"I'll do it right now. Mike and Mercer are with me."

I flopped into my chair, threw back my head, and exhaled loudly, then reached for the newspaper so that I had the photo in front of me when I spoke to the woman.

"Get ready for the next wild goose chase," I said. "Ned's got me calling someone from the tips hotline."

"What's the reward money for information up to?" Mike asked.

"Twenty-five grand if it leads to the arrest," Mercer said.

"The higher it goes, the more nuts come out of the woodwork. Make like you're the Home Shopping Network, Coop. Chat her up nice and offer her two front row seats at the trial."

I dialed the number, and a woman answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Hello. I'm Alexandra Cooper. I'm a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Detective Tacchi gave me your number and asked me to call."

There was no response.

"Hello? Can you hear me? I'm working with the police on the investigation of the murders of-"

The conversation ended abruptly as the woman hung up the phone.

"She disconnected me." I hung up, too, and exhaled again.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the tiara, Coop. Give it a rest."

"We'll check out that number in the reverse directory," Mercer said.

Laura buzzed me. "The switchboard has a caller on the main line. Wants to put it through. Says she was just talking to you."

I picked up the receiver again. "Hello, this is Alex Cooper."

"I'm sorry I cut you off, Ms. Cooper. I wanted to make sure you were really calling from the DA's office. I wanted to be certain you are who you claim to be. I called information and got the number. I know it sounds rude, but I'm-well-I'm terribly nervous."

"I understand completely," I said. The woman's voice was soft and she spoke with some hesitation. There was no point in asking her name until she was ready to identify herself.

"I'm calling from my home, Ms. Cooper. I suppose you can figure that out pretty quickly yourselves, with all your sophisticated surveillance information. I had to leave my office, you see. This call could cost me my job."

"Is that what you're nervous about?"

She paused for fifteen seconds. "That, of course. But I'm also terrified of becoming a target. A target of the killer."

"Is there something we can do right now-I've got two detectives here with me-something to make you feel safe?"

"I told the man who answered the hotline that I wanted to speak to a lawyer."

"Yes, and I'm a lawyer."

"Obviously. But you can't be my lawyer, can you? I may lose my livelihood if-if the fact of this phone call gets out."

"I have no reason to betray your confidence, Miss-?"

"Not now, maybe. But I know the system, Ms. Cooper. I know I'm putting myself in the eye of the storm. I know you'll have to use me at some point in the court proceedings. I need some legal guidance about privilege."

I rolled my eyes at Mike and Mercer. My caller was intelligent, but she was clearly conflicted about talking with me and I couldn't make a judgment about her credibility.

"If you need to talk to a legal adviser before you tell us what you know, then I would urge you to do that as quickly as possible. But if your personal safety is your concern as well, I just want you to understand the need for speed. That's help we can give you."

Again, silence.

"If you're assuming that Kiernan Dylan is still in custody because the photograph you saw-the one that you called the hotline about- showed him being taken away by police, I just want you to know that he was released by the court." I hesitated before I told her what I hoped would be the tipping point to put herself in our care. "We have no idea where Dylan is today, but he's not been seen anywhere in the city."

"I don't give a damn where he is, Ms. Cooper."

I took my pen and drew a large X through the caller's phone number. This was turning out to be a waste of my time.

"Well, you have my office number, and of course the hotline that you first called, if there's something you want to get back to us about. Thank you-"

"Would your detectives come to my house, Ms. Cooper? I live in New Jersey, in Harrison. It's not far from Newark."

"For what reason, ma'am? Come to your house to protect you, is that what you mean? I'm sure we could arrange for the local police to do that if it's necessary."

"I mean that I can't talk at my office. I've brought some of the records home with me, but I couldn't take everything. You need to see them, to understand that this should never have happened."

I tried to remain patient but the woman's flat affect and her ability to draw me back in when I thought the conversation had ended were annoying me.

"I don't know what records you're talking about, and I don't know where you work. When you think you can help us, I trust you'll call again. Now I've got to hang up and-"

"I work at the Department of Corrections, in New Jersey. In Kearny, at the Northern Regional Unit. Do you know what that is?"

The woman had my complete attention now. "I do. Yes, I do. It's the maximum security psychiatric center, isn't it? Where the sexual predators are held. Won't you tell me, please, what this has to do with Kiernan Dylan?"

I knew that Dylan had no criminal record. What could possibly connect him to one of the most violent collection of criminals in the country? "Nothing at all, Ms. Cooper. I told you that."

"But you called the police because of the photograph in today's newspapers, didn't you?"

"I called because the man-see the black man standing on the far right, over the detective's shoulder? He's Troy Rasheed, a prisoner here for more than twenty years. He was released from this facility six weeks ago, despite my testimony at his hearing," the woman said, clearing her throat before she spoke again. "I don't know what he's doing in that photograph, but you want to talk to that guy. My name is Nelly Kallin. I supervise the unit at Kearny."

I stared at the face in the photograph. The man Kallin was talking about was standing on the top step as the three of us walked out of Ruffles. We paid him no attention, and left him behind to deal with the crowd when we took the Dylan kid away. He was tall and powerfully built, with a shaved head and tattoos up and down his well-muscled arms.

"Mr. Rasheed was working at that bar," I said. "He's a bouncer."

"He's a convicted predator, Ms. Cooper. He raped women-three that he got caught for and dozens more the prosecution couldn't prove, back in the days before DNA. Rasheed tortured them all, too," Kallin said. "It's what he's good at. It's what he likes to do.

You can't work in a licensed bar if you're a convicted felon," I said, as Mike turned the corner onto the street where Nelly Kallin lived. The ride from my office, through the Holland Tunnel and down the Jersey Turnpike, had taken less than forty minutes.

"Yeah, Coop. And jail rehabilitates perverts. What kind of fairy land are you living in? Mercer, you see any numbers?"

Neat-looking yellow brick houses stood side by side, separated from each other by narrow garages and rows of hedges, some clipped and others overgrown.

"Should be the third one on the right."

While Mike drove, Mercer and I had worked our phones, alerting Peterson and Spindlis about the call, getting a team poised to move if Kallin's information was legitimate.

"I mean that it's illegal to hire a felon to work in a place that serves booze."

"I know, I know. You think creeps like the Dylans care about that? And don't bother saying that if I hadn't insisted on shutting the bar down Saturday night, you'd be able to get the names of all the employees," Mike said, turning off the engine.