"They're beginning to see the light."

We talked for several minutes until I felt my beeper vibrating on my waistband. There was a phone booth on the main floor and I excused myself to go downstairs to return the call. I recognized the number displayed as the main line from ECAB-the Early Case Assessment Bureau-which was the intake unit through which every arrest in Manhattan entered our office. The expediter answered.

"Hey, it's Alex Cooper. Any idea who beeped me?"

"Ryan Blackmer's looking for you, Alex. Hold on a minute."

"Sorry to bother you, but I figured you'd want a heads-up," Ryan said. He was one of the brightest and best lawyers in the division, and had drawn the Friday night supervising position in ECAB. "Uniformed guys in the Sixth Precinct just collared a mope for sex abuse tonight."

"You got the facts yet?"

"The complaining witness was walking home from a friend's house, right along Washington Square Park-on the north side near the Arch-when this clown grabbed her from behind and started to rub against her, trying to drag her into the park. She was able to break away and get home. Called nine-one-one from her apartment. Cops drove her around for almost an hour and she ID'ed him a few blocks from the square."

"Make any statements?"

"Yeah, claims he's gay. Not guilty."

"Anything I can do to be useful?"

"No. Just didn't want you to read about it in the morning papers. The victim's a graduate student at NYU. It's probably not related to what you're working on, but I thought you ought to know about it. Seems like it's open season on college campuses this week."

I hung up and took the elevator back to the fourth floor. Lieutenant Peterson had just arrived and was talking to the chief, who summoned me to them with his forefinger.

"I'm surprised you and Chapman didn't stay for the service."

"What service?"

"Peterson's just telling me that President Recantati called for a prayer session and candlelight vigil tonight, then canceled all the classes and exams next week, and dismissed the students for the Christmas recess."

I was livid. Recantati and Foote must have made those plans before we saw them in the early afternoon, and they had chosen not to tell us. I thanked Chief Allee for the news and worked my way through the crowd to find Chapman, who was in the middle of the dance floor with one of the assistant DAs from my unit, Patti Rinaldi.

"You can have the next tango with him, I just need him for a few minutes." I took Mike's hand and led him to the side of the room, explaining the news to him. "You realize that means we're not going to have any kids there to interview by Monday afternoon, and possibly not any faculty members? They'll all scatter home over the weekend."

"Relax, blondie. I'll pay Foote a visit first thing tomorrow morning and get some names and numbers. We'll do the best we can." He shuffled back to the dance floor without missing a step, calling out to Patti, to the Motown beat: "Rescue me! Take me in your arms

I fumed on the sidelines, annoyed that Chapman didn't seem as distressed as I was by Sylvia Foote's duplicity.

7.

"Just once, I'd like to read an obituary of a murdered woman who hasn't been canonized overnight." It was Chapman, my Saturday morning 6:45 wake-up call. "Doesn't anybody wicked and ugly ever get blown away? I picked up the tabs on my way home."

Home from where? Patti's apartment? I wondered.

"'King's and Columbia Mourn Death of Beloved Professor.' Who beloved her? Mercer says she was a real ball breaker. 'Raven-haired Prof Slain After Spousal Sting.' The Post, of course. The broad is dead-what frigging difference does her hair color matter? D'you ever read a man's obit that says he was balding or blond? Someday I'm going to write the death notices for all of my victims. Truthfully. 'The despicable SOB, whose face could stop a clock, finally got what she deserved after years of being miserable to everyone who crossed her path.' That kind of thing. So what's the plan for the day? "What time is Lola's sister expecting us?"

"When I spoke with her yesterday, she suggested one o'clock. Is that okay with you?"

"Rise and shine, twinkle toes. I'll pick you up at Fifty-seventh and Madison at noon."

Mike knew that my Saturday routine began with an eight o'clock ballet class, the one constant in an exercise schedule that had long ago been abandoned to the unforeseeable nature of the prosecutorial job. I had been studying with William for years, and relied on the stretches, plies, and barre work of the studio to distract me from the tension of my daily dose of violent crime. From there, I was due at Elsa's, my hairdresser at the Stella salon, for a touch-up on my blonde highlights, for what I had expected to be a cheerful holiday season.

I picked up the paper from my doorstep, took the elevator down, and waited in the lobby until someone pulled up in a Yellow Cab, not anxious to stand on the corner trying to hail one in the frigid early morning air. On the ride across town, I read the Times coverage of the Dakota story. The reclassification of her death as a homicide bumped the news from the second section to the front page, above the fold: "Academic Community Stunned by Scholar's Death."

The piece led with the achievements, publications, and awards that the professor had garnered in her relatively short career. A second feature described the reaction of college officials. "Morn-ingside Heights Mourns Neighbor," it began, explaining the decision of both Columbia University and King's College to suspend classes on the eve of the holiday week, while police tried to determine whether the killing was the work of someone stalking Dakota, or a threat to the schools' population at large.

Another sidebar item traced the course of the case against Ivan Kralovic, questioning the wisdom of the Jersey prosecutor's choice of techniques to cement the evidence against Lola's estranged husband. Each of the articles wove in quotes from a variety of sources close to the deceased, and referenced the eloquent words of King's chaplain, Willetta Heising, Sr., who spoke of the loss of her friend and also urged the students to remain calm in the face of this menace to their general sense of security. A photograph of the throngs pouring out of Riverside Church after the service, slim ecru tapers in every hand and a tissue dabbing the occasional eye, filled the rest of the page on which the stories concluded.

