Mallory closed her eyes and ended the gory art show.

At last she understood the crime. The artist and the dancer were very different kills, for different reasons, only coming together when the body parts were assembled into a single piece of bloody sculpture.

There was no one at home in the old house in Brooklyn, no one to hear the footsteps on the cellar stairs, squeaking under the old wood, nor the softer steps across the linoleum of the kitchen and the slam of the back door. It began in the basement. Louis Markowitz’s collection of rock’n‘roll records melted in the heat, the album covers turning brown and bursting into flames. His old recordings of the Shadow and other superheroes of radio days were consumed by fire.

Smoke wound up the stairs, invading the kitchen, where Helen Markowitz had made meals for the small family. The flames captured Helen’s sewing basket, then raced up the stairs to the room which had been Kathy’s, a room Markowitz had preserved until the day he died, a constant reminder to him of his only child. The flames licked down the hall to Markowitz’s den and ate his letters and his books, and at the bottom of his desk drawers it ravaged the pictures of Kathy Mallory’s growing up, beauty flowering into a woman who amazed him.

When Mallory entered the Gulag, Sandy the waitress was leaning on the counter watching the clock, probably counting off the last minutes of her shift. Sandy looked at Mallory with annoyance, her eyes saying, Go away.

Quinn stood up and waved to Mallory from the far table. Suddenly the waitress’s attitude changed. With a tired but pleasant smile, Sandy plucked a menu from the rack on the counter and handed it to Mallory.

Quinn was delighted to see Mallory, but even his own mother would not have noted the difference between this display of emotion and his facial arrangement for stepping on a dog turd. He was well aware of his own uncommunicative shortcomings, his limited repertoire of expressions.

Mallory ordered the cheeseburger on his recommendation, but when it arrived, she ignored it. She was gazing at him steadily, and he was quietly coming unhinged, but he was also assured that this would never show.

“Will you explain to me how a little weasel wakes up one morning, decides he’s going to be an art star and lands a one-man show in an important gallery?”

“Dean Starr wasn’t really an overnight success,” said Quinn. “He used a lifetime of public relations and marketing skills to pull it off. And his timing was good. His targeted market was a generation with conversational points of reference taken from the constant repetition of fifteen-second television commercials. This was the perfect age for it.”

“I like to keep things simple. I think he had something on Koozeman, something big-say the murders of Peter Ariel and your niece. I think he was there that night. Starr made a lot of money after those murders, but then most of it went into his arm with a heroin habit. So he was looking for another hype. So he went to Koozeman, the genius of hype. Wasn’t that what you called him?”

“Well, I suppose that would fit rather nicely, but it’s a moot point now that they’re both dead. If you’re quite sure that Koozeman was the murderer, then you’ve finished your father’s case, haven’t you?”

“I still have the small detail of who’s killing the killers. You didn’t think I was just going to leave that hanging, did you? Quinn, if I can prove you’re mixed up in that, I’m going to get you for it.”

“And how can I help you toward that end?”

“I need some background on Emma Sue Hollaran. What kind of critic was she?”

“Are you figuring her for the next victim? I did notice a plethora of critics in this case. But I think you’re wasting your time there.”

“Maybe the old case isn’t wrapped yet.”

“Seriously, you’re still looking for another killer?”

Mallory looked up as a new waitress, just starting her shift, refilled their coffee cups and then left them alone again. “She has the same name tag as the other one. Why are all the waitresses named Sandy? And why does a dive like this have real gold name tags?”

“The owner bought the name tags from a liquidator, who bought them from a bankrupt jeweler. And you’re right, they are real gold. But since they were already engraved, he got a good price.”

He went on to explain that the name tags had been the deluxe business cards of a prostitute named Sandy. The cards were all paid for, cash in advance, but never picked up because Sandy had died of a severe asthma attack. Her nine-year-old daughter waited an hour for the ambulance to come, not believing it would never come. Next, she called the fire department. The firemen were there in three minutes, but Sandy had stopped breathing five minutes before that. “And so, the phone number of Sandy’s answering service was covered with a pin glued to the back of the cards, and all the waitresses are called Sandy.”

“You went to a lot of trouble to find that out.”

“Yes I did.”

“You remind me of Charles. He’s a puzzle freak. He can’t let go of a problem until he’s worked it out. Hard to believe you ever stopped looking for Sabra-or the man who killed your niece. You had to wonder what had happened to your sister. You would have kept at it until you found her.”

“I never said-”

“A morgue attendant tells me you were first in line to view the body of a homeless woman, a jumper from Times Square. Did you think it was Sabra?”

He looked down at the table. Given his limited range of expression, he knew this simple aversion of the eyes must be tantamount to a confession.

“One more thing.” Her voice had a cold edge to it. “The night Aubry died-Sabra was in the gallery with you, wasn’t she?”

He lifted his face, and discovered that his expressions were not so limited after all. Mallory was nodding in agreement, as if he had answered her question aloud. Apparently, pain was something she could read in his face, for her voice was softer when she said good night.

On the bedroom bureau sat a wedding photo in a silver frame. Youthful and smiling, Louis and Helen Markowitz stared out of the frame. Two pairs of young, laughing eyes watched the flames racing toward them, consuming everything in sight, every memory of home and family until, mercifully, the glass of the picture frame was coated with soot and ash, blinding their eyes to the end of memories stored away in precious, irreplaceable things.

Mallory stood by the open door of her apartment, taking in the damage of pulled-out drawers, overturned tables and broken glass from the bulbs of fallen lamps. The doorman followed her into the front room.

“I swear I don’t know how he could’ve got past me, miss.”

“He probably walked in behind a tenant. If they want to get in, they will. There aren’t any safe places in this town.”

She walked into the kitchen to stand amid shards of crockery. The burglar had wiped the shelves clean of dishes and cups. Canned goods lay on the floor alongside the contents of her refrigerator. A canister of sugar was spilled over the contents of the flour canister.

Thorough little bastard.

Her den was less damaged. Since she had moved all her computer equipment to Charles’s building, Mallory had not thought to put this room to any better use than storage. Clothes were spilled out of trunks and onto the carpet, and the few remaining computer manuals had been ripped.

Not just a robbery.

She picked up a winter dress of good wool and found it slashed with a razor cut. In the bedroom the carpet was littered with silk blouses slit the same way. More drawers had been pulled out, and a wide selection of running shoes were strewn all over a jumble of blue jeans and blazers, linen and nylons. The mattress had been gutted and its stuffing coated the room. The feathers from her pillows lay on every surface.