Detective Harry Cronin of South Detectives, who had been on the job for nineteen years, and a detective for thirteen, cleverly deduced it was going to be a bad day when he went into his kitchen at approximately 10:30 A.M. and found the kitchen table bare, not even a tablecloth.

Normally, before she went to work, Mrs. Cynthia Koontz Cronin, to whom Detective Cronin had been married for eighteen years, set the table for his breakfast. Patty was a technician in the Pathological Laboratory of Temple University Hospital, and left the house at half past six or so.

Normally, the Bulletin Bulletin would be neatly folded beside the table setting, there would be a flower in a little vase Patty had bought at an auction house on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, and there would usually be a little note informing him there was sc.r.a.pple, or Taylor ham, in the fridge. would be neatly folded beside the table setting, there would be a flower in a little vase Patty had bought at an auction house on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, and there would usually be a little note informing him there was sc.r.a.pple, or Taylor ham, in the fridge.

Detective Cronin was more than a little hungover-when he'd gone off the job at midnight the night before, he had stopped off at the Red Rooster bar, run into Sergeant Aloysius J. Sutton of East Detectives, and had had several more belts than had been his intention-and further cleverly deduced that his coming home half in the bag probably had something to with the bare kitchen table.

He opened the refrigerator door. The one thing he decided he could not face right now was taking an unborn chicken from its sh.e.l.l and watch it sizzle in a frying pan. Neither did he completely trust himself to slice a piece of Taylor ham from its roll without taking part of a finger at the same time.

He reached for a bottle of Ortlieb's. It would settle his stomach.

He carried it into his living room and looked around for the Bulletin. Bulletin. It was nowhere around, which he deduced indicated that Patty was really p.i.s.sed. It was nowhere around, which he deduced indicated that Patty was really p.i.s.sed.

What the h.e.l.l, he decided, he'd lie on the couch and see what was on the tube, and get up around noon, go get a cheese steak or something for lunch, and return to the house prepared to apologize to Patty for having run into Sergeant Sutton and having maybe one more than he should have.

"Good morning," Peter said when Amy waved him into her comfortably furnished office.

The sunlight coming into her office from behind her showed him that beneath her white nylon medical smock, Amelia A. Payne, M.D., was wearing only a skirt and underwear.

The psychiatric wing of University Hospital was often overheated, and this was not the first time he had noticed this was her means of dealing with it.

He found this erotically stimulating, but from the look on her face he knew that he should not mention it.

"Good morning," she said and did not get up from her desk.

"Why do I suspect that you're not going to throw yourself in my arms?"

"Because I'm not. Peter, this is a hospital."

"Love, I have heard, cures all things."

"The medical term for what ails you is 'r.e.t.a.r.ded mental development,' " she said but she smiled for a moment, then pushed a sheet of paper across her gla.s.s topped desk toward him.

He picked it up and read, "Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped by a policeman under circ.u.mstances that were themselves traumatic."

He looked at her, his eyebrows raised questioningly.

"I'm on thin ice ethically with this, Peter," she said. "Please don't push me. Right now, I'm wondering whether I should have gone to Denny Coughlin with this."

"I'm glad you came to me," he said seriously. "Okay, Doctor, tell me more, starting with, is this your medical opinion?"

"No. But I believe it."

"Where did this come from?" he asked, waving the sheet of paper.

"It was left as a telephone message for me at quarter to two this morning," Amy said.

"By whom?"

Amy shrugged.

"This woman is a patient of yours?" Peter asked, and when Amy nodded, thought out loud: "Then it obviously came from someone who (a) knew that and (b) was not a relative or family friend-they would have told you-and (c) is trying to be helpful-maybe-without getting himself involved-certainly."

Amy nodded and said simply, "Yes."

"You think this happened?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

"You want to tell me why?"

"Just before I called you, I spoke with Cynthia."

"And she said she had been . . ."

"I raised the subject obliquely," Amy said. "Very obliquely. That was enough to send her back to square one. I had to sedate her, and I really didn't want to."

"How do you define 'square one'?"

"Hysteria, drifting in and out of catatonia. The problem here, Peter, is that this is a precursor to schizophrenia. Once that line is crossed, it's often very difficult to bring people back. That's what I want desperately to avoid here."

"In other words, you've got a sick girl on your hands."

"Who-this is where I'm on thin ethical advice, telling you this-was already living with something pretty hard to deal with before this happened to her."

