"I'll say." A uniformed officer with a sergeant's badge entered the room-Rick Malloy from the Jamaica Plain precinct. Behind him were Bobby Mangini and his assistant. "Fucking beautiful piece of work is what she was."

"Crime scene says they're done," Mangini said. "So we're going to put her in a bag."

"Not yet," Steve said. The others looked at him blankly, resenting his rolling in late and stalling the wrap-up. "I'm just wondering if you or your team moved the body when you checked her. Shifted her around or anything?"

Neil rolled his head in exasperation.

"We looked under her to check lividity, but she's pretty much like we found her."

"Didn't alter the position of her head?"

"Just to check the ligature under the towel, but her head position's unchanged. Why?"

"Because the angle bothers me." He moved to the bed. "Look at the ligature. All the pressure is on her throat and the veins and carotid arteries along the sides."

"Yeah, which is how she died."

With his gloved hand he lifted the plait of hair at the back of her neck to expose the V gap made by the stretched stocking. "There's enough room to put my fingers through."

"So?" Neil said.

"How many hangings have you seen?"

Neil was taken aback by the question. "I don't know. A couple."

"How many accidentals?"

"What's your point?"

"Look at the bruising on the back of her neck."

"That's the lividity."

"Lividity works with gravity-where the blood settles. Look at the bottom of her face where it hangs over. It's purple. This isn't the same color as settled blood. That's trauma."

Mangini flicked on a penlight and inspected the ligature around the woman's neck. "Could also be an abrasion."

"Looks like even pressure marks all the way around, which I don't think would happen with the stocking the way it is. There wouldn't be any on that V gap, but there is."

"Only way to know for sure is to have the lab do a cell analysis."

"We'll put in for that. Also she was wearing a sexy evening dress and a thong-hardly an outfit if she's going to lie here and sex herself. Even if she was, why leave the lights on in the other rooms if she was going to bed?"

"So, what are you saying?" Mangini asked.

"I'm saying I want crime scene to do a full-blown processing because I think someone was with her."

Neil's face flushed red. "I think maybe you're taking this a little far, Steve."

Steve nodded Neil to the other side of the room. In a low voice he said, "I understand how you want to wrap this up, but I'm not convinced this is an accident. Even if it is, nothing's been dusted in here. The floor's not been vacced. Nobody's done a rape kit on the body. This is not department protocol."

"Because Mangini was convinced. The techs were convinced. And I'm convinced. She was having a sexual fantasy thing but passed out and suffocated." He removed the mangled stirrer from his mouth. "This isn't the Portman case."

"Smooth, Neil."

Three months before Neil joined the force, Steve had misread a crime scene, incorrectly declaring a suicide. The family had hired a detective who claimed that the investigators had jumped to conclusions and, as a result, the department ended up taking flak from the media. It was shoddy work and the inevitable manifestation of the stress from Steve's alienation from Dana: heavy drinking, showing up late for work or not at all, use of excessive force with suspects. His superiors had reprimanded him, but when the Portman case hit the headlines six months ago, Captain Reardon suspended him for a week.

"I think you're going overboard is all," Neil said. "Another thing, it's embarrassing for her family."

"You know the family?"

"No, but you saw the pictures out there-nieces and nephews or whatever. We drag this out and the neighbors outside are gonna want to know what's going on. Then the fucking media will horn in. So let's just wrap this up, okay?"

"We're going to wrap this up, but we're deferring to policies and procedures when cause of death isn't immediately apparent."

"Everything by the rules, huh?"

"Yeah, especially with someone we know."

"All the more reason to protect her dignity."

Steve stared at Neil. A large part of him wanted to do what Neil said-send her to the M.E. and let it go. But in some dark recess of his gut he felt a rustling unease. "I don't know how to say this without saying it, but I'm the lead on this. So, yeah, by the rules."

Because of their brief partnership, Steve and Neil were still meshing. Reardon had paired them as complements to each other. Steve was the more traditional investigator who used logic, precision, and scientific evidence to reconstruct a crime scene. He was methodical and orderly and took pride in the details and style of his reports. He was also good with people, almost deferential to a fault. Neil, on the other hand, was more gut-intuitive, impulsive, sometimes letting assumptions get ahead of facts. He was also a cunningly effective interrogator, sometimes playacting to manipulate a suspect into spilling his guts. He was good, and they made an effective team. But this was the first time in their partnership that Neil had outright challenged Steve. Maybe because the victim was a mutual acquaintance. Maybe resentment because Neil was older and had been a cop longer, while Steve had rank.

"Look, guys," Steve said to the others, "we've got some inconsistencies here. So, I want to take this from the top: a full forensic on the body-hands bagged, fingernail clipping, DNA, prints, vaginal swab, blood-typing, semen illumination, fibers, hairs-the works."

Neil started to leave.

"Where you going?"

He gave Steve a sulky look. "To talk to the landlady."

"We're going to need some backup for a neighborhood sweep plus an RMV check on all parked cars, the owners talked to."

The others nodded.

"I also want all phone company records including home and cell and work. Also her laptop settings and e-mail messages preserved and copied. Same with her answering machine and any address books, mail correspondence, and credit card purchases in the last forty-eight hours." Then Steve added: "And any known boyfriends, past and present."

