"A device called a high-kicker. It moors the ankle. It's absolutely safe, all theatrical dancing schools use them." Father Montgomery added, a little sadly, "Of course, we don't use it anymore."

"I advised the church to play it very safe and conservative," Lowndes said. "Accidents do happen."

"Was this high-kicker involved in any other broken ankles?"

Father Montgomery drew back slightly in his chair, as though he needed more distance to see Cardozo clearly. "You mean at St. Andrew's?"

"It was never established that the high-kicker caused the accident," David Lowndes said. "As I understand the problem, the Hitchcock girl had only minimal talent and she couldn't keep up with the tempo. Incidentally, she was rehearsing alone with the musical director when she fell-it had nothing to do with Father Montgomery."

"That isn't quite what I was asking," Cardozo said. "Were other dancers in any of St. Andrew's' shows ever injured?"

Father Montgomery glanced at Lowndes.

"Father Joe can only answer from the best of his recollection. Unless you want to depose him and have him consult his records."

"The best of Father Montgomery's recollection will be fine." Fine for now, Cardozo thought.

"There weren't any other injured dancers," Father Montgomery hesitated. "Not that I recall."

"And what's the name of your musical director?"

"Let's see...the director on that show was Wheelwright Vanderbrook-Baxter Vanderbrook's boy." Father Montgomery reached for the phone. "Bonnie, could you be a dear and dredge up the Vanderbrooks' phone number for the lieutenant?" He replaced the receiver. "Bonnie's a joy. I'd be lost without her."

A moment later Reverend Bonnie Ruskay, crisp and glowing in a slender-waisted dress, knocked on the door. "We don't have that phone number. The Vanderbrooks aren't with the church anymore."

Cardozo made a notation in his notebook. "One last request. Do you still keep your talent file in that drawer?" He nodded toward the desk. "The photos and biographies of your performers?"

"Updated yearly," Father Joe said. "Couldn't put on a show without it."

"Do you suppose I could borrow it for two or three days?"

Father Montgomery shot a look toward his lawyer.

David Lowndes sighed. "Could I trouble you to produce a warrant for the file? I know it means a delay, but it might be a good idea if we observed the legal niceties from this point on."

"It's no trouble." Cardozo smiled. "And it's no delay." He took the executed warrant from his pocket and handed it across the room.

Lowndes was clearly startled and just as clearly trying to show no reaction at all. His pale blue eyes examined the warrant. After a moment he nodded.

Father Montgomery opened the drawer, brought out the file, and placed it on the desk top. "Will that be all, Lieutenant?"

"Can't think of another thing." Cardozo tucked the shoe box under his left arm.

"Bonnie, be a dear and show the lieutenant out?"

Reverend Bonnie Ruskay led Cardozo into the hallway. The door closed softly behind them.

"David Lowndes told me I should be scolded," she said.

"What for?"

"For giving you the run of the rectory the other day. Apparently I should have known better."

"You're in the business of trusting people. He's in the business of not trusting them."

"And you're in the business of locking them up?"

"That's the court's business, not mine."

"That shoe box looks fragile. Do you want a shopping bag?"

"Thanks. A bag would help."

She took him through the kitchen into the garage. The air still smelled faintly of ammonia. There was a pile of empty bags on the backseat of the green sedan. "Hammacher Schlemmer or Zabar's?"

"Whatever."

She handed him a plastic shopping bag from Nobody beats the WIZ. "Are you looking for evidence against us? Because you won't find any. We're human beings, but we're not evil."

"I'm trying to find out why some kids grow up and some vanish." He slid the file into the bag. "Why some wind up adults and some wind up skeletons in a box."

There was a sad look in her eyes. "A lot of disturbing and ultimately unfathomable events happen in this life."

"Sorry. That's not good enough."

"What is it you want, Lieutenant?"

"I wouldn't mind getting out of here." He went to the garage door. "May I?"

She shrugged.

He bent down and gave the handle a twist and a yank. The door rolled noisily upward. He stepped into the courtyard. It was a walled space of cobblestones and ivy and flower beds. An orange fish was gliding in a dark green rock pool and a bird was singing in the branches of a pear tree.

He crossed to the rosebushes. Tight green embryos clung to thorny stalks. He reached out a hand and quickly snapped off a stalk of unborn roses. He dropped it into the shopping bag.

