"You understand I can't tell you anything officially," he said.

"Of course you can't."

"So we never had this conversation, right?"

"What conversation?"

"Our computerized records don't go that far back," he said. "I'll have to hit the file cabinets, and I can tell you right now they're a mess-a lot of stuff missing or misfiled."

"Whatever you can do," I said.

He got up, grabbed his cup of coffee from the desk, s.n.a.t.c.hed another doughnut from the box, and said, "Wait here."

I sipped my vile, milk-diluted decaf, sank my teeth into a lemon doughnut, and settled down with the paper. The Pawtucket PD was begging the public to come forward with leads on the missing girl, a sure giveaway that they had nothing to go on. Three men in ski masks had invaded the statehouse, fired warning bursts with their Heckler & Koch 5.56mm machine guns, smashed the gla.s.s case outside the governor's office, stuffed the contents into canvas laundry bags, and made off with the antique Gorham sterling silver tea service that once graced the captain's table of the battleship USS Rhode Island. And the Celtics, with Garnett still hobbling on a surgically repaired knee, were getting wiped out on their West Coast road trip. By the time Reid stepped back in, I'd been reduced to reading the obituaries, some of which I'd written. He looked at me and shook his head.

"Aw, c.r.a.p."

"Sorry," he said. "Doesn't mean she was never molested. The file might be missing. Or maybe it was never reported."

"Could be," I said. "Maniella's the kind of guy who'd be inclined to handle something like that himself."

"Tell you what," Reid said. "Why don't you talk to my older sister, Meg. She's been the nurse at the middle school for thirty-five years; and don't tell her I said this, but she's quite the busybody. I'll call and let her know you're on the way."

A half hour later, Meg ushered me into her closet-size office, directed me to an uncomfortable metal folding chair, and made me wait for twenty minutes while she attended to a couple of gum-chewing malingerers whining about tummy aches. When she was done, she sat behind her little metal desk and clasped her hands together on the plain paper desk pad.

"If anything like that happened, I never heard tell of it," she said. "Before you got here, I called my friends Mary and Sylvia. They worked in the system forever. Mary was a nurse at the elementary school and Sylvia was a counselor at the high school before they both retired last year. Neither of them ever heard so much as a whisper."

"I see."

"Are you sure it's true?" she said, sounding a little breathless.

"If I were, I wouldn't be asking you about it," I said. "I'm just fishing."

"Fishing?"

"Yeah. It's what I do. I poke into things, ask a lot of questions, and once in a while I learn something."

"But you wouldn't be asking about this if you weren't pretty sure there was something to it, right?"

"Wrong."

"I see," she said. Rather coldly, I thought. "Well, I'm sorry I couldn't help you."

I thanked her and left.

It had been almost a week since I'd had a good cigar-or a bad one, for that matter. So I popped Memphis Slim into the Bronco's CD player and fired up a Cohiba. As I drove back to the Dispatch, I pictured Meg sitting at her desk, balancing her professional ethics against the merriment of spreading a malicious rumor all over town.

Allegra Morelli was nothing like her older sister. Rosie had been six feet five; Allegra was five feet one. Rosie had been outgoing; Allegra was withdrawn. Rosie had been drop-dead gorgeous; Allegra was as plain as a grocery bag. Rosie had been ambitious; Allegra settled for juggling a caseload of sorrow at the state Child Protective Services Unit. And the biggest difference: Allegra was alive; Rosie was dead.

"Give me an hour to check the files, and I'll call you back," Allegra said.

"I got a better idea," I said. "Why don't you meet me at the diner in Kennedy Plaza so I can buy you lunch?"

A couple of hours later, I walked into the place and found her sitting alone in a booth, perched like a nervous little bird on the edge of the red vinyl seat. Her black handbag was on the table in front of her, and she clutched it with both hands as if she were afraid somebody might try to take it away from her.

Allegra and I had fallen into the habit of talking on the phone every few weeks to reminisce about Rosie, but I hadn't seen her since the funeral and felt bad about that. I sat down across from her and said, "It's good to see you. Thanks so much for coming."

"I probably shouldn't have," she said. "Being seen with a reporter could get me in trouble."

"I know."

"But Rosie would have wanted me to."

"G.o.d, I miss her," I said.

"Me too."

"Did you order yet?"

"No. I was waiting for you," she said, so I gave Charlie a wave, and he came right over.

"What can I get you, miss?"

"A small garden salad, please, with Italian dressing on the side."

"Anything to drink?"

"A gla.s.s of water."

"A burger and a cup of decaf for me, Charlie," I said. He nodded and went away.

"So, Allegra," I said, "what did you find out about the Maniellas?"

"Nothing," she said. "If either of them was ever molested as a child, there's no record of it."

"Oh. Well, thanks for checking."

"Sure."

"What about the three kids who were rescued from the Chad Brown child p.o.r.n factory?"

