"I heard something big's up in the park. Missing jogger. You here about that?" The man's eyes looked red and his long gray hair was gathered up in a ponytail.

"You're misinformed," April told him, frowning.

He heard? How did he hear? She hadn't used the police radio, hadn't told anyone but Iriarte. She had a really paranoid thought. How bad did Iriarte want to mess her up? She frowned as the van moved half a block down CPW, did a U-turn, and parked in a bus stop to wait for the story to emerge.

"Jesus," Slocum swore, then pointed at one of the uniforms. "Get that asshole out of there. We have to close off the area. No cars, no people. It confuses the dog."

April's beeper went off. Lieutenant Iriarte's number flashed on the screen. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the squad room. A minute later he came on screaming, "Where are you, Woo? I got the PC on the phone. He wants to know how come no one briefed him on this? Your missing person case is on the fucking news!"

April eyed the ABC truck. "No kidding?" she said.

"You don't have much of a life expectancy, Sergeant. Give me your location, I'm coming up there."

"Yes, sir." She gave the entrance to the park as Maslow's Place Last Seen, then hung up and checked her watch. It was two on the button. Her boss would be there in fifteen, twenty minutes. Her heart was racing. Her palms were wet. Her head felt light. The PC himself was going to ream her. Her mother's dream would come true. The whole world would see her cease being a cop. She'd be disgraced on the evening news, on the morning news. She'd lose her boyfriend, the man she worshipped and adored. Why? Why had she done this? Then she remembered Maslow was still missing and the minutes were ticking by.

"Come on, Officer, let's get started," she said.

"Call me Sid. Good girl, good girl. We're going to work. Yeah, yeah. You hot, old thing? Good, good, good." Slocum pumped the dog. She responded by practically taking his arm off in her eagerness to get going. He turned to April. "We need to get a feel for this guy. He live here? I want to start at ground zero."

"Uh-huh. "The dog growled at her, and April stepped back uneasily.

"Wow, this is an unusual reaction for Freda. She always loves everybody."

"Uh-huh." April didn't believe it.

They crossed Central Park West and went through the routine with Regina again to get into Maslow's apartment. This time she kept a respectful distance as Sid unleashed the dog and let her run around the apartment, root into the armpit of Maslow's jacket that he'd left on the sofa. She leapt up onto the bed, dove into the pillows. Then, finished with that, she raced into the kitchen, where the rotting Chinese leftovers drove her into a frenzy.

Slocum glanced at the stereo, computer, medical texts. "What is this guy, a medical student?"

"Doctor. A psychiatrist."

"Jeeze. Hear that, Freda, this guy's a headshrinker." The dog raced back into the bedroom, nosed into the pants on the bed, and came up with the wad of bills and the wallet.

"How do you like that? I didn't even tell her to fetch. Good girl, Freda, but put it down. You don't get a tip unless you find the guy alive." The dog dropped the money. A bunch of twenties and fifties fanned out, looking to April like several weeks' pay.

"Interesting," she murmured. "Woody, bag that and the wallet so they don't disappear, will you?"

Woody stepped forward to comply. The dog growled when he reached for the money.

"Interesting," April said again. Freda had an interest in cash. So did April. She wondered why Maslow had so much on hand.

"Guess he wasn't heading off for a night on the town. Anything in the hamper? I need something only he touched."

"Nothing there, I checked."

"Was he depressed? Did he have any illness we didn't know about? What about his medications?" Slocum asked.

They went into the bathroom. Sid checked out the medicine cabinet. "Hey, look at all this. This guy has asthma, allergies, psoriasis, migraines. You name it. Today must have been laundry day."

"Maybe he has a maid. We can check that out." April glanced at her watch. "You have enough now. Let's get the show on the road."

Slocum swore at the neat apartment and empty hamper. He debated between the suit jacket flung on the sofa and the T-shirt and socks lying on the floor in the bedroom. He chose the T-shirt, approached it with a plastic bag, slid the thing inside without touching it himself.

"Freda, come, baby. We're going to work." He held out the bag for the dog to sniff. Freda leaped around for a while, trying to get into the bag. Then she lunged at April's crotch without warning.

April let out a yelp. Sniff, sniff, sniff, slobber, slobber, slobber. The dog nosed her privates while Slocum and Woody yucked it up. Then, Freda lost interest in April and moved on. She shoved her muzzle into Woody's crotch, smacking her jaws at the delights she found there, causing manly consternation and more macho jokes. Freda sure knew what she was doing. She then dived back into the bag for more of Maslow. Sid reattached the leash.

"Go find," he said.

The dog went for the door, knocking the hovering Regina out of the way and nearly off her feet. Freda panted at the elevator, sniffed it all over when it arrived, and they got inside. Down in the lobby she sniffed the rug, stopped, headed for the door. Sniffed the brass struts holding up the canopy, peed on one of them, then dragged Sid right to the corner and across the street to the park.

Thirteen

Maslow heard the sound of a barking dog and opened his eyes. He saw very little. He tried to move. But his whole body was stiff and aching. A hammer pounded in his head. The light now was gray, the smell of pond scum was overwhelming. He knew for sure it was pond scum when a bullfrog hopped over his face with a wet splat, spiking his heart with terror. Other creatures were alive in here, too. He could hear their movements around him. Things that he knew would start eating him as soon as he died.

Now he heard a dog and prayed that someone had come looking for him. He didn't want to die.

"Here, I'm here." When he opened his mouth to scream, all that came out was a soft moan. He couldn't seem to get his voice up to full volume.

He tried to move his fingers and his mouth, but pain was all he felt. He didn't know how long he had been here. He was aware that he'd felt sicker before, that he'd fallen asleep. He'd awakened, then dozed some more.

Maslow was irritated by his weakness. He couldn't seem to rally enough energy to get himself going. Through a haze that felt like a bad drunk, Maslow knew he was not dead. Chloe was not talking to him. Nor was he trapped on the drying rack in the linen closet in the Cape Cod house that was long gone from his life. He knew his fantasy that Chloe was still alive and ten years old in Massachusetts was only a fantasy.

He was not a child and not a sixteen-year-old, drunk for the first time. He was not twenty-five and knocked out on the street after trying to help someone in a bar fight. He was not an intern in ER. He was way past all that. He was a psychiatrist now, a candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute. He remembered his class on personality disorders the night before. He remembered his session at his Central Park West office with Allegra and how upset she'd been because he'd told her it was normal for a child to have loving feelings for a father, even if the father abused her. But that was about it.

He couldn't remember anything after coming home and getting ready for his jog. If he had not gone for the jog, he could be dreaming. But the creatures crawling on him were no dream. He was not where he was supposed to be. He was in terrible pain. He couldn't move at all. Something had happened to him. And if he didn't do something about it soon, he might well die.