"Yes."

"And was that underage female .. ."

"No, she wasn't. I swear it. But I saw her there. The one they're calling Little Girl Blue."

Julia took a deep breath. She'd won, but it didn't feel like any victory she'd enjoyed in the past. In lieu of elation, she felt soiled, in need of a bath she wouldn't get to for many hours.

"Here's what's gonna happen," she told Theodore Goodman. "First, we go to the office of a.s.sistant District Attorney Lily Han, where you submit to a deposition under oath. Based on the information you supply, Ms. Han will write up an application for a warrant to search apartment 9A, then take you before a judge, where you will repeat the information, again under oath. In return if you perform well and honestly you'll be registered as a confidential informant and the search warrant sealed. Do you understand what I just told you?"

"Yes, I understand."

Julia turned to Foley, her eyes locking on his. For a moment she thought she saw something, something lurking beneath the surface, a challenge. But then his features softened.

"Did I do good?" he asked. "Did I give ya what ya wanted?"

"Yeah." She unlocked the handcuffs and dropped them to the gray carpeting on the floor. "You can take off."

Foley opened the door. "I'm sorry, Ted," he announced, "for what I did. But it was me or you, and you got the money. You can afford the hit."

FOURTEEN.

It WAS nearly ten o'clock when Lily Han took a thoroughly debriefed Theodore Goodman before Judge Andrea Marmelstein, leaving Julia to a.s.semble the troops. She called Carlos Serrano first, then David Lane, Bert Griffith, and Frank Turro, telling each the same story. On her own, she'd developed a confidential informant who'd revealed the apartment from which Little Girl Blue had fled three days before. A resulting search warrant had already been drawn up and was about to be signed. C Squad would serve that warrant, hopefully by midnight.

"You're invited to the party," she explained, "but if you can't make it, I'll understand."

It was an offer that could not be refused, and ninety minutes later, five detectives strong, C Squad piled into a pair of identical Crown Vies and headed out. In the rear of the second car, Julia was trying to put a brake on her adrenal glands. Foley had flatly declared, "If you're thinking rescue, Julia, think again. Not only have the kids already been moved out, there's a good chance the adults have flown as well."

The adults, as described by Goodman, were a fortyish couple, Bud and Sarah Mandrake. "The girls," Goodman explained, "call them Uncle Bud and Aunt Sarah. In case they have to go to the doctor or something."

Well, there were still the purple fibers combed from Blue's hair. If they could be matched to fibers in the apartment, C Squad would have a place to start. It was next to impossible to live in New York for any length of time without leaving a paper trail. Unless the Mandrakes had been very thorough, C Squad would find them, and grill them, and hopefully, break them.

It began to rain when the two Fords entered Seventy-third Street from Madison Avenue, a cold winter rain that chilled as thoroughly as the most bitter wind. As they double-parked in front of the Clapham, Julia reminded herself that she hadn't phoned Commander Harry Clark, hadn't given him the opportunity to yank the rug out from under C Squad, or even to share in the glory. Sooner, rather than later, there would be h.e.l.l to pay.

The doorman, whose name tag read "Aurelio," came out to stand beneath a tan canopy that stretched to the edge of the sidewalk. A tall slender Latino, he apparently knew a cop or five cops when he saw them. "Officers," he said, looking from one to another, "what can I do for you?"

"We have a search warrant for apartment 9A," Julia announced.

"The Mandrakes? Haven't seen them for a few days."

Julia shrugged off her disappointment. "What happened? They move out?"

Aurelio walked behind the mahogany counter that concealed his small desk and consulted a looseleaf binder. "Uh-uh. n.o.body's moved out this month."

"Well, what can you tell me about them?" Before he could answer, she quickly added, "I appreciate your cooperation. Believe me."

Aurelio scratched a silky black mustache as he framed his response. "What could I say? They're, you know, forty-five, fifty, fifty-five. Very quiet, like everybody else in the building. Dress nice, act polite."

"They live alone?"

The doorman's face brightened. "That's something," he said, jerking a thumb toward the ceiling. "The ladies in here, you can't picture 'em pushin' vacuum cleaners, dustin' the antiques. Mostly, they have live-in housekeepers. But the Mandrakes, now they don't even use day help. And Joe, the eight-to-four man, told me they order tons of groceries. He says the goodies are delivered two shopping carts at a time. From the Gristedes on Third Avenue."

Julia willed herself not to glance at Frank Turro who, despite his diligence, had been asking the wrong questions. "Are they owners? The Mandrakes?"

"Nope. They lease. The owner's living in Australia." He smiled. "Should I call, see if the Mandrakes are home?"

"Not unless you want to be arrested." Julia tempered the statement with a smile of her own. "Any chance you have access to keys for the apartment? Otherwise, if n.o.body answers, we'll have to take down the door."

"Matty's got 'em," Aurelio said. "He's the super."

