"Nobody listens to me," Mike said, veering away from me as our elbows inadvertently rubbed together, looping his thumb over the top of his belt. "You're your own worst enemy. You might as well be wearing a sign that warns guys to keep their distance."

There was no moving Mike from his morose mood. "What are you doing next weekend?" I asked. I took a few steps ahead of him and walked backward, forcing him to look me in the eye.

"I'm catching."

"You could switch with someone, couldn't you?" I was trying to get him to lighten up, but when he ignored me and kept walking, I planted both hands on his chest to stop him.

"I think I've used up all my favors lately, don't you?" Mike brushed me aside and pretended to laugh.

"I'm supposed to fly up to the Vineyard after work on Friday. Open the house for the spring. Jim's away," I said, referring to the fiance of my friend Joan Stafford, "so Joan will probably come with me. Sit me in front of the fireplace and both of you can pile in on me with pointers about turning around my love life."

We had reached my building's driveway, which cut through between two streets. Opposite the entrance was a pocket park for the residents, planted with daffodils and crocuses, the quarter moon reflecting in the shallow flagstone pool surrounded by granite benches.

The doorman held the door open for me. I gave it another try. "Want to come up for a while?" I cocked my head and smiled at Mike, who was staring down at the pavement-oblivious to the moonlight and flowers-but he wouldn't even meet me halfway.

Mike shook his head and told me he'd call me after the Galinova autopsy. I walked to the elevator and pressed the button. As I waited for it, I looked out the lobby windows and saw Mike leaning back on one of the benches, staring at the heavens as though the brilliant constellations weren't obscured by the bright city lights. I wasn't used to being pushed so far away by him and wondered whether someone else was helping him deal with his grief.

I didn't have the strength for the Saturday Times crossword- the toughest puzzle of the week-but I drew a hot bath and counted on its soporific qualities to help me stop reviewing the last hours of Talya Galinova's life. I was too tired to fight sleep and too resigned to the current state of my social life to mind that there hadn't been a crease on the other half of my sheet for several months.

The dancer's death was headlined below the fold on the front page of the Times when I reached for it on my doorstep at eight thirty Sunday morning. A triumphant photograph of her as Odile, in arabesque, ran behind the news of the rising unemployment rate and the latest political skirmish in North Korea.

The Post never disappointed when it came to bad taste. The front-page banner, murder at the met-again, was featured in bold caps over the shot of the body bag being loaded into the ambulance in the docking bay of the opera house. The subtitle beneath Talya's name identified her latest role: corpse de ballet.

A gentle April rain drizzled down the windowpanes and gave me license to spend a lazy day at home. I caught up on paying bills, answered dozens of accumulated e-mails, napped in the late afternoon, phoned family and friends, and put on my hooded rain slicker to cross the street for a late-afternoon pedicure and manicure. Dinner was a salad and turkey sandwich delivered from PJ Bernstein, and I hibernated in my den for the evening with a slightly foxed copy of a collection of Raymond Chandler stories that I had picked up for a dollar at the Chilmark flea market.

I had expected Mike's call after the autopsy, but with the morgue understaffed on weekends and a recent upsurge of violent deaths, there was no predicting when he would report in to me.

I had just turned on the ten o'clock nightly news when the phone rang.

"Not much to help us with," Mike said. "The fall killed her, pretty much like we expected."

"Kestenbaum is certain Talya was alive when she was thrown over?"

"A lot of bleeding in the brain when he opened the skull, so her heart was still pumping when she hit. Terminal velocity, going head-first down the shaft with hands tied behind her back, slamming into the fan casing at about a hundred twenty miles an hour. Fractured skull, ribs, pelvis and massive internal injuries. And the doc was right when he said you might not be along for this ride, kid. No sign of sexual assault. No semen in the vaginal vault, so that won't even solve who she was cozy with yesterday."

"Has Talya's husband flown over to claim the body?"

"Nope. He told the morgue attendant that he and Talya had separated several months ago, that her lawyers had notified him she'd be filing for divorce. They talked frequently but that was all basi-ness. He wasn't having anything to do with this."

"Well, how about her agent? What's his name again?"

"Rinaldo Vicci. He came down to do the I.D., but we're still waiting for someone to confirm the arrangements. Vicci has no authority to make any decisions either. Galinova's husband claims she fired him more than a week ago."

"Why? Did he say why?"

"Vicci denies it. Says she often threatened to do that whenever she had tantrums, but the husband says this time it was meant to stick. The husband's been in constant contact with Talya's lawyers because of the legal separation status and that's what they told him as recently as a week ago. It's one more thing to sort out."

"You just can't let her lay there on ice indefinitely, Mike."

I clamped my jaw shut as soon as I said the words.

"Why?" he asked. "She deserves any better than Val?"

The accidental death of Mike's girlfriend in a glacial crevasse was still foremost on his mind. There was an edge to him now, a bitterness that had never hung between us before. I struggled to bring back the intimacy of our friendship but was beginning to realize it was going to be a very long road to regain it.

"How about the evidence you submitted to the lab? The physical items, and the blood and hair?"

"Calm down, Coop. Nobody worked today. They'll get going on it tomorrow."

"And the Met employees? Has their screening started?"

"Those guys won't know what hit them. Forget the borough. Every squad in the city is giving us some men to do interviews, run rap sheets, check backgrounds. We'll saturate the place. How'd you like the morning papers?"

"I've often thought of putting my English Lit background to work and helping them out. You just hold your breath and hope nobody who cared about the victim ever sees those tabloid bombs."

The courthouse pressroom was plastered from ceiling to floor with page-one stories that had won it the nickname of the wall of shame. High-profile cases like this one would result in several more offerings for the coveted space.

"Don't think tomorrow won't top this one, kid. I got a chance for "you to come scoop up some of those long white hairs you were dying to get your mitts on yesterday when we were in Joe Berk's office. Ready for a late-night date on Broadway?"

"Where are you? What's-"

"A little too much juice on the street, Coop. Berk was electrocuted tonight."

" What? Joe Berk? How'd that happen?"

"Stepped on a manhole cover outside the theater an hour ago. Faulty insulation in the junction box."

"But he's our prime-"

"Accidents happen, kid. Con Ed has these freak hot spots all over town and Joe Berk happened to put his fat foot on this one. Sometimes justice is swift and certain, and I wouldn't want to miss an opportunity like that."

"You're sure it's an accident?"

"The Lord works in strange and mysterious ways. Berk stepped on the wrong manhole cover and spared the state some aggravation. I'm going upstairs to take a peek at his apartment. Wanna come?"