The night editor was just trying to make her feel better for being elbowed out of a story that had actually happened in one of her duller-than-dirt neighborhoods. Mira’s only contribution so far had been to ferry a photo downtown, which had earned her a ’trib line, even though the desk forgot to use the photo.

“You have been following,” the voice agreed. “Now you need to lead.”

“I’m not sure I-”

“You must remind people that this has happened before, that such coincidences are to be explored, not ignored.”

“I’m sorry,” Mira said, checking out the Caller ID log on the phone. But because the call had been forwarded by the night editor, it showed his extension, not the originating number. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Now, see.” The voice was triumphant. “That’s why I asked your age, where you were from. Nobody who lived here seven years ago could forget what happened that summer.”

Seven years ago. Mira was starting her senior year at Penn, dating a boy named Bart, short for Bartholomew. He had money and ambition-the first sometimes precluded the second, she had later learned. She knew she didn’t love him, not really, and he didn’t love her, but they would use the word from time to time, to be polite. The memories came back to her, like a movie montage. The golden autumns, the tender springs, the scullers on the Schuylkill.

“Well, I didn’t live here then, and I don’t know.”

“A girl named Olivia went missing,” the voice hissed. “Judge Poole’s granddaughter. Two white girls killed her but they got juvenile time because they were white. You want to think what would happen to two black girls who killed a white judge’s granddaughter? You think the legislature would have said, ‘Oh, no, we can’t be lowering the limit, you can’t send eleven-year-olds to adult prison.’ ”

“What does this have to do with the child who’s missing now?” The very suggestion of racism put Mira off. She didn’t deny its existence in the world, but talking about it every day was like discussing anything else you couldn’t control-the weather, time, death, taxes. People needed to move on.

“They sent those white girls away seven years ago. Now they’re home and another baby’s gone. And I can guarantee you, the police are looking at those girls, trying to find out if they had anything to do with it. You call the police. You ask them if they’re talking to those girls and they’ll have to say yes if they’re not lying to you. You tell people that another child is going to die because they wouldn’t do it right the last time.”

“What-”

The line was dead.

Mira stared at the phone for a good long time.

“Hey, Bolt,” she called to the night editor, who probably wouldn’t look up if his first name were uttered. “You notice the number on that call you forwarded?”

“Didn’t know the number, didn’t know the voice,” he said promptly. “We got a new weirdo joining the ranks?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, whoever it was asked for you by name. You got a friend out there?”

No, but she had a ’trib line on the story, she remembered, and had tried to make a few follow-up phone calls this evening.

She closed her AOL e-mail account, on which she had been sending witty, vicious letters to various college friends, and called up the paper’s in-house library. She specified a date range, giving herself a three-year period-people were imperfect when it came to time-and dropped in the terms Olivia and missing. Too many files came back, including several reviews of Twelfth Night. She looked at the notes she had doodled as the woman spoke. She tried Olivia and Poole.

Seventeen matches in all, and not one more recent than the summer of the crime, seven years earlier. Mira read with careful, absorbed attention, breaking away only to watch the evening newscasts. All four programs carried stories about the missing girl, but not one mentioned the old case or suggested a connection. There seemed to be no developments at all.

When the end of Mira’s shift arrived, the night editor had to remind her three times that she was free to go. She printed out the library stories she had been reading and tucked them away in a manila folder, taking them home.

Nancy had been experimenting with several postures and stances in interrogations, not to mention various intonations and degrees of eye contact. Lately she had tried standing, her back against the door, her arms folded across her chest. She thought this pose projected the air of a stern teacher or parent. “That’s the problem,” Lenhardt had told her. “You do look like a teacher, and these aren’t the kind of people who have fond memories of school. If these guys had listened to their teachers, they might have turned out a little differently.”

He was right. The men-and so far Nancy had interviewed mostly young men, with an occasional mom and girlfriend thrown into the mix-were sullen or resentful, seldom cooperative. But Nancy couldn’t intimidate the way Infante did, especially toward the end of the day, when his five o’clock shadow gave him that blue-black werewolf look. Nor did she have Lenhardt’s air of mournful disappointment, which was surprisingly effective with a certain kind of mutt. Plus, if she stood, it gave her a height advantage.

One thing she was sure of: She wasn’t going to go all girly. A cop couldn’t flirt confessions out of people, and she would look weak if she tried.

None of these concerns, however, applied to Alice Manning, who had arrived here with the nervous shake of someone who actually respected authority. Nancy took a seat across from her in the interview room, hands folded on the table in front of her. Alice unconsciously mirrored her, the way a chimpanzee in a zoo imitated onlookers. Only she looked like someone waiting for a meal at a city mission. Nancy glanced at the girl’s pale forearms, searching for fresh nicks or cuts, but saw nothing. The rest of her was too covered up to scout.

“I want to help. I really, really want to help,” Alice kept repeating.

“Well, the way you can help is by telling us what you know.”

“I’m not sure I know anything.”

“So why are you here?”

“Because my mom said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Do you know why we came to your house looking for you? Do you know why we think you may have information to share with us?”

“Because of my…past.”

The choice of word sounded like something Alice had been taught to say. Nancy could imagine Helen Manning schooling her daughter in just this fashion, giving her this grand yet inadequate word, as if Alice were a young Bette Davis, back in her glory days, when her big wounded eyes always seemed to hold some secret.

“Sort of.” It was important not to lead the girl, not to give her too much information. “A little girl disappeared Friday night. We’re looking at a lot of leads.”

“I’m a lead?” Alice tested the word, at once attracted and repelled.

“Well, that’s what we’re here to find out.”

“Is lead another word for suspect?”

Nancy couldn’t swear to it, but she thought she caught a wisp of something sly in Alice ’s face just then, a hard light in those wide blue eyes. Again, very Bette Davis. Like the song, the stupid song that had been on the radio when Nancy was in middle school. She’ll tease you, the song had promised. It was the only line Nancy could remember. She will something and something and tease you.

“Sometimes leads are suspects. And sometimes they’re just leads. Right now, you’re just a lead.”

Would Alice think to ask for a lawyer? It was funny how much and how little neophytes knew about the criminal process. Repeat offenders, of course, had the drill down cold. But first-timers didn’t think they could ask for a lawyer until they had been charged and read their Miranda rights. They didn’t realize they could just get up and walk out, say, “I’m not talking to you until you’re ready to charge me.” Or that they could lawyer up anytime.