The truth? Sellitto reflected. Right. "You just needed to write something down?"

Struggling for breath, Weir nodded.

"Where were you?" persisted an increasingly bored Lon Sellitto. "When you needed this paper?"

"I don't know. A Starbucks."

"Which one?"

Weir squinted. "Don't remember."

Criminals had started to cite Starbucks a lot lately when offering up alibis. Sellitto decided it was because there were so many of the coffee outlets and they all looked alike-criminals could credibly sound confused about which one they'd been in at a particular time.

"Why was it blank?" Sellitto continued.

"What was blank?"

"The back of the receipt. If you'd taken it to write something down why didn't you write on it?"

"Oh. I don't think I could find a pen."

"They have pens at Starbucks. People charge things a lot there. They need pens to sign their credit card vouchers."

"The clerk was busy. I didn't want to bother her."

"What was it you wanted to write down?"

"Uhm," came the breathy wheeze, "movie show time."

"Where's Larry Burke's body?"

"Who?"

"The police officer who arrested you on Eighty-eighth Street. You told Lincoln Rhyme last night that you killed him and the body was on the West Side somewhere."

"I was just trying to make him think I was going to attack the circus, lead him off. Feeding him false information."

"And when you admitted killing the other victims? That was false information too?"

"Exactly. I didn't kill anybody. Somebody else did and tried to pin it on me."

Ah, the oldest defense in the book. The lamest. The most embarrassing.

Though one that, of course, did sometimes work, Sellitto knew-depending on the gullibility of the jury.

"Who wanted to frame you?"

"I don't know. But somebody who knows me, obviously."

"Because they'd have access to your clothes and fibers and hairs and things, to plant at the scenes."

"Exactly."

"Good. Then it'd be a short list. Give me some names."

Weir closed his eyes. "Nothing's coming to me." His head slumped. "It's really frustrating."

Sellitto couldn't've put it better himself.

A tedious half hour of this game passed. Finally the detective just gave up. He was angry, thinking that he'd be going home soon to his girlfriend and the dinner she was making-turkey, ironically, just like what'd been on the lunch menu at the Riverside Inn in Bedford Junction-but that Officer Larry Burke would never be returning to his wife. He dropped the facade of the friendly but persistent interrogator and muttered, "I want you out of my sight."

Sellitto and the other officers drove the prisoner two blocks to the Manhattan Detention Center for booking on murder, attempt, assault and arson charges. The detective warned the DOC officers about the man's skills at escaping and they assured him that Weir would be placed in Special Detention, a virtually escape-proof facility.

"Oh, Detective Sellitto," Weir called in a throaty whisper.

The detective turned.

"I swear to God I didn't do it," he gasped, his voice echoing with what sounded like genuine remorse. "Maybe after I get some rest I'll remember some things that'll help you find the real killer. I really do want to help."

Downstairs in the Tombs the two officers, both with a firm grip on the prisoner's arms, let him shuffle his way to the booking station.

Doesn't look so scary to me, Department of Corrections Officer Linda Welles thought. He was strong, she could tell, but not like some of the beasts they'd processed here, those kids from Alphabet City or Harlem with perfect bodies that even huge quantities of crack and smack and malt liquor couldn't soften.

No, she didn't quite know why they were making all this fuss about this skinny old guy, Weir, Erick A.

"Keep a hold on him, watch his hands all the time. Don't take the shackles off."

That'd been Detective Sellitto's warning. But the suspect just looked sad and tired and was having trouble breathing. She wondered what had happened to his hands and neck, the scarring. A fire or hot oil. The thought of the pain made her shiver.

Welles remembered what he'd told Detective Sellitto at the intake door. I really do want to help. Weir had seemed like a schoolchild who'd disappointed his parents.

Despite Detective Sellitto's concerns the fingerprinting and mug shots went without incident and soon he was back in double cuffs and ankle shackles again. Welles and Hank Gersham, a large male DOC officer, took an arm each and then started down the long corridor to intake.

Welles had handled thousands of criminals here and thought she was immune to their pleas and their protests and tears. But there was something about Weir's sad promise to Detective Sellitto that moved her. Maybe he actually was innocent. He hardly seemed like a murderer.

He winced and Welles relaxed her viselike grip on his arm slightly.

A moment later the prisoner moaned and slumped against her. His face was contorted in pain.

"What?" Hank asked.

"Cramp," he gasped. "It hurts . . . oh, God." He gave a whispered scream. "The shackles!"

His left leg was straight out, quivering, hard as wood.

The guard asked her, "Undo him?"

Welles hesitated. Then said, "No." To Weir: "Let's go down, down on your side. I'll work it out." A runner, she knew how to handle cramps. It probably wasn't fake-he seemed in too much genuine agony and the muscle was rock-hard.

"Oh, Jesus," Weir cried in pain. "The shackles!"

"We've gotta get 'em off," her partner said.

"No," Welles repeated firmly. "Get him on the floor. I'll take care of it."

They eased Weir down and Welles began to massage his stiff leg. Hank stood back and watched her at work. Then she happened to glance up. She noticed that Weir's cuffed hands, still behind his back, had slid to his side and that his slacks had been pulled down a few inches.

She looked closely. She saw that a Band-Aid had been peeled away from his hip and beneath it-what the hell was that? She realized it was a slit in the skin.

It was then that his palm hit her square in the nose, popping the cartilage. A burst of pain seared her face and took her breath away.

