"Has someone called?"

"No answer."

"Bart, what am I doing here?"

Bart shifted from one leather-clad foot to the other. "This is delicate. Surazal security is supposed to be guarding their scientists. They don't want us around. But if something happens, we get blamed anyway, security or no security. My Cap's afraid we'll get caught with our pants down again."

"But he's reluctant to let Surazal know that their employees are under surveillance."

Bart grimaced. "They'd scream. Like I said, delicate."

"It's only been a day, Bart. She probably has the flu and forgot to call in sick."

"Cap doesn't want to take the chance."

"Are you telling me the cops are afraid to go knock on the door and see if she's okay?"

"Let's say we'd prefer it if it were someone else. Someone unrelated to our stake-out."

"So where are they? The Surazal security detail?"

"That's just it. We don't know. They should be on this, but there's been no trace of them. It's weird. Maybe they're more discreet than we give them credit for."

"And maybe they'll be all over me the second I ring that doorbell."

"You're working for Nicole Struldbrug. You have a reason to be here."

"At 11:30 at night?"Bart shrugged, then blew on his fingers. "Cold fall."

I'd intended to interview Dr. Hakuri anyway. Funny how every time someone tried to leverage me into doing something, it was something I'd planned to do anyway. I guess they figure that if something went wrong, better me than them. But Bart, too? I looked at him, remembering that Armitage had threatened his life, and suddenly felt ashamed. My old pal was just asking me to help out, because I could. That was it, no hidden agenda. I was getting paranoid.

"Where's your set-up?"

Bart nodded his head to the white-paneled cargo van across the street. Tinted windows and a dry-cleaning logo on the side. It fairly screamed "Undercover Operation In Progress!"

"I'm not licensed, remember?" I said, "If this gets out and some bureaucrat decides to make an example out of me-"

"No one's looking to get you hinked up."

I eyed the brownstone. The forest green door had an etched glass window. Elegant. Bart coughed and handed me something on the down low.

"Remember how to use this?" It was a pick gun, with a pistol grip and stainless steel needles. This one could work three tumblers. There was also a tiny tension wrench.

"I think I can manage. So it's an old-fashioned lock?"

"Good old pin and tumbler."

I looked Bart in his watery eyes. He met me unblinkingly. "I'll owe you one."

"Okay..." I crossed the street. Rang the bell. No answer. I waited a minute. No reaction from the street, either. Bart was right-Surazal's security was AWOL. I inserted the tension wrench, then the needle of the pick lock. I squeezed the trigger a couple of times until I heard a click. I pushed the door open and slid into the foyer.

"Hello?" I called. "Dr. Hakuri? Your front door is open. Hello?"

The apartment was silent.

The residences of workaholics were either disasters or picture perfect. Until Elise, mine had been the former. This one, though- If there'd been ropes, it would've been a museum. Throw pillows were artfully positioned on a couch whose cushions had never taken the weight of a rear end. A chair and divan in navy and gold stripes sat regarding each other across a pristine white carpet. The coffee table books were fanned to display stiff, unopened spines. Even the Van Gogh print over the mantle was an uninspired choice-sunflowers, whoopee. The room looked like it had been put together by a furniture company for a brochure.

The kitchen was spotless as well. A single coffee cup sat in the sink. A half-finished turkey sandwich on a plate on the counter. The mayonnaise hadn't turned yet.

There was a window over the sink. Its security gate was open, the lock broken. The glass was intact, but someone had cut through the heavy layers of paint that sealed the frame to the sill. I poked my head into the alley. The window faced the sooty side of the adjoining building. The window was a good eight feet high. No easy way up from the street, but the window had been forced opened from the outside just the same.

I knew then how my search would end.

I found Mikiko Hakuri in the laundry room, folded in the laundry bin. The plastic cord was still around her neck. Her fingertips were blue with cyanosis, her face mottled. Tiny pinprick hemorrhages speckled her sightless eyes.

Strangulation was not the quick death depicted in the movies. It came slowly and painfully. It took whole minutes to lose consciousness-an eternity. There was plenty of time to panic and thrash, time to claw at the rope around your throat, time to feel your neck cartilage slowly crushed and your hyoid bone break and your eyes bulge under the horrible pressure, time to taste the blood that erupted from your nose, time to smell yourself as your bowels voided- Time to fully comprehend that you were being murdered.

