"There's a second ambulance on the way. You want to stay here by the door while I see if they need a hand with Scotty?" Mercer asked.

"Sure. But if you pass one of the gardeners on your way through, send him back to relieve me. Ellen's a mess. I might as well help with her-she's hysterical."

I stared out the tall windows and watched as the setting sun threw long shadows across the frozen flower beds. Looking at the bleak landscape I found it hard to believe that within two months' time, a dazzling array of chrysanthemums, zinnias, and peonies would color every inch of these same borders.

The vibrations of my cell phone startled me and I pulled it out of my jacket pocket to answer it. Maybe a DNA match to the rapist we'd been calling John Doe would brighten the bloody afternoon.

"Hello?" I said tentatively, hoping to hear a cheerful reply from Dr. Thaler.

"Maybe your skinny little ass fits through this gate, but I'm too big to squeeze in and too old to climb over."

"Where are you, Mike?" The sound of his voice was the best antidote to my fatigue and depression.

"You told me ol' Gun-shy was here, didn't you?" he said, referring to Ellen by the nickname the office trial dogs had given her for her well-noted fear of the courtroom. "I kind of missed abusing her. Thought you two broads might need a hand. I went to the gate, exactly where Mercer told me to be, only nobody was there to let me in. So I drove back around to the other entrance on Fordham Road. Same story."

"Damn it, he's got the security guard from the Mosholu gate in here with him. There's been a bad scene-I'll tell you about it. Are you-do you think you're ready-"

"C'mon, Coop. Commandeer one of those golf carts the staff scoot around in. Pick me up and get me inside."

I started back to find Mercer, but first walked right into the gardener he had sent to take over my post. "Do you speak English?"

"No, señora," he said, shaking his head.

"Mi amigo, el detectivo?"

"Sí."

" Lo dice que yo soy buscando un otro amigo. Yo soy buscando Mike.Okay?"

I didn't know whether I came close to making sense but counted on the quiet man to tell Mercer that I had gone to find Mike. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.

I pushed open the door and ran down the path. Three electric golf carts were lined up on the roadway. I sat in one and turned the key in the ignition, pressing down on the pedal to get onto the main drive, heading east and looking for the road signs that marked the direction of each of the gates. I was bound to run into another guard along the way.

I traveled a few hundred yards before the road forked, one arrow pointing to the Twin Lakes and the other toward the children's adventure garden. One thing I didn't need was another adventure, so I skirted around behind that plot of land in the direction of the new visitors center.

The paths were meant to be scenic. Rock gardens gave way to gazebos that were surrounded by vast swaths of seasonal plantings that would bloom when these dismal days gave way to spring. The daylight was dimming and I had to stop in the middle of the next intersection to read the signs.

I dialed Mike's number as I drove near the conservatory gate. "I can't spot you," I said. "Do you see the headlights on this thing I'm driving?"

"Where the hell are you?"

"Near the ticket booth, in the middle of a big parking lot. I'm the only jalopy in the joint."

"Wrong gate. C'mon, blondie. Try finding the building that Zeldin took us to, where he's got that Raven Society office. I'm over on that side. How can you possibly lose Fordham Road?"

Two hundred and fifty acres of pristine land in the middle of the Bronx-absolutely deserted-and I couldn't find a street sign for one of the city's largest thoroughfares.

I stepped on the pedal and chugged along until the next intersection, where Azalea Way crossed Snuff Mill Road. The latter led, I knew, to the building we had visited with Zeldin, and near the carriage house in which Sinclair Phelps lived.

I flipped open the phone again. "Now I got it. I'm on the bridge crossing the river. Get back in your car-you must be freezing. I'll get Phelps to help me. He can call someone from security if he hasn't got keys himself."

"I got the heat on. Make it snappy, kid."

"I'm flooring this buggy, Mike. Mercer and I have been worried about you." Then I said quietly, "I've missed you."

I could hear the river running over the rocks below me, and the roar it made as it dropped from the gorge just beyond me drowned out whatever Mike whispered to me in response.

I steered on past the snuff mill, which was as completely dark within as it was getting to be outside. I remembered that Sinclair Phelps's carriage house was not much farther along, so I kept driving around the curving path until I made out its outline, pulled up behind it, and turned off the cart's motor.

The stone building standing alone on the wooded grounds looked like a small English manor house in the Cotswolds. I knocked on the back door several times and called Phelps's name, but no one answered.

I tried the handle, which was not locked, so I let myself into the kitchen. A phone was mounted on the wall next to the refrigerator, and there was a list of the organization's telephone extensions beside it, so I assumed it to be a direct connection to the gardens' employees.

I dialed zero and waited several rings before someone on the switchboard picked up.

"Yes, Mr. Phelps?"

"I'm, uh-I'm sorry-I'm not Mr. Phelps, obviously. But I am calling from his house. Can you connect me to security, please?"

"Is there a problem at the carriage house, ma'am? I'll get someone right-"

"No, no. There's a New York City detective trying to get into the gate on-"

"The police are already inside, ma'am. We're aware of the commotion at the conservatory. Can you hold? That's another line ringing."

She was back to me in thirty seconds.

"I'm talking about the Fordham Road gate."

"Yeah, we just heard about that other guy. You stay where you're at. Security will bring him to you there, okay?"

I hung up and called Mike again on my cell phone. "I gave up on you, Coop, and called Mercer," he said. "He's got a couple of guards on their way to get me. You inside? Stay warm-see you in ten."

"Did he tell you what happened?"

"Yeah, I know you've been looking to smack Ellen in her long, sour puss for years, but dumping her into the briar patch? I hope you saved a little of your strength for the next guy."

"What do you mean?"

"Mercer said Gino Guidi's on his way over here. You amateurs must have pissed him off this morning. He's all fired up-without his lawyer this time-no holds barred."

"Remind me, Mike. Is there anyone I haven't annoyed lately?"

"I'll be right there, kid. Just relax."

I replaced the receiver on the wall hook. I didn't want to rub up against anything in the house with my bloody ski jacket, so I took it off and put it on the back of a kitchen chair.

After three or four minutes of dead silence, I pushed open the swinging door and entered the living room. It looked like Phelps had been called away suddenly. There was a tall floor lamp that was on, next to a worn leather chair, and resting on a table between them was a book, turned upside down with its spine splayed. A half-filled coffee cup rested on a coaster.

I walked over and picked up the book. It was an academic treatise on the London plane tree. I flipped through the pages and as I did, a small stack of green bills fluttered onto the carpet. I bent over to pick them up-they were all hundred-dollar denominations- and stuck them back between two pages, replacing the book on the tabletop.

I was too restless to sit.

The room was rather impersonal. There were very few signs of homeyness for someone who had been in residence here for so long.