When his belly was quiet, he made his way down the hall, lurching a little. He stopped in the bathroom to urinate and brush his teeth. Then he fell into bed.

As he reached to turn out the light, his gaze was caught by an illustration in an open book on his nightstand, a work of medieval history. Martine had probably read in it last night, while her deadbeat lover slept on the couch. The picture was an old woodcut by Durer. Several women in a rustic kitchen, surrounded by leering imps and familiars, were brewing a cauldron of magical potion, then flying up the chimney to join the hordes of their sisters, riding their broomsticks through the turbulent moonlit sky to a Walpurgisnacht orgy.

The witchcraft terror had exercised a tremendous hold on the medieval imagination. In Europe, between about 1300 and 1700, tens of thousands, almost all women – some estimates put the number at over a million – were executed for this ultimate heresy, selling their souls to the powers of evil, joining forces with the enemy of mankind.

In practice, beneath the genuine superstition of the times, there were far more tawdry motivations at work: misogyny, cruelty, and greed. The elderly, eccentric, and deformed – offensive to righteous citizens and helpless to defend themselves – were often targeted. But being young and pretty could be dangerous, too. A man suffering from unrequited lust might decide that this could only be because the desired one had cast a spell on him, and have the revenge of seeing her punished for rejecting him. Someone who coveted a neighbor's property might swear that they had seen that neighbor make unexplained trips into the forest at night; the victim's possessions would be confiscated, and given or sold cheaply to the accuser. Many suffered, as at Salem, from the lies of spiteful children.

Once the victims were accused, they were guilty until proven innocent, which almost never happened. Typically, they were tortured into confessing whatever lurid scenarios their inquisitors dreamed up, then burned alive. They were also forced to implicate others, so the process mushroomed. Villages were decimated; victims' entire families were considered contaminated; children were tortured into accusing their parents, then burned along with them. It was all done with the utmost piety.

There was evil in the world, Monks had no doubt of that – pervading human life, in different guises, in every era. During the witch-hunts, it had worn the judges' robes.

The oblivion of sleep came to him with merciful swiftness.

The laser printer in Stover Larrabee's office whooshed quietly, adding more information to the stack that was accumulating. Larrabee was not an office person, and he had not grown up in the computer generation. He was more comfortable working in old-fashioned ways. But there was no denying that computers saved a lot of time, phone calls, and miles.

Guido Franchi, his SFPD detective friend, had provided a tantalizing piece of information. In 1997, a young woman named Katie Bensen had been reported missing. A routine police check turned up a common scenario. Katie was in her early twenties – no one knew her age for sure, or even if that was her real name. According to what she told friends, she had run away from home in her early teens and drifted ever since. She had no trouble finding places to crash; she was attractive, and willing to trade sex for money or drugs.

Katie had never been found. The police were unable to locate any family. She joined the ranks of young women who frequently went missing like that – drifters, druggies, girls who came to San Francisco looking for something or to get away from something else, living in a shadow world beneath the radar. Usually, they moved to another city because of legal or personal trouble, often changing names. Overworked police departments could not spend time and resources chasing girls who wanted to stay disappeared. But they could easily become throwaways – victims of that dangerous world, which included predators who sought them out.

One thing set Katie apart. She had claimed, to her friends, that she had been a patient of Dr. D. Welles D' Anton. For a young woman who had been living one step above the streets, this was, to say the least, unusual.

There were no more details in the police report. It was only noted that D' Anton's office had been contacted, in the hopes that they might have a current address for her. They did not. That was that.

Franchi was right – the case went nowhere, and it was several years old. Most likely, Katie had lied about her connection with D' Anton to impress her friends, and just skipped town.

But if not, she was another young woman whose unexplained death was linked to D' Anton.

The police report did mention the name of a nurse in D' Anton's office, one Margaret Pendergast. Tracking her was no problem. Ms. Pendergast was an upstanding citizen, at least on paper. She had bought a house in Anaheim in early 1998.

Which meant that she had left D' Anton's employ not long after Katie Benson's disappearance.

Larrabee found her phone number, but got no answer. He left a message on her machine, then started focusing on Dr. D. Welles D'Anton himself.

The standard background check information on D'Anton came up readily, including his license to practice in the state of California. But Larrabee realized that none of it dated back farther than twenty years. This was astonishing: his medical education should have been a matter of public record.

Larrabee started to entertain the incredible notion that D'Anton might be a fraud. He accessed a CD-ROM directory of board-certified medical specialists and looked again, scrolling carefully down the list of names.

His finger stopped tapping the key. He grinned.

The credentials were impressive – M.D. from Johns Hopkins, surgical residency at UCLA, back to Hopkins for plastic surgery certification -

But they were for one Donald W. Danton. Born in Youngstown, Ohio, November 3, 1952. Married Julia Symes in 1983. The dates jibed with a man of fifty. It had to be him.

The usual reasons for a name change were obvious – a criminal record, bad debts, adopting a stage persona. But this apostrophe had turned him from Donald Danton of Youngstown, Ohio, to Dr. D. Welles D'Anton of San Francisco, plastic surgeon to the stars.

Next, Larrabee found that the name Symes was old California money, with plenty of alumni from Stanford and USC. The LA branch of the family included several financiers and producers in the movie business. Julia Symes, D'Anton's wife, was from San Francisco but had gone to college at Pomona. She would have been an undergraduate there at the time Danton – now D'Anton – was doing his surgical residency at UCLA. They had married the year she graduated.

Larrabee was getting the feeling that D'Anton had orchestrated his career very carefully – acquiring the proper medical credentials, a wealthy wife who was connected in the film world, and a new name and persona.

A quick online search turned up no allegations of malpractice or negligence against D'Anton, with the apostrophe or without. But very often, cases didn't show up on those kinds of records because they never got that far. A physician who was threatened with a lawsuit, or a misconduct complaint, would inform his or her insurance company immediately. The company's attorneys might then persuade the complainant not to pursue it, or an agreement would be reached privately. There would be no official record of the matter.

Larrabee had put out feelers for several other avenues that might turn up these kinds of incidents. The personnel at ASCLEP, the malpractice insurance company that he and Monks worked for, might have heard about them – or other physicians, lawyers, and newspeople, of whom Larrabee knew quite a few.