The other three stepped out onto the balcony. "I wonder what someone might want out here," Powell commented, looking around. "Besides a nice tan in the summer."

"There's another door," Smith said, nodding toward the far end of the balcony. "Someone trying to eavesdrop on the bedroom?"

"Be a good trick to hear anything over the traffic," Powell grunted, stepping around the trees and crossing to the other door.

Fierenzo crouched down for a closer look at the living room door. "This is definitely the side that got the hammer treatment," he said, running his gloved finger over the cracked glass by the lock.

"Hold everything," Powell said suddenly, dropping onto one knee beside one of the potted trees.

"Did you say a hammer? Or an axe?"

"What?" Fierenzo asked, frowning.

Powell gestured at the base of the tree. "Take a look."

Fierenzo stepped to his side. There was a shallow gash about an inch long just above where the tree trunk disappeared into the pot. "Well, now, that is interesting," he said, crouching down for a closer look. The gash had barely broken the bark and, like the crack pattern on the door, seemed oddly softedged.

"Looks like they were using a pretty dull axe."

"There's one over there, too," Powell said, pointing to the other tree.

"I see it," Fierenzo said, nodding. "Smith, go ask Umberto if his visitors had any tools."

"Right." Smith disappeared through the door into the apartment.

"You ask me, this sounds like some kind of strange joke," Powell commented.

"On who?" Fierenzo asked. "The Whittiers?"

"Or us," Powell said sourly. "There are plenty of nuts out there who love attention. Especially police attention."

"Strange, but true," Fierenzo agreed. "Have Hill call in and see if Umberto has a record."

"Done and done." Standing up and brushing off his knees, Powell went back inside.

Fierenzo eyed the gash in the tree another moment, then heaved himself to his feet and looked down at the street below. Just past the corner he could see the convenience store where the 911 call had allegedly come from.

So it was possible to see the balcony from there. For whatever that was worth.

He went inside, sliding the door shut behind him. Smith and Powell were talking together in low tones at the far side of the living room, while Hill stood off to the side, talking quietly into her radio.

"Umberto says no axes or hammers," Smith reported as Fierenzo crossed the room and joined them.

"Also no bags or backpacks."

"Though Umberto himself probably has a well-equipped workshop," Powell pointed out.

"Did you want to call the Whittiers' cell phone yet?" Smith asked.

Fierenzo hesitated. Unfortunately, intriguing aspects notwithstanding, a simple home invasion wasn't the sort of thing a detective team should be spending their limited time on. "No, you two might as well run with it," he told Smith. "I'd be interested in seeing your final report, though."

Hill popped her mike back onto its shoulder patch. "Preliminary search shows nothing on Mr.

Umberto," she reported.

"Fine," Fierenzo said. "Then I guess we'll leave this in your capable—"

He broke off. Across the apartment, from the direction of the kitchen, came the familiar trilling of a phone.

"Should we get that?" Powell murmured.

"No," Fierenzo said, heading toward the sound. "Anybody notice if they had an answering machine?"

"Yes, built into the phone," Smith said.

"Probably the dry cleaner telling them their sweaters are ready," Powell muttered as they all trooped into the kitchen.

The machine picked up with a click and they listened in silence as a man's voice ran through a quick and perfunctory response: hi, Roger and Caroline, not available, leave message. A stereotypical Manhattan couple, Fierenzo tentatively tagged them: solid and hard-working, but not overly endowed with either imagination or humor. The message ended, there was the usual beep, and he made a last-minute private bet with himself that the caller would turn out to be a telemarketer.

"Hello, Roger, my name is Cyril," a smooth voice said, with a hint of an accent Fierenzo couldn't place. "I understand you spoke to Sylvia at Aleksander's this morning. I also understand you know where Melantha is."

Fierenzo frowned. Melantha. The girl who'd been seen with Mrs. Whittier?

"I imagine Sylvia tried to persuade you to bring her there," the voice went on. "But I warn you, that would be a terrible mistake. Taking her to anyone but me will spill the blood of thousands of New Yorkers squarely onto your hands."

Fierenzo's chest tightened. The blood of thousands of New Yorkers?

"And as Sylvia may have mentioned, time is short," the voice said. "You have just five days to bring the girl to us at Riverside Park before chaos descends upon the city. We'll do whatever you want, pay whatever you ask, in order to get her back. I hope you'll do the right thing, and that we'll see you and Melantha here soon."

There was another click, and the phone disconnected.

Fierenzo looked over at Powell. "If this is a joke," he said, "it's just gone way over the line."

"Okay, I'm lost," Powell admitted, his forehead wrinkled. "Did we just jump from a home invasion to a kidnapping to a terrorist threat?"

"We went from something to something," Fierenzo agreed. "I'm just not sure where exactly we ended up. Smith, go ask Umberto if he's seen the Whittiers with a ten- to twelve-year-old girl lately.

Hill, find out if either of the Whittiers have a sheet."

Smith nodded and headed toward the door as Hill unhooked her radio mike. "You come with me,"

Fierenzo added to Powell. "I want a look at that bedroom."

They headed down the hall to the bedroom. "What exactly are we looking for?" Powell asked.

"Evidence of an extra person living here," Fierenzo said, glancing around. "Check the closet; I'm going to look in the hamper."

They worked in silence for a minute. "Nothing," Powell reported. "All the women's stuff seems to be the same size."

"Make sure there's no double-hanging," Fierenzo reminded him as he pulled a slightly wrinkled bed sheet from the hamper and laid it out on the bed.

"One outfit per hanger," Powell confirmed. "You got something?"

"A bed sheet, one," Fierenzo said, gesturing to the linens on the bed. "A pillowcase, also one. A

normal change of bedding ought to yield two of each."

Powell nodded. "Someone's been sleeping on the couch."

"My thought exactly," Fierenzo agreed.

He looked over as Hill appeared at the bedroom door. "No records on either Whittier," she reported.

"But, two nights ago, Whittier called 911 reporting that he and his wife had picked up a foundling girl in an alley off Broadway."

"Bingo," Powell said.

"Maybe not," Hill warned. "When the cops arrived, there was no girl here. The Whittiers claimed she'd gone out on the balcony and disappeared. The cops searched, found nothing, and left."

"Looks like wherever she went, she came back," Fierenzo said. "Let's see if Umberto can shed any more light on the subject."

They retraced their steps down the hallway and out the front door. "He says he's only seen the Whittiers with kids when they've got friends visiting," Smith reported. "Not even any of that in the past month."

Fierenzo nodded. "Mr. Umberto, we'll need the name and address of the doorman on duty Wednesday night about—" he lifted his eyebrows at Hill.

"The call came in at ten-forty-three," she supplied.

"From nine-thirty to eleven-thirty." Fierenzo looked back at Smith. "Then you call the guy and see what he remembers about the Whittiers that night. When they went out, when they came in, who was with them—you know the drill."

Smith nodded and turned to Umberto. Fierenzo caught Powell's eye and nodded his head to the side, and together they went back into the apartment. "Time to call the store manager?" Powell asked.