The arraignment court, as you look down on it from the gallery, has a bench on the left-hand side where the magistrate sits; tables in front of the bench where an assistant district attorney and a public defender sit; and across from them are two police officers, who process the volumes of paperwork that accompanies any arrest. The prisoners are brought up from the basement detention unit via a stairway shaft, which winds around an elevator. All the doors leading into the arraignment court are locked to prevent escape.

To the left. is the door leading to the main foyer of the Police Department Administration Building. The door has a solenoid-equipped lock, operated by the police officer behind the window.

Matt went to the door, put his hand on it, and then turned so the cop on duty could see his badge. The lock buzzed, and Matt pushed open the door.

He went inside and walked toward the elevators. On one wall is a display of photographs and police badges of police officers who have been killed in the line of duty. One of the photographs is of Sergeant John Xavier Moffitt, who had been shot down in a West Philadelphia gas station while answering a silent burglar alarm. He had left a wife, six months pregnant with their first child.

Thirteen months after Sergeant Moffitt's death, his widow, Patricia, who had found work as a secretary-trainee with a law firm, met the son of the senior partner as they walked their small children near the Philadelphia Museum on a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

He told her that his wife had been killed eight months before in a traffic accident while returning from their lake house in the Pocono Mountains. Mrs. Patricia Moffitt became the second Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne II two months after she met Mr. Payne and his children. Shortly thereafter Mr. Payne formally adopted Matthew Mark Moffitt as his son and led his wife through a similar process for his children by his first wife.

"Can I help you?" the cop on duty called to Matt Payne as Matt walked toward the elevators. It was not every day that a young man with a police officer's badge pinned to the silk lapel of a tuxedo walked across the lobby.

"I'm going to Homicide," Matt called back.

"Second floor," the cop said.

Matt nodded and got on the elevator.

The Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Department occupies a suite of second-floor rear offices.

Matt pushed the door open and stepped inside. There were half a dozen detectives in the room, all sitting at rather battered desks. None of them looked familiar. There was an office with a frosted glass door, with a sign, CAPTAIN HENRY C. QUAIRE, above it. Matt had met Captain Quaire, but the office was empty.

He walked toward the far end of the room, where there were two men standing beside a single desk that faced the others. Sitting at the desk was a dapper, well-dressed man in civilian clothing whom Matt surmised was the watch officer, the lieutenant in charge.

As he walked across the room he noticed that one of the two " interview rooms" on the corridor side of the room was occupied; a large, blondheaded man in a sleeveless T-shirt was sitting in a metal chair, his left wrist encircled by a hand-cuff. The other handcuff was fastened to a hole in the chair. The chair itself was bolted to the floor.

He saw Matt looking at him and gave him a look of utter contempt.

As Matt approached the desk at the end of the room the mustached, dark-skinned man sitting at it saw him coming and moved his head slightly. The other two men turned to look at him. Matt saw a brass nameplate on the desk, LIEUTENANT LOUIS NATALI, whom Matt surmised was the lieutenant in charge.

"My name is Payne, Lieutenant," Matt said as he reached the desk. "I was told to report here."

No one responded, and Matt was made uncomfortable by the unabashed examination he'd been given by all three men. The examination, he decided, was because of the dinner jacket, but there was something else in the air too.

"He's all yours," Lieutenant Natali said finally.

"Let's find someplace to talk," the smaller of the two detectives said, and gestured vaguely down the room.

There was an unoccupied desk, and Matt headed for it.

"Let's use this," the detective called. Matt stopped and turned and saw that the detective was pointing to the second, empty interview room. That seemed a little odd, but he walked through the door, anyway.

The two detectives followed him inside. One closed the door after them. The other, the one who had suggested the use of the interview room, signaled for Matt to sit in the interviewee's chair.

Matt looked at it with unease. There was a set of handcuffs lying on it, one of the cuffs locked through a hole in the chair.

"Go on, sit down," the detective said, adding, "Payne, my name is Dolan. Sergeant Dolan."

Matt offered his hand. Sergeant Dolan ignored it. Neither did he introduce the other detective.

"Where's your car, Payne?" Sergeant Dolan asked. "Outside? You mind if we have a look in it?"

"What?"

"I asked if you mind if we have a look in your car."

"I don't know where my car is right now," Matt replied. "Sorry. Why are you interested in my car?"

"What do you mean, you don't know where your car is?"

"I mean, I don't know where it is. I loaned it to somebody. "

"Somebody? Does somebody have a name?"

"You want to tell me what this is all about?"

"This is an interview. You're a police officer. You should know what an interview is."

"Hey, all I did was find the injured girl and the dead guy."

"What I want to know is two things. What were you doing up there, and where's your car?Three things: Why were you so anxious to get your car away from the Penn Services Parking Garage?"

"And I'd like to know why you're asking me all these questions."

"Don't try to hotdog me, Payne, just answer me."

Matt looked at Sergeant Dolan and decided he didn't like him. He remembered two things: that his mother was absolutely right when she said he too often let his mouth run away with him when he was angry or didn't like somebody; and that he was a police officer, and this overbearing son of a bitch was a policesergeant. It would be very unwise indeed to tell him to go fuck himself.

"Sorry," Matt said. "Okay, Sergeant. From the top. I went to the top of the garage because I wanted to park my car and there were no empty spots on the lower floors. When I got there, I found Miss Detweiler lying on the floor. Injured. The lady with me-"

"How did you know the Detweiler girl's name? You know her?"

"Yes, I know her."

"Who was the lady with you?"

"Her name is Amanda Spencer."

"And she knows the Detweiler girl too?"

"Yes. I don't know how well."

"How about Anthony J. DeZego? You know him?"

"No. Is that the dead man's name?"

"You sure you don't know him?"

"Absolutely."

Lieutenant Louis Natali had watched as the two Narcotics detectives led Payne into the interview room and closed the door. He opened a desk drawer and took a long, thin cigar from a box and very carefully lit it. He examined the glowing coal for a moment and then made up his mind. Whatever the hell was going on smelled, and he could not just sit there and ignore it.

He stood up, walked down the room, and entered the room next to the interview room. It was equipped with a two-way mirror and a loudspeaker that permitted watching and listening to interviews being conducted in the interview room.

The mirror fooled no one; any interviewee with more brains than a retarded gnat knew what it was. But it did serve several practical purposes, not the least of which was that it intimidated, to some degree, the interviewees. They didn't know whether or not somebody else was watching. That tended to make them uncomfortable, and that often was valuable.