"A few fibers-"

"Well," he interrupted, "I gotta couple of things."

"Well," I said in the same tone, "I want to get the h.e.l.l out of here."

"Yo, Doc. Exactly what I had in mind. Me, I'm thinking of taking a ride."

I stopped what I was doing and stared at him. His hair was clinging damply to his pate, his tie was loose, his short-sleeved white shirt was badly wrinkled in back as if he'd been sitting for a long time in his car. Strapped under his left arm was his tan shoulder holster with its long-barreled revolver. In the harsh glare of the overhead light he looked almost menacing, his eyes deeply set in shadows, his jaw muscles flexing.

"Think you need to come along," he added unemphatically. "So, I'll just wait while you get out of your scrubs there and call home."

Call home? How did he know there was anyone at home I needed to call? I'd never mentioned my niece to him. I'd never mentioned Bertha. As far as I was concerned, it was none of Marino's G.o.ddam business I even had a home.

I was about to tell him I had no intention of riding anywhere with him when the hard look in his eyes stopped me cold.

"All right," I muttered. "All right."

He was still leaning against the desk smoking as I walked across the suite and went into the locker room. Washing my face in the sink, I got out of my gown and back into skirt and blouse. I was so distracted, I opened my locker and reached for my lab coat before I realized what I was doing. I didn't need my lab coat. My pocketbook, briefcase and suit jacket were upstairs in my office.

Somehow I collected all of these things and followed Marino to his car. I opened the pa.s.senger door and the interior light didn't go on. Slipping inside, I groped for the shoulder harness and brushed crumbs and a wadded paper napkin off the seat.

He backed out of the lot without saying a word to me. The scanner light blinked from channel to channel as dispatchers transmitted calls Marino didn't seem interested in and which often I didn't understand. Cops mumbled into the microphone. Some of them seemed to eat it.

"Three-forty-five, ten-five, one-sixty-nine on chan*1 three."

"One-sixty-nine, switchin' ov'."

"You free?"

"Ten-ten. Ten-seventeen the breath room. With subj't."

"Raise me whenyurten-twen-fo'."

"Ten-fo'."

"Four-fifty-one."

"Four-fifty-one X."

"Ten-twenty-eight on Adam Ida Lincoln one-seven-zero a"

Calls went out and alert tones blared like a ba.s.s key on an electric organ. Marino drove in silence, pa.s.sing through downtown where storefronts were barred with the iron curtains drawn at the end of the day. Red and green neon signs in windows garishly advertised p.a.w.nshops and shoe repairs and greasy-spoon specials. The Sheraton and Marriott were lit up like ships, but there were very few cars or pedestrians out, just shadowy cl.u.s.ters of peripatetics from the projects lingering on corners. The whites of their eyes, followed us as we pa.s.sed.

It wasn't until several minutes later that I realized where we were going. On Winchester Place we slowed to a crawl in front of 498, Abby Turnbull's address. The brownstone was a black hulk, the flag a shadow limply stirring over the entrance. There were no cars in front. Abby wasn't home. I wondered where she was staying now.

Marino slowly pulled off the street and turned into the narrow alleyway between the brownstone and the house next door. The car rocked over ruts, the headlights jumping and illuminating the dark brick sides of the buildings, sweeping over garbage cans chained to posts and broken bottles and other debris. About twenty feet inside this claustrophobic pa.s.sageway he stopped and cut the engine and the lights. Directly left of us was the backyard of Abby's house, a narrow shelf of gra.s.s girdled by a chainlink fence with a sign warning the world to "Beware" of a "Dog" I knew didn't exist.

Marino had the car searchlight out and the beam was licking over the rusting fire escape against the back of the house. All of the windows were closed, the gla.s.s glinting darkly. The seat creaked as he moved the light around the empty yard.

"Go on," he said. "I'm waiting to hear if you're thinking what I am."

I stated the obvious. "The sign. The sign on the fence. If the killer thought she had a dog, it should have given him pause. None of his victims had dogs. If they had, the women would probably still be alive."

"Bingo."

"And," I went on, "my suspicion is you're concluding the killer must have known the sign didn't mean anything, that Abby - or Henna - didn't have a dog. And how could he know that?"

"Yo. How could he know that," Marino echoed slowly, "unless he had a reason to know it?"

I said nothing. He jammed in the cigarette lighter. "Like if maybe he'd been inside the house before."

"I don't think so a"

"Cut the playing-dumb act, Doc," he said quietly.

I got out my cigarettes, too, and my hands were trembling.

"I'm picturing it. I think you're picturing it. Some guy who's been inside Abby Turnbull's house. He don't know her sister's here, but he does know there ain't no d.a.m.n dog. And Miss Turnbull here's someone he don't like none too well because she knows something he don't want anybody in the whole G.o.ddam world to know."

He paused. I could feel him glancing over at me, but I refused to look at him or say a word.

"See, he's already had his piece of her, right? And maybe he couldn't help himself when he did his number because he's got some kind of compulsion, some screw loose, so to speak. He's worried. He's worried she's going to tell. s.h.i.t. She's a G.o.ddam reporter. She gets paid to tell people's dirty secrets. It's going to come out, what he did."

Another glance my way, and I remained stonily silent.

"So what's he do? He decides to whack her and make her look like the other ones. Only little problem is he don't know about Henna. Don't know where Abby's bedroom is either, see, because when he's been inside the house in the past, he never got any farther than the living room. So he goes in the wrong bedroomHenna's bedroom-when he breaks in last Friday night. Why? Because that's the one with the lights on, because Abby's out of town. Well, it's too late. He's committed himself. He's got to go through with it. He murders her a"

"He couldn't have done it."