He then picked up the telephone by her bed and pressed *69 to get the last incoming call while Neil watched him over his shoulder from the bedside. "The number you are trying to call cannot be reached by this method."

Neil continued to stare at him, knowing what Steve was doing.

Steve shook his head. "Whoever it was blocked caller ID."

While the techs got ready to do a full processing, Steve headed out of the room. But before he left he glanced back. Neil was at the bedside looking at the body of Terry Farina. His back was to him, but Steve could swear that Neil made the sign of the cross.

3.

"When was the last time you saw her?"

They were walking down the back stairs to the landlady's apartment.

"I don't know, four or five months ago. How about you?"

"Two or three weeks." Steve had gotten to know Terry casually from the short class breaks. On occasion they'd meet downstairs at the Dunkin' Donuts eating area in their classroom building, a few times have coffee together. She was in her late thirties and was taking refresher courses because she had decided to attend grad school in the fall. "So, you've never been here before?"

Neil looked over his shoulder at Steve. "No, I've never been here before. I would have told you that."

They reached the bottom of the stairs. Neil pulled two aspirin from a tin and dry-swallowed them. "What I know is she broke up with a guy last year then moved down from someplace up north. I still don't believe it, but if it turns out to be personal, he's a lead."

Steve tapped the door and Officer Abraham led them to the living room where another uniform sat with the landlady, Jean Sabo, and Terry's friend, Katie Beals. Steve explained that they were uncertain of the cause of death and that the interview was voluntary but asked that the women remain confidential about the case. As was policy, they were questioned separately. Steve began with Mrs. Sabo, asking if she had heard anybody upstairs-voices, footsteps, loud sounds-that day over the last twenty-four hours.

"No, but I didn't really pay much attention. Terry was very quiet. Also, I had the television on." She said she had three sets-one in her bedroom, a small flat screen in the kitchen, and the living-room console. "Besides I was out most of yesterday."

"About what time did you get home?"

"A little after seven."

"And you put the TV on?"

"Yes, the kitchen and bedroom. They keep me company while I putter around."

"And what time did you retire last night?"

"Just after Law and Order, ten o'clock."

"And you remember hearing nothing."

"No, I heard nothing." Then she turned toward Neil. "I thought you said it was an accident." Her hand went to her mouth. "Do you think someone did that to her?"

"We're not exactly sure how she died."

Steve interviewed her for a few more minutes then let Neil continue while he moved into the kitchen. Katie Beals, a petite, attractive woman of thirty-six, was still fragile from the discovery. Steve explained that although she had already given Sergeant French a statement he wanted her to take him from the top.

"We were going to Vermont for five days. I had to work on Saturday so we were going to leave this morning."

She explained they were to stay at her parents' place, which jibed with the pen notes on the kitchen calendar upstairs. VT in the Sunday box, Home in the Thursday box.

"I came to pick her up. I rang and rang then called her phone and cell. I could see the light on from outside, but when she didn't answer I went down to Mrs. Sabo."

"Which light?"

"The living room."

Steve asked her to describe the condition of the apartment when they entered and to retrace their steps, and if they touched anything or the body. They hadn't, except for the telephone in the dead woman's kitchen to call 911.

"And you didn't touch the body, maybe shake her, feel for a pulse, anything like that?"

"No, no. I could tell she was dead just looking at her. It was just so horrible. I think I just froze and screamed. Jean made the call from the phone in the other room. It's such a blur, but we didn't touch her or anything."

"How long have you known Terry?"

"Since September. We took an evening class together at Northeastern last year." She was struggling through her tears to talk. "She was a beautiful, happy person. I don't understand."

"You think she killed herself?"

"That's what he said."

"Who?"

"The other detective."

"Uh-huh. Well, we're not ruling out anything at this point. I know this is a terrible experience for you, but one possibility is that her death was an accident-that she may have died while engaged in autoerotic asphyxiation. Do you know what that is?"

She winced as if not wanting to hear the explanation. "Vaguely."

"It's a way to heighten sexual pleasure through partial strangulation. I'm sorry to have to ask-and I don't know how close you were-but is this something you think she'd be into?"

"God, I don't think so. I've only known her for a few months, but no..." She trailed off.

"Do you know if she had a boyfriend?"

"No, but she was a fairly private person. She said she'd broken up with a guy last year before moving here. I think she just wanted to remain unattached for a while."

"Do you know the name of this guy?"

"No. But I think he moved out of state and got married."

"So, you don't know of anyone she might have dated."

"No."

"What about family?"

"Her parents passed away a few years ago, but she has a brother in Chicago I think and a sister in upstate New York. I never met them, and she didn't talk about them much."

He interviewed her for several more minutes, taking down names of friends and acquaintances. Then Beals opened her handbag and removed a photograph. "I was going to give this to her," she said, her voice choking.

In the shot Farina was dressed in a tight pullover and jeans in front of a woman's clothing store. She had struck a cheesecake pose, making a saucy expression at the camera, one hand holding a shopping bag, the other behind her head. Her hair was auburn, unlike the apartment shots of her.

"How recent is this?"