“Vickee’s been talking about you a lot.”

“That’s bad for me. I can tell.”

Vickee Eaton was a second-grade detective herself, with a great desk job in headquarters, and had married Mercer many years earlier. But as the daughter of a cop who’d been killed on the job when she was fifteen, she had broken up their relationship, unable to cope with the dangers that he was constantly exposed to in the field. We had all celebrated with them when they remarried several years ago.

“It’s been good for her, Alex. She wants it for you too.”

“But she didn’t give up the work she loves, and she got you in the deal. How do I make that kind of thing happen?” I said, reflecting for a few seconds before I spoke again. “Want to do a movie tomorrow night? Get our heads out of this mess for a few hours? Let Vickee tell me herself?”

“Wish we could,” Mercer said. “Her cousin’s engagement party is tomorrow. I got the whole mother lode of Eatons to contend with.”

“Who’s minding Logan?”

Mercer’s son was almost three years old. Vickee worked her schedule so that she could be with him every evening and weekend, while her younger sister was the main babysitter at other times.

“Vickee’s on the hunt. One of her pals will turn up.”

“Forget that. The boy is mine for the night.” I was delighted to be able to offer the comfort of a close friend to stay with Logan while they celebrated with family. Mercer twisted his head and smiled at me. “I hear you right?”

“I’ve done it before. I haven’t even given him his Christmas presents yet. You tell Vickee that I’ll drive out and take care of everything.”

“It may get late. Those Eatons can party.”

“If it gets too late, I’ll sleep over. Let’s see if this domestic tranquillity is all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Deal.”

It was almost six o’clock when Mercer parked in front of the entrance to the DA’s office on Hogan Place. The space for Battaglia’s car was empty, and the security officer greeted us and let us pull in.

Laura was still at her desk when we walked down the quiet corridor to my office.

“You are the most loyal human being in the world,” I said to her, hanging my jacket and scarf. “Why didn’t you go?”

“Nan told me it would be a late one. I ordered in a vat of coffee for all of you and some sandwiches. Your phone’s been going off the hook.”

“Anybody I want to hear from?”

“Not a one. I’m happy to stay if I can be useful,” Laura said. “Mercer, that guy from Verizon wants you to call him. Some kind of problem with the information I faxed over to him. And nobody touch the chocolate chip cookies-they’re for Mike.”

Laura had an unabashed crush on Mike and did everything she could to provide his creature comforts in our sterile bureaucratic environment.

Mercer helped Laura on with her coat while I flipped through the messages. “How’d I get lucky enough to miss the district attorney tonight?”

“Rose called to ask if you were back yet. Said he was on his way to City Hall.”

“Again?”

“No, no. Nothing to do with you.”

“Really?”

“You trust anyone more than Rose? She told me that it has something to do with either a fraud case, or a judicial appointment. Maybe both.”

“Good.” If it was about Tim Spindlis, I didn’t need to take the heat.

Mercer went inside my office, sat at the desk, and made his call to the phone company. I was saying good-night to Laura when Howard Browner appeared in the doorway.

“I’d say Happy New Year to you, Alex, but it doesn’t seem to be starting off like a good one.”

“Thanks, Howard. You must be swamped with everything that’s come into the lab in the last forty-eight hours.”

Browner was one of my closest friends at the forensic biology lab. With every cutting-edge advance in this scientific field that continued to evolve, Browner and his colleagues educated us and prepared us for the challenges of the courtroom.

“Can I talk to you about Karim Griffin for a minute?”

I stepped into the hallway with Howard so Mercer could finish his conversation. “I don’t ever mean to blow you off. I just can’t concentrate on anything but today’s events, Howard. Let me get back to you in a couple of weeks, when things calm down.”

We were an incongruous pair. Howard was much shorter than I and a lot rounder, with a head of dark, untamed hair and a full beard. But he had helped me through some of the most difficult issues I had ever faced with patience and a wisdom that he was pleased to impart to others.

“I was here to testify on that murder case in Times Square. I ran into Catherine and she said you’d been meaning to call me about Griffin,” he said. “That’s the only reason I dropped by. I have an idea on the push-in with your eighty-two-year-old victim, but it’ll wait.”

“Here’s hoping she has time to wait. I shouldn’t have put you off, Howard. What is it?”

“I’m going to try to get some touch evidence for you. I know it’s the weakest case in the pattern.”

I was trying to look at Mercer to see what was taking so long yet still pay attention to Howard.

“Sorry. I thought you’d reviewed everything. I thought all the swabs were negative for seminal fluid,” I said. “There was nothing to analyze for DNA.”

“That’s the old-fashioned way. I can try for touch DNA now. It’s different-we’re looking for skin cells, for things the perp put his hands on. Instead of swabbing with distilled water, I can actually scrape the items he had to touch to attack her. The cotton undergarments she was wearing, the housecoat he ripped off. You and Mr. Howell were supposed to have a meeting this week. I just wanted to know if I had time to give this a try.”

I put both hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “Go for it. You can’t imagine how happy Wilma would be to get a chance to be on the witness stand.”

“I’ll let you get back to what you’re doing. We’ll probably have lots to talk about in the next few days anyway.”

“For sure. Thanks for sticking your head in.”

Howard left and Mercer motioned me back to my office as he finished the conversation and hung up.

“It’s not good news, Alex.”

“Won’t they give you the phone records?”

“I can pick them up in the morning,” Mercer said. “Problem is, it turns out that flurry of calls to nine-one-one yesterday that we thought were from Salma Zunega’s landline?”

“Yeah?”

“She was telling the truth. She never made those calls.”

“I don’t understand. I thought everyone was so certain they originated from her apartment.”

“That’s what showed up as the incoming line on the caller ID,” he said. “That’s what it looked like till they did the actual computer search today. She was spoofed.”

“What?”

“Spoofed. Somebody wanted us to think she was crazy. Somebody wanted to make sure that cops wouldn’t respond if she called again.”

Phone “phreaks,” as they were known in the trade, had mastered dozens of ways to alter the caller ID information on the telephones of individuals whose numbers they knew. Web sites had developed as commercial enterprises to sell the software to anyone interesting in spoofing, either as a prank or as a criminal enterprise, and law enforcement agencies had been slow to shut the programs down.

“Can’t we get the real number?” I asked. “Can’t we get to the number of the person who made the calls?”

“It’s laborious, Alex. These guys use Internet services with all kinds of blind lines and different providers that link to the real number.” Mercer rarely displayed any sign of a temper, but he was angry now. “They even come with scramblers to disguise the voice of the caller. Damn it, it’s going to take days to find the real person behind all this.”

“No wonder Salma was so hostile to all of you last night.”

“Shame on me for not even thinking she was telling the truth.”

“There’s nothing different you could have done, Mercer,” I said. “Why would any of us think it was a death spoof?”