Gunther was once again feeling uneasy about their status. "Detective, I'm sorry if we've suddenly become a pain in the neck. I didn't know your whip was going to throw this back in your lap."

Ogden seemed unconcerned. "Call me Ward. And he's just covering his b.u.t.t. If it is a ground ball, it'll pan out that way again pretty fast, and if your pal w.i.l.l.y is on to something, then we'll have him to thank later. It's not a big deal." He then smiled and added, "But come to think of it, since the two of you are sitting around with nothing to do except complicate my life, I might have you help me out. That way, you'll know I didn't blow you off, and I'll have two extra heads looking at this." He glanced over his shoulder at Torres's window. "But that's strictly unofficial, okay? Unless or until something crops up."

Both Sammie and Joe nodded without comment. Ogden rose to his feet, a thin file in his hand. "Take your coffee. We'll move this to the interview room."

The room in question actually looked like a catchall, with a rickety table in the middle, a small fridge and a microwave in one corner beside a narrow counter, the ubiquitous pile of more boxes lining one wall, and a bank of padlocked miniature metal lockers for the officers' personal property.

Ogden took a paper towel from above the counter and wiped the tabletop clean of some mysterious puddles. "Okay," he finally said, laying the folder on the table and pulling out two folding metal chairs. "That's the Mary Kunkle case file, from soup to nuts. Take a look and tell me what you think. I have to make a couple of phone calls, but I'll be right back."

Joe and Sammie sat side by side and scrutinized the contents of the file together, occasionally pointing out details to each other, generally just reading quietly or studying the many photographs. They were just finishing up when Ogden returned.

He sat opposite them. "What do you think?"

Sammie Martens was about to start up, but Gunther spoke first. "Sorry. I was wondering if we could add one last request to this. Could we go to the scene? See it for ourselves?"

Sammie looked at him, but Ogden simply smiled and began gathering up the paperwork. "No problem. I would've done the same in your shoes. We'll go in my car."

The drive to Mary's apartment took no more than ten minutes. Not bothering with a protracted search for an open spot, Ogden double-parked beside a car which was facing a fire hydrant zone, thereby allowing its driver a way to get out on his own. He laughed at Sammie's cool appraisal of the gesture and explained, "People think we can just throw a plate on the dash and get free parking wherever we want," Ogden explained. "That's true a lot of the time, but if we're blocking a hydrant or a bus zone, we get ticketed like everybody else, and we have to plead the summons with the boss and do all the usual paperwork. I even got towed once when I was inside a building working a case. Took me all day to get the car out of hock."

They'd all three been walking while Ogden aired these woes, so as he finished, they were standing before the dreary, stained facade of Mary's apartment building. Ogden pushed the super's doorbell in the lobby and waited until Jose Rivera appeared, wiping his hands with a rag.

His face fell as he recognized who it was. "Oh, Detective. Not again. I thought this thing was over."

Ogden smiled at him. "The fat lady hasn't sung yet, Mr. Rivera. Sorry. Could you let us in?"

Rivera turned heavily and plodded away into the gloom of the building's interior. "Follow me."

They climbed the stairs to Mary's floor and came to a halt before the taped door. Ogden reached out and touched the white warning label at the spot where w.i.l.l.y had sliced it earlier.

He hadn't said a word before Rivera cut in, "Don't blame me. That was you guys. You too cheap to use new tape, it ain't my problem."

Ogden patted him on the back. "Relax, Mr. Rivera. n.o.body's busting your chops here. Was this the guy with the b.u.m arm?"

Rivera eyed him suspiciously, as if this were a trick question. "So?"

"So nothing. It's all right. I just wanted to know."

The super's expression softened. "Yeah. It was him. And tell him I appreciate whatever he did in there, too. That was a first. It went down good with the neighbors, too. I been through this routine before with you people, and he's the first to clean up after himself. I don't know why you can't make that policy, instead of letting a place smell like a sewer till n.o.body can live on the same floor. It's a sanitation thing, you know? You screw me over and then the health people're all over me for somethin' I can't do nuthin' about."

Ogden had already opened the door and waved the other two inside while Rivera was venting. Now he gave the super's shoulder one last pat, said, "It's okay. I'll let him know," and closed the door.

He smiled apologetically at his guests. "They don't see us face-to-face too often. I guess they have to get it off their chests when they can."

Sammie was looking perplexed. "What was he talking about, anyhow?"

