight up, and much too small for Marino’s hands and feet.

He was sure it would pull away from the building and send him plummeting backward to the earth. His heart pounded, and he was sweating profusely beneath his Harley jacket, his Glock forty-caliber pistol in hand as he climbed, one rung at a time, his knees shaking.

He never used to have a fear of heights but had developed one after leaving Charleston. Benton had said it was the result of depression and accompanying anxiety, and had recommended a new treatment that involved an antibiotic called D-cycloserine, just because it had worked on rats in a neuroscience research project. Marino’s therapist, Nancy, said his problem was “an unconscious conflict,” and he’d never determine the exact nature of that conflict unless he stayed sober.

Marino had no doubt about the source of his conflict. At this very moment, it was a goddamn narrow ladder bolted to a brownstone. He pulled himself onto the roof, and his heart lurched and he grunted in surprise as he found himself eye to eye with the barrel of a gun held by a dark figure lying on his belly in a sniper’s position. For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Mike Morales holstered his pistol as he sat up and whispered furiously, “You stupid fuck! What the hell are you doing?”

“What the hell are you doing?” Marino whispered back. “I thought you were a fucking serial killer.”

He scooted on his butt until he was a safe distance from the roof’s edge.

“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot your fucking head off,” Marino added.

He tucked the Glock back into his coat pocket.

“We just had this conversation,” Morales said. “You don’t get to run around and not tell me what the hell you’re doing. I’m going to get your ass fired. Berger’s probably going to do it anyway.”

His face was almost indistinguishable in the dark, and he wore dark, loose clothing. He looked like a homeless person or a drug dealer.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get back down from here,” Marino said. “You know how old that ladder is? Probably a hundred years old, that’s how old. Back then when people were half the size they are now.”

“What’s the matter with you? You trying to prove something? Because the only thing you’re proving is you ought to go work security in a fucking mall or something.”

The rooftop was concrete, with a boxy HVAC and the satellite dish. In the building across the street where Marino had been earlier today, the only lighted windows were those of the second-floor neighbor’s apartment, and the drapes were drawn across them. Across the street from the back of Terri’s building, there were more people home, and two of them seemed to assume that nobody could see them. An older man was typing on a computer, clueless that he was being watched. One floor below him, a woman in green pajamas was sitting on her living room couch, gesturing as she talked on a cordless phone.

Morales was chewing out Marino for screwing up everything.

“The only thing I’m screwing up is you being a Peeping Tom,” Marino retorted.

“I don’t have to peep to see whatever I want, whenever I want,” Morales replied. “Not saying I wouldn’t look if there’s something to look at.”

He pointed at the dish antenna, angled up about sixty degrees and facing south of Texas where somewhere high in the night sky was a satellite that Marino couldn’t envision.

“On the mounting foot’s a wireless camera I just installed,” Morales said. “In case Oscar shows up. Maybe tries to get back inside her apartment. You know, the old returning-to-the-scene-of-the-crime shit. Or if anybody decides to drop by, for that matter. I’m keeping an open mind. Maybe it’s not Oscar. But my money’s on him. My money’s on him killing the other two.”

Marino wasn’t in the mood to relay his conversation with Bacardi. Even if he weren’t on top of a roof and extremely unhappy about it, he wouldn’t be in the mood.

“The officer securing her apartment know you’re up here?” he asked.

“Shit, no. And you tell him, you’ll find out what a long way down it is, because I’ll throw your ass off the roof. Quickest way to fuck up a surveillance is to tell other cops about it. Including you.”

“Occur to you his marked unit’s right in front like a billboard ad for the NYPD? Maybe you should have him move it, if you’re hoping the killer will come sneaking back here.”

“He’s gonna move it. It was fucking stupid to park there to begin with.”

“Usually the bigger worry is regular people and the media thinking they can poke around. But no marked car? Okay. There goes your deterrent. Have it your way. You got any idea why the entrance lights weren’t on last night?” Marino said.

“I only know that they weren’t. It’s in my report.”

“They’re on now.”

Gusts of wind hit them like invisible waves of a stormy surf, and Marino felt as if he was about to be washed off the roof. His hands were stiff, and he pulled his sleeves over them.

“Then my guess would be the killer turned them off last night,” Morales said.

“Kind of a strange thing to do once he’s already inside the building.”

“Maybe he turned them off when he was leaving. So nobody would see him, in case someone was walking by, driving by.”

“Then you’re probably not talking about Oscar doing it. Since he never left.”

“We don’t know what he did. Maybe he was in and out getting rid of shit. Like whatever was used around her neck. Where’d you park?” Morales asked.

“Couple streets away,” Marino said. “Nobody saw me.”

“Yeah, you’re real subtle, bro. Sounded like a three-hundred-pound cat climbing up the side of the building. Too bad you didn’t get here a little earlier,” Morales said. “See that lady on the phone?”

He indicated the apartment where the woman in green pajamas was still on her couch, gesturing and talking.

“Amazing how many people don’t pull down their shades,” Morales said.

