"I didn't meet her until I came to the college in September. She has-had, I guess-a wonderful reputation in her field, and I was well aware of her scholarship in twentieth-century New York City government affairs long before we met. I was counting on her to continue to be one of our more productive faculty members. She didn't disappoint in that regard. Lola's next book was scheduled for publication in the spring, with a small university press. And she had already placed several articles about Blackwells, both in academic and commercial journals."

"Published and perished? These times are cruel."

Chapman's humor wasn't for everyone. I made a note to try to get a manuscript of Dakota's forthcoming work. Perhaps there was something in her research that would relate to the investigation. "Was she ever accused of plagiarism, or stealing another professor's intellectual property?"

"I think everyone would agree that Lola was an original. That wasn't one of her problems."

"What were they, Mr. Recantati? What were her problems?"

He stammered a bit. "Well-well, certainly, you could start with the marriage. With that crazy husband of hers. That was an issue for all of us at the college."

"How do you mean?"

"Lola brought the marriage to campus with her every day. I don't mean physically, of course. But she was always terrified that Ivan would appear at school, following an argument or after a meeting with their matrimonial attorneys. She was just as frightened for her students and for us as she was about herself. Talked about it to Sylvia and to me quite often. Afraid that Ivan would show up-or worse still, send some hired gun to the school who would kill anyone that got in the way when he targeted Lola. Thank goodness she was alone when it happened."

I winced at the man's selfishness. What must her last moments have been like? Confronted by her killer at the portal of her own home. Had he been in the apartment with her? Had he waited outside, knowing she planned to go somewhere? Or was it a chance encounter with a stranger, and were Chapman and I wasting our time talking to her cronies while a rapist or robber-an opportunist-was at large in the neighborhood?

Recantati rubbed his forefinger back and forth across his lower lip. "That sounds kind of cold, doesn't it?" His speech halted again. "And, and I-uh-we're just assuming she was alone when she was killed, I guess. Do you know anything else about it yet? How she died, I mean?"

Mike ignored the questions. He wanted answers to his own first. "You're a historian, right? Give us your background before getting to King's."

"My credentials? I did my undergraduate work at Princeton. Master's and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. I'd been in charge of the history department at Princeton, until I came here to take the position as acting president while the search committee is finding someone for the permanent position. I'm, uh-I'll be fifty years old in March. I live just outside of Princeton, although King's has given me an apartment on campus while I'm here."

"Married?"

"Yes. My wife teaches math at a private school near our home. We've got four young-"

"She know anything about your relationship-your sexual relationship-with Lola?"

Recantati rubbed his lip furiously now. "I didn't-we didn't have any such thing."

He had hesitated a few moments too many to be credible. I had the sense that he was trying to figure out whether there was anyone who could possibly know the truth before he had to commit himself to an honest answer.

"That's not what your colleagues tell me."

"What, Shreve? I suppose he told you that he and Lola were just friends, also. That's a laugh. Do you have any idea what it's like in a closed community like a small college? You have dinner at the faculty club with someone who's not in your department and therefore you must be in bed with her. A student stays fifteen minutes too long in your office, and you're making a pass at her. If it's a male student, you must not be out of the closet yet.

"I'll help with your investigation in any way that I can, but I won't sit here and be insulted."

Chapman leaned back and opened his desk drawer. He placed a box of Q-Tips on top of the blotter and pointed to it. "How about giving me a buccal swab, Professor?"

"What? I've never been in a station house before. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your language, your question."

"I didn't learn the word from J. Edgar Hoover. It's science, not police lingo." Mike slowly drew open the sliding lid from the box and removed one of the cotton-tipped wooden applicators. "That's buccal-from the Latin bucca. Your mouth, in the old country.

"If you'd be kind enough to just run this down the inside of your cheek, then Cooper's heartthrobs, those serologists over at the lab who solve all her rape cases and make her look so damn good, they'll tell me if it matches any of the DNA we found on things in Ms. Dakota's little apartment."

"B-but you need blood, surely, or s-s-s-"

He couldn't bring himself to say the word "semen."

"I need a buccal swab, is all. The same little bit of spit that's kind of frothing on your lips, sir."

Recantati repeated his nervous habit of stroking his mouth. He stood up. "This is not what I came in here to discuss with you today. You can't make me do that."

"I got a four-year-old nephew who says that to me, too. Stamps his foot at the same time. You should add that touch, for more emphasis. / can't make you do it, today, is a fact. But watch out for blondie, here. She's hell with a grand jury."

"If I can be useful with serious information that might actually help your investigation, please call me. I'll be in Princeton until the beginning of next week." He walked to the exit before either of us could see him out.

Chapman smiled, picking up Recantati's relinquished coffee container and marking it with the professor's initials on the bottom. "Got him anyway."

"Well, you may have won a minor skirmish, but in my book you lost the war. Whether he's sleeping with her or not may play a role in this, but you gave up the opportunity to ask all the other questions about things I wanted to know." I tossed my pad onto the desktop.

"Look, we get these cups down to Thaler's office before three o'clock and he promised to run them for us over the holiday. By the weekend, we'll know whether or not any of these academic marvels were anywhere they shouldn't have been. I didn't mean to play with him, but it was irresistible, once he started to squirm."

"But that could be something as simple as having had a fling with Lola and being mortified that his wife will find out. Now we don't even know why she was after him for money and whether he had a hand in her project."

"You can go at him again more gently next week. I'll have other things to do. Let's get Ma Kettle in here." He bagged the empty container, separate from the one he took from Shreve, and walked to the door to bring in Sylvia Foote.

Stooped and sour-faced, Foote shuffled in behind Chapman with a slim briefcase in one hand. He led her to the broken chair and steadied it for her as she sat. "Coffee?" he asked.

"I don't drink it."

"There's one in every crowd," Mike mumbled as he resumed his seat.

"What did you do to my president?" Sylvia glared at me. "He left in a huff. Wouldn't even tell me why."

"I think he's just rattled by all this going on during his tenure."

"I'm beginning to think my faculty shouldn't be talking to you without legal representation."

If Sylvia was looking for a signal from me that none of her employees was going to come under our microscope, I wasn't willing to give it. She realized that by my silence.

"In that case, Alex, I'll have Justin Feldman get in touch with you."

That would mean trouble for us. A friend and a brilliant litigator, Justin would brook none of Mike's tactics. They had clashed in the past. He'd be cordial but tough, and we'd be likely to lose direct access to the entire King's College academic staff.