I was trying to keep my voice from shaking. "Boltz would never do such a thing. He's not a murderer, for G.o.d's sake."

Silence.

Then Marino slowly looked over at me and flicked an ash. "Interesting. I didn't mention no names. But since you did, maybe we ought to pursue the subject, go a little deeper."

I was quiet again. It was catching up to me and I could feel my throat swelling. I refused to cry. Dammit! I wasn't going to let Marino see me cry! "Listen, Doc," he said, and his voice was considerably calmer, "I'm not trying to jerk you around, all right? I mean, what you do in private's none of my d.a.m.n business, all right? You're both consenting adults, unattached. But I know about it. I've seen his car at your place a"

"My house?" I asked, bewildered. "What-"

"Hey. I'm all over this G.o.ddam city. You live in the city, right? I know your state car. I know your d.a.m.n address, and I know his white Audi. I know when I seen it at your house on several occasions over the past few months he wasn't there taking a deposition a "

"That's right. Maybe he wasn't. And it's none of your business, either."

"Well, it is."

He flicked the cigarette b.u.t.t out the window and lit another one. "It is my business now because of what he done to Miss Turnbull. That makes me wonder what else he's been doing."

"Henna's case is virtually the same as the other ones," I coldly told him. "There's no doubt in my mind she was murdered by the same man."

"What about her swabs?"

"Betty will work on them first thing in the morning. I don't know a"

"Well, I'll save you the trouble, Doc. Boltz is a nonsecreter. I think you know that, too, have known it for months."

"There are thousands of men in the city who are nonsecreters. You could be one, for all I know."

"Yeah," he said shortly. "Maybe I could be, for all you know. But fact is, you don't know. Fact is, you do know about Boltz. When you posted his wife last year, you PERKed her and found sperm, her husband's sperm. It's right there on the d.a.m.n lab report that the guy she had s.e.x with right before she took herself out is a nonsecreter. h.e.l.l, even I remember that. I was at the scene, remember?"

I didn't respond.

"I wasn't going to rule out nothing when I first walked into that bedroom and found her sitting up in her pretty little nightie, a big hole in her chest. Me, I always think murder first. Suicide's last on my list because if you don't think murder first, it's a little late after the fact. The only friggin' mistake I made back then was not taking a suspect's kit from Boltz. Suicide seemed so obvious after you did the post I marked the case exceptionally cleared. Maybe I shouldn't have. Back then I had a good reason to get his blood, to make sure the sperm inside her was his. He said it was, said they had s.e.x early that morning. I let it go. I didn't get squat from him. Now I can't even ask. I don't got probable cause."

"You have to get more than blood," I said idiotically. "If he's A negative, B negative in the Lewis blood group system, you can't tell if he's a nonsecreter-you have to get saliva a"

"Yo. I know how to take a suspect kit, all right? It don't matter. We know what he is, right?"

I said nothing.

"We know the guy whacking these women is a nonsecreter. And we know Boltz would know the details of the crimes, know *em so well he could take out Henna and make it look like the other ones."

"Well, get your kit and we'll get his DNA," I said angrily. "Just go ahead. That will tell you definitely."

"Hey. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll run him under the d.a.m.n laser, too, and see if he sparkles."

The glittery residue on the mislabeled PERK flashed in my mind. Did the residue really come from my hands? Did Bill routinely wash his hands with Borawash soap? "You found the sparkles on Henna's body?"

Marino was asking. "On her pajamas. The bedcovers, too."

Neither of us spoke for a while.

Then I said, "It's the same man. I know what my findings are. It's the same man."

"Yeah. Maybe it is. But that don't make me feel any better."

"You're sure what Abby said is true?"

"I buzzed by his office late this afternoon."

"You went to see him, to see Boltz?" I stammered.

"Oh, yeah."

"And did you get your confirmation?" My voice was rising.

"Yeah." He glanced over at me. "I got it more or less."

I didn't say anything. I was afraid to say anything.

"Course, he denied everything and got right hot about it. Threatened to sue her for slander, the whole nine yards. He won't, though. No way he'll make a peep about it because he's lying and I know it and he knows I know it."

I saw his hand go toward his left outer thigh and I suddenly panicked. His microca.s.sette recorder!

"If you're doing what I think you're doing a" I blurted out.

"What?" he asked, surprised.

"If you've got a G.o.ddam tape recorder going a"

"Hey!" he protested. "I was scratching, all right? h.e.l.l, pat me down. Do a strip search if it'll make you feel better."

"You couldn't pay me enough."

He laughed. He was honestly amused.

He went on, "Want to know the truth? It makes me wonder what really happened to his wife."

I swallowed hard and said, "There was nothing suspicious about the physical findings. She had powder residues on her right hand-"

He cut me off. "Oh, sure. She pulled the trigger. I don't doubt that, but maybe we know why now, huh? Maybe he's been doing this for years. Maybe she found out."

Cranking the engine, he turned on his lights. Momentarily, we were rocking between houses and emerging on the street.

"Look." He wasn't going to give it a rest. "I don't mean to pry. Better put, it ain't my idea of a good time, okay? But you know him, Doc. You been seeing him, right?"

A transvest.i.te was sashaying along a sidewalk, his yellow skirt swishing around his shapely legs, his false b.r.e.a.s.t.s firm and high, the false nipples erect beneath a tight white sh.e.l.l. Gla.s.sy eyes glanced our way.

"You been seeing him, right?" he asked again.

"Yes."

My voice was almost inaudible.

"What about last Friday night?"

I couldn't remember at first. I couldn't think. The transvest.i.te languidly turned around and went the other way.

"I took my niece to dinner and a movie."

"He with you?"

"No."

"You know where he was last Friday night?"

I shook my head. "He didn't call or nothing?"

"No."