Amburgey persisted, "The bit about the tan cloth belt, the bloody bedspread. I'm wondering if these were mentioned in the CME-1's."

"In the manner the press made reference to the details," I firmly replied, "no."

Tanner drolly remarked, "We all know what the press does. Takes a mustard seed and turns it into a mountain."

"Listen," I said, looking around at the three men, "if your point is that one of my medical examiners is leaking details about these cases, I can tell you with certainty you're way off base. It isn't happening. I know both of the ME's who responded to the first two scenes. They've been ME's in Richmond for years and have always been unimpeachable. I myself responded to the third and fourth scenes. The information is not coming from my office. The details, all of them, could have been divulged by anyone who was there. Members of the rescue squads who responded, for example."

Leather quietly creaked as Amburgey shifted in his chair. "I've looked into that. Three different squads responded. No one paramedic was present at all four scenes."

I said levelly, "Anonymous sources are often a blend of numerous sources. A medical source could have been a combination of what a squad member said, what a police officer said, and what the reporter overheard or saw while waiting around outside the residence where the body was found."

"True." Amburgey nodded. "And I don't believe any of us really think the leaks are coming from the Medical Examiner's Office - at least not intentionally -"

"Intentionally?" I broke out. "Are you implying the leaks may be coming from my office unintentionally?" just as I was about to retort self-righteously what a lot of nonsense this was, I was suddenly struck silent.

A flush began creeping up my neck as it came back to me with swift simplicity. My office data base. It had been violated by an outsider. Was this what Amburgey was alluding to? How could he possibly know about it? Amburgey went on as if he hadn't heard me, "People talk, employees talk. They tell their family, their friends, and they don't intend any harm in most instances. But you never know where the buck stops-maybe on a reporter's desk. These things happen. We're objectively looking into the matter, turning over every stone. We have to. As you must realize, some of what's been leaked has the potential of doing serious damage to the investigation."

Tanner laconically added, "The city manager, the mayor, they aren't pleased with this type of exposure. The homicide rate's already given Richmond a black eye. Sensational national news accounts of a serial murderer are the last thing the city needs. All these new hotels going up are dependent on big conferences, visitors. People don't want to come to a city where they fear for their lives."

"No, they don't," I coldly agreed. "Nor would people want to think the city's major concern over these murders is they're an inconvenience, an embarrassment, a potential obstruction to the tourist trade."

"Kay," Boltz quietly reasoned, "nobody's implying anything outrageous like that."

"Of course not," Amburgey was quick to add. "But we have to face certain hard realities, and the fact is there's a lot simmering beneath the surface. If we don't handle the matter with extreme care, I'm afraid we're in for a major eruption."

"Eruption? Over what?" I warily asked, and automatically looked at Boltz.

His face was tight, his eyes hard with restrained emotion. Reluctantly he said, "This last murder's a powder keg. There are certain things about Lori Petersen's case no one's talking about. Things that, thank God, the reporters don't know yet. But it's just a matter of time. Someone's going to find out, and if we haven't handled the problem first, sensibly and behind the scenes, the situation's going to blow sky-high."

Tanner took over, his long, lantern-shaped face very grim, "The city is at risk for, well, litigation."

He glanced at Amburgey, who signaled him with a nod to proceed.

"A very unfortunate thing happened, you see. Apparently Lori Petersen called the police shortly after she got home from the hospital early Saturday morning. We learned this from one of the dispatchers on duty at the time. At eleven minutes before one A.M., a 911 operator got a call. The Petersen residence came up on the computer screen but the line was immediately disconnected."

Boltz said to me, "As you may recall from the scene, there was a telephone on the bedside table, the cord ripped out of the wall. Our conjecture is Dr. Petersen woke up when the killer was inside her house. She reached for the phone and got as far as dialing 911 before he stopped her. Her address came up on the computer screen. That was it. No one said anything. Nine one-one calls of this nature are dispatched to the patrolmen. Nine times out of ten they're cranks, kids playing with the phone. But we can't ever be sure of that. Can't be sure the person isn't suffering a heart attack, a seizure. In mortal danger. Therefore, the operator's supposed to give the call a high priority. Then the dispatcher broadcasts it to the units on the street without delay, prompting an officer to drive past the residence and at least check to make sure everything's all right. This wasn't done. A certain 911 operator, who even as we speak is suspended from duty, gave the call a priority four."

Tanner interjected, "There was a lot of action on the street that night. A lot of radio traffic. The more calls there are, the easier it is to rank something lower in importance than you maybe otherwise would. Problem is, once something's been given a number, there's no going back. The dispatcher's looking at the numbers on his screen. He's not privy to the nature of the calls until he gets to them. He's not going to get to a four anytime soon when he's got a backlog of ones and twos and threes to send out to the men on the street."

"No question the operator dropped the ball," Amburgey mildly said. "But I think one can see how such a thing could have happened."

I was sitting so rigidly I was barely breathing.

Boltz resumed in the same dull tone, "It was some forty-five minutes later when a patrol car finally cruised past the Petersen residence. The officer says he shone his spotlight over the front of the house. The lights were out, everything looked, quote, 'secure.'

He gets a call of a domestic fight in progress, speeds off. It wasn't long after this Mr. Petersen apparently came home and found his wife's body."

The men continued to talk, to explain. References were made to Howard Beach, to a stabbing in Brooklyn, in which the police were negligent in responding and people died.

"Courts in D.C., New York, have ruled a government can't be held liable for failing to protect people from crime."

"Makes no difference what the police do or don't do."

"Doesn't matter. We win the suit, if there is one, we still lose because of the publicity."

I was scarcely hearing a word of it. Horrible images were playing crazily inside my mind. The 911 call, the fact it was aborted, made me see it.

I knew what happened.

Lori Petersen was exhausted after her ER shift, and her husband had told her he would be in later than usual that night. So she went to bed, perhaps planning to sleep just awhile, until he got home - as I used to do when I was a resident and waiting for Tony to come home from the law library at Georgetown. She woke up at the sound of someone inside the house, perhaps the quiet sound of this person's footsteps coming down the hallway toward the bedroom. Confused, she called out the name of her husband.