Ogden tapped the side of his nose. "No stench.... In fact, it smells pretty good. The first time we were here, it was getting ripe. She'd been there awhile and she'd messed herself before dying." He moved past them as they stood in the tiny kitchen and glanced over the living room. "Yeah. w.i.l.l.y did a Spic and Span. Didn't do the scene much good, but, like the super said, made it more bearable. Sometimes a scene stays rank for months till some bureaucrat in our department clears the last of the paperwork."

He seemed to take w.i.l.l.y's violation in stride, removing a plastic jar from his overcoat pocket and holding it up. "At least, we won't have to use these."

Sammie reached out and took hold of the container.

"DOA crystals," Ogden explained. "That's what we call them. I think they look more like rabbit pellets. Open it and take a whiff."

She did so, made a face, and pa.s.sed them on to Gunther, who did likewise. "Christ," he said, "talk about sweet."

Ogden laughed. "Might be worse than what it's supposed to hide. We usually spread them around the room in a few Styrofoam cups so they aren't that concentrated, but they do the job."

They all three moved into the living room, where Ogden once again opened the case file and spread it across the coffee table before them. "Okay, so you got your wish, Joe. This is it. You two see any problems with our conclusions?"

Ever wary, Gunther glanced at his face, but once more, all he could see was a helpful neutrality. Ogden, it was beginning to seem, was one of those rare birds: the ultimate professional. No matter the situation or the setback, he didn't take the job personally. It was all about quality control, not who was right or wrong.

Gunther began gently nevertheless, wandering through the apartment as he spoke. "To start with, because of w.i.l.l.y's neat-freak attack, I'm relying on the photographs for how the place looked before the search, but it seemed very clean and tidy for a junkie. Healthy food in the larder, a fully stocked and shiny bathroom."

Ogden nodded. "I noticed that. On the other hand, the premise we're working on-based on all her track marks being old except the lethal one-was that she'd been on the mend. She wasn't supposed to be down and out and living like a rat in a box."

Gunther paused by the TV set and picked up a small envelope. He handed it to Ogden with a wry smile. "It's addressed to you. It's w.i.l.l.y's handwriting."

Ogden opened the envelope and poured its contents out into his palm. There were the few crumpled receipts w.i.l.l.y had retrieved from the trash, and a thick wad of old Metro cards. An accompanying sc.r.a.p of paper had the words, "Found this lying around. The Metro cards were wedged in the window. Figured you could put them to better use than me."

Ogden shook his head. "Interesting guy."

Gunther laughed. "That's one word for him."

"There was something else Sammie noticed from the photographs," he continued, returning to the kitchen and the front door. "The locks here: There's the regular one the super just opened to let us in, which I guess was locked when you first responded to the scene, and then the deadbolt, which can only be closed from inside." He snapped it to as a test, its sharp click sounding like a slap.

Ogden understood the implied question. "And it wasn't closed, as might be expected in the middle of the night."

He moved next to Gunther and opened the door entirely, checking the other lock's mechanism. "We really have three systems here," he said. "One's a spring lock, engaged when you just pull the door closed behind you. Then there's a key-operated deadbolt, which Rivera opened at the same time he opened the spring lock. I noticed he turned the key twice. So, the keyless deadbolt's redundant."

He shut the door again and raised his eyebrows. "In the responding officer's UF-61, he makes special mention that both the spring lock and the keyed deadbolt were closed. Could be she felt that was enough and never did use the backup deadbolt."

To his own credit, Ogden followed his comment by bending over the keyless deadbolt to study it carefully. "On the other hand," he added, "the k.n.o.b does look good and shiny from repeated use." He straightened. "Of course, I don't know how long she was living here, either. Might be her predecessor was less trusting."

He moved back to the living room, where Sammie was doing a thorough search, and retrieved a photograph from the open file. "I did find out something else, by the way," he confessed, holding the picture up. "While you were going over the file back at the office, I went next door to see the narcotics guys-our precinct is also headquarters for Manhattan South narcotics. I asked them if the devil symbol on the bag of heroin was local, and they said definitely not. It had to have come from outside the neighborhood." He replaced the photo. "May not mean anything, but I thought it was interesting."

"So's this," Gunther said from the kitchen. "Bring the file, would you?"

They both joined him, Sammie carrying what he'd requested. He pointed to the counter beside the sink. "You got a toaster oven and a microwave, right? One's plugged in, the other's not, freeing up the only easily accessible outlet in the room. Except, there's nothing else around that can be plugged in."

He answered the next obvious but unspoken question by plugging in the toaster oven and hitting the ON switch. It lit up and the metal coils inside slowly began to glow. No one said a word. He killed the toaster oven and removed the plug.