I folded the paper inside my tote, hoping to find time later to do the crossword puzzle, and paid the driver. I raced in the door and down the steps to William's studio, leaving my coat in the dressing room and joining a few other friends who were limbering up in the center of the floor. The warm smiles and routine complaints about stiff joints and unnoticeable weight gains signaled to me that none of the dancers had connected me to the bad news in today's headlines. It was a relief to be spared the questions and concerns that accompanied my involvement in the tragedies of others' lives, and I continued my stretches in silence.

Each time I picked my head up, I looked around the room to see whether Nan Rothschild had arrived. I knew that she was on the faculty at Barnard College and remembered that we had talked about Lola Dakota on several occasions a year earlier. I thought I could pick Nan's brain for some insights about how to handle her colleagues during this sensitive investigation, but there was no sign of her this morning.

I finished my knee bends as William entered the room, clapped the class to attention, and moved us to the barre to begin the session.

He started with a series of deep, measured plies, counting for us to set a tempo. The recording, he explained, was Tchaikovsky's symphonic fantasy "The Tempest." I let my mind wander with the music, enjoying the fact that if I concentrated hard enough on holding my position correctly, I stopped thinking about the things I needed to do for the Dakota investigation.

"Head higher, Alexandra. Pull straight up when you do the releves." He ran his pointer down the legs of the woman in front of me, showing me the perfect lines of her elevated pose. By the time we were ready for floor exercises, I had worked up a good sweat and loosened my limbs completely. I sat on the hardwood and extended my legs into a wide V-shaped wedge, my ballet shoes coming toe to toe with the elegantly arched foot of Julie Kent.

"What are you doing for Christmas? Going to the Vineyard?" she whispered.

I nodded. "A really quick trip. You and Victor?"

William put his finger to his lips and "ssshed" us to silence, tapping me on the shoulder with his wooden stick. Julie beamed at me and mouthed the word "later."

At the end of the class, we chatted about the holidays as we showered and dressed against the wintry day. I slogged for several blocks through slush made gray by traffic and filthy car exhaust without sighting a taxi, and finally reached the crosstown bus to take me to the hairdresser. My friend Elsa had read the morning paper, and we talked quietly about the bizarre events of the preceding day while she painted streaks in my pale blonde hair.

When I went down to the lobby of the building shortly before noon, Mike was parked directly in front, on Fifty-seventh Street, with his flashers blinking. We drove to the West Side and down to the Lincoln Tunnel for the ride to New Jersey. Typical for this time of year, most of the traffic was heading into Manhattan, not in our outbound direction. Suburbanites were coming to shop for Christmas, view the elaborate window displays at the Fifth Avenue department stores, skate, and enjoy the mammoth tree at the Rockefeller Center rink. We had much more sobering business before us.

Mike had called Lola's brother-in-law while I was at class in the morning to tell him and Lily that the medical examiner had officially declared Lola's death a homicide, something the morning papers had broadcast to the entire metropolitan area. Now the family seemed quite anxious to meet with us.

We pulled up in front of the house at one-thirty, and it was instantly recognizable from Thursday night's broadcast of the footage of Kralovic's hired hit. The wreath was gone now, and signs of seasonal joy were overshadowed by the gloom of the postvideo events.

As Mike lifted the brass knocker, the door swung open. A portly man in his fifties greeted us and introduced himself as Lily's husband, Neil Pompian. "My wife's in the kitchen. Why don't you come inside."

We wiped our feet on the bristled mat and followed Pompian through the entry hall and past the great room, which was dominated by a large tree surrounded by dozens of wrapped packages. Three women, who identified themselves to us as neighbors, rose from their seats around the table, took turns hugging Lily, made sure platters of pastry were fully packed for our choosing, and offered us food and drink as they let themselves out the back door.

I poured two cups of coffee and we joined Lily at the kitchen table, in a bright corner of the room, facing a large backyard with a swimming pool all covered up for winter. Lily was sitting on a window seat, her legs tucked up beneath her, and a glass of white wine in front of her.

"That bastard was determined to get Lola one way or another, wasn't he?" She lifted the drink and sipped at it as we each introduced ourselves. "I know you didn't think we were right to do what Vinny Sinnelesi suggested, Ms. Cooper. My sister told me about her conversations with you. But she was really at her wit's end, and she liked the idea of an undercover sting to get Ivan once and for all. She thought it was a much more aggressive way to keep him behind bars, once she decided that's where he belonged."

"Here's what we'd like to do, Mrs. Pompian. I'm a detective with the Homicide Squad. I know how you feel about Ivan Kralovic, but he was in custody when Lola was mur-"

"This whole case is about control, Mr. Chapman. Ivan liked to control everything. Everybody. All the time. He needed to control Lola the way most people need to eat and sleep. That's what his fights with my sister were about. It would be an understatement to call Lola independent. Once she got it in her head to disagree with you, or to disapprove of something Ivan was doing, there was no bringing her back into the fold."

"I understand that, but I don't want to jump to-"

"I'm not jumping to any conclusions. These are facts, Detective. Ivan wanted my sister dead. He put the word out. Unfortunately for him, the cops are the ones who got the word. He paid handsomely to have these cops pretend to kill Lola."