“That’s probably the real reason you’re up here,” Marino said.

“The window to the left? Lights are off now, but maybe thirty minutes ago, blazing as bright as a movie premier, and there she was.”

Marino stared at the dark window as if it would suddenly light up again and show him what he’d missed.

“Out of the shower, off came the towel. Nice tits, I mean real nice,” Morales said. “Thought I would fall off the fucking roof. God, I love my job.”

Marino would forgo seeing fifty naked women if it would spare him having to climb back down the ladder. Morales got to his feet, as comfortable up here as a pigeon, while Marino started scooting back toward the edge, his heart thudding again, and as he inched his way, he wondered what had gotten into him. All those years he flew on Lucy’s helicopters and jets. He used to love glass elevators and expansion bridges. Now he hated climbing up a stepladder to change a lightbulb.

He watched Morales walk off in the direction of the satellite dish and got a weird feeling about him. Morales had gone to fancy schools. He was a doctor, or could be one, if he wanted. He was nice-looking, even if he went out of his way to make people think he was the leader of a street gang or some Latino gangster. He was one big contradiction, and it didn’t make sense he would climb up here to install a camera, with a cop sitting two floors below, securing a homicide scene, and not say anything. What if the cop had heard him up here?

And Marino remembered what the neighbor had mentioned about a roof access, about seeing service people near the satellite dish. Maybe Morales hadn’t climbed up the ladder. Maybe he’d gotten up here another way—an easy way—and was too much of an asshole to let Marino in on the secret.

Cold steel bit into his bare hands as he gripped the rungs and made his way down slowly. He didn’t know he had reached the ground until he felt it beneath his shoes, and he leaned against the side of the brownstone for a moment to calm down and catch his breath. He walked to the entrance and stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up to see if Morales was watching. Marino couldn’t see him.

Attached to his keys was a small tactical light, and he directed the powerful beam at the lanterns on either side of the brownstone’s ivy-covered entrance. He checked the brick steps, the landing, then swept the beam over bushes and trash cans. He called the dispatcher and indicated he needed the officer inside Terri Bridges’s apartment to go to the building’s front door and let him in. He waited a minute, and the front door opened, and it wasn’t the same uniformed cop who had let him in earlier today.

“Having fun yet?” Marino asked, moving past him into the foyer and shutting the door.

“It’s starting to stink in there,” the officer said, and he looked all of sixteen. “Remind me never to eat chicken again.”

Marino found two light switches to the left of the door. He tried them. One was for the outside lights, the other for the foyer.

“You know if these are on a timer?” he asked.

“They’re not.”

“So how’d the entrance lights get on tonight?”

“I turned them on when I got here maybe two hours ago. Why? You want ’em off?”

Marino looked at the dark wooden stairs leading up to the second floor.

He said, “No, leave them on. You been up there? Looks like the other residents aren’t back.”

“I haven’t been anywhere. Stuck on my ass inside the door.” He nodded at the apartment door, which he’d left open a crack. “Nobody’s been inside the building. If it was me, I’d sure take my time coming back, especially if I was a woman living alone.”

“No other women living alone,” Marino said. “Just the one whose apartment you’re babysitting. This one here.” He indicated the door on the other side of the foyer. “Two guys, both of them bartenders. Probably never here at night. Upstairs? Right above Terri Bridges, a guy who goes to Hunter College, supports himself walking dogs. The apartment on the other side, some Italian consultant with a British financial company that’s the actual tenant. In other words, one of those corporate rentals. The guy’s probably never here.”

“Anybody talked to them?”

“Not me, but I’ve run their backgrounds. Nothing jumps out. I get the impression from talking to her parents that she wasn’t the friendly type. She never talked about the other residents and didn’t seem to know them or have any interest. But hey, this ain’t the South. People don’t bake cakes for their neighbors so they can stick their nose into their business. Don’t mind me. I’m going to poke around up there for a few minutes.”

“Just be careful because Investigator Morales is up on the roof.”

Marino stopped on the bottom step and said, “What?”

“Yeah, he went up there maybe an hour ago.”

“He tell you why?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“He tell you to move your car?”

“What for?”

“Ask him,” Marino said. “He’s the big investigator with all the big ideas.”

He climbed the steps, and on the second floor, in the ceiling between the two apartments, was a stainless-steel access hatch with an inside T-handle. Under it was an aluminum stepladder with slip-resistant treads, a fold-up safety bar, and a work tray with several screwdrivers in it. Nearby, a utility closet door was wide open.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

He imagined Morales on the roof, laughing as he’d listened to Marino struggling down the fire escape, when all he’d had to do was direct him to the roof access. Marino could have climbed down five sturdy ladder steps inside a lighted building instead of thirty narrow rungs outside in the frigid dark.

Marino folded the ladder and returned it to the closet.

He was halfway back to his car when his cell phone rang. The display said Unknown, and he was sure it was Morales, pissed as hell.

“Yo,” he answered cheerfully as he walked.

“Marino?” It was Jaime Berger. “I’ve been trying to get hold of Morales.”