He reached out his hand. "Let me see."

Sammie handed the file over and he extracted a picture of the counter, taken from their vantage point. He held it up before the real thing, so they could see the before and after. In both the photograph and in reality, the one plug was unplugged. Also, there was a barely noticeable residue on the counter, near its edge.

"See that?" Gunther asked, tapping the spot in the picture. "It's still here."

He pointed at it as it lay before them. Ogden bent over and turned his head to better see it in the overhead light. "It glistens," he murmured. "Like gold dust."

"Remind you of anything?" Gunther asked.

Sammie and Ogden looked at each other.

"Think of a hardware store," Gunther prompted.

Ogden's face lit up and he studied the dust again with renewed interest. "It's like the shavings left over from a key-making jig."

"That's why the outlet needed to be freed up," Joe Gunther agreed.

Chapter 12.

w.i.l.l.y Kunkle sat in a corner of one of the holding pens tucked under the misdemeanor court at 100 Centre Street in Downtown Manhattan. The cell was about twenty-bytwenty and held some ten men who were waiting to be taken upstairs for their moment before the judge. One of them was sequestered in a small cubbyhole at the back, which had a barred window through which he could talk privately with his lawyer. w.i.l.l.y had been here two hours, watching his roommates intermingling in subtle hierarchical ways, and wondering if and when one of them might confront him to find out who he was and what he was in for. So far, no one had shown any interest in him.

He was a little nervous. After Joe and the lawyer had left him behind at Rikers, pending his court appearance the following day, Kunkle had been extracted from the general-population barracks where he'd been staying and put into isolation for his own protection, presumably because Gunther had confirmed that he was in fact a cop, and thus at risk among other prisoners who might be interested in moving up the food chain.

But right now was not the following day. It was only three hours after that meeting with Gunther. To his surprise, Kunkle had been taken from his cell, driven to 100 Centre Street, and placed in this cell. Almost afraid of jinxing what looked like an early release, he'd nevertheless asked one of the commanding COs if Joe Gunther had pulled more strings to speed up his processing. The answer had been that the DA was behind it and that Gunther couldn't be located, despite their efforts to do so, presumably because his pager was malfunctioning.

On the surface, this was good news. w.i.l.l.y had been expecting Joe and Sammie to be at his hearing and to then do everything possible to stop his returning to the streets. This latest development implied he was about to sneak out before they found him. But that was just an a.s.sumption. This system, with which he was all too familiar by now, did not usually pride itself on working ahead of schedule. Thus, the possibility lurked that something was amiss, and that he was about to be handed a nasty surprise.

"Kunkle?" a CO asked from the hallway outside, a clipboard in hand.

w.i.l.l.y rose to his feet. "That's me."

"Step out."

Watched by the others, w.i.l.l.y rose and did as he'd been asked. The CO took him by the arm and escorted him down the narrow hallway, up a cramped flight of windowless stairs, and to a door at the top. There, he pushed open the door and gave w.i.l.l.y a gentle shove in the small of his back.

Ready for anything by now, w.i.l.l.y found himself in a huge, vaulted, wood-paneled room full of people and voices, as big as a train station, it seemed to him, especially in comparison to the reduced quarters he'd just left.

It was the misdemeanor court, in full action. Architecturally just like the staid and impressive place so popularly featured on TV and in the movies, complete with a raised platform and ornate carved bench for the judge, along with other latter-century touches of decorative excess, but in fact a place reminiscent of old Bedlam. It was jammed with people: spectators, lawyers, court officers, stenographers, newspeople, and, looming above them all, a black-robed, efficient, and calm woman judge, who looked as comfortable here as if she'd been supervising a family dinner at home.

w.i.l.l.y froze in place, causing the CO to b.u.mp into him from behind.

"Keep moving-over there." An index finger appeared over his shoulder and indicated the same lawyer w.i.l.l.y had met a few hours earlier.

It was only then that w.i.l.l.y Kunkle realized that no one besides his lawyer even knew who he was or cared anything about him. Everyone else was there on other business. As he walked hesitantly to where his attorney awaited him, w.i.l.l.y began to differentiate the various groups cluttering the room. Apparently, in order to keep things moving quickly, the system encouraged defendants to be processed by the judge as on a production line, each equipped with a legal representative, a prosecutor, and perhaps a few others, and each variously awaiting his or her turn, pleading the case, discussing some postjudgment deal with the appropriate bodies, or simply filling in paperwork at the court secretary's desk.

