So was it Stewart's lethal cover-up or the work of a saboteur? Michael's noble service to needy women or the exploitation of them? Jimmy's undue influence on either man, or just a good priest doing his job? The answers might never come to light. And if he was on the wrong track altogether, God knew what other secrets might remain hidden forever. No wonder Hurst preferred to hide the nasty side of things. With such an impenetrable matrix to help cloak everything, odds were he could get away with it.

And now SARS underlined the whole kit and caboodle with the issue of survival.

As he drew closer to the blurred dark shape of St. Paul's, it appeared to expand through the charcoal-seeped air and spread outward, towering over where he walked.

For a second he had the illusion it reared defiant before his growing sense of helplessness, a leviathan set to devour him whole.

6:45 p.m.

Windows rattled with each thunderclap, and the count between a flash and the boom narrowed to three. Drops of rain the size of marbles pelted the roof and walls with the force of hailstones.

"I'm sure everyone's lying to me- first Stewart, then Michael, and now Jimmy."

"Sit down, Earl, and have a drink," Janet ordered, presiding over an array of pots on the stove. The aroma of teriyaki chicken, fried eggplant, and grilled peppers filled the air.

At her side, perched on a stool and wearing an apron with MOMMY'S LITTLE HELPER emblazoned across the front, Brendan wielded a wooden spoon with the authority of a royal mace. "Yes, go have a drink, Daddy."

"Ordered out of the kitchen again," he muttered, and went to the liquor cabinet.

"With good reason," Janet called after him. "Your mother never taught you how to cook."

" 'Never taught me how to cook,'" he mimicked, filling a glass with ice and pouring himself a Black Russian, the one hard liquor concoction he actually enjoyed. Except he used more Kahlua than vodka, soothing a sweet tooth more than any love for alcohol.

"Not like me, huh, Mommy?" Brendan chimed in.

"You, my love, will be a thoroughly modern man when it comes to culinary skills, and some lucky woman will thank me for educating you."

Earl chuckled, and wandered back into their domain, swirling the ice in his tumbler with his finger as a swizzle stick.

While some doctors golfed or played tennis for recreation, Janet cooked. Her ideal getaway involved uninterrupted hours over a wood stove at their log home beside an isolated mountain lake south of Buffalo.

She sent Brendan upstairs to clean up his room. "In case our guest wants to see your budding train collection," she explained.

"Oh, yeah!" he said, his train set far higher on the scale of what would interest company than food.

"Now sit over there." She directed Earl to the far corner of their breakfast nook. "And tell me what's got you so riled."

He took a sip of his drink and enjoyed the cool burn it made on the way to his stomach. "Well, it started with an interesting call I made to NYCH this morning…

Stewart's legs ached from standing on his toes.

The storm had struck with force, rumbling the house to its foundations and making it impossible for anyone to hear his screams. Even without the thunder and teeming rain, it would be unlikely that all the yelling in the world would reach the ears of a passerby. These old dwellings had foundations like fortresses.

The soft vinyl cover of the stool under his feet sank with his weight. Anytime his muscles faltered, if he even began to buckle at the knees and go down on his soles, the noose tightened.

"Pretty woman," Roy Orbison sang, the voice sounding tinny on the small tape deck, the same as it had that night when he'd found Jerome's body.

Why had the man played it?

To muffle the sounds he'd make dying, one of the cops had said casually, as if this were knowledge every person should have at hand, in case…

Stewart forced himself to think of something else, anything to keep terror at bay and his mind off the agony in his legs. He must manage to stand until someone came for him.

His thoughts whipped backward in time.

The door to the lab had been open. "Somebody must have already walked in on him but left him hanging," he told the police. "Perhaps the person heard Jerome dying despite the music."

Nobody had cared.

Stewart's muscles tightened, yanking him back to the present. As spasms shot through them, he sagged, tightening the loop another notch. With his wrists handcuffed behind his back, he'd no chance of loosening them to free himself however much he struggled. But links of the chain were long enough that the fingers of one hand could circle the wrist of the other- consistent with a pair he could have snapped on himself. That little detail must be for the cops.

"Pretty woman…"

Orbison launched into yet another chorus. The damn recording must be a fucking loop.

He teetered, let out another strangled yell, then regained his balance.

And again thought of that night, everyone in the hospital glued to the television, watching the reports out of Berlin. It had always haunted him, indelibly clear in his head- Thursday, November 9, 1989, the day the wall fell.

They'd all agreed that Jerome had seemed depressed for months.

Some wondered if he had picked that evening to make sure the date would stand out and forever haunt those who'd driven him to his death. Others figured the ever-practical scientist had seized on a chance moment of opportunity, choosing a supper hour with everyone transfixed by newscasts so nobody would interrupt him.

Whatever the intent, Stewart couldn't hear the word wall, Berlin, or even Germany without a flashback hurtling him into that lab and leaving him staring up at the limp body.

Another cramp gripped the sole of Stewart's foot, the right one this time.

He screamed, but the loop around his neck garbled the sound, reducing it to a gurgle.

He lost his balance again and swayed, fighting to recover.

Each drawn breath became a coarse rasp, and every expiration produced a rattling wheeze. His face throbbed as the venous blood engorged his skin, and the periphery of his vision darkened, encroached on by a night that had nothing to do with the slow creep of dusk through his basement window.

He listened, trying to hear some clue whether his soundless killer remained in the shadows, just beyond where he could see. At first he'd thought there were two of them, that he'd heard their voices, like whispers through the din of a rushing noise inside his head. But then he sensed only one, someone behind him. Now he couldn't be sure anyone stood there at all.

"Please! I don't deserve this," he cried. It came out a squawk.

His mute sentinel remained silent.

Or had left.

The coldness of that empty quiet sent his panic skyrocketing.

Just hold on. Somebody will come. It's not too late. Still no permanent damage done. As long as they loosen the loop soon, my throat will heal, he tried to convince himself.

But the only person with a key, his cleaning woman, wouldn't be here until morning. And he seldom had visitors, never encouraged them, preferring the people in his life to be part of his work, where he could use his authority over them to control how close they got. The only ones he invited over willingly were residents, for journal clubs, because even on social occasions there was no lack of clarity about his being their superior.

His only hope of rescue lay with his killer.

"I shouldn't have to die!" he attempted to yell, unable to accept that he'd been abandoned. A croaking noise seemed to originate inside his skull, and nothing but the rushing sound, loud as an express train, filled his ears. He nevertheless continued to spit out words, intelligible only in his mind, like someone with a stroke.