A key! He'd had a key or pick hidden in that little crevice of skin under the bandage.

Her partner reached out fast but Weir rose even faster and elbowed him in the throat. The man went down, gasping and clutching his neck, coughing and struggling for air. Weir clamped a hand on Welles's pistol and tried to pull it from her holster. She struggled to control it with both hands, using every ounce of strength. She tried to scream but the blood from her broken nose flowed down her throat and she began to choke.

Still gripping her gun, the prisoner reached down with his left hand and in what seemed like seconds unshackled his legs. Then with both hands he began in earnest to get the Glock away from her.

"Help me!" she cried, coughing blood. "Somebody, help!" Weir managed to pull the weapon out of her holster but Welles, thinking of her children, kept a vise grip on his wrist. The muzzle swung around the empty corridor, past Hank, on his hands and knees, retching and struggling for breath.

"Help! Officer down! Help!" Welles cried.

There was motion from the end of the corridor as a door opened and someone came running. But the hallway seemed to be ten miles long and Weir was getting a better grip on the pistol. They rolled to the floor, his desperate eyes inches from hers, the muzzle of the gun turning slowly toward her. It ended up between them. Gasping, he tried to get his index finger to the trigger.

"No, please, no, no," she whimpered. The prisoner smiled cruelly as she stared at the black eye of the weapon, inches from her face, expecting it to fire at any instant.

Seeing her children, seeing the girl's father, her own mother. . . . No fucking way, Welles thought, furious. She planted her foot against the wall and shoved hard. Weir went over backward and she fell on top of him.

The pistol went off with a stunning explosion, the huge kick of recoil jarring her wrist, the sound deafening her. Blood spattered the wall. No, no, no!

Please let Hank be okay! she prayed.

But Welles saw her partner struggling to his feet. He was unhurt. Then she realized that she wasn't fighting for the weapon. It was in her hand alone; Weir no longer had a grip on it. Quivering, she leaped to her feet and backed away from him. Oh, my God . . .

The bullet had struck the prisoner directly in the side of the head, leaving a horrible wound. On the wall behind him was a spatter of blood, brain matter and bone. Weir lay on his back, glazed eyes staring at the ceiling. Blood was flowing down his temple to the floor.

Shaking, Welles wailed, "Fuck me, look what I did! Oh, fuck! Help him, somebody!"

As a dozen other officers converged on the scene, she turned to look at the guards but then saw them freeze and drop into defensive crouches.

Welles gasped. Was there some other perp behind her? She spun around and saw that the corridor was empty. She turned back to see the other officers were still crouching, holding up their hands in alarm. Shouting. Ears deafened from the shot, she couldn't understand what they were saying.

Finally she heard, "Jesus, your weapon, Linda! Holster it! Watch where you're pointing it!"

She realized in her panic that she'd been waving the Glock around-toward the ceiling, toward the floor, toward them-like a child with a toy gun.

She barked a manic laugh at her carelessness. As she bolstered the pistol she felt something hard on her belt and pulled it off. She examined the splinter of bloody bone from Weir's skull. "Oh," she said, dropped it and laughed like her daughter during a tickle-fest. She spit on her hand then began wiping her palm on her pants. The scrubbing grew more and more frantic until the laughter suddenly stopped and she dropped to her knees, consumed with wrenching sobs.

Chapter Thirty-six.

"You should've seen it, Mum. I think I wowed 'em."

Kara sat on the edge of the chair, cradling the tepid Starbucks cup in her hands, the warmth from the cardboard perfectly matching the temperature of human skin-the temperature of her mother's skin, for instance, still pink, still glowing.

"I had the whole stage to myself for forty-five minutes. How 'bout that?"

"You . . . ?"

This word was not part of an imaginary dialogue. The woman was awake and had asked the question in a firm voice.

You.

Though Kara had no idea what her mother meant.

It might mean: What was it you just said?

Or: Who are you? Why are you coming into my room and sitting down here as if we know each other?

Or: I heard the word "you" once but I don't know what it means and I'm too embarrassed to ask. It's important, I know, but I can't remember. You, you, you . . .

Then her mother looked out the window, at the clinging ivy, and said, "Everything turned out fine. We got through it just fine."

Kara knew it would only be frustrating to try to carry on a conversation with her when she was in this state of mind. None of her sentences would be related to any other. Sometimes she'd even forget her train of thought within a sentence and her voice would fade to a confused silence.

So Kara herself now just rambled on, talking about the Metamorphoses show she'd just done. And then, even more excitedly, she told her mother about helping the police catch a killer.

For a moment her mother's eyebrow arched in recognition and Kara's heart began to pound. She leaned forward.

"I found the tin. I never thought I'd see it again."

Head back in the pillow.

Kara's hands clenched into knotted fists. Her breath came fast. "It's me, Mum! Me! The Royal Kid. Can't you see me?"

"You?"

Goddamnit! Kara raged silently to the demon who'd possessed the poor woman and muffled her soul. Leave her alone! Give her back to me!

"Hi there." A woman's voice from the doorway startled Kara, who subtly lifted several tears off her cheek, as smoothly as executing a French drop, before she turned around.

"Hey," she said to Amelia Sachs. "You tracked me down."

"I'm a cop. That's what we do." She walked into the room, holding two Starbucks cups. She glanced at the container in Kara's hand. "Sorry. Redundant present."