The lawyer quickly shook w.i.l.l.y's hand without making eye contact, his attention distracted by the contents of his open briefcase. "We're up in a few minutes. Like I explained at Rikers, this is an arraignment and a sentencing both. Just stay quiet, look at the judge, be respectful, and follow instructions. It'll be over before you know it."

It was over almost that fast. His name and case number were announced, the judge asked both sides what they wanted, the prosecution and w.i.l.l.y's Legal Aid rep traded facts about the circ.u.mstances, the character references, the otherwise clean record, and ended up presenting the one option they wanted the judge to take, which she did summarily. Before w.i.l.l.y had a chance to carefully study the faces of the people responsible for his fate, he was told he could go. The whole thing had taken mere minutes.

He was out on the street shortly thereafter, feeling like he'd just been teletransported there, the product of some weird commingling of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone.

Despite his surprise, however, he was certain of three things: He was once again a free man, he was in immediate need of his wallet, badge, and gun, and he wanted to finish his conversation with Nathan Lee.

He began looking around for a subway station.

"It was over here," Mrs. Goldblum said, gesturing to them to follow her.

Ogden, Gunther, and Sammie Martens crossed the modest room to where the elderly woman was now standing by the window.

"I was watering this plant when I saw the man working on the fire escape. He was right there, where the ladder swings down from that platform to the ground."

They were across the alley from Mary Kunkle's building, looking at its wall and her living room window on the third floor. There, they could clearly see the crime scene unit, or CSU, gathering what evidence they could. The CSU leader had made his unhappiness with his a.s.signment crystal clear to Ogden, describing the apartment as "sloppy fourths" after EMS, the first police search, and finally w.i.l.l.y Kunkle had all raised havoc with it. But his was not to argue in the long run-he functioned at the investigator's pleasure. And he had confirmed that the shavings they'd found on the kitchen counter were consistent with a key cutter's.

Now Ogden, temporarily using his two unofficial tagalongs instead of an a.s.signed partner, was conducting a canva.s.s that would have been done long ago had Mary's death been deemed suspicious. They had just met their first ray of hope in Mrs. Goldblum, after two hours of knocking on doors and meeting with blank looks.

"That's great," Ward Ogden said soothingly. "Could you tell what he was doing?"

But the old lady shook her head. "I thought it must have been some maintenance work. They do that sometimes. I didn't think anything of it because he was wearing a uniform and had tools. What did he do?"

Ogden answered blandly, "As far as we know, he was working on the fire escape, like you said. We're just asking people if they saw anything at all. It doesn't mean it was anything bad, necessarily. Did you happen to get a look at him, by the way?"

Again, she disappointed them. "He was wearing one of those caps with the bill pulled down. All I could see was the top of his head."

Joe Gunther was still looking out the window, and softly asked, "Did the maintenance man ever go up the fire escape, or did he just stay by the ladder?"

"He just stayed there, moving it up and down."

Ten minutes later, the three of them were standing at the bottom of the alleyway, looking up. They'd come in from the street, through a gate with a broken lock that Ogden noted with interest, and now Joe Gunther reached out and pulled the chain hanging down from the ladder suspended below the fire escape's second-floor platform. It swung down to meet them without so much as a squeak.

The silence was telling. Without a word, Ogden led the way up the ladder until they were cl.u.s.tered around the hinge at the top. He touched it with his fingertip and examined the fresh, thick, greasy results. Then he cast his gaze farther up the escape, obviously visualizing the route one could take to Mary's window once this standardly noisy and attention-getting obstacle had been bypa.s.sed.

Sammie Martens voiced a counterargument to what was clearly going through Ogden's mind. "But her window was locked from the inside."

"Worse than that," Ogden replied. "I checked the lock earlier. It's old and stiff. You can't jimmy it from the outside without either leaving traces or waking up the neighborhood."

There was a long pause as they each digested that point.

Ogden finally straightened and prepared to return to ground level. "Well, let's see how the CSU people are faring. I'm afraid that so far things aren't looking too good."

Sammie flared at that. "What do you mean? What about the key shavings?" She pointed at the hinge. "And that?"

But both older detectives knew they needed more. And they knew a little patience and some more time might give it to them. Gunther laid his hand on her shoulder as she reluctantly started down. "Don't get worked up yet, Sam. We're just beginning."

Back on the ground, Gunther paused as they began heading back toward the street. "What's the weather been like the last few nights?"

Ogden stopped. "On the cool side."

"So no reason for Mary to have her window open?"

"No. Cooler than that. Besides, that would call on coincidence. Unless the guy lived within sight of her window, he'd want to be sure the window was open before he set out to visit her."