"What do I do about getting this car back to Northwest Detectives?"

"We'll deal with that later," Matt said. "The priorities right now, I think, are to see if I can run this critter down through the camera store, and to keep the Williamsons happy."

"Happy?" she asked, sarcastically.

"You know what I mean."

[FOUR] "Well, what did you think of my sister?" Matt asked when they were back in the unmarked car outside the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.

"She's nice," Olivia said. "And she's a professor of psychiatry?"

"Too young, you mean?" Matt asked, and Olivia nodded. "She got her M.D. at twenty-four. I wouldn't want you to quote me, but she's smart as hell. And she really can get into the minds of psychopaths. This isn't the first time she's helped. She'll probably give us a pretty good picture of how this guy thinks."

"Where to now?" Olivia asked.

"The Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building, South Rittenhouse Square."

"What are we going to do there?"

"I live there," Matt said, and waited for her curiosity to overwhelm him. It didn't.

When she pulled to the curb in front of the Cancer Society Building, Matt said, "You've got my cellular number?"

"And you've got mine," Olivia said.

"See you later," Matt said.

"Right," Olivia said.

He got the Porsche out of the basement garage and headed for New York. When he was out of Center City traffic-on I-95 North-he slipped his cellular into a dash-mounted rack, which permitted hands-off operation, and punched in Joe D'Amata's number.

"D'Amata."

"Payne. I'm on my way to New York, unless you need me there."

"There's not much you can do here," D'Amata said. "The crime lab folks are just about finished. Slayberg's done the scene. We got statements from both McGrorys. What I'd like to do is get the Williamsons' statements."

"I got a statement from the brother," Matt said.

"Then just the mother, then."

"Olivia's on her way to the Roundhouse to deliver the pictures to Washington-"

"He's not there," D'Amata interrupted. "He called to say if I needed him, if we needed him, he's going to take another look at the Roy Rogers."

"He's going to meet with O'Hara, Harris, and the black kid witness at five o'clock, to start all over again."

"So he told me."

"Olivia's going from the Roundhouse to see the Williamsons."

"Olivia is, is she?"

"Fuck you, Joe."

"I think that's what they call 'verbal abuse of a subordinate, ' Sergeant. You'll be hearing from the FOP."

"Then fuck you twice, Joe," Matt said.

D'Amata laughed.

"You have the Williamson mother's address?" Matt asked.

"No, but I probably can get it from Detective Lassiter."

"I've got her cell number. You need it?"

"Yeah."

Matt gave it to him, then said, "Tell her that I said I want her to introduce you to the Williamsons as the lead detective on the case. Maybe 'senior homicide investigator' would be better."

There was a pause while D'Amata considered that.

"Lassiter's got them calmed down, and we want to show them how hard we're working, right?"

"Yeah. Make sense to you?"

"Yeah. ThatPhilly Phil asshole business is still dangerous. My wife called and asked me what the hell was wrong with the uniforms, they didn't take the door."

"Well, let's keep the Williamsons stroked."

"Consider it done," D'Amata said. "If anything comes up, I'll call you."

"Same here."

"That digital camera's a long shot, Matt. But let's hope we get lucky."

"Amen, Brother."

[FIVE] Sergeant Zachary Hobbs, a stocky, ruddy-faced forty-four-year -old, was holding down the desk in Homicide when Detective Lassiter walked through the outer door.

Detective Kenneth J. Summers, who should have been working the desk, was meeting a lengthy call of nature, which he blamed on something he must have eaten at the church supper of St. Paul's Lutheran Church the previous evening.

"Can I help you?" Hobbs asked. He was not immune to Detective Lassiter's looks.

"Lieutenant Washington?"

"I'm sorry, he's not here."

"Captain Quaire?"

"He's not here either. Can I do something for you?"

"Would you give whichever of them comes in first this envelope, please?"

She handed it to him.

"Sure." He weighed it in his hands. "What is it?"

"It's from Sergeant Payne," Olivia said.

Hobbs looked at her, waiting for her to go on. After a moment's hesitation, she did.

"It's photographs of the victim in the Independence Street job."

Sergeant Hobbs immediately tore the envelope open and looked at the eight photographs.

"Where the hell did Payne get these?" Hobbs asked.

"The doer forgot his digital camera at the scene. Sergeant Payne downloaded the images to his laptop, and Special Victims printed them for us."

"Next question: Who are you, Detective? How did you get them?"

"My name is Lassiter," Olivia said. "Northwest. I've been detailed to Homicide. Sergeant Payne told me to bring them here."

"Detailed? By who?"

"Chief Lowenstein," Olivia said.

"Well, so long as you're with us, Detective, you're certainly going to bring a little class to the premises," Hobbs said. "Where's the camera?"

"Detective D'Amata has it," Olivia said.

"Okay. As soon as either the boss or the Black Buddha comes in, I'll see they get these. They may want to talk to you…"

"I'll give you my cell phone number," she said, and did.

"Where will you be?"

"I'm going to take the victim's mother's statement," she said.

"Sergeant Payne told you to?"

"Yes, he did."

He looked at her a moment, then said, "Welcome, welcome. Would you be offended if I said you're the best-looking detective to come in here in my memory?"

"Not at all," Olivia said, and smiled at him. "Thanks."

"My pleasure," Hobbs said. "See you around."

In the best of all possible worlds, Olivia thought, as she left Homicide and the Roundhouse and got in her unmarked car, the encounter between herself and Sergeant Hobbs of Homicide would have been entirely professional and gender-neutral.

But the Philadelphia police department was not the best of all possible worlds, and Sergeant Hobbs had made it clear that he found her to be an attractive member of the female gender.

So what was wrong with that?

He wondered who the hell I was, which was natural, and he really wondered, which was even more natural, who haddetailed me, even temporarily, to Homicide. Once I told him Lowenstein, that was the end of it.

It really couldn't have gone any better.

When Olivia Lassiter, then just shy of her twenty-first birthday, and a junior at Temple University, majoring in mass market communications, had told her parents that she had taken, and passed, the entrance application for the Philadelphia police department, and that she intended to drop out of college to enter the Police Academy, their reaction had been the opposite of unbridled joy.

Her father, a midlevel executive with an insurance company, had spoken his mind. "You're crazy. You have gone over the edge! You should be locked up for your own protection."

Her mother, a buyer for John Wanamaker amp; Company, had said more or less the same thing, then tried tears approaching hysteria, and said she was throwing her life and "the advantages Daddy and I have given to you" away.

Olivia had dropped out of Temple and entered the Police Academy and graduated and did a year working a van in the Ninth District, and then a second year in the Central City Business District. Truth to tell, she hadn't liked either job, and there had been a strong temptation to accept her father's offer to go back to college, get her degree, and make something of herself.

But that would have been admitting she'd made a mistake. And she hadn't been quite prepared to do that. She had been on the job just over a year when a detective's examination was announced. She took it, and passed it, ranking just high enough to get promoted-among the last few promoted from that list-eighteen months later.