“My God!” the woman now said loudly and forcefully.

“And within the last hour, we have additional information that gives us reason to believe beyond any doubt that we know who her killer is. We are applying our full resources in apprehending him. As well as the others.”

There was a wave of appreciative murmuring though the audience.

Then Byrth heard the bearded one’s voice say in a stage whisper: “These Keystone Kops couldn’t catch a cold barefoot in a December snowstorm.”

His inbred pal chuckled.

“And with that information,” Coughlin went on at the front of the Grant Room, “we now have a common thread between all these crimes I’ve mentioned: illicit drugs.”

Another audible wave went through the audience.

Coughin nodded. “Now, tonight I’m going to depart from the usual focus on Philly. I’ve given you just now an idea of what problems our city faces today. And I mean today.” He looked to the table in the back of the room with Payne, Harris, and Byrth. He gestured. “I am privileged to introduce some of our finest members of law enforcement who are with us tonight. The first is a guest, Sergeant James Byrth of the Texas Rangers.”

Byrth half-stood, waved once, then glanced at the two men behind him as he backed down. The audience applauded politely.

Their body language is saying, “Oh, so you’re cops. That’s how the riffraff gets in the Union League.”

Coughlin went on: “Just like those Texas Rangers of fame and legend who have proceeded him, Sergeant Byrth is on the trail of the fellow who we now believe killed this girl and, last week, two others in Texas. Beside him is Homicide Detective Anthony Harris”-a somewhat shy Harris half-stood and gestured to the crowd, then sat down-“who this morning was among the first on the scene of the motel explosion. Tony has had a very long day.”

There was another smattering of polite applause.

“And finally, Sergeant Matthew Payne, also of our Homicide Unit. Many of you, I’m sure, are familiar with the Payne name, if not with Matthew personally. Sergeant Payne is a legacy member of this fine society, his great-grandfather having been among the founders of the Union League.”

Payne smiled nicely at the bearded one and his inbred pal. The manner in which he held his glass in his palm, with his right hand’s middle finger and thumb extended, was not lost on them.

“Sergeant Byrth, would you please come forward?”

[FOUR] 140 South Broad Street, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 9:45 P.M.

“Good evening,” Byrth said as he held the microphone and began addressing the audience. “It’s an honor to be in your city and here at the Union League. I hesitate to use the word ‘pleasure.’ If you had been with Sergeant Payne and Detective Harris and me an hour ago, I know you would understand my reluctance.

“So I will start with that. I came here hunting an evil man. We do know that he’s a drug trafficker. And that he’s Hispanic, preying mostly on illegal immigrants. He knows they fear the police and other authority due to their being in America illegally. And, among his other heinous acts, he has the horrific habit of cutting off the heads of family members of those who in some way have crossed him.”

He gestured to the table at the back of the room. “Sergeant Payne, Detective Harris, and I just came from the Medical Examiner’s Office. The autopsy had just been performed on the young Hispanic woman who had been beheaded. As horrible as the description sounds, I am here to tell you that witness ing such horrific abuse of a human being is manifoldly worse. It affects one in ways unimaginable. Even Dr. Mitchell, who in the course of his duties I’m sure has witnessed more than most of us can begin to consider, said he was deeply affected by the young woman’s murder.

“The animal-” Byrth caught himself. “Excuse me. The suspect who we believe committed this atrocity is up to something else in your city. We have evidence that this particular drug trafficker has also begun bringing to Philly what he started in Dallas. That is to say, the sale of a drug that combines a cold medicine with heroin. Its street name is ‘cheese’-and this guy markets his variety with a snappy blue logo under the catchy brand name ‘Queso Azul,’ or Blue Cheese. It’s particularly heinous because he targets kids as young as middle-school age. Two dollars a hit-and then they’re hooked on heroin.”

This news triggered more murmurs in the crowd.

An attractive young woman in a striped pantsuit was seated just to Byrth’s right. She raised her left hand. Byrth could not help but notice the giant gleaming diamond wedding ring. She held a pen and small piece of paper in her right hand.

“Sergeant, how do you spell that?”

Byrth spelled Queso Azul, and the young woman thanked him as she wrote it down.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Byrth then saw a hand go up at one of the back tables.

I guess we’re already into the Q amp; A.

But Matt did say this was a loosely structured meeting.

The hand belonged to the friend of the inbred one, the bearded one.

“Yes, ma’am?” Byrth said. “I mean, sir?”

The bearded one stood. He had a look that was antagonistic.

Small wonder.

We hardly became buddies earlier.

“Yes, I’m Dr. Stanton Hargrove-”

“You’re a medical doctor, sir? Pardon the interruption. Everyone here is new to me.”

“I have a double Ph.D.,” he said with obvious pride. “I chair Marsupialia Studies in the Biology Department at Bryn Mawr.”

“ ‘Ph.D.’?” Byrth repeated. “Of course. And the order Marsupialia? Aren’t those the pouched mammals. Right? Kangaroos, bandicoots-”

“Yes, they are,” Hargrove interrupted, clearly pleased someone recognized his chosen field of work.

“-opossums?” Byrth finished. “We have opossums in Texas.”

“Yes,” he replied, a bit bewildered. “And opossums.”

There were muffled chuckles in the crowd.

This pompous ass wants to be called “doctor.”

He doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to be a real doctor, one like Mitchell.

I’m damn sure not going to give him the satisfaction.

“Thank you, sir, for clarifying that for me,” Byrth said. “And your question?”

“It is this: As horrible as these acts today were, how do they possibly affect someone, hypothetically speaking, of course, enjoying, oh, shall we call it some recreational marijuana?”

As he sat back down, Byrth immediately said, “Well, for beginners, it’s an unlawful act-”

“I’ll take that one,” Denny Coughlin interrupted, his hand extended for the microphone.

Byrth passed him the microphone, and Coughlin went on: “As Sergeant Byrth was I think about to say, possession or consumption of an illicit drug is illegal in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and will find your hypothetical example duly arrested and quite possibly incarcerated.”

He paused for a sip of water.

“But there is a bigger point to your query that I want to make. While I am not able to give further details, I can tell you that the two injured in the explosion at that motel this morning come from two very fine families. Were it not for illegal drugs, those two young people from the Main Line would not have been at the back of some seedy motel at two o’clock in the morning. And they would not have jeopardized what otherwise would have been wonderful, productive futures.”

He started to hand back the microphone to Byrth, then stopped.

“I might add one other thing,” Coughlin said, “and Sergeant Byrth here can put it in better perspective than I. There are those who devoutly believe, and I count myself among them, that those who take so-called recreational drugs are funding not only these criminal gangs and their street wars, but also funding terrorism around the world.”

He then handed the microphone to Byrth.

Byrth saw that Professor Hargrove-the bearded one now had a name-called from his seat, “You can’t be serious!”