In his cubicle, Cardozo sat staring at the shoe box for five minutes before he lifted the lid.

The photographs had been arranged alphabetically-smiling young people with a name, address, phone number, and brief bio paper-clipped to the back of each picture.

Every one of them somebody's kid.

He braced for the worst and walked his finger through to the M's.

She was there-the very first M-Sally Manfredo.

He tugged the photo out and looked at her. It was like returning to the embrace of a familiar old song. Memories broke through the surface-that last dinner, coffee growing cold in two cups, the sixteen-year-old face across the table from him, the air faintly touched with the scent of her mother's jasmine perfume.

She was wearing makeup in the photo, the same makeup she'd worn that night. There was a kind of raw determination in her eyes, something unstated and dark.

Sally, he thought, where did you go? Why did you go? Did you even mean to go?

He turned the photo over and studied the typed sheet. The address and phone were her mother's. There was nothing more recent.

The bio stated: The Boy Friend-chorus. Zip Your Pinafore-Emily. Excellent comic timing. The Pajama Game-replaced. No contact since.

A handwritten notation followed: present address unknown.

There was a soft rap at the door. He looked up and saw Ellie standing there with a sort of unintentional grace.

"They say good news comes in small boxes."

He shook his head. "Not this box. We've got sixty kids to interview."

SEVENTEEN.

FATHER CHUCK ROMERO HELD the drawing of the girl's face at arm's length. He sat staring and frowning. "No, I can't say she's familiar. Not offhand. How long ago would this have been?"

"A year and a half," Cardozo said, "maybe two years."

"No." Father Romero shook his head. He had graying dark hair, beginning to thin at the top. His face was deeply lined and it seemed twenty years older than the hair. "I'm sorry."

"Maybe you recognize this young girl?" Cardozo handed Father Romero a photo of his niece.

The priest's eyes betrayed an instant's confusion, quickly covered over. "She's lovely. But I can't say I recognize her either."

"Her name's Sally Manfredo. She wanted to be an actress."

"So many do."

They were sitting in armchairs in St. Veronica's rectory in Queens. Bookshelves lined the walls. Leather-bound sets of Aquinas and Thackeray and Dickens had been pushed back to make room for Victorian pillboxes and small silver-framed photographs of young people.

"She did some amateur work," Cardozo said. "She played in two of Father Montgomery's shows six, seven years ago."

"That's it."

"That's what?"

"That's why she looks familiar."

"Then you have seen her before."

Cardozo could feel Father Romero give an infinitesimal recoil.

"It must have been in one of Joe's shows."

"Is it possible she worked in one of yours?"

"No, that's not possible." Father Romero didn't look away, but at the same time he was definitely not looking back. "I'd remember."

"You must work with an awful lot of young people. Maybe she's in your files and you forgot."

"I don't keep records. Not of the theatricals."

"Really." Cardozo tried to gauge the nervousness that radiated from Father Romero. The hands trembled. The eyes blinked with the rapidity of a hummingbird batting its wings. There was a surprised, pained expression, as though everything in the universe was new to him and not necessarily friendly. Cardozo sensed something more was involved than mere state of mind. Some chemical agent.

"But I do have a memory for names and faces, and the name Sally Manfredo isn't familiar." Father Romero handed back the photo. "I'm sorry. I wish I could help."

"What do you do for relaxation?"

"Relaxation?" Father Romero seemed startled. "Very little, actually. I pray...I meditate."

"No exercise?"

Father Romero patted his oversize tummy. "Not as much as my doctor would like, I'm afraid."

"Don't you play golf?"

Father Romero glanced over with a noncomprehending frown. "What gave you that idea?"

"Father Joe mentioned you were golf partners."

"Long ago."

"But you two still socialize."

"We see one another at ceremonial occasions-like the openings of one another's shows."

"And the Vanderbilt Garden ceremony?"

"Yes, that too."

"You were with the group that went in first."

"That's right. The four representatives of New York's major faiths. Joe seems to think Islam is a major faith locally. I believe there are fewer followers of the Prophet in the metropolitan area than practitioners of Santeria."

"Do you recall when this photograph was taken?" Cardozo handed Father Romero the shot of Sonya Barnett and the four clerics.

"I don't recall." Father Romero's face was perplexed.

"The odd thing is that you're all looking away from the stage at the same moment."

"There was a crew from TV right behind us. They may have asked us to turn around. Does it matter?"