“Fine,” I said, taking our coffees over to the table and sitting down next to Dan. “You call me Fifi and I’ll call you Francis. With a name like that, you’ll make a big splash on the bird circuit.”

We grinned at each other for several seconds. (We would do that often, Dan and I-just sit there eye-to-eye, smiling like a couple of half-wits. I believed it was because we were both still shocked and elated that we’d found each other, but-since we had never discussed it, had never even attempted to put our true feelings into words-I can only speak for myself on that subject. I mean, I thought all that staring and smiling meant Dan really liked me-but, as mothers of googly-eyed, grinning newborns are quick to suggest, it could have just been gas.)

When Doris Day came on the radio and started singing, “Once I had a secret love…” Dan and I both turned a bit bashful. The words of the hit song hit a little too close to home (for me, anyway). We stopped gazing into each other’s eyes and started drinking our coffee.

“What was the guy’s name?” I asked, jumping to take the lead in our dialogue.

“What guy?” Dan said.

“The Broadway producer-the man who was killed today. ”

“Lloyd Bradbury,” he said, “ever hear of him?”

The name struck a distant bell. “Yes, I think so. I’ve probably seen his name in Dorothy Kilgallen’s column-“The Voice of Broadway,” in The Journal American. Maybe in Winchell’s column, too. What shows has he produced?”

Dan gave me a suspicious look over the rim of his coffee cup. “Why do you want to know?”

“No reason,” I said, hoping my sly and shifty expression would imply otherwise. “I’m just curious, that’s all.” (When you’ve got something really important to hide, it is, in my experience, a good ploy to pretend you’re hiding something else.)

“Forget about it, Paige!” Dan sputtered, sitting straighter in his chair and exhaling a jet stream of Lucky fumes. “You’re getting nothing more out of me. If you want to write a story about this murder, you’ll have to get your information from the morning paper.”

Though Dan willingly (sometimes eagerly) told me about the new homicide cases he was working on, he was always very careful to relate just the barest of facts, to give me the same thimbleful of information he knew would soon be released to the press. And whenever I showed too much curiosity about one of his cases, he closed up like a clam. He did it partly for my protection, as I explained before, and partly for his own. Dan was dedicated to his job, and he liked to play by the rules, and as a sworn detective of the NYPD homicide squad, he wasn’t allowed to reveal any consequential details about any ongoing murder investigations to the public-and especially not to a budding crime journalist (and snoopy Agatha Christie wannabe) like me.

“Well, you don’t have to get so snippy about it,” I said, suddenly feeling rebuffed (in spite of the fact that I’d intentionally brought the whole thing on myself). “I was just trying to show some interest in your work.” I was doing my haughtiest Maureen O’Hara now, which meant I probably looked-and sounded-a lot more like Howdy Doody. I’m not too good at haughty.

Dan gave me a stern and piercing stare, then tilted his head back and drained his coffee cup. “Contrary to what you may have read in Ladies’ Home Journal,” he said, banging his empty cup down on the table, “I don’t need you to be interested in my work.” He crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, and rose to his feet. “What I need is for you to stop being so phony-stop pretending that you’re just being polite and sociable when what you’re really doing is pumping me for information in case you decide to write a story. It’s obnoxious and insulting,” he said, grabbing his overcoat off the chair and violently shoving first one arm, then the other, into their sleeves. “Just shows me what a patsy you must think I am.” He put on his hat and anchored it at an angry angle. Then he started for the door.

“Wait!” I screeched, jumping out of my chair and dashing over to block his exit. “What are you doing? Are you mad at me? I didn’t mean to upset you! Please don’t leave this way!” I was behaving like a hysterical child, but I couldn’t help myself. All my acting (okay, lying) skills had been sucked right down the drain, and the only thing left was the real me. The frantic, raving, pitiful, pleading me. It’s a wonder I didn’t throw myself to the floor and wrap my arms in a hammerlock hold around his legs.

“I’m going to work now,” Dan said, brushing past me to open the door. “We’ll discuss this at another time.”

The tight knot of panic in my chest loosened to a ragged tangle. At least there’d be another time. “I’m really sorry, Dan,” I said. “I never meant to-”

“Later, Paige,” he said. Then he lunged through the door and scrambled down the stairs.

UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, I WOULD have closed the door and started bawling like a baby, wretched that Dan had mistaken my self-protective play-acting as an insult to his character, and ashamed of myself for even attempting to pull the wool over his honest, in sightful eyes. But the circumstances were far from normal, and I didn’t have time to wallow in remorse and self-pity. I had work to do, too! I had to hurry next door to confer with Terry and Abby about the murder, and I had to make a call to Vicki Lee Bumstead-before eleven-to see if I could dig up any new clues.

Since it was only ten o’clock (and since I was dying for another rum and Coke), I decided to go to Abby’s first.

“Is he conscious?” I asked as soon as she opened the door.

“Not by a long shot,” she said, motioning me inside. “I did my best to wake him up, get him to drink some coffee, but he never even opened his eyes. For a minute I thought he was dead, but then I realized corpses don’t snore.”

I walked over to the love seat and looked down at Terry’s senseless form. He was still lying on his back, with his legs hanging over the armrest. His lids were closed, his mouth was open, and his bright white hair gleamed against the crimson seat cushion like a cumulus cloud in a blood-red sky. I put my hand on one of his shoulders and gave it a vigorous shake. No response, so I did it again. Still nothing.

“See what I mean?” Abby said. “The man has the reflexes of a rock. You could hose him down with ice water and he still wouldn’t move. We just have to let him sleep it off, you dig?”

“I guess you’re right,” I said. “Do you mind?”

“Mind what?”

“If he stays here overnight.”

“Are you kidding?” she said, with a devilish smirk. “I’m hoping he’ll stay much longer than that! In case you haven’t noticed, your friend Mr. Catcher is a major dreamboat. Totally transcendental! I want him to stick around for a while, do some modeling for me.”

I knew what she meant by that. And, believe me, it wasn’t just modeling she had in mind. And I had the feeling Abby’s departure-delaying tactics would be far more effective than my own-that Terry would be staying in town for a few more days at least, bus or no bus, snow or no snow. I was glad for myself, but sorry for Terry’s father. I hoped the poor man could find somebody else to spend Christmas with.

“I need a drink,” I said, moving into the kitchen area and sitting down at the table. “Do you have any rum left?”

“No, but I’ve got some Scotch. Want a whiskey sour?”

“Just Scotch and water, thanks. Lots of rocks.”

Smiling from ear to ear, Abby danced over to the refrigerator and took a tray of ice out of the freezer. Next to painting and sex, bartending was her favorite occupation. She gave the lever on the aluminum tray a lusty yank, then loaded two glasses with the loosened cubes.

“So, what have you found out about Whitey’s sister’s murder?” she probed, pouring the Scotch, adding the water, and happily jumping into the swing of her fourth favorite occupation: poking around in my life and spurring me on to hazardous new heights of professional (not to mention emotional) intrigue. “Do you know who did it yet?”