He ducked his head slightly, extended an elbow, and charged. The figure fell back under this attack, but at the last moment the knife hand came around, slashing at Smithback's arm and cutting a deep stripe from elbow to shoulder. Smithback wrenched to one side with a cry of surprise and pain — and as he did so he felt the exquisitely cold sensation of steel being driven deep into his lower back.

It seemed to keep sinking forever, plucking at his innermost vitals, piercing him with a pain that had been matched only once before in his life. He gasped, staggered to the floor, trying to get away; he felt the knife slip out, then plunge in again. There was a sudden wetness on his back, as if someone were pouring warm water on him.

Summoning all his strength, he rose to his feet, grabbing desperately at his attacker, pummeling him with his bare hands. The knife slashed again and again at his knuckles but Smithback no longer felt it. The figure fell back under the ferocity of his charge. This was his opportunity, and Smithback wheeled around, ready to retreat to the kitchen. But the floor seemed to be tilting crazily under his feet, and there was now a strange boiling in his chest with every breath he took. He staggered into the kitchen, gasping, fighting for balance, slick fingers scrabbling at the knife drawer. But even as he managed to pull it open, he saw a shadow fall over the counter… and then another terrible blow landed deep between his shoulder blades. He tried to twist away, but the knife kept rising and falling, rising and falling, the crimson gleam of its blade dimming as the light began to fail him…

All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre; the feast is over and the lamps expire…

The elevator doors slid back, and Nora stepped out into the corridor. She'd made good time, and with any luck Bill would still be on the couch, perhaps reading that Thackeray novel he'd been raving about all week. Carefully, she balanced the cake box in her hands as she reached for her key; he'd no doubt guessed where she'd gone, but it was hard to mount a surprise on somebody's first anniversary…

There was something wrong. She'd been so preoccupied with her thoughts that it took her a moment to realize what it was: the door to her apartment was wide open.

As she stared, somebody stepped out. She recognized him. His clothes were smeared and soaked with blood, and he held a large knife in his hand. As he stood looking toward her, the knife dripped copiously onto the floor.

Instinctively, without thought, she dropped the cake and the key and rushed at him. Neighbors were coming out of their apartments now, their voices raised in fear and terror. As she ran toward the figure he raised the knife, but she knocked his hand aside, punching him in the solar plexus as she did so. He lashed out, throwing her against the opposite wall of the corridor, slamming her head against the hard plaster, and she fell to the floor. Spots danced before her eyes as he shambled toward her, knife raised. She threw herself out of the way as it slashed downward; he kicked her viciously in the head, knife rising again. The sound of screaming echoed in the hall. But Nora couldn't hear it; there was no longer any sound, only blurry images. And then those disappeared, as well.

Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta stood in the crowded hallway outside the door to the two — bedroom apartment. He moved his shoulders inside the brown suit, trying to unstick his damp arms from his polyester shirt. He was very angry, and angry wasn't good. It would affect everything he did, detract from his powers of observation.

He took a long breath and released it, trying to let the anger flow out with the air.

The apartment door opened and a thin, stooped man with a tuft of hair on his pate emerged, lugging a bundle of equipment behind and pushing ahead an aluminum case strapped to a luggage roller. "We're done, Lieutenant." The man took a clipboard from another officer and logged out, followed by his assistant.

D'Agosta glanced at his watch. Three A.M. The scene — of — crime team had taken a long time. They were being extra careful. They knew he and Smithback went back a long ways. It irritated him the way they went head — ducking past him, eyeing him sideways, wondering how he was taking it. Wondering if he'd recuse himself from the case. A lot of homicide detectives would — if only because it raised issues at the trial. It didn't look good when the defense put you on the witness stand. "The deceased was a friend of yours? Well now, isn't that a ratherinteresting coincidence?" It was a complication a trial didn't need, and the DA hated when it happened.

But D'Agosta had no intention of letting this one go. Never. Besides, it was an open — and — shut case. The perp was as good as convicted, they had him cold. All that was left was to find the bastard.

The last of the SOC team came out of the apartment and logged out, leaving D'Agosta alone with his thoughts. He stood for a minute in the empty hallway, trying to settle his frayed nerves. Then he snapped on a pair of latex gloves, pulled the hairnet close around his balding pate, and moved toward the open door. He felt faintly sick. The body had been removed, of course, but nothing else had been touched. He could see, where the entryway took a dogleg, just a sliver of the room beyond and a lake of blood on the floor; bloody footprints; a handprint streaked across a cream — colored wall.

He stepped carefully over the blood, pausing before the living room. Leather sofa, pair of chairs, overturned coffee table, more clots of blood on the Persian rug. He slowly walked into the center of the room, rolling his crepe — soled feet down, one after the other, stopped, turned, trying to reconstruct the scene in his mind.

D'Agosta had asked the team to take extensive samples of the bloodstains; there were complex overlapping splatter patterns that he wished to untangle, footsteps tracked through the blood, hand — prints layered on handprints. Smithback had fought like hell; there was no way the perp escaped without leaving DNA at this scene.

The crime, on the surface, was simple. It was a disorganized, messy killing. The perp had let himself in with a master key. Smithback was in the living room. The killer got in a good blow with his knife, right away putting Smithback at a severe disadvantage, and then they fought. The fight carried them into the kitchen — Smith — back had tried to arm himself: the knife drawer was halfway open, bloody handprints on the knob and counter. Didn't get a knife, though; too damn bad. Got stabbed again from behind while at it. They fought a second time. He had been cut pretty bad by then, blood all over the floor, skid marks of bare feet. But D'Agosta was pretty sure the perp was also bleeding by this time. Bleeding, shedding hair and fibers, blowing and snorting with the effort, perhaps scattering saliva and phlegm. It was all there, and he had confidence that the SOC team had found it. They'd even cut out and taken away some floorboards, including several with knife marks; they'd cut pieces of drywall, lifted prints from every surface, collected every fiber they could find, every lint ball and piece of grit.

D'Agosta's eyes continued to roam, his mind continuing an interior film of the crime. Eventually, Smithback lost so much blood that he weakened sufficiently for the killer to deliver the coup de grâce: according to the M.E., a knife through the heart that went half an inch into the floor. The perp had twisted it violently to get it out, splintering the wood. At the thought, D'Agosta felt himself flushing with a fresh mixture of anger and grief. That board had been cut out, too.

Not that all this attention to detail would make much difference — they already knew who the perp was. Still, it was always good to pile on the evidence. You never knew what kind of jury you might draw in this crazy town.