Sylvia was clearly annoyed. "They're grown men, Alex. I can't hold them here. I suppose if they want to talk to you, they'll wait."

"Well, will you tell them I'm coming?"

"Of course. I'll be here."

I turned around to look at Jake. "Do you mind terribly if I scoot up to the college for an hour or two?"

"I was just getting hooked on the domesticity of this scene. Reams of newspapers to read, sweat suits and slippers, me cooking, you doing the dishes, The Temptations singing 'My Girl.' I was even beginning to fantasize that one of my secret-recipe spicy Bloody Marys could lead to an afternoon nap that might turn into enough of a personal workout that I wouldn't have to get back on that damn machine for my daily exercise."

I went over and sat on his lap, my arms around his neck. "You do understand, don't you?"

"Absolutely. Want company? You're like a fish out of water without Mike and Mercer."

"Not necessary. I'm only going to the administration building. Recantati walked out on us the other day, so I'd love a few minutes with him, away from the presence of my not-so-gentle grand inquisitor, the ever-tactful Detective Chapman. And this Grenier guy has been completely unavailable to us until this very moment. Maybe that's just because of the holiday, but we do need to speak to him." I kissed his mouth and he kissed me back, deeply and lovingly.

"When you put it that way, I can't object to a thing you do. And the faster you get out of here to do it, the sooner you'll be back." Jake raised his knees to bump me off his lap and patted me on my bottom. "Dinner at home tonight."

"Radical idea." I was brushing my hair and putting on lipstick. "You're not expecting any help from me, are you?"

"Hey, I was thrilled to see you set up the Christmas tree stand the same way I do. Hot water in the pot to let the sap flow out That's devotion, Alex. I was even set to invite you to move in with me before I was certain you could boil water."

"Just luck that you've got a whistling teapot. I'm not entirely sure how to know when it's boiling otherwise." I not only loved Jake's companionship, but also the fact that he never griped about my inability to cook anything more complicated than an English muffin.

"Eight o'clock. I picked up some salmon on my way in last night. I've got a delicious recipe stuck in the back of a cookbook somewhere. That'll keep me busy till you get home."

The doorman helped me hail a taxi and I huddled in the back of it while I tried to explain to the driver, whose Urdu was incomprehensible to me, that Claremont Avenue was a block west of Broadway, near the campus of Columbia University.

A security guard stared at my face to match it to the photograph on my DA's identification card. Grudgingly, he admitted me to the building and I ran up the staircase to Sylvia Foote's office. The usual crusty expression on her face summed up her attitude about my arrival.

"They're not pleased about your coming here today. Neither one of them. But it did stop them from screeching at each other." She slammed her door shut behind us as she pointed me down to President Recantati's suite of rooms.

"What were they arguing about?"

She flashed another sour look at me. "What we're all on a short tether about. Lola Dakota. Nobody wants to be dragged into this mess."

"You're her colleagues and-"

"That doesn't mean that we wanted to be involved with her dirty laundry."

Foote knocked when she reached his office. "Come in."

Recantati had appeared so mild-mannered when Mike and I first met him the day after Lola's death. Now he scowled to see me, as much because of what we had asked him as for the fact that I knew at least one thing about him that he wished to keep a secret.

"Thomas, this is Ms. Cooper, from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office."

"Good afternoon. I'm Thomas Grenier."

The biology professor was slightly built but rather wiry-looking. He had thinning dark hair and glasses that sat tightly on the bridge of his nose. He was no more anxious to shake my hand than was Recantati.

Foote turned to walk out of the room. I had one more question for her, which I wanted both of the men to hear. "Before you go, Sylvia, I was wondering if you had any recent contact with Charlotte Voight?"

"What?"

"A call that she wanted to register for class in the new semester, perhaps? Have any of the faculty or students heard from her, that she's back in town?"

Foote and Recantati exchanged glances. "Not a word. Why do you ask?"

"Her name came up in an interview we did yesterday. I just wondered whether anyone mentioned to you that they had seen her recently."

"I told you I'd let you know if I did. It's almost five o'clock, Alex. If you don't need me here, I'm going home." She pulled the door shut behind her and left the three of us standing in Recantati's office. He asked Grenier to step out into the anteroom while he had a few words alone with me, and I sat in the chair facing his large desk.

"Ms. Cooper, first I'd like to apologize for my walking out on you during our interview the other day. It must have created a terrible impression of me and I'm simply mortified-"

His voice broke off and he stopped talking.

"Nobody enjoys talking to the police, Professor."

"I don't really understand all about DNA and what kind of evidence it leaves behind. Thomas knows a lot more than I do. I learned from talking to him that a person can simply touch things-doorknobs and drinking glasses-and it can leave enough skin cells behind to develop a DNA pattern."

"That's quite true." There was enough genetic material in the skin cells that were sloughed off in just minutes of normal contact that it was becoming possible to solve even nonviolent crimes, like burglary, with the use of this technology.

I tried to put Recantati more at ease. "In England, they use DNA to solve property crimes, like car thefts. Detectives figured out that in order to jump-start a car, the thief usually touches some place on the steering column. So the Brits just wipe that part of the car down once they've recovered it, and put the profile in their computers. They solve cases they never used to be able to any other way. No blood or semen necessary."

He wasn't listening to my evidence-collection lecture. He was trying to find a way to convince me that he had never had a sexual relationship with Lola Dakota. "I don't want to deal with Detective Chapman anymore. But I'd like you to believe me, Ms. Cooper. I was not-I was never involved with Professor Dakota. She was a friend, she was a colleague"-he hesitated before he went on-"and she was also guaranteed to be trouble. I don't look for trouble."

"But you had spent time in her apartment, right? That's why you think we might have something with your DNA on it."

"I, uh-no, never alone. I had been to Lola's apartment, but only for coffee, or when she had a few of us in for cocktails. That's not what I'm concerned about.

"My position here is tentative. I'm just here in the role of acting president. And if I don't get the permanent appointment, then I'd like to be able to go back to my job at Princeton. Without a scandal. They won't take me back if there's any scandal."

"Then, I don't understand your concern." "Ms. Cooper, I saw your Crime Scene Unit men when they came to Lola's office the day after the murder. I don't know what they're capable of determining with DNA, but they were processing the room for fingerprints, too. I've been a nervous wreck, that's why I walked out on you and the detective." "Why? What are you afraid of?"

"The morning after Professor Dakota was killed I, uh-I went into her office. I didn't take anything, I swear to you. But I went in there quite early, before anyone else was in the building." "How did you get in? Why-"