Another life pointlessly crushed out of existence. Abruptly I wanted to scream at the sky, to storm heaven's gate and demand an answer to these insanities. Why all this pain? What could possibly justify a universe as bleak as this?

I picked up a broom and prodded one of her arms with the handle. Rigor hadn't set in.

The MO was totally different from Smythe. They'd find money or jewelry missing. It had been staged to look like a robbery. But it was no robbery.

Someone was killing Surazal scientists.

I stepped outside and waved the world in.

19.

SATELLITE INTERCEPT.

TRANS00INTERCEPTGEOSAT231110654PRIORITY 05-32CLASS5EYESONLY.

WEBSQUIRT INTERCEPT AS FOLLOWS:.

(NAMES AND OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION HAVE BEEN DELETED PER NSA REG 1037459324).

1: Okay, you were right.

2: Are you sure?

1: He can't leave it alone.

2: Kill him.

1: He's already been killed. It didn't work.

2: Try harder. [Pause.] Damn. It's a shame.

1: Why?

2: He's yummy.

END END END TRANS00INTERCEPTGEOSAT231DATE END END END.

20.

DONNER.

Maggie was home when I returned. I filled her in. She asked some questions about Bart. True to his word, he'd kept me out of it when he'd called in the DB. "Anonymous tip."

Maggie had news as well. Arlene, my cute reeb librarian from the Hall of Records, had called. She'd decrypted the file and wanted to meet. Now.

"Busy night," I said, adjusting Nicole's gun in the shoulder holster I'd bought.

"I'm coming with you," Maggie said.

The counter man at the all-night diner wore a greasy wife-beater and a paper hat out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The moue on his face, however, was not American Pastoral. When we entered his eyes never left the OTB form on the Formica in front of him.

Arlene sat tucked into the corner of a booth, all the way in the back, her knees drawn up. She was the only patron in the place. There was an empty coffee mug and a manila folder in front of her. As soon as I saw her, I knew it was going to be bad. Her sunshiny eyes had gone overcast. She looked like she'd claw through the wall behind her if there was a loud noise.

We eased into the booth across from her. She didn't say a word, only pushed the file at me. I started reading.

Arlene gave Maggie the once-over. "Hey," she said, softly.

"Hey, yourself," said Maggie. She nodded toward the file. "Want to give me the executive summary while he's reading?"

Arlene snapped her gum. The once playful quirk was now a nervous tic. "The Times story about Donner's murder? The one that said there were no suspects? It was bullshit. The killer didn't get away."

Maggie paled. "What are you talking about?"

Arlene started shredding her paper napkin. "The shooter was arrested at the scene."

Maggie gaped. "That's impossible!" She looked back and forth between us. "At the scene? Then what happened to him?"

I closed the file. Held up a finger to her. They watched me worriedly while I sat stone-still for a couple minutes. Finally, when I had control, I spoke. "He was taken to the Manhattan Central Booking Facility. Standard procedure. Booked for armed robbery, assault, and murder. Then he was given a DAT and released."

"A Desk Appearance Ticket? That's for jaywalkers! For spitting on the sidewalk!"

Arlene doubled the pace of her shredding, reaching for more handfuls of napkin from the dispenser. "Someone changed the article in the database."

"A mistake?"

"In a cop murder?" I said. "No way."

"I'm guessing he never showed for his arraignment."

"There was no arraignment. The case was closed."

"What do you mean, closed?"

"I mean, no investigation, no arraignment, no trial. The DA's office never presented the case for prosecution. There was never even a warrant sworn out for Failure to Appear."

"That's-"

"Crazy, I know. Unthinkable. What's even more unthinkable is, the only conclusion I can draw from this-"

I didn't know how Maggie's holo program worked, but it was good. She blanched in shock as the implication sunk in.

Cover-ups were for the movies. I had never encountered a real one in my entire career as a cop. Until now.

Arlene stood abruptly, her thighs hitting the table. Had she not drained her coffee, it would have spilled everywhere. "I have to go." Before I could even choke out a thank you, she fled to the door. A bell tinkled as she exited.

"Come again," said the counter man, eyes still glued to the race listings.

I would never see her again. Another woman I'd blindly hurt who'd gone running.

We listened to an angry fluorescent light for a minute.

"How can you erase a double homicide like it never existed? Especially of a cop?"

I didn't know.

"Maybe the guy was some Senator's druggie son or something," Maggie said. "What name was he booked under?"

"John Doe."

"Oh, excellent."

"His prints aren't in the file."