There was a lot of background noise, what sounded like traffic, and he knew when she was irritated.

“I just saw him,” he said. “He’s sort of unreachable this very minute.”

“If you happen to talk to him, you might mention I’ve left three messages. I won’t leave a fourth. Maybe you can take care of my problem. Eighteen passwords so far.”

“For just her?” He meant Terri Bridges.

“All the same e-mail provider, but different usernames. For whatever reason. And her boyfriend’s got one. I’m getting out of a taxi now.”

Marino heard her driver say something, and then Berger did, and then the taxi door shut and he could hear her better.

“One second,” he said. “Let me get to my car.”

His unmarked dark blue Impala was parked just ahead.

“Where are you and what are you doing?” she said.

“Long story. Morales mention anything to you about a case in Baltimore and one in Greenwich, Connecticut?”

“I think I just made the point that I haven’t talked to him.”

He unlocked his driver’s door and climbed in. He started the engine and opened the glove box, looking for a pen and something to write on.

“I’ll e-mail some stuff to you, think I can do it from my BlackBerry,” he said. “And Benton should get it.”

Silence.

“If that’s all right with you, I’ll e-mail what I’ve got to him, too.”

“Of course,” she said.

“You don’t mind me saying it, nobody’s talking to each other. An example of what I mean? You got any idea if the cops looked upstairs in Terri’s building last night? Like maybe checked the roof access and the ladder in the utility closet?”

“I have no idea.”

“That’s what I’m saying. Nothing in the report. No photographs,” Marino said.

“That’s interesting.”

“The roof would have been an easy way to get in and out, and nobody sees you. There’s a fire-escape ladder on the west side of the brownstone—like I said, nobody sees you.”

“Morales should know the answer to that.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure the subject will come up. And one other thing. We need Oscar’s DNA run through CODIS right away. Because of Baltimore and Greenwich. Have you gotten my e-mails?”

“Should already be in the works. I’ve asked for answers tonight. Yes, I’ve gotten your e-mails,” Berger said. “Nice of Morales not to bother alerting me about two other possible cases.”

“Meaning Oscar’s in CODIS or will be soon,” Marino said. “I’m sure Morales was going to get around to it.”

“I’m sure,” Berger said.

“I’ll leave word about the DNA with the investigator in Baltimore I hooked up with,” Marino said. “Not that I’m holding my breath we’re going to get a hit with Oscar on those other two cases. I don’t know. Something’s not right about it. Doesn’t work for me thinking he did those. And his girlfriend.”

Marino always knew when Berger took somebody seriously. She didn’t interrupt or change the topic of conversation. He kept talking because she kept listening, both of them careful about being too specific, since he was on a cell phone.

“These other two cases I’ve sent you info on?” Marino said. “The part I left out is what I was just told over the phone. They got junk DNA. A mixture of other people’s DNA.”

“Like we did in this one here?” Berger asked.

“I don’t want to go into all this now for security reasons,” Marino said. “But if you could maybe get a message to Benton. I know he’s here. I know he’s in the city. Morales says he is and that they’re going to the morgue later. We can all keep hoping we don’t bump into each other. I’m just going ahead and saying it. No point in running around the fat-ass elephant in the room.”

“They’re not at the morgue yet. Dr. Lester’s been delayed.”

“That’s the only kind of laid she’s ever been,” Marino said.

Berger laughed.

“I’d say within the hour everyone will be there,” she said, and her tone was entirely different.

As if she found him interesting and amusing, and maybe didn’t hate him.

“Benton and Kay,” she added.

She was letting Marino know, and in doing so, it was her way of saying she wasn’t his enemy. No, it was better than that. She was telling him she might just trust and respect him.

“But it would be helpful if all of us got together,” he said. “Have a case discussion. I asked the investigator from Baltimore to come. She should be here in the morning. She can be here whenever we want.”

“That’s fine,” Berger said. “What I want right now is for you to get me the passwords and account histories associated with the usernames I’m about to give you. I’ve already faxed a letter instructing the provider to put a freeze on the accounts so they stay active. And one other thing. If anybody else calls for this info, they don’t get it. You make that clear to whoever you talk to. I don’t care if it’s the White House, the passwords aren’t to be given to anybody else. I’m on my cell.”

She must be referring to Oscar Bane. Marino couldn’t imagine who else would know what Terri’s and Oscar’s usernames and e-mail providers were, and without them, one couldn’t get the passwords. The car’s interior light was off, and he left it off. An old habit. He used his flashlight to write down the usernames and other information she gave him.

Marino said, “Is Oscar still on the ward?”

“Obviously, that’s one concern.” She didn’t sound as all-business as she usually did.

She sounded almost friendly, and maybe curious, as if she’d never given Marino much thought, and now she was.

“I don’t think for much longer,” she added. “And there are some other developments. I’ll be at a forensic computer group called Connextions, which I have a feeling you’re familiar with. Here’s the number.”

She gave it to him.

“I’ll try to grab the phone before Lucy does,” Berger said.