In a last act of lifelike animation, one wounded rubber paw reached out for a balcony, then lost its purchase and dipped low to graze the upper branches of a tree. The puppy’s great head sagged against the twelfth floor of the stone facade and then lowered, flight by flight of windows. The rubber dog was going down, deflating, dying.

The five-year-old was pointing at Mallory. „She did it – the one with the big gun. She shot Goldy. She killed him!“

Mallory glared at the little boy, and Riker was treated to a glimpse of the ten-year-old Kathy he used to know. In her face was a child’s rejoinder of I did not! The boy on the sidewalk wisely conceded the argument and hid behind his mother’s coat.

A mounted policeman galloped up to Mallory and her prisoner. The cop was grinning as he reined in his horse and pointed to the damaged balloon. „Nice going, Detective.“

The handlers were not holding the balloon down anymore, but running to get out from under the giant puppy as he lost helium and altitude.

„Yeah, Mallory,“ said the cop on horseback. „I never shot anything that big.“

Riker stepped up to the mounted policeman and pulled rank. „Shut up, Henderson. That’s an order. Just move along before she shoots your damn horse.“

Mallory spoke to Riker’s back. „I didn’t do it.“

Well, it was predictable that she would try to lie her way out of a suspension. Discharging firearms in a crowd was a serious violation, but shooting a balloon would cost her a great deal more. She was about to become the joke of NYPD, and Riker was already sorry for her.

The rest of the mounted officers converged on the scene, the hooves of six horses clattering on the pavement. Two men dismounted and took the prisoner into custody. They had missed Mallory’s humiliation, but were just in time to witness Henderson’s. His horse could cope with gunshots, but the sight of a huge dog falling from the sky was more than the startled animal could bear. The stallion reared up and dumped his rider on the road.

Two small children on the sidewalk were taunting Mallory, pointing their mittened fingers at her and chanting, „You killed Goldy, you killed him, you killed him, you – “

Mallory pulled out her.357 Smith & Wesson revolver.

The children stopped chanting.

She held out the weapon on the flat of her hand. „Touch it, Riker. The metal’s cold. I didn’t fire my gun. It never left my holster. There’s a shooter in the crowd.“

He did touch it. The metal was not warm. But the wind-chill factor of hard-blowing frigid air had tumbled the temperature below zero. How much time had elapsed? How long could a gun hold its heat?

He looked out over the faces in the dense crush of civilians behind the police barricades.

So many children.

Suppose Mallory was not lying?

Slowly, he turned his eyes to the thousand windows overlooking the parade route. A shooter in the crowd – but where? And where was that gun aiming now?

The upper half of the office wall was a window on the squad room of Special Crimes. The environs were bleak. Gray file cabinets lined one grime-white wall, and a bank of dirty windows overlooked the SoHo street. Yet the atmosphere was suspiciously festive. There were no civilians in the house, not even clerical staff – only men with guns, milling around steel desks topped with computer monitors and piles of paperwork on fresh homicides.

Believing that his people worked better without a superior officer’s eyes on them, Jack Coffey usually kept the blinds drawn – but not today. The lieutenant watched as ten grinning detectives gathered around the punch bowl on the center desk. Only five of them had been scheduled to work this holiday shift. None of their conversations penetrated the thick glass, but the tension came through. It hummed, it reeked.

What were they going to do to her?

Lieutenant Coffey was a man of average height and average features. Even his hair and eye color were in the middle range of brown. However, at thirty-six, he was uncommonly young for a command position, or so the brass at One Police Plaza had argued. Over the past year, stress had made inroads on a bald spot at the back of his head; he had acquired deep worry lines and a world of trouble in his eyes; and now his appearance was older, more appropriate to the job.

At the back of the private office, another man struck a match and added a whiff of sulfur to the air, followed by a stream of gray smoke.

It would be nice if once – just once – Detective Sergeant Riker would ask for permission to light up a cigarette. Lieutenant Coffey bit back a reprimand as he stared at this detective’s reflection in the glass. Riker was standing at attention, telegraphing the strain of the morning – waiting for the show to begin.

In the squad room beyond the window, men in shirtsleeves and shoulder holsters were ladling eggnog into paper cups and opening containers of Chinese take-out food. On the far side of the room, a pair of uniformed officers were keeping their distance from the detectives.

And that was another odd note.

The two men in uniform exchanged uneasy glances. Perhaps they also wondered why they were here. Patrol cops never partied with detectives; they wouldn’t even drink in the same bars.

Invited as witnesses? Yes, that would fit, for now a detective was unwrapping a furry stuffed toy. It was a replica of the puppy Detective Mallory had recently dispatched to Balloon Heaven.

Lieutenant Coffey glanced over one shoulder. Detective Riker was leaning against the back wall, as if suddenly very tired. A hat brim shaded his eyes from the overhead lights. Riker must have plans for Thanksgiving dinner. He was stealing glances at his cheap watch, and he had not yet removed his new coat, which was not at all cheap.

„Nice material,“ said Coffey, whose own coat was from a discount store in New Jersey. „Very expensive. People will say you’re on the take.“

Riker smiled as he brushed a cigarette ash from the tweed lapel. „Mallory gave it to me.“

„Don’t tell anyone.“ There were enough rumors going around about his only female detective. Coffey turned back to the window on the squad room, where his detectives perched on the edges of desks, sharing foxy smiles and watching the door. The two patrol cops traded looks of deep discomfort. Coffey knew they would rather be downstairs with the other uniforms.

He could roughly guess what was going to happen next. Without lookaway from the glass, he spoke to the man behind him. „You know she won’t get off easy this time.“

„Mallory says she didn’t do it.“

„I expected that from her. But what about you, Riker? You know better. She’s lying.“

„The gun was cold.“

„The day was cold.“ Coffey turned around to face his sergeant. „Even if the gun test comes back negative, that won’t clear her – not with me. You never searched her for a backup piece, did you?“

Riker’s slow smile said, Silly question.

In the squad room on the other side of the glass, a man grabbed up the telephone, listened for a moment, then made the thumbs-up gesture to the other detectives. And now they were all converging on the stairwell door.

Ambush.

The desk sergeant must have warned them that Mallory was on her way upstairs.

Showtime.

Today the world would stop revolving around Markowitz’s daughter. She had gone to the limit of her old man’s influence.

Detective Riker walked over to the window and followed the action with his eyes. He would do nothing to warn his partner. Even the late Inspector Markowitz would not have tried to stop this. It might be Mallory’s last chance to come into the fold. So much depended on how she reacted.