"You going to tell me what?"

"Peter, this might be, very probably is, a violation of physician-patient confidentiality. The only reason I decided I could tell you is because she doesn't know I know."

"Know what?"

"Cynthia Longwood is your typical Main Line Presbyterian Princess. From Bala Cynwyd. Her father is Randolph Longwood, the builder. She doesn't remember it, but I've seen her at the Rose Tree Hunt Club."

"So, being a very nice girl, the . . . oral rape . . . really affected her?"

"Whose maternal grandfather is Vincenzo Savarese, the gangster."

"Jesus!" Wohl said genuinely surprised. "How do you know that?"

"Another confidentiality about to be violated," Amy said. "When they brought her in here, I thought, G.o.d forgive me, that she was the typical Main Line Princess who had a fight with her boyfriend, and whose parents wanted nothing but the best, d.a.m.n the cost, for their lovesick princess. I had really sick people to try to help, and declined to attend her."

"I don't quite follow that, honey."

From her face, Peter saw that this was not the time to address A. A. Payne, M.D., using a term of endearment.

"When her grandfather heard about that, he showed up in Dad's office and begged him to beg me to see her. He did-he called me, he didn't beg-and out of either a desire to do Dad a favor, or out of morbid curiosity, I agreed to see her."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned!" Peter said. "Do you think that call came from Savarese?"

"I think that's possible, don't you?"

"What do you want from me, Amy?"

"In the best of all possible worlds, I would be able to go tell Cynthia that the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who did this to her has been arrested and will never bother her again. She has recurring nightmares, in which I really think she relives the horror of this over and over again. And the brain, protecting itself, keeps trying to push the memory into a remote corner. And the result of that could d.a.m.ned well be schizophrenia."

"I can't really offer much hope on that score. Presumably she hasn't given you a description of the 'traumatic circ.u.mstances,' much less a description of the cop?"

"No. But-and here we go again, violating physician-patient confidentiality-her blood workup showed traces of morphine, or its derivatives."

"She's an addict?"

"How do you define that? Was Penny Detweiler an addict? Two days before she put that needle in her arm, I did her blood, it came back clean, and I was able to tell myself she was past the worst of her addiction. Possibly Cynthia is psychologically addicted. Sniff a couple of lines and it doesn't seem to matter that Grandpa is a gangster and that all your friends are likely to find that out tomorrow. Or today. And your life will be ruined."

"You like this girl, don't you?"

"Yeah, and I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to be professionally detached."

"You think the 'already traumatic circ.u.mstances' had something to do with drugs?"

Amy shrugged.

"That would seem to make sense, wouldn't it?"

"Who took the message?"

"The supervisory nurse and the resident. You want to talk to them?"

"Yeah."

"I thought you might want to. I asked them to stick around."

"I'd like your permission to talk to Denny about this, Amy."

"Thank you for asking my permission," she said. "I was afraid you'd feel you have to go to him, with or without my permission."

"Denny can be trusted, honey," he said. "I don't know if we can find the animal who did this, but we'll d.a.m.ned well try."

She shrugged resignedly. "Now that I've told you, I feel better. Not comfortable, but better."

"Is there a boyfriend? A girlfriend?"

"There is-maybe was-a boyfriend. I don't know his name. And he hasn't been to see her. Or even called."

"That's interesting. Maybe if I can find him, and that shouldn't be hard, I can get something out of him."

"All I want you to do, Peter, is remember that I have a very sick girl on my hands to whom irreparable damage can be done if-"

"Honey, I understand," Peter said.

"You want to see Dr. Martinez and Loretta Dubinsky now?"

Peter nodded.

"They're c.r.a.pped out in a room down the hall," she said. "I'll take you."

" 'c.r.a.pped out'? Doctor, you really should watch your mouth!"

"f.u.c.k you, Peter," she said.

"I love it when you talk dirty," he said.

"I know," she said. "That's why I do it."

She got up from behind her desk and started for the door. He waved her ahead of him. She stopped and touched his cheek.

"And, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I don't want to, but I guess I do love you."

NINETEEN.

It took Irene Chason even longer than she thought it would to wake her husband up.

But finally, he rolled over on his back and looked up at her in mingled indignation and concern.

"What's up?"

"You plan to get up today, or what?"

"I'm a little hungover, all right? Get off my back, Irene."

"There's some guy on the phone for you."

"Some guy?"

"This is the third time he's called," Irene said.