"I can't talk about that if you're going to put something in the paper."

"I won't. I was just wondering how they're doing."

"Two of them are back with their parents. I a.s.sume they're getting psychiatric care, but they aren't in the system so we don't have files on them."

"What about the eight-year-old boy who was sold by his drug addict mother?"

"He's on my girlfriend Tracy's caseload," Allegra said, "so I got the whole story. The child's name is Phillip. Phillip Bowen. He was placed in a foster home in North Kingstown and will stay in foster care until his mother gets out of jail, which won't happen anytime soon, from what I hear."

"By the time that b.i.t.c.h sees sunshine again," I said, "Phillip will be all grown up."

Charlie dropped our orders in front of us with a clatter of plates and tableware. Allegra picked at her salad. I inhaled the burger.

"Tracy says Phillip's physical injuries are healing," Allegra said, "but his emotional health is another story. He goes to counseling once a week, but it's going to take a long time."

"I imagine so."

"Mulligan?"

"Um?"

"Do this job as long as Tracy and I have and you kinda get hardened to things, you know?"

"I do."

"And Tracy's always been a tough customer. But she couldn't even talk about Phillip without tearing up."

I didn't have a response to that, so I finished my coffee and reached for the check.

"Can you stay a little longer?" Allegra said. "I thought maybe we could sit for a while and talk about Rosie."

45.

Mason, looking relaxed and deeply tanned, popped into my cubicle Tuesday morning and dropped a shopping bag on the desk.

"A present," he said.

I reached in and pulled out a black T-shirt. It had a blue surfboard on the front and the words "Surfin' Malibu U.S.A." on the back.

"Why, thank you, Thanks-Dad," I said. This would come in handy if I ever decided to wash the Bronco. "So how'd it go?"

"Great," he said. "I rented a town house right on the beach. Met a couple of fun-loving girls. And I took surfing lessons from a former ASP World Tour champion who called me 'dude.'"

"What else?"

"Don't tell anybody," he said, "but I got a tattoo." He took off his suit jacket, draped it over the cubicle divider, rolled up his left sleeve, and displayed a small blue tattoo of a sailboat on an angry red patch of forearm. "I've got to hide it from Dad," he said. "He'll hate it."

"Judging from the grin on your face," I said, "I don't think you've told me the best part yet."

"Quite right."

"So?"

"I'll tell you over dinner. I made reservations at Camille's for eight this evening. We'll celebrate."

Camille's was the finest Italian restaurant on Federal Hill and had been for almost a hundred years. It was also the place where Vinnie Giordanno fell face-first into his plate of vongole alla Giovanni last year after two gunmen put one bullet each in his head.

"Don't worry, it's on me," Mason said. "And just a suggestion: You might want to skip lunch."

"I will."

"Oh, and don't forget to wear a jacket."

Mason had arranged a small private dining room for the occasion. After we perused the menu and placed our orders, he selected a hundred-dollar bottle of wine for each of us: something called Antinori, Cervaro della Sala, Chardonnay, Umbria, for me; Poliziano, Asinone, Vino n.o.bile di Montepulciano, for him. I'm no wine drinker, so I figured this was a good time to follow my doctor's orders. I told the waiter to hold the wine and bring me a bottle of San Pellegrino.

And then the food kept coming and coming and coming.

Appetizers: portobello strudel and shrimp Santiago. Soups: pasta e f.a.gioli and escarole with bean and Speck ham. Salads: scungilli and cold antipasto platter. Pasta: linguine carbonara and rigatoni con formaggio affumicato. And finally the entrees: veal steak Giovanni for him and swordfish al cartoccio for me.

After they were served, Chef John Granata popped in to shake our hands and ask if everything was satisfactory. We a.s.sured him it was. My ulcer wasn't so sure. I popped a couple of omeprazole tablets and washed them down with San Pellegrino.

I kept trying to steer the conversation to Mason's big news, but he was having none of it. "After we dine," he said, and filled the s.p.a.ce between us with small talk about surfing, Malibu, and the sorry state of the newspaper business.

I managed to eat about half of what was put in front of me. Mason, who was built like a Popsicle stick, cleaned his plate. If he weren't so well-bred, I think he would have licked it. We skipped dessert and went straight for the after-dinner drinks, cognac for him and decaf for me. After they were delivered, Mason clinked his gla.s.s against my cup and sipped.

"So, Thanks-Dad," I said, "don't you think it's time you told me what we're celebrating?"

Mason laced his fingers behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and said: "Nailed it."

"Could you be more specific?"

"I got seventeen p.o.r.n stars on the record."

"Great."

"I knew you'd be pleased."

"I'd be more pleased if you told me what they went on the record about."

"Let me tell it from the beginning," he said.

"Sure."

"At first I didn't think this was going to work out. The first six p.o.r.n actors I located declined to talk to me, and most of them were quite rude about it. One even took a poke at me."

"That how you got the split lip?"