"Actually, that's what we'd like to talk to you about. We've been trying to reach you-"

"Would you mind if I called Bart, Detective? I'd prefer to-" "Bart's out of the picture, Mr. Lavery. For the time-" "Doctor. It's Doctor Lavery." He lowered himself into an armchair and we sat opposite him.

"You got a stethoscope, a prescription pad, and a license to practice medicine, then I'll call you 'doctor.' Every other 'ologist' who writes a dissertation on some useless theoretical load of crap is just plain old 'mister' to me."

"Professor ..." I tried to start anew. "Ah, the diplomat on the team."

"Yeah, the Madeleine Albright of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. She wants to know the same thing I do. Bart was kind of surprised when you called. He didn't know you were back in New York."

"I arrived home last evening. Around eleven o'clock." "We've been trying to interview all of Ms. Dakota's associates and friends. I hope you don't mind if we ask a few questions?" I tried smiling at him. "They're quite routine."

"If it will assist you in finding the beast who did this, I'm pleased to help."

"When did you leave town, Professor? I mean, where were you coming from last evening?"

"I flew to visit friends during Christmas week. Went to St. Thomas, in the Caribbean."

"When did you leave town exactly?"

"On December twenty-first. I've still got the ticket right here. I can show it to you, if that's necessary."

"That's two days after Lola was killed. Last Saturday, am I right?"

"I guess it was. I debated about staying for her funeral in New Jersey on Monday, but my friends were expecting me and I didn't think there was anything I could do to be useful. Many of our colleagues didn't share Lola's feelings about my work."

"The guys from my squad canvassed the building on Friday. Miss Cooper and I have read those reports. I understand you were here in the apartment on the afternoon of the murder."

"Yes, I talked to the police. Of course, I have no idea what time it was when all this happened to Lola."

"Don't worry about that. Why don't you just tell us what you were doing that day?"

"Thursday the nineteenth ... let me think a moment. Most days, I work from my home instead of the office over at King's. As you must be aware, I've been suspended from the college while they examine this glitch with my grant."

A several-hundred-thousand-dollar glitch, I thought to myself.

"I seem to recall going out in the morning to pick up some things I needed for the trip. The drugstore, the bank, the film shop. That sort of thing. It was snowing, and I remember coming home to work on a study that I've had to write up for the government. Never went outside again. I sat right at this table and kept looking across as the snow covered the bare limbs of the trees in Riverside Park, thinking over and over again that I'd be swimming in turquoise waters in a matter of days.

"Frivolous thoughts, really, when I heard later what had been going on down below. With Lola, I mean. I didn't hear the slightest bit of disturbance. I think that's what will always torment me."

Lavery seemed to be sincerely troubled.

"No loud voices arguing? No screams? No sounds of a struggle?"

"Exactly what does a struggle sound like, Detective?"

Mike was stumped. There had been no furniture overturned in Lola's apartment, no bruising to suggest a prolonged attack by her assailant. Just a wool scarf that had been pulled too tight for too long around her neck. It had caused her to be unable to breathe, and perhaps unable to scream as well.

"I have this tendency, you see, to sit here at my writing table, absorbed in my work no matter what kind of commotion is going on around me or outside on the street. It's a trait that has served me quite well in my career. And when I'm here at home, I've always got music playing. Sometimes a bit too loud, but then these old buildings were really built solid. They absorb the noise pretty well. Every now and then," Lavery said with a slight grin "after a particularly booming crescendo, my friend Lola would bang on the pipes that ran up through her living room into mine.

"But the day she died," he said, somber again, "I can't say I heard anything at all."

"How well did you know Ms. Dakota?"

"Quite well, both professionally and socially. We were in different disciplines, of course, but she was a bit of a maverick, as I am and she was interested in my approach to the urban drug problem Away from the school, we spent some time together, too."

"Did you ever date?"

"Nothing like that. But we could sit up till the middle of the night, arguing about solutions for the homeless or the mentally ill. There was no off switch to Lola. She was always thinking and working and doing."

"Had you seen much of her in the days before her death?"

He took a long time to answer. "I have become so engulfed in my own legal entanglements, unfortunately, that I've tended to push most of my friends out of the way. I'm trying to recall the last time Lola and I had a good, long go-at-it together."

"How about a short one? How about a sighting?"

"I know I saw her the week of Thanksgiving. I remember coming in with a lot of groceries and stopping by to talk with her for a while on my way upstairs. Have a drink. Then she was off to her sister's home, and-I simply can't summon up any other time that I saw her."

Was he lying to us, or had Bart Frankel been mistaken when he told us he had left Lola at the door because she saw Lavery going into the building?

Chapman had nothing to lose at this point. "The day she died, like half an hour before she was killed, did you happen to run into her, right at the front door of the building?"

Lavery was biting the inside of his cheek, looking perplexed. "I may have gone down to the lobby once in the afternoon to get the mail, but after I came back from my errand that morning I'm absolutely certain I never went back outside. Where would you have heard something like that?"

"How do you know Bart Frankel?"

"He was in charge of her case, Ms. Cooper. He had come to the apartment once or twice to bring Lola papers to sign. I think that's what she told me. And to help prepare her for their plan to build the case against her husband, Mr. Kerlovic."

"Kralovic."

"I didn't know the man. I'm not really sure what his name was. One time, I ran into Lola with Bart Frankel at a restaurant in the neighborhood. I guess she had come to rely on him in these last difficult weeks."

"How come you called Bart last night and asked him to meet with you?"

Now he was growing more wary. "Well, Detective, either Bart told you the answer to that question when he asked you to come here, or you've pulled one over on me." He walked to his desk and picked up the receiver, looking at a number on the piece of paper next to the phone. "Shall I just call him and clear this up?"

Mike stood up, too. "No, but Bart did tell us he saw you walk into this building, holding the door open for Lola, about half an hour before she was killed."

"And I'm telling you that statement is not true, Mr. Chapman." Lavery started to dial.

"We'll have to resolve this some other way, Mr. Lavery. All you're gonna get is a machine. Or maybe one of Bart's kids. He's in the hospital. His car ran off the road this morning on his way here to see you."

Lavery replaced the receiver. "Was he hurt badly?"

"Probably won't make it."

The professor winced and sat down at his desk.

"You wanna explain to us why you called him to come talk to you? Tell us what you were planning on telling him?"