We kept cutting each other off, and Ellen took in the back-and- forth action like she was watching a Ping-Pong match.

“It’d be ugly, Pat, if you have to be a witness at the trial.” He looked puzzled. “I understand you’re the one who leaked the story about Grooten’s body being found in Port Newark the night Mike and I were out there. The thing you tried to blame on Jake, remember? I’ll bet when I check about who called the media in today for this little feeding frenzy about the S and M lunatic, some kindly source who owes me will tell me that there’s no one in the universe who wanted to give my antagonists an airing more than you.”

“Don’t walk out of here until I’m finished, Alex. I’m not done.”

“Sorry, Ellen. We don’t need the gun traced. We already know she stole it from her father’s garage. Hate to waste your time on something so trivial.” I let the door swing shut behind me.

Back at my office, I reached over Laura and used her phone to dial Sarah’s extension and let her know that Shirley Denzig had been arrested. “I don’t care who you choose. Assign it to anyone who can pick a jury and lay a proper foundation to introduce a gun into evidence. Mike and I are going back up to Natural History this afternoon.”

Mike was standing over Clem’s shoulder, reading her mail. “Now we’ve got Erik Poste checking in. Very sorry about Katrina. Afraid he won’t be in town this weekend when Clem gets here but he’d like to give her a call. Gives his number at the Met. Says he won’t be there this afternoon ‘cause he’s going somewhere with Gaylord.”

“Speaking of Gaylord-”

“Yeah, I got him. He’ll be at Natural History all afternoon. We can talk to him there.”

“What do we do with Clem?”

“Well, we sure don’t want to out her at the museum. We want her on-line, don’t we?”

“And secure, too. I got it.” I called Ryan Blackmer’s office to see whether Harry Hinton was assigned to testify today to the grand jury on the pedophile sting arrest he had made on Monday afternoon. He was, and Ryan expected him to be the first presentation at 2P.M. Hinton would be available after that.

“We’re going to leave you here in Coop’s office with another detective while we go to the museum to do some more interviews and snoop around. Harry’s a genius on the Internet. If something comes up that’s important, he’ll reach out to us. He’ll take you back to the hotel any time you’re ready to go. And we’ll get together with you this evening to see where we all stand.”

I ordered in sandwiches to feed Clem and kept her company until two-thirty when Harry Hinton appeared in my office, following his brief grand jury appearance.

I made the introductions and told Harry what we were trying to accomplish.

“Here’s one more from Eve Drexler,” Clem said as I was signing the subpoenas on Laura’s desk. “I told her I heard she had been in London, at a meeting with Thibodaux and Bellinger at the British Museum. I said that someone from New York had recognized her, but when I tried to find them, to inquire about Katrina, I saw that it was Katrina herself who had been signed in at the meeting.”

“Good thinking. What’d she say?”

“She’s asking me not to mention it to the police until I meet with her first.”

“That means Thibodaux hasn’t had a chance to tell her yet that we know about it.”

“She blames it on Bellinger.”

“So did her boss, yesterday when we confronted him with it.”

“You want to do this in real time?” Harry Hinton asked. “I can make this livelier for you.”

“How?”

“CITU, over at headquarters.” The Computer Intelligence and Technology Unit was just a few blocks away at One Police Plaza. “They’ve got a new piece of equipment. Cost ‘em sixty thousand dollars.”

Mike was impressed. The department rarely spent that kind of money on anything.

“It works like a wiretap on a telephone. It can intercept on-line communications while they’re in progress. This broad’s writing to Clem. We can tap in and see who she goes on-line with next, if she’s talking about your case. Maybe she forwards the info she’s getting to someone, maybe she passes on what she knows. Maybe she knows stuff you two don’t.”

“You’ve used this before?”

“My boss is the one who applied for the money to buy the equipment. We can download the actual kiddie porn while it’s being transmitted, even if it’s encrypted.”

“You’ve been holding out on me. What do you need to get started?”

“Court order.”

The ability to find out what each of these witnesses was saying to the others, if they were communicating on-line, was a brilliant idea I had not thought possible.

“Keep an eye on Clem. Get Ryan up here and beg him to do the order for me. I can talk him through the facts he needs from my cell phone while we’re driving uptown.”

My hearty band of sadomacho fanatics must have wearied or made their point and disbanded after McKinney shifted them around to the rear of the courthouse and they’d had their fifteen minutes of fame on the midday news shows. We were able to get out the main door without incident. I left my car in Chinatown and rode up the West Side Highway with Mike, talking on the cell phone to Ryan and giving him what I hoped would be probable cause to get the interception going by this evening. There was at least the fact that one of the e-mail correspondents, who happened also to be a Met employee, had been using the dead girl’s identification a month after her disappearance. I also told him the name of the young lawyer who might be able to expedite the request, since I had not yet been able to apply for the search warrants I had wanted without knowing the specific target sites at the museums.

Then I called Mamdouba to tell him we were going to meet with Timothy Gaylord, who was over from the Met, working on the joint exhibition in the museum basement. We wanted to come up to see Mamdouba when we were done.

“I’m afraid you’ve taken up all the time we have for this business, Miss Cooper. It’s been very disruptive here, to the staff. Perhaps we can arrange that future meetings will be held in your offices?”

We had known this stonewalling would come at some point, but had not predicted the timing. “Certainly. But Mr. Gaylord is expecting us, and I believe Detective Wallace is already there.” It was past the three o’clock hour that we had set earlier in the day.

Mike had stopped at the light at the bottom of the exit ramp. “Scare the shit out of him, blondie. Keep your toe in his door. Give him something to worry about.”

I shrugged my shoulders and mouthed the three letters to Mike. He agreed.

“It’s critical we see you today, just for a few minutes. It’s about the DNA results on Katrina Grooten’s clothing.”

I imagined that great big unctuous smile of Mamdouba’s wiping itself right off his face.

“But, Miss Cooper, I thought you assured us that Katrina wasn’t sexually assaulted by her killer? You’re confusing-”

“That’s why we need to see you. We know that you have a DNA profile for every employee at the museum. We’re going to need access to those-”

“Not before I have an explanation.” His voice was sharp and angry now.

“Of course you will, as soon as we’re done with Mr. Gaylord.” I disconnected the phone before he could ask any more questions.

I dialed the medical examiner’s office and hung on until Dr. Kestenbaum could pick up the call. “Got a minute to help me? I’m digging myself into a hole here with our witnesses. If I told you I had already-made genetic fingerprints of several of our suspects, and could probably get swabs from the rest of them, would it do you any good, given that there’s no blood or seminal fluid?”

“I can let you know in a week,” he said, ever cautious and professional.

“I’m about five minutes away from getting the investigative door slammed in my face. Why next week? What’s that going to do for you?”