"We don't know for sure that's what happened, Mrs. McGrory," Matt said.

"Of course, that's what happened. I was here, wasn't I?"

"Thank you very much, Mrs. McGrory," Olivia said, easing her out of the kitchen and then closing the door.

"Why don't you sit down?" Matt suggested to Williamson. "I'll get the coffee. How do you take yours, Mr. Williamson?"

"Black," Williamson said.

"Black," Olivia said.

Olivia and Williamson sat down at the kitchen table while Matt took the glass decanter and poured coffee into ceramic mugs. He walked to the table and set the mugs on it.

"Okay," Matt said. "Let's get a couple of things understood between us, Mr. Williamson. I don't know what happened last night, when Mrs. McGrory called the police, and I don't care."

"You don't fucking care?" Williamson asked, disgusted and incredulous.

"My job is to find the person, or persons, who killed your sister, and see that when they're brought to trial they won't walk out of the courtroom because some legal 't' wasn't crossed or some legal 'i' didn't have a dot. I understand that you're unhappy with what you think happened last night."

"What happened last night was that the fucking cops didn't do a goddamn thing to help my sister."

"If you believe the police did something they shouldn't have, or didn't do something they should have, you have every right to make an official complaint-"

"Fucking-A right, I do. And I will."

"But I think you'll agree, Mr. Williamson, that right now the priority is to find out who did this thing, and the sooner the better. Would you agree with that?"

"Jesus, of course I 'agree with that.' All I'm saying is that if those fucking cops had done what they were supposed to do last night, my sister would still be alive."

"There's one more thing, Mr. Williamson," Matt said. "Your language is beginning to offend me. I hope you'll watch your mouth. I would really rather not have you transported to Homicide and placed in an interview room until you get your emotions under control."

Williamson glared at him but didn't say anything.

Matt opened his briefcase and took out his laptop.

"What's that for?"

"I'm one of those guys who can't read his own writing," Matt said. "I take notes this way. Are you objecting to it?"

"If I did?"

"Then I'll take out a notebook and ballpoint, and waste a lot of time trying to make sense of my notes when I finally have to type them up. All right?"

Williamson shrugged. Matt turned the laptop on and began to type.

"Is it 'Jack,' Mr. Williamson?"

"John J. For Joseph."

"What's your first name and badge number, Lassiter?"

"Olivia, 582," she furnished.

"Okay, Mr. Williamson, let's start with your personal data," Matt said. "Residence?"

Twenty minutes later, Matt said, "I think that'll be enough for the time being, Mr. Williamson."

"Okay."

"You know how to work a laptop?"

Williamson nodded.

Matt slid the laptop in front of him.

"Would you take a look at that, please, and see if I've got it right?"

Williamson read the several pages Matt had typed and then nodded his head, "okay."

Matt turned the laptop off, closed the cover, and put it back in his briefcase.

"When I get that printed, Mr. Williamson, I'll have a detective-most likely Detective Lassiter-bring it to you for your signature."

"When?" Williamson asked.

"It'll wait until tomorrow," Matt said. "I know that you're going to be busy today. I'll call you tomorrow to see when it will be convenient."

"I have to tell you this," Williamson said. "When my mother hears about what happened last night, this morning, with the cops… God!"

"I'm not trying to talk you out of filing a formal complaint," Matt said, "honestly, I'm not. But for what it's worth, from what I've heard, the officers who responded to the 'Disturbance, House' call were just going by the book. If they hadany indication that something-anything-was going wrong, had gone wrong, in the apartment, they would have taken action."

Williamson looked at him but didn't respond directly.

"What am I supposed to do if my mother wants to come here?"

"Well, right now she can't have access to the apartment. Not today, and probably not tomorrow, either. Tell her that."

"Jesus Christ!" Williamson said.

"I'd be happy to go with you, Mr. Williamson," Detective Lassiter said. "If you think it would make things any easier. And I'd like to talk to her, too. That doesn't have to be right now. Your call."

"It couldn't do any harm," Williamson said. "And maybe, if you were there…"

"If you'll give me your cellular number, Sergeant, I'll call and let you know how things went," Detective Lassiter said.

Matt wrote the number on a small sheet of notepaper and handed it to her. She tore it in half and wrote two numbers on it.

"I guess you have the Northwest number, right?" she asked. Matt nodded. "My cellular and apartment," she said.

"Thank you," Matt said.

Under other circumstances, Olivia, my lovely, I would be overjoyed that you shared your telephone numbers with me.

Come to think of it, Olivia, despite the circumstances, I am overjoyed that you have shared your telephone numbers with me.

Mrs. McGrory was not in her living room as they passed through, but Matt could hear her voice in the next room. Only her voice, which suggested she was on the telephone.

He decided he had already thanked her and it would be better not to disturb her when she was on the phone.

When they went downstairs and through the front door, he saw that the press was gathered behind the POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape, and that the moment they saw them- two detectives, with badges showing, escorting a so-far-unidentified white male-video cameras rose with their red RECORDING lights glowing, and still camera flashbulbs went off.

"Where's your car?" Matt asked.

"Halfway down the street," she said, and pointed.

Matt touched the arm of one of the uniforms.

"I want to get Detective Lassiter and this gentleman to her car, down the street, and I don't want the press to get in the way."

"No problem," the uniform said, raised his voice, and called, "Dick!"

Dick was a very large police officer of African-American heritage.

He and the other uniform led the way through the assembled journalists, one on each side of Detective Lassiter and Mr. Williamson.

Sergeant Payne brought up the rear, which gave him a chance to decide that Detective Lassiter had a very nice muscular structure of the lower half of the rear of her body.

As he walked back to 600 Independence, ignoring questions from the press about the identity of Mr. Williamson, he realized he didn't really have much of an idea of what he was supposed to do now.

He remembered something he had been taught at the Marine Base, Quantico, while in the platoon leaders program: reconnoiter the terrain.

He spent perhaps ten minutes walking around the outside of the big old house, even going up the rear stairs, and then into the basement. He saw nothing of particular interest.

[THREE] When Matt returned to the front of the house, two uniforms were carrying a stretcher with Cheryl Williamson's body on it down the pathway to a Thirty-fifth District wagon.

Well, I won't have to look at the sightless eyes again- not that I'm liable to forget them.

When they had moved past him, Matt went up the stairs and into the Williamson apartment.

"What happened to that very pretty detective from Northwest?" Joe D'Amata greeted him.

"She went with the brother to tell the mother."

"This is our job, Matt," D'Amata said. There was a slight tone of reproof in his voice.

"She calmed the brother down. He liked her…"

"I can't imagine why," D'Amata said.