"And where does she work?" asked Hansen, his voice more impatient than he meant it to be.

The old woman looked afraid. "Oh, Gail has always worked at the Erie County Medical Center. She's a surgical nurse there."

Hansen patted her hands again. "Thank you, Mrs. Dzwrjsky. You've been a huge help." He nodded for Brubaker and Myers to head back to the DeMarco house.

"I hope that Arlene is all right," said the old woman from the back door. She was weeping now. "I just hope Arlene is all right."

Back in Arlene DeMarco's kitchen, Brubaker used his cell phone to call Dispatch. They got Ms. Gail DeMarco's address on Colvin and the phone number, and Hansen called. There was no answer. He called the Erie County Medical Center, identified himself as a police officer, and was informed that Nurse DeMarco was assisting in surgery right now but would be available in about thirty minutes.

"Okay," said Hansen. "You two get over to the house on Colvin Avenue."

"You want us to go in?" asked Myers, lifting the battering ram off the table.

"No. Just stake it out. Check the driveway and call me if the Ford wagon is there. You can ask neighbors if they've seen the car or Arlene DeMarco or Frears or Kurtz, but don't go in until I get there."

"Where will you be, Captain?" Brubaker seemed half-amused by all this urgency.

"I'm going to stop at the Medical Center on the way. Get going."

Hansen watched from the front window as the two drove off in their unmarked cars. Then he walked back across the yard, through the carport, across the alley, and knocked on Mrs. Dzwrjsky's back door again.

When the old woman opened the door, she was holding the phone but it appeared that she hadn't dialed a number yet. She set the phone back in its cradle as Hansen stepped into the kitchen. "Yes, Officer?"

Hansen pulled the Glock-9 and shot her three times in the upper chest. Any other time, he would take the chance that the woman would call someone rather than take the chance of leaving a body behind, much less leave two detectives as witnesses, but this was an unusual situation. All he needed was a day or two and none of this would matter for Captain Robert Gaines Millworth. Probably just one day.

Hansen stepped over the body, making sure not to step in the widening pool of blood, picked up his ejected brass, and took time to reload the three cartridges in the dock's magazine before walking back through the yards to his waiting Cadillac Escalade.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Earlier that morning, Kurtz and Angelina Farino Ferrara sat in the front seat of her Lincoln and watched Captain Robert Millworth drive away from his home. It was 7:15 a.m.

"There was another car in the garage," said Angelina. "A BMW wagon."

Kurtz nodded and they waited. At 7:45, a woman, a teenage boy, and an Irish setter backed out in the station wagon. The woman beeped the garage door shut and drove off. "Wife, kid, and dog," said Angelina. "Any more in there?"

Kurtz shrugged.

"We'll find out," said Angelina. She drove the Town Car right up the long Millworth driveway and they both got out, Angelina carrying a heavy nylon bag. Kurtz stood back while she knocked several times. No answer.

"Around back," she said. He followed her through the side yard and across a snowy patio. The nearest neighbor was about a hundred yards away behind a privacy fence.

They paused by the sliding doors to the patio as Angelina crouched and studied something through the glass. "It's a SecureMax system," she said. "Expensive but not the best. Would you give me that glass cutter and the suction cup? Thanks."

Yesterday evening, in front of the fire over brandies, with Kurtz almost too tired to concentrate, she had told him her story… or at least the part of it that had made her laugh when he'd told her that he would need a B&E man.

Angelina Farino had always wanted to be a thief. Her father, Don Byron Farino, had worked to keep her sheltered from the facts of his life and would never have considered allowing her to take part in the family business. But Angelina did not want to be involved in every aspect of the business—not then. She just wanted to be the best thief in New York State.

Her brother David introduced her to some of the legendary old second-story men and in high school Angelina would visit them, bringing wine, just to hear their stories. David also introduced her to some of the rising young thugs in their father's organization, but she didn't care much for them; they bragged about using guns, violence, and frontal assaults. Angelina wanted to know about the smart men, the subtle men, the quiet men, the patient men. Angelina did not want to be another mobster; she wanted to be a cat burglar; she wanted to be The Cat; she wanted to be Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief.

She had put herself in harm's way with Emilio Gonzaga when she was in her early twenties because she thought that Gonzaga was going to introduce her to a safecracker she'd always wanted to meet. Instead, as she put it, Emilio introduced her to his dick.

Exiled to Sicily to have the baby, she had married a local mini-don, an idiot exactly her age but with half her IQ, "to keep up appearances." After appearances were kept up and after the baby died and after the young don had his unfortunate hunting accident—or accident cleaning his pistol, Angelina let them choose the story they wanted—she flew to Rome to meet the famous Count Pietro Adolfo Ferrara. Eighty-two years old and suffering the effects of two strokes, the count was still the most famous thief in Europe. Trained by his legendary thief of a father between the wars, active in the Italian resistance, and credited with stealing the communiques from Gestapo headquarters that led to the interdiction and assassination of Mussolini and his mistress, it was often said that the handsome, daring Count Ferrara had been the model for that Cary Grant character in To Catch a Thief.

Angelina had married the bedridden old man four days after they met. The next four years were, in her words, a training camp for becoming a world-class thief.

"What are you doing?" said Kurtz. He was moving from foot to foot on Hansen's patio. It was damned cold and his hair was wet with snow.

Angelina had cut a circular hole from the lower part of the patio door, had removed the glass carefully, and was reaching inside with a long instrument. She ignored Kurtz.

"Isn't that security system set for motion or messing with the glass?" asked Kurtz. "Haven't you tripped it already?"

"Would you shut up, please?" She reached in to clip on red and black wires and connected them to a module that connected with a Visor digital organizer. She studied the readout for a second, shut off the Visor, and unclipped the wires. "Okay," she said, standing and throwing her heavy black bag over her shoulder.

"Okay what?"

"Okay we open the door the usual way and have eight seconds to tap in the six-digit code on the keypad."

"And you know the code now?"

"Let's see." She studied the back door a minute, removed a short crowbar from her bag, broke the glass, and reached in to slip the chain lock and undo the main lock. It seemed to Kurtz that she had used the full eight seconds just to do that.

Angelina walked into the rear hallway, found the keypad on the wall, and tapped in the six-character alphanumeric code. An indicator on the security keypad went from red to green to amber. "Clear," she said.

Kurtz let out his breath. He pulled his pistol out from under his coat.

"You expecting someone else to be home?" said Angelina.

Kurtz shrugged.

"You going to tell me now whose house this is and how it relates to Gonzaga?"

"Not yet," said Kurtz. They went from room to room together, first the large downstairs, then all the bedrooms and guest rooms upstairs.