"Jesus H. Christ!" he said, and went down the stairs and two minutes later managed to find the key in the grass.

He unlocked the door and entered the apartment. There were, he remembered, two toilets, one with a bathtub off Cheryl's room, and another, just a water closet and a washbasin, off the kitchen. He went to the latter and relieved himself.

He was on the walkway checking to make sure the door was locked when a female voice asked, "Is everything all right?"

Now what the hell?

Jack found himself facing Mrs. Joanne McGrory.

"I'm Cheryl's brother," he said. "Jack Williamson."

And as soon as you satisfy your goddamn curiosity and go away, so you can't see what I'm doing, I will put the goddamn key back where it belongs.

"I'm Joanne McGrory. Next door."

"I'm pleased to meet you," Jack said.

"I'm pleased that everything is all right," Joanne McGrory said. "After the mirror, I was worried."

"Excuse me?"

"Our mirror came crashing off the wall, and I thought maybe something happened in there, too."

"Everything's fine in there."

"I called the cops, but they wouldn't go inside."

"You called the cops? Why?"

"Well, if you were in bed in the middle of the night and your mirror came crashing down off the wall, what would you do?"

"Mrs. McGrory, you're telling me the police were here last night?"

"Yes, they were," Joanne McGrory said. "I called them, thinking that something might have happened to Cheryl."

"And what did they do? Say?"

"They said they couldn't go into her apartment."

Jesus H. Christ, is my imagination running away with me? Is something really wrong here?

Jack Williamson put the key back in the lock and reentered the apartment. He'd already been in Cheryl's kitchen and living room, so he went to her bedroom and opened the door.

Oh, my God!

Holy Christ, what happened in here?

She's buck fucking naked and she's tied to the bed!

He walked to the bed and looked down at Cheryl. Her eyes were open, but sightless.

Oh, my God, she's dead!

He turned. Mrs. McGrory was coming into the bedroom.

"I think you'd better get out of here," he said.

"Well, excuse me. I'm just trying to be neighborly."

"Get the fuck out of here, goddamn it!" Jack said, waited until she had fled, and then looked for Cheryl's telephone.

It wasn't on her bedside table. It was on the floor, and he could see the cord had been broken.

Jesus, I'll have to use the cell phone in the car.

What the hell am I going to tell Mother?

As he went through the living room, he remembered that Cheryl had a second phone, mounted on the kitchen wall. He went to it, then stopped.

Maybe it's got fingerprints on it.

I better use my cell phone in the car.

Fuck it!

He took the handset from its cradle with his handkerchief and, using his ballpoint pen, punched in 911.

"Police department, operator 178," a male voice answered on the second ring.

"Jesus!"

"May I help you, sir?"

"I'm… my sister's apparently been murdered," Jack Williamson said.

"And where are you, sir?"

"In her apartment. Second floor, right, 600 Independence Street. I let myself in, and found her-"

"And your name, sir?"

"Williamson, Jack Williamson."

"You just stay where you are, please, Mr. Williamson. I'll get police officers over there right away."

"Jesus Christ, she's tied to the goddamn bed!"

"Help will be there very shortly, Mr. Williamson."

Officer Roland Stone was twelve blocks from Cheryl's apartment-near the intersection of Godfrey Avenue and Howard Street-when his radio went off.

"3514."

"3514," Stone replied.

"3514, take 600 Independence Street, second-floor apartment, right. Meet the complainant, report of a 5292. Use caution-the complainant is on the scene and states it is a possible homicide."

"3514, I have it," Stone said, and flipped on the light bar on the roof and the siren as he turned left onto Water Street.

"35A-Andy," Police Radio called next, to alert the supervisor-a sergeant-in the area.

"35A, I copied. I'm en route," Sergeant John J. Haley responded. He was three blocks away from Cheryl Williamson's apartment. This meant Haley had heard the initial call to 3514, and there was no need for the Police Radio operator to repeat the information.

Without really thinking about it, Sergeant Haley oriented himself with regard to where he was-at Franklin Street and Sixty-fifth Avenue North-and where he was going, took a quick look, made a U-turn, and stepped hard on the accelerator. He used neither the light bar nor the siren. They wouldn't be necessary.

When he got out of his car at the curb in front of 600 Independence and started inside, a white, middle-aged woman was standing on the walkway just off the porch.

"Up there," she said, gesturing inside. "Second floor, on the right."

Haley took the porch stairs, and then the interior stairs, two at a time.

The door to Cheryl Williamson's apartment was ajar.

There was a white, late twenties male sitting on a couch, his head bent.

"Police," Sergeant Haley said.

"In there," the man on the couch said, gesturing toward an interior door.

"What's happened here?"

"Some fucking perverted cocksucker killed my sister, that's what happened here."

Sergeant Haley went into Cheryl's bedroom, stayed only long enough to determine that the naked female in the bed was dead-he had seen enough bodies to make that determination with certainty; he didn't feel for a pulse-and then stepped backward into the corridor and then went into the living room.

Looking at the guy who said he was the brother, Sergeant Haley squeezed the transmit switch on his lapel microphone.

"35A."

"35A," Police Radio responded.

"35A, notify Northwest Detectives, and Homicide. We have an apparent homicide. White female, no obvious cause of death, but there are signs of a possible rape. Hold myself and 14 car out at the scene."

Jack Williamson looked up at Sergeant Haley.

"She is dead, right?"

"I'm afraid so."

They both could hear the growing scream of Officer Stone's patrol car approaching.

[ONE] In the radio room-"room" doesn't do justice to the large area in which Police Radio is housed-in the Roundhouse, the radio operator who had taken Sergeant Haley's call then pressed a button on his console that automatically dialed the number of the desk man at the Northwest Detectives Division.

Detective units operate on what is known as "The Wheel." It's actually a roster of the names of the detectives on duty at the moment, and it's designed to equitably distribute the workload. In most detective divisions, there is a detective assigned to "man the desk." The "desk man" answers the telephone. When a job comes in, the desk man assigns it to the detective "next up" on the wheel.

When the phone rang in the Northwest Detectives Division, it was answered by Detective O. A. Lassiter, who was not the desk man but was filling in for Detective Len Ford, who was in the men's room "taking a personal," as a bathroom break is referred to on Police Radio. It also happened that Detective Lassiter was next up on the wheel.

Detective Lassiter was twenty-five years old, with 115 pounds distributed attractively around her five-foot-seven-inch frame. She had dark black hair, green eyes, long attractive legs, and had what her fellow detectives agreed- privately, very privately-were a magnificent ass and bosom.

"This is Police Radio, operator number 178," the Police Radio operator began, then went into the details of the call he'd received from Sergeant Haley.