“Liam Byrne. B-Y-R-N-E.”

“Year of death?”

“Nineteen ninety-four.”

“Municipality?”

“No idea. That’s what I’m here to find out.”

“At least you know the county, I hope.”

“How many counties are there?”

“Twenty-one,” said the clerk, a snappish woman with owl eyes who

seemed to have already had a tough day even though it wasn’t yet noon. “That many?” said Ramirez.

“So you don’t know the county either. I’m afraid this might take

some time.”

“I don’t have much time,” said Ramirez, flashing her badge. “I’m in the middle of a murder investigation.”

The clerk leaned forward, looked at the badge, glanced up at Ramirez before sitting back. “That’s not a New Jersey badge, is it?”

“No, ma’am. Philadelphia, actually, but I figure you guys care about homicides as much as we do.”

“Only if they occur in New Jersey.”

“Well, Liam Byrne’s might have,” said Ramirez.

The clerk looked at her flatly for a moment before saying, “Take a seat, and I’ll see what I can do.”

The call about the fire had sliced Ramirez’s sleep in half, and now, the afternoon after, she was too tired to make a scene, too tired to insist on seeing the supervisor and banging on his desk. Instead she sat in one of the blue plastic seats and waited. trenton makes, the world takes, said the sign on the bridge, but as far as Ramirez could figure it, Trenton only made you wait. And wait.

She stretched her long legs out for a moment, rested her neck on the back edge of the blue chair, closed her eyes.

“Union County.”

Ramirez snapped awake and looked up. The clerk, staring down at her, had a file in her hand. Ramirez glanced at her watch. She’d been asleep for an hour.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I must have dozed.”

“That’s okay. I suspect they keep their homicide detectives busy there in Philadelphia.” The clerk opened the file, read a bit. “Your Liam Byrne died at Overlook Hospital in Summit. I made a copy of the certificate for you. But it wasn’t a homicide.”

“No?” said Ramirez, rubbing her eyes.

“No, dear,” said the clerk, closing the file and handing it off. “It was a heart attack.”

Ramirez took the file, opened it, quickly examined the certificate. Liam Byrne, born in Philadelphia, July 15, 1941, died in Summit, New Jersey, June 4, 1994. And there it was: cause of death, myocardial infarction, a simple heart attack. All of it certified by a Dr. Manzone of Overlook Hospital. That should be the end of this road, she should get back home. She had too many real crimes to investigate, too many families still raw from the pains of their loss and looking for answers that only she could give, closure that only she could provide. She didn’t need to be investigating phantom crimes in a distant jurisdiction.

“Thank you so much for your help,” said Ramirez. “I really appreciate it.”

“Anything else I can do?”

“Just one thing,” she said. “How do you get to this Summit?”

UP,” HAD SAID THE CLERK. Ramirez took it as a smart remark, but the woman simply meant north, Route 1 to the turnpike to the Garden State Parkway. Welcome to scenic New Jersey. Not for the first time did Detective Ramirez wonder how anyone could live here. Philadelphia had snap and life, New Jersey, other than the shore, had places to drive, and places to watch TV, and places to die. Overlook Hospital was one of the places to die. It was a large, formal brick building on the edge of one of the sprawling suburbs that seemed to make up the entire state.

It took a bit of bouncing around and waving her badge until she found the records room. This new clerk was quite busy and let her know it with a dramatic sigh at her request. When she showed him her badge, he almost sneered.

“This will take some time,” he said.

“Not too much, I hope.”

“It’s off-site, dearie. I have to call it in and then have it delivered.

It could take all day.”

“I don’t have all day. Do your best to speed it up, could you?” she

said with a bat of her eyelashes that did nothing.

“It will take what it will take.”

“Of course it will. Is there a decent place to eat around here?” “What do you like, other than lipstick two shades too bright?” “Right now I feel like something raw.”

“Oooh,” he said with a sly smile.

He directed her to a sushi joint not far from the hospital. As she

banged down the number-two maki roll lunch special and a glass of

tea, she wondered how much of this quixotic lurch into New Jersey

was about solving the Laszlo Toth murder and how much was about

solving Kyle Byrne. Somehow the kid had gotten under her skin. She

couldn’t tell for sure if he activated the procreating or maternal center of her brain, but she felt the intense desire to protect him. And

after seeing him in the hospital and then, later, seeing the burned-out

hulks of his house and car, she knew for sure that he needed protecting. He was a fool kid in over his head in waters he couldn’t fathom.

But he swam with such a plucky charm that he couldn’t help making

her smile. Who was the last man who had made her smile? Santa,

maybe, when she still believed, and that was a long time ago. Kyle Byrne was still on her mind when she returned to the hospital

for the file. Except there was no file.

“I don’t understand,” said Ramirez. “There has to be a file.” “Well, it’s not so hard to understand, is it?” said the clerk with unrestrained pique. “You were obviously mistaken. We have no record of a patient by that name that entire year.”

“If he came in DOA, would there still be a record?”

“If he walks in, is wheeled in, or drops in from the sky, we don’t do a thing until a file is opened. Why don’t you try Summit Oaks Hospital on Prospect Street?” He leaned forward and lowered his voice as if he were confiding. “That’s for psychiatric cases. You might have better luck there.”

“You are a wonder, aren’t you?” said Ramirez, whipping her own file out of her briefcase. “The death certificate held by the State of New Jersey has Liam Byrne being declared dead at this hospital in 1994, so I suggest you cut the cattiness and look again.” “Let me see that,” said the clerk.