"Is Matty around?"

"He has an apartment in the bas.e.m.e.nt. You want me to call him?"

"That's alright. I'll send somebody down."

Frank Turro peeled away without being asked, just as a middle-aged couple exited a taxi and began to walk toward the door. As the doorman stepped away, Julia put her hand on his arm. "They have any questions, you send them to me."

A moment later, Julia was showing her identification to Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Schuyler. That was the way the husband had introduced them: "My name is Kenneth Schuyler and this is my wife." The wife sported a sable coat. The black pearls in her drop earrings were the size of grapes. "Would you tell us what's going on here?"

"We're on police business, sir." Having antic.i.p.ated this moment, Julia reminded herself to be as nice as possible.

"Lieutenant .. . Brennan?"

"Brennan, that's right, sir."

"Lieutenant Brennan, as president of the cooperative board, I feel I have a right to know what's going on in my building."

Mrs. Schuyler offered her opinion before Julia could reply. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Kenneth, she's just doing her job."

"She's standing in the lobby, Margaret. I doubt very much .. ."

The elevator door opened at that moment to reveal Frank Turro and a small compact man bearing a large key ring. "Got 'em, loo," Turro declared.

"Sir," Julia said, her voice now firm, "what floor do you live on?" She could feel her heart slide into another, decidedly higher, gear.

"We're in the penthouse," Margaret Schuyler replied.

"Thank you." Julia turned to Lane, Griffith, and Serrano. Serrano was smiling softly. Lane was trying not to smirk. Griffith's expression, as usual, revealed nothing. "Let's go," she said, marching off.

When they were inside the elevator, she looked back at the Schuylers. "For your own safety," she explained as the doors closed, "I'm going to have to insist that you stay off the ninth floor. For your own safety, sir."

The tension rose with the elevator. Julia could smell it in the enclosed s.p.a.ce, sharp and musty, a conflicting reek of fear and testosterone. n.o.body, not even C Squad, had believed they'd get this far, especially Commander Harry Clark, who was ready to let Julia Bren-nan swing. Well, the sacrificial lamb had slaughtered the lion and she was d.a.m.ned if she was going to share the carca.s.s.

"Frank and Carlo, I want you to trail off, handle the nosy neighbors. Politely. Bert, you take the far side of the door. Remember, we have no reason to antic.i.p.ate armed resistance. These are not people we can push around. David, you stay with the super. If the unlikely happens and things go wrong, I want you to get him out of the way."

The elevator doors opened as if in response to the chorus of Yeah, loo; right, loo; got it, loo, that followed. Apartment 9A, one of three apartments on the floor, was directly ahead of them, at the end of a long hallway.

Silent now, they marched down the corridor, their footsteps m.u.f.fled by the dense carpeting, past a succession of worn tapestries depicting a royal marriage and an ensuing feast. As Julia took up a position just to the side of the door, she removed her Glock from her shoulder bag and held it at her side.

"Ready?"

She took their collective failure to respond as an affirmative and rang the bell, holding it down for several seconds. Then she pounded on the door with the heel of her hand. The door was solid oak, heavy enough to hurt, and the thud of her fist against it seemed to her almost reluctant, as if she'd changed her mind at the last minute.

From behind, she heard a door open, then Carlos Serrano's soothing voice. "Police business, ma'am. Please go back inside your apartment."

Julia pressed down on the bell, held it longer this time, pressed it again, then finally placed her ear to the door. Nothing, not even a radio. She felt her heart sink. Foley had been right. The Mandrakes had begun to clean up right after Blue's flight. They were long gone and there would be no dramatic rescue. The other children, the children Blue had left behind, were somewhere else, perhaps already working.

"Unlock it," she told the super.

Matty stepped up to the door, keys in hand, then tried the k.n.o.b. When it turned freely, his hand popped off as though burned. "It's open," he said, backing away.

"You ready, Bert?" Julia asked.

"Past ready."

Julia gave the door a hard shove and watched it roll away, perfectly balanced on its well-oiled hinges. She started when it slammed into the wall, but kept her eyes on the scene before her. She was looking across a small foyer, through a much larger living room, into a formal dining room perhaps fifty feet away, looking first for motion, for the presence of another living thing. It was only when she'd determined that there was no other living thing in view that her mind focused on the dead things, the pair of severed heads staring back at her from the dining-room table. The heads were male and female, and streaked with dry blood. Blood matted their hair, their eyebrows; blood clumped in the corners of eyes propped open with toothpicks. Their mouths were turned up at the corners, their lips held apart, again by toothpicks, to reveal obscenely white teeth.

FIFTEEN.

FOR A long moment Julia didn't move, didn't breathe; her thoughts tumbled through her mind like clothes in a hot dryer, a sock here, a blouse there, now briefly visible, now vanished. From somewhere in the apartment a phone began to ring. As it continued, Julia somehow found herself imagining one of the heads turning to the other with a smile, "I'll get that, dear."

The image was just cop-cynical enough to stay put for a few seconds, to be the springboard to a semblance of control. It allowed her to narrow her focus, to hear, for instance, Bert Griffith's half-whispered, "f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k."

Toughen up, she told herself, as she had so many times in the past. And whatever you do, don't play the dumb blonde.

"David, put the super on the elevator, send him home. Frank and Carlos, you come up here."

Her voice was firmer than she'd expected, firm enough to bring immediate compliance. She felt Serrano and Turro behind her, the warmth of their bodies, the whisper of Turro's breath on the back of her neck. Apparently as shocked as herself, neither spoke. Not so David Lane. The super disposed of, he walked up to the doorway, looked into the apartment, and said, "What, n.o.body's gonna introduce me?"

Julia appreciated the comment and understood its necessity, which echoed her own. Now they would have to move.

"There has to be a lot of blood," she announced, "somewhere inside that apartment." The dining room, as much as she could see of it, was immaculate. "We step in the blood, we'll be executed. Understood? The whole world's gonna be looking over our shoulders." When n.o.body responded, she continued. "David, you have gloves in that bag?"

"Yup."

"Put on a pair, give a pair to Bert. I want you to go through the apartment, make sure there's n.o.body else inside."

"Got it, loo. And I promise not to play in the gore."

"Just make it quick. Carlos, you get on the horn, call it in. Let's get the show started."

Four minutes later, Griffith and Lane returned. Just a bit out of breath, Griffith's eyes were wide. "No other vies," he told the waiting detectives as he and Lane came out into the corridor.

"What about ..." Julia gestured toward the dining room. "What about the rest of them?"

"In the kitchen," Lane replied. "The blood-soaked kitchen we were very careful not to step into."

Julia ignored the sarcasm. "I'm going inside. Give me a pair of gloves." She waited for Lane to locate the gloves and hand them over, then addressed C Squad, offering a semi-apology. "I'll be in there for five minutes, ten the most. After that, it's your investigation. Bert, you come with me."

She stepped into the foyer without waiting for Griffith's a.s.senting grunt. The small carpeted room was bare except for a gleaming chest of drawers bearing a lamp with an elaborate cut-gla.s.s shade. Julia's first thought was that she was looking at a Tiffany lamp and a Chippendale chest, an irrelevancy she quickly dismissed in favor of a more pertinent question. Who owned the furniture, the Mandrakes or the co-op's conveniently absent owner?

"Bert, the guy who owns the co-op, you think he's getting a payoff?"

"Don't know, loo, but the man is without doubt on my must-phone list."

"Yeah, well, if he doesn't wanna come back from Australia there's no way to make him. My guess is that you'll be talking to his lawyer before long."

The living room, except for a Steinway grand piano in one corner, was all leather, gla.s.s, and metal. Julia glanced around, noted the abstract paintings on the walls, the crystal vase resting on a gla.s.s pedestal between the windows. The fireplace on the northern wall was generous; its black marble surround was shot with mica, and a walnut mantle bore a gilt clock the size of a small television set. What she didn't see was any sign of a struggle. The room was spotless.

She continued on into the dining room, trying hard to ignore the reek of violent death, of urine and feces and the very beginnings of decomposition. She told herself to look, to look and see. The entire scene was obviously (and elaborately) staged. It was created for the benefit of the viewer. It was created for her.

Julia glanced to her right, through open double doors, at the decapitated body of a woman resting on a marble-topped counter in the kitchen. The woman wore a blue sleeveless dress and matching shoes with three-inch heels. From the waist up, the blood-soaked fabric of her dress was stiff and stood away from her sides, as though overly starched. Her body, in full rigor, was stiff as well. She'd been dead for anywhere between ten and forty-eight hours.

Julia released her clenched diaphragm, took a breath. The air had the bitter taste of a half-rotted peanut and she could only hope there was oxygen in it somewhere.

"The other body," Griffith said, "it's off to the right, on a table."

"Laid out the same?"

"Pretty much."

"What about the cutting board and the cleaver?"

"Say again, loo?"

"Where her head should be. The butcher-block cutting board. And you see that cleaver on top of the board? That's quality, Bert. The thing gleams right through the blood."

"What's the point?"

"The point is not to dull the blade. You slam the cleaver into that marble counter a couple of times, it'd be useless."

Griffith's responding, "Uh-huh," made clear the fact that he still didn't get the point.

"I just mean it's a nice touch. Like keeping the dining room clean. Now how do you think he did that? How did he decapitate his victims, then get their heads from the kitchen to the dining-room table without leaving a trail of blood?"

"He did it very carefully is what I think." Griffith was shifting his weight from side to side, anxious, maybe, to be rid of his supervisor. "Either that or he cleaned up real good."