I sniffed at the ends of my hair. "Can you just see me in Swifty's? The best-dressed, most perfectly coiffed ladies in Manhattan, and I walk in like this? No, thanks. I'm too achy to go anywhere."

Mike walked to the phone to order a pizza as Trebek unveiled the answer. "Editor of the autobiography of the great American general Ulysses S. Grant."

Two of the three contestants seemed to be too puzzled to even venture a guess, while the third one scribbled an answer on his screen.

"I hate when they sucker me in like that," Mike said. "This answer doesn't have anything to do with military history. It's right up your English-major alley once again."

"Not even a guess?" Trebek asked the second contestant, who held up a blank slate.

"Maybe it's a trick question. Why would you need someone else to edit your life story? I'm going with Grant himself," Mike said, talking to Trebek.

"Mercer, do you care to jump in here, or is this for me, to ease my pain?" I said, reaching out my arm for the forty dollars on the carpet near my feet.

"Go for it."

"I'm so sorry," Trebek said. "That's not the correct answer. Who-"

"Who was Mark Twain?" I asked.

"… was Mark Twain? Can you imagine that?" Trebek said. "The author of one of our finest American novels actually edited and published the memoirs of one of the greatest generals who ever lived. Quite something, isn't it?"

"They were really an odd couple," I said, "but they were last friends."

"You're one to talk about odd couples."

The phone rang and I screwed up my nose as Mike tried to hand me the portable receiver. "I don't want to speak to anyone. Let it ring."

He looked at the caller ID and pressed the talk button. "Alexander Cooper's residence."

I rested my glass on the floor beside me and waved at Mike with both hands, mouthing the word no as emphatically as I could.

"No, sir. I'm just the butler. Yeah, Mr. B, it's Mike Chapman. She's-uh-she's actually across the hall at her neighbor's apartment Can you imagine? She ran out of scotch. Yeah, she's fine. She'll tell you about it in the morning." Mike proceeded to give the district attorney a replay of my description of the fiery letter, as well asto talk about the likely suspects-Sengor or Alkit-who might have sent it.

"Whatever you say, Mr. B. Sure, I can spend the night here, no problem. I don't think anybody's gonna show up later on Ms. Cooper's doorstep with exploding anchovies on a large pie, but if it makes you feel better, I'll keep an eye on her," Mike said. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes she's more trouble than she's worth. I gotta agree with you there."

I pushed up from the sofa to protest. "There are two doormen downstairs, twenty-four hours a day. I really don't think-"

"Don't roll your eyes at me, blondie. Till we see if they lift any prints from what's left of that envelope in the morning, the district attorney wants to play it safe."

By the time the pizza was delivered, I was hungry enough to chew on a slice while Mercer and Mike devoured the rest of it.

A little before nine, Mercer had a call on his cell from one of his Special Victims Squad colleagues, who was a few blocks from my apartment. He was returning from the DA's video unit with duplicate copies of Sengor's collection and asked if we wanted to review any of them before arraigning his pal, Dr. Alkit, in the morning. Mercer went down to the lobby and returned with six tapes.

"You want to see what we've got?"

"Guess we'd better look at the one from last Friday. Are they marked?"

"Yes. These are all labeled," Mercer said, picking out the right tape and loading it in my VCR.

Sengor must have activated the video camera at some point in the evening after his victims had been rendered unconscious. The first few seconds of film showed the empty beds in his room, the covers folded down to reveal the sheets. Mercer had been in the apartment the night of the arrest, so he described to us the bookcase opposite the bed in which the device had been hidden, wedged among a series of pharmacological textbooks.

In the background, I could hear the CD player changing discs, and then Kris Kristofferson's plaintive voice asking someone to help him make it through the night. Sengor walked into the room carrying Jean Eaken's limp body in his arms. He was naked, and she was dressed in the casual clothes she had worn when I met her late on Friday night.

The doctor lowered his victim onto the nearest bed, adjusted the dimmer on the light switch to darken the room, turned to the camera-almost preening for it as he ran his hand down his chest and paused to admire his erection.

Jean Eaken never moved. Sengor slowly and deliberately raised her by lifting beneath her shoulders and removed her sweater over her head. He unhooked her bra and took her arms out of its straps, one at a time. He was mumbling now, talking to her as he undressed her, but the words were inaudible to me. He let her fall back in place and stood up, taking a drag from a joint-presumably marijuana- that was on his nightstand, before going back to the business of removing her pants.

Mike had seen enough. "Necrophilia. I've never seen anything so disgusting. How can you watch him do this? The only thing different than having sex with a corpse is that this kid's body is still warm. I'm telling you, you people who do sex crimes, you're all out of your minds. At least the people I deal with are dead. Over and out. They don't see anything, they don't feel anything. The perp doesn't get to say, 'It ain't a crime where I live, buddy.' It's frigging murder, no matter where it happens. This stuff? How can you look at it? No wonder your love life's in the can, Coop."

Mercer stopped the tape. "Here's a guy gives us the whole crime, gift-wrapped. We have to watch it-make sure there's nothing exculpatory on it. You know that."

Mike was in the kitchen, his vodka in one hand, the other one rifling through the freezer for ice cream, the most likely food group to be found in my home. "Yeah, but there's something about the two of you sitting in the den with this-this disgusting stuff-and the fact that you're watching it together like you're at the movies is really-"

"Those nuns in parochial school did a great job on you, Mikey."

I said. "I'm surprised you can even say the words sexual intercourse, no less do the deed."

"What makes you think I've done it, kid? You'd be the last to know. I'm telling you, watching that shit roused you up, see? You shouldn't even be talking like this."

"Mercer and I have to watch this, and all the other tapes they seized, just the way you go to autopsies."

"Yeah, well, I'll take homicide any day of the week. Let me know when you think you've seen enough to prove your case, will you? I know you like to give the jury a rock-crusher, but this one's out of the park."

I walked into the living room to meet him. He dropped into an armchair and scooped out spoonfuls of chocolate chocolate chip from the container, his feet on my glass-topped coffee table.

"Now all I need is a perp to prosecute," I said, easing myself onto another chair.

Mercer followed me out of the den, but stood behind Mike. "I'll head for home. You want to bring these duplicate tapes down to Max? I suppose she and your interns can sort through them all and see if we've got more victims to search out."

"Will do." I got up to walk him to the door and kiss him good night. "Thanks for keeping me company. It really was frightening when that little fireball flew up at my face. Have you seen anything like that before?"

"Who got the call to the governor's office on Third Avenue two years back? Iggy, wasn't it?" Mercer asked Mike. "Remember that prisoner in New Mexico who set up fifty letters like that and sent one to the governor of every state?"