"It seems to me it's worth letting Zeldin give us as much detail about the man as he can," Mercer said. "Maybe something, some little fact he suggests, will pull things together for us. If it turns out Zeldin himself is in the mix, all it does is give him more time to sink himself. I say we take advantage of the fact that he likes to talk."

"You believe his bullshit?" Mike asked.

"D'you see those crutches in the library? They wouldn't be there if he wasn't capable of getting out of the wheelchair. I want to know if he really can walk and just how well, and what route his driver took home from the Botanical Gardens office yesterday afternoon. The gorge isn't very far from where he worked."

"Man, I'm looking for the exercise routine that starts with marijuana and red wine."

"There are too many links here to ignore," I said. "I agree-let him explain what he can about Poe's life. Keep in mind that lots of great artists have their clubs and cabals-the Baker Street Irregulars, the Wolfe Pack, Poirot's Peers. I'm sure Tolstoy and Trollope, Mozart and Mahler, all have followings."

"They don't necessarily kill each other," Mike said.

"You guys need the television?" Ken asked, coming through to check on us.

"Hey, we skipped it last night. Check Jeopardy! and then we can order," Mike said.

By the time the final category was announced, we had downed our first drinks and paused in front of the large screen in the lounge.

"Scientific Theories," Alex Trebek announced.

Two of the three contestants groaned along with each of us.

"I'll pass," I said. "My weakest link."

"Nothing worse than a coward," Mike said. "Ten each. That won't get us a bottle of water in this joint."

The answer displayed read that the Big Bang theory, accepted in the 1960s, was first described in this prophetic work a century earlier.

"I'll take another Grey Goose," Mike said. "Let's order some grub."

None of us even took a guess as we watched all three players lose their bundles.

"No," Trebek told the anthropology graduate student, who was the only one to venture a guess. "Hubble came along a little later."

"This one surprised me, too, gentlemen. What is 'Eureka'? 'Eureka,' remember that? In a work called 'Eureka,' Edgar Allan Poe insisted that the universe exploded into existence in 'one instantaneous flash' from a single primordial particle." Trebek went on reading from his note cards. "Amazing, folks, that this amateur stargazer-back in 1848-came up with the version of the Big Bang that is still the best guess of contemporary scientists."

"Ever get the feeling that something was meant to be?" Mike asked. "It's frigging creepy to be surrounded by this guy Poe-he's everywhere."

We had a table in the back of the room on the first floor, near the kitchen. I sat by myself while Mercer went to call Vickee to tell her he'd be home late, and Mike tried to find Valerie on the Western ski slopes.

We each ordered New York strip sirloins-the sixteen-ouncers for the guys and the twelve-ounce for me. Mike piled on onion rings and cottage fries, and Ken spoiled us by sending over a superb Bordeaux from his fabulous cellar.

"Who's going to call Sally Brandon and break the news to her that Emily's kid knows that Sally's not her birth mother?" Mercer asked.

"Sounds like woman's work to me."

"I'll do it tomorrow afternoon. When Tormey is cleared medically, we've got to see if Emily really called him, like her letter says," I said, then shifted gears. "What's with Val?"

"She's over-the-top. The family's all up in Canada, doing that heli-skiing stuff."

I laughed. "Guess that's why you got left behind. Do they know her super-macho RoboCop is afraid of flying in choppers?"

"Hey, I did it for you once, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but that's because I didn't ask you to jump out."

"Last year, Val was so sick from the chemo that she couldn't make the trip with the rest of them. That's why her father thought it was such a special gift for her this time. She and her brother are like cowboys-you oughta see their videos."

The fancy dinner was a nice end to a day that had taken such an odd twist. We walked out of the restaurant, the guys agreed to pick me up at eight-thirty as Mercer got in his car, and Mike drove me up Third Avenue to drop me in front of my door shortly before ten o'clock.

I hadn't been asleep long when the telephone rang.

"I know you wouldn't be happy if you heard this on the morning news," Mercer said.

I cocked an eye and looked at the dial on the clock radio. One thirty-fiveA.M.

"I guess you're not calling to tell me you didn't enjoy dinner."

"I'm back in your 'hood. Our Silk Stocking Rapist tried again. East Eighty-first Street, just off York. The girl Maced him, though, and he ran off."

"Good for her. She's okay?"

"Hanging tough. I'm doing the interview now. When he reached up to cover his eyes, he dropped the knife. She picked it up and tried to slash at him."

"Well, so much for fingerprints."

"Everything's a trade-off. She slit open his jacket pocket and a few things fell out."

"Driver's license?" I asked, shifting beneath the warm blanket.

"You wouldn't like it if it came that easy. Nope, no ID. Just a MetroCard."

I smiled, thinking of the interview I did yesterday with the witness whose card had broken her story. "That's a fine place to start, Mr. Wallace. We know what part of the silk stocking district he frequents. Let's see where else he likes to travel."

Zeldin's fifth-story office window in the magnificent Beaux Arts building known as the Mertz Library looked out over a snowcovered expanse that stretched as far as I could see.

"Would you imagine it, Miss Cooper? Two-hundred-fifty spectacular acres of gardens and greenery in the middle of New York City. It's extraordinary, isn't it, and so magical in the middle of winter with this lovely dusting of snow?"

"I'm ashamed to say I'd forgotten quite how beautiful it is, and how grand."

"It was the vision of an American couple named Britton, you know. They were philanthropists who had a great interest in botany. She was just overwhelmed by a visit to the Royal Gardens at Kew, back in the 1880s and returned home insisting that her husband try to replicate it in America. Re-creating Eden, that's what these gardens are all about."

"The Garden of Eden-set the backstory for the first homicide, too, if I remember correctly," Mike said. "How we doing on that list of Raven Society members I asked about?"

"You shall have them, of course," Zeldin said, surprising me as well as Mike. He gestured around the room, packed full of botanical prints and books on plants and trees. "I have someone picking us up in an hour to take us over to the building where I keep the society records. I've never mixed my hobby with the garden's business."

"How long did you work here in the library?" I asked.

"Nearly thirty-five years."

"And which came first, your interest in plants or in Poe?"

"It's sort of a chicken-and-egg thing, if you know what I mean. I've always loved both," he said, wheeling himself to a shelf near his desk and handing me a book from it. "My first published work, and it's still a classic in the field."

I examined the well-worn volume and opened it to its title page. "'Flora and Fauna in the Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe-An Illustrated Guide.'"

"So, if I say 'buttercup,' you can tell me if Poe used it in his work?" Mike asked.

"Precisely, Detective. Buttercup, better known by its Latin name Ranunculus, is used only once, in the story 'Eleonora'-'so besprinkled through with the yellow buttercup.'"

"Must be a huge audience for this stuff I just don't know about."