Another voice replied: "We better check each one."

Jeannie glanced around the little room in the dim light from the street lamps outside. There was nowhere to hide.

She opened the door a crack. She could not see or hear anything. She poked her head out. At the far end of the corridor light streamed out of an open door. She waited and watched. The guards came out, killed the light, closed the door, and went into the next room, which was the laboratory. It would take them a minute or two to search that. Could she slip past the door unseen and make it to the stairwell?

Jeannie stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind her with a shaky hand.

She walked along the corridor. By an effort of will she restrained herself from breaking into a run.

She pa.s.sed the lab door. She could not resist the temptation to glance inside. Both guards had their backs to her; one was looking inside a stationery closet and the other was staring curiously at a row of DNA test films on a light box. They did not see her.

Almost there.

She walked on to the end of the corridor and opened the swing door.

As she was about to step through, a voice called out: "Hey! You! Stop!"

Every nerve strained to make a run for it, but she controlled herself. She let the door swing closed, turned, and smiled.

Two guards ran along the corridor toward her. They were both men in their late fifties, probably retired cops.

Her throat was tight and she had trouble breathing. "Good evening," she said. "How can I help you gentlemen?" The sound of the alarm covered the tremor in her voice.

"An alarm has gone off in the building," said one.

It was a stupid thing to say, but she let it pa.s.s. "Do you think there's an intruder?"

"There may be. Have you seen or heard anything unusual, Professor?"

The guards a.s.sumed she was a faculty member; that was good. "As a matter of fact, I thought I heard breaking gla.s.s. It seemed to come from the floor above, although I couldn't be sure."

The two guards looked at one another. "We'll check it out," said one.

The other was less suggestible. "May I ask what you have in your pocket?"

"Some papers."

"Obviously. May I see them?"

Jeannie was not going to hand them over to anyone; they were too precious. Improvising, she pretended to agree then change her mind. "Sure," she said, taking them out. Then she folded them and put them back in. "On second thought, no, you can't. They're personal."

"I have to insist. In our training we're told that papers can be as valuable as anything else in a place like this."

"I'm afraid I'm not going to let you read my private correspondence just because an alarm goes off in a college building."

"In that case, I must ask you to come with me to our security office and speak to my supervisor."

"All right," she said. "I'll meet you outside." She backed quickly through the swing door and went light-footed down the stairs.

The guards came running after her. "Wait!"

She let them catch up with her in the ground-floor lobby. One took her arm while the other opened the door. They stepped outside.

"No need to hold me," she said.

"I prefer to." he said. He was panting from the effort of chasing her down the stairs.

She had been here before. She grasped the wrist of the hand that was holding her and squeezed hard. The guard said, "Ow!" and released her.

Jeannie ran.

"Hey! You b.i.t.c.h, stop!" They gave chase.

They had no chance. She was twenty-five years younger and as fit as a racehorse. Her fear left her as she got farther away from the two men. She ran like the wind, laughing. They chased her for a few yards then gave up. She looked back and saw them both bent over, panting.

She ran all the way to the parking lot.

Her father was waiting beside her car. She unlocked it and they both got in. She tore out of the parking lot with her lights off.

"I'm sorry, Jeannie," he said. "I thought even if I couldn't do it for myself, maybe I could do it for you. But it's no use. I've lost it. I'll never rob again."

"That's good news!" she said. "And I got what I wanted!"

"I wish I could be a good father to you. I guess it's too late to start."

She drove out of the campus into the street and turned on her headlights. "It's not too late, Daddy. Really it's not."

"Maybe. I tried for you, anyway, didn't I?"

"You tried, and you succeeded! You got me in! I couldn't have done it alone."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

She drove home fast. She was anxious to check the phone number on the printout. If it was out-of-date she had a problem. And she wanted to hear Wayne Stattner's voice.

As soon as they got inside her apartment she picked up the phone and called the number.

A man answered. "h.e.l.lo?"

She could not tell anything from one word. She said: "May I speak to Wayne Stattner, please?"

"Yeah, Wayne speaking, who's this?"

It sounded just like Steve's voice. You son of a b.i.t.c.h, why did you rip my tights? You son of a b.i.t.c.h, why did you rip my tights? She suppressed her resentment and said: "Mr. Stattner, I'm with a market research company that has chosen you to receive a very special offer-" She suppressed her resentment and said: "Mr. Stattner, I'm with a market research company that has chosen you to receive a very special offer-"

"f.u.c.k off and die," Wayne said, and he hung up.

"It's him," Jeannie said to her father. "He even sounds like Steve, except Steve is politer."

She had briefly explained the scenario to her father. He grasped the broad outlines, although he found it somewhat bewildering. "What are you going to do next?"

"Call the cops." She dialed the s.e.x Crimes Unit and asked for Sergeant Delaware.

Her father shook his head in amazement. "This is hard for me to get used to: the idea of working with the police. I sure hope this sergeant is different from every other detective I've ever met."

"I believe she probably is."

She did not expect to find Mish at her desk-it was nine o'clock. She planned to ask them to get an urgent message to her. But by good luck Mish was still in the building. "Catching up with my paperwork," she explained. "What's up?"

"Steve Logan and Dennis Pinker are not twins."

"But I thought-"

"They're triplets."

There was a long pause. When Mish spoke again, her tone was guarded. "How do you know?"

"You remember I told you how I found Steve and Dennis-by searching a dental database for pairs of similar records?"

"Yes."

"This week I searched the FBI's fingerprint file for similar fingerprints. The program gave me Steve, Dennis, and a third man in a group."

"They have the same fingerprints?"

"Not exactly the same. Similar. But I just called the third man. His voice is like Steve's. I'll bet my life they look alike. Mish, you have to believe me."

"Do you have an address?"

"Yeah. In New York."

"Give."

"There's a condition."

Mish's voice hardened. "Jeannie, this is the police. You don't make conditions, you just answer the G.o.dd.a.m.n questions, now give me the address."

"I have to satisfy myself. I want to see him."

"Do you want to go to jail, that's the question for you right now, because if not you better give me that address."

"I want us both to go see him together. Tomorrow."

There was a pause. "I ought to throw you in the slammer for abetting a felon."

"We could catch the first plane to New York in the morning."

"Okay."

SAt.u.r.dAY.

[image]

43.

THEY CAUGHT THE USA USAIR FLIGHT TO N NEW Y YORK AT 6:40 IN the morning. the morning.

Jeannie was full of hope. This might be the end of the nightmare for Steve. She had called him last night to bring him up-to-date and he had been ecstatic. He had wanted to come to New York with them, but Jeannie knew Mish would not allow it. She had promised to call him as soon as she had more news.

Mish was maintaining a kind of tolerant skepticism. She found it hard to believe Jeannie's story, but she had to check it out.

Jeannie's data did not reveal why Wayne Stattner's fingerprints were on file with the FBI, but Mish had checked overnight, and she told Jeannie the story as they took off from Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Three years ago, the distraught parents of a missing fourteen-year-old girl had tracked her down to Stattner's New York apartment. They had accused him of kidnap. He had denied it, saying the girl had not been coerced. The girl herself had said she was in love with him. Wayne was only nineteen at the time, so in the end there had been no prosecution.

The story suggested that Stattner needed to dominate women, but to Jeannie it did not quite fit in with the psychology of a rapist. However, Mish said there were no strict rules.

Jeannie had not told Mish about the man who attacked her in Philadelphia. She knew Mish would not take her word for it that the man was not Steve. Mish would want to question Steve herself, and Steve did not need that. In consequence she also had to keep quiet about the man who had called yesterday and threatened her life. She had not told anyone about that, not even Steve; she did not want to add to his worries.

Jeannie wanted to like Mish, but there was always a tension between them. Mish as a cop expected people to do what she told them, and Jeannie hated that in a person. To try to get closer to her, Jeannie asked her how she came to be a cop.

"I used to be a secretary, and I got a job with the FBI," she replied. "I was there ten years. I began to think I could do the job better than the agent I worked for. So I applied for police training. Went to the academy, became a patrol officer, then volunteered for undercover work with the drugs squad. That was scary, but I proved I was tough."

For a moment Jeannie felt alienated from her companion. She smoked a little weed herself now and again, and she resented people who wanted to throw her in jail for it.

"Then I moved to the Child Abuse Unit," Mish went on. "I didn't last long there. n.o.body does. It's important work, but a person can only see so much of that stuff. You'd go crazy. So finally I came to s.e.x Crimes."

"Doesn't sound like much of an improvement."

"At least the victims are adults. And after a couple of years they made me a sergeant and put me in charge of the unit."

"I think all rape detectives should be women," Jeannie said.

"I'm not sure I agree."

Jeannie was surprised. "Don't you think victims would talk more easily to a woman?"

"Elderly victims, perhaps; women over seventy, say."

Jeannie shuddered at the thought of frail old women being raped.

Mish went on: "But, frankly, most victims will tell their story to a lamppost."