IT WAS DIFFICULT to go anywhere in Manhattan the next several days without getting caught up in a conversation about Marshall Fox and this new set of murders. In point of fact, it was difficult to get anywhere in Manhattan in general, unless you were going by subway. Eight additional inches of snow had fallen on the city in the space of twenty-four hours, slowing street traffic to a skidding crawl and leaving the curbs lined with large cloudlike mounds. After the snow stopped, the temperature had tumbled to record lows, locking the city in an arctic freeze. An elderly woman in Fort Apache froze to death in her unheated apartment. A visitor from Columbus, Ohio, lost a leg to a skidding taxi. In Sunset Park, two sisters aged six and nine died when snow leaching from the roof into their bedroom ceiling melted and dripped onto their space heater, igniting a fire that gutted the entire second floor of the house. The mayor put out a call for all nonessential businesses to remain closed. Stores were shuttered. School classes were canceled. Trash collection was suspended. In general terms, as much as a city of nine million restless inhabitants can ever truly grind to a halt, that’s what happened.

Two nights after Zachary Riddick’s murder, Margo and I attended a talk on Wicca given at the American Museum of Natural History. The museum is only several blocks from Margo’s place, but getting there was half the fun. Margo went down on her lovely can as we approached Columbus Avenue but then got the last laugh a minute later as my lunge for a lamppost failed to keep my feet beneath me and I slid to the ground like a cartoon drunk.

Margo had done a recent piece for The Village Voice on the woman giving the talk, so she was curious to hear the presentation. The woman was a Wiccan herