“I’d love it.”

For the ten years that we had been out of school, Jordan and I had a tradition of meeting every couple of Fridays to catch up on each other’s lives. From a modest background and a small-town Georgia family, Jordan had worked his way through college and outsmarted most of our law school classmates to a position on theLaw Review and a brilliant career. He and Susan had been my closest friends in Charlottesville and there were few experiences of my adult life that we had not weathered or celebrated together.

I checked with Peterson before leaving the office to meet Jordan at our regular haunt, Bemelmans bar at the Carlyle. The lieutenant told me that Wallace and Ramirez would be taking Austin Bailey down to the Bellevue prison ward in a couple of hours and that Chapman and the rest of the team were still at the hospital. Chief McGraw planned to announce to the press crews that there had been a break in the Dogen case but not yet an arrest. That way they’d get Pops out of the precinct after the camera crews disappeared. I said I’d keep the beeper on ‘til I reached home, where I’d be for the rest of the evening.

Jordan was waiting in a corner booth at the Carlyle, below the whimsical mural of the animals skating in Central Park. The piano player was in the middle of a Bachrach medley when I arrived and somehow wound up in an elaborate rendition of “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” as I walked over to Jordan ’s table.

“Timing is everything,” I said, laughing at the musical selection.

George, who had waited on us for as many Fridays as the two of us had been coming there, appeared with my Dewar’s before I could unbutton and remove my coat. Jordan was halfway through his first Stoli martini as I kissed him on the cheek and settled onto the leather banquette beside him.

I had barely gotten past the usual questions about Susan and the children when my beeper went off. I looked at the numbers and saw that it was Bill Schaeffer again, calling from the lab.

“Great. Let me just call him back. Maybe I will join you guys for dinner. This’ll give me a second wind-it’s the news about the blood match I’ve been waiting for.”

I had to go through the hotel lounge to get to the pay phone, weaving around small tables topped with drinks and baskets of homemade potato chips and surrounded by well-dressed patrons from the nearby art and antiques galleries.

I dropped a quarter in the slot and dialed Schaeffer’s number. “Bill, it’s Alex. Got something for me already?”

“Yeah, but you won’t like it. It’s not her blood.”

“It’s what?” I said. I was incredulous. “Ithas to be Dogen’s blood.”

“Well, it isn’t. I know they told you Bailey had no injuries but it’s entirely consistent with his blood type, Alex. I don’t have DNA results on him yet but I’m certain this is going to turn out to be his own blood. I don’t think the man you’re holding is the killer.”

Calm down, I told myself as I tried to absorb the impact of Schaeffer’s information.

I dialed the 17th and told Peterson the news. “I’m coming back over. Get me an EMS crew there immediately. I want somebody to examine Austin Bailey in my presence,now. We’ve wasted twenty-four hours on a false lead. Tell McGraw he should start leaking the fact that wedon’t have a suspect, for a change. And you’d better let Maureen know what’s going on before we do anything else. Somebody may still be on the loose in that hospital.”

Jordan had ordered another round to congratulate me on the good news I had gone out to receive. “Save it for next time,” I snapped at him, grabbing at my things. “Sorry to run on you, but I’ve just been blindsided by a murderer.”

I left him with his mouth hanging open, a setup of drinks on the table, and the bar tab. My head throbbed.

IT WAS CLOSE TO SEVEN O’CLOCK FRIDAY evening as I pounded up the staircase in the station house. The excitement that had animated the task force team members in the morning had dissipated. An aura of dejection was palpable.

Jerry McCabe was talking on the phone behind a desk against the window. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and called out to me, “They’re in the room at the end of the hall with Bailey, Alex. Go ahead on in.”

I left my coat and books in Peterson’s office and went down to the locker room. The lieutenant and Wallace were standing with their backs to me, a couple of other men were leaning against the wall, and Pops was sitting on the table stripped down to a filthy green pair of boxer shorts.

A medic from the Emergency Medical Service was kneeling in front of Austin Bailey examining his left leg from the thigh down the calf to the sole of his foot.

“Not a scratch,” he announced to the lieutenant as he stood up and pushed away from the table.

Peterson introduced me to Juan Guerra, who had just finished a head-to-toe inspection of Austin Bailey. The prisoner was still atop the table, his chin resting against his bare chest, mumbling to himself as this small band of unhappy cops looked at him like a specimen in a public zoo.

“Mercer, you got a copy of the Polaroid of Pops’s pants showing the bloodstains?” I asked.

As Wallace removed a batch of photos from his jacket pocket, Bailey looked up at me and grinned. “I told you it’s paint, lady.”

I passed the Polaroid to Guerra, pointing out to him the large areas of discoloration on the lower part of the left pants leg and explaining that there had been a substantial amount of blood on the right side and in his shoes as well.

He nodded his head as he viewed the picture and spoke a single word: “Varicosities.”

A chorus of “What?” echoed in the locker room.

“I’m ready to throw the switch on the electric chair myself ‘cause of this bloodbath and you’re telling me this guy’s got varicose veins?” Wallace asked.

“See it all the time, especially with a lot of the homeless population who haven’t had any regular medical care.” Guerra kneeled in front of Bailey again and calmly asked him to extend both his legs. He picked up the older man’s feet one at a time and ran his hand over the skin, circling the area around the prominent bone that protruded from the inner aspect of each ankle. “He’s certainly got varicose veins. And when they burst, he could bleed to death right on the spot if you don’t control the puncture.”

Pops was looking back and forth as everyone talked about him, scratching his midriff with one hand and nervously running his fingers over the desk with the other.

I squatted and looked at Bailey’s ankles with the medic.

“I know my grandmother had ‘em, Juan,” said Peterson, “but what the hell are varicose veins, anyway?”

“Keep a watch, Lieutenant,” the young EMS worker told him, “they’re usually hereditary. Dilated or twisted veins, most often in the legs and thighs, develop a weakness.

“The valves in the vein that circulate the blood back up to the heart, they can’t do the job. Could be old injuries from drug use or just-”

Wallace pointed at the lines of old needle marks on Bailey’s arms and thighs. “Damn, he’s got more tracks than the B and O Railroad.”

“But there’s not a new mark there that I can see. Not a scratch, not a scar, not a blemish, except for those dried-up old areas,” I said.

Guerra continued. “Miss Cooper, I’ve seen ‘em spurt like an oil well. Heart keeps pumping, the vein opens up, and the blood’s got nowhere to go. Last week, my partner and I responded to a call on Thirty-sixth Street. Old guy’s shoes just filled up with blood and flooded over.

“I put my finger right on the vein-that big one next to the ankle bone-applied pressure for a minute, and stopped it right up. Go to look at it half an hour later and there’s nothin‘ to see. Comes out of a hole the size of a pinprick. You either stop it pretty quick or the patient can bleed to death.”