"Don't touch it. Let the tech guys figure out what's on it."

"Sorry. I just wanted to see if it's connected to Ichiko and who the last call went to," I said, holding the phone to my ear as Mike started to circle around the tarp to take it from me.

It rang four times before rolling over into voice mail and I signaled to Mike to wait a minute.

A deep voice with a heavily accented Southern drawl spoke to me. "You have reached the office of the Raven Society. Please be so good as to leave a message after the tone."

"You gonna tell McKinney you just came from viewing Dr. Ichiko?"

"Of course I am," I said.

"And you're going to tell him about the Raven Society phone call, too?"

"Not until I know what the society is." By morning, Mike would be able to check the reverse telephone directory and get a name and address for the number that had been displayed in the lighted dial of the cell phone.

We had just reached the Nineteenth Precinct squad room, shortly after nine-thirty Tuesday evening. When Mike had called Scotty Taren earlier to tell him about the scene at the gorge, the cold case detective had a new development to report, too.

Pat McKinney had been contacted late in the day by a man who claimed to have information about the skeleton in the West Third Street basement. He had directed Scotty to set up a meeting with the man, himself, and Scotty at 9P.M. in the Nineteenth Precinct station house.

Mike knocked on the frosted glass pane of the captain's office. Through it, I could see the outline of McKinney's figure, standing in front of the desk. He walked to the door and opened it, stepping out into the squad room to greet Mike.

"Hey, Chapman. Scotty tells me you've been to the river to-" McKinney said, stopping short when he spotted me over Mike's shoulder. "I suppose you had to stick your nose in the middle of this, too? Maybe if you concentrated your energy on the Silk Stocking Rapist you could solve that one, Alex."

A man was seated inside the room with his back to me. I was more curious about the pair of legs sticking out from a chair behind the door-a woman's legs, crossed at the knees, displaying thick ankles planted in cheap black pumps.

Mike saw them, too, and recognized them. McKinney's long-time lover, Ellen Gunsher, was also a prosecutor, but her fear of the courtroom and her lack of any creative investigative ability had landed her a succession of administrative jobs that were nestled under McKinney's protective eye.

"Are those the stumps-I mean stems-of my favorite yellow rose?" Mike asked, pushing back the door and exposing a bit more of Ellen, who played her big-city helplessness against her homespun Texas roots.

She waved at Mike and offered a wan smile.

"Are we interrupting anything personal, Pat?" I asked.

"Ellen and I were working on turning an informant down at the office when I got this call. That's why she's here."

"Who's the suit? Is that the guy who called with information?"

Pat reached for the doorknob to close it behind him to answer me.

"Just a minute, pal. Don't be leaving any witness on something I'm involved in alone in a room with Ellen," Mike said, motioning her out of the room while the dark-haired man in the chair turned his head to examine the four of us. "C'mon, Tex."

Mike closed the door, leaving the man inside.

Pat was trying to get between Mike and the door. "Last I knew this was Scotty Taren's investigation, not yours. The skeleton's a Cold Case Squad matter, and Ichiko goes with that."

"Yeah, well, Lieutenant Peterson changed the rules. He wants all hands on deck-I just got off the phone with him-until we know if any of these things are connected. You heard Ms. Cooper. Who's the suit?"

Scotty Taren spoke while McKinney glared at Mike, and Ellen stood frozen like a deer caught in the headlights. "His name is Gino Guidi. Fifty-six years old. He's an investment banker with an operation called Providence Partners."

"Stop right there. I know why four of us are here, but I think it's time for Ellen to hit the road," Mike said. "She's got no business with me, and either she packs it in or I make a call to the chief of d's and we go to the mat on this."

McKinney usually bullied detectives into getting his way, but Mike wouldn't brook it. An assistant who had never handled homicides would not be cutting her teeth on one of his investigations.

Ellen raised a hand at Pat to stop whatever feeble protest he was about to make and put on her coat. As she said good night and walked to the staircase, Mike sang out after her: "Oh, I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle."

McKinney was close to a boiling point.

"You want me to continue?" Scotty asked Mike.

McKinney slapped his hand against the wall. "I'm the senior man here. We'll do this the way I say."

"Look, Pat. I think Mike and I have more information than you do at this point," I said. "You can run the show. Just grow up and realize that we're all in it for the same result. I'll take the backseat but you're not doing this without us. Go on, Scotty."

Taren shook his head. "You guys ready? Guidi's married with four kids. Lives in Kings Point. The reason he called is that he was treated by Dr. Ichiko a long time ago. He was in that same rehab group as Emily Upshaw-SABA. He was an alcoholic who moved into other drugs. He was in business school at the time. Guidi thinks he knows the name of the skeleton-well, the girl whose bones you found."

"Who is she?" Mike asked.

Scotty looked at his notes. "Aurora Tait."

"He's got the initials right," I said, referring to the ring that we'd found inside her brick coffin. "Why'd he come forward today?"

"That's what he was telling us when you two interrupted," Pat said.

"He seems pretty freaked out about Dr. Ichiko going on television to name his former patient. He's willing to give us information if we can stop Ichiko," Scotty said.

"Apparently someone else shared that sentiment. Shall we continue?" Mike opened the door and introduced the two of us, apologizing to Guidi for the commotion and reconfiguring the chairs so that we could all fit in the small office.

Pat McKinney took the captain's seat and picked up his questioning. I was against the back wall, listening to the conversation and looking over Gino Guidi.

The banker was dressed in a well-tailored charcoal gray suit- Brioni, if I had to guess. His shirt was a white-on-white herring-bone, with his initials on the barrel cuff. The subtle circular weave on his necktie was perfectly matched to the lavender pocket square, and his fingernails had been recently buffed to a high sheen. His black hair looked like a good dye job, and the only sign of a bump in the road of Gino Guidi's life was a raw scar that ran from the middle of his right cheek down below his shirt collar.

"You were going to give us some background, Mr. Guidi," Pat said.

"I trust this is still confidential?" Guidi said, gesturing at Mike and me.

"My colleagues understand that. You were telling us about Ms. Tait. About why you think she's the woman who was found last week."

"Aurora was what people used to call a free spirit. I was at the B-school when I first met her," he said, resuming his story.

"Was she an NYU student, too?" Pat asked.

"No. She lived in the Village, so she was always hanging around Washington Square. I think a lot of people assumed she was a student, which gave her entrée to all the kids, but in fact she was just a hanger-on."

"How did you meet her?"

"At a party. Nothing memorable about the event except Aurora."

"What about her?"

"She was the sexiest woman I'd ever seen, I think. Tall and willowy, moved like a cat, had lots of dark hair that kind of framed her face and made her smile seem even more electric. And mean," Guidi said, smiling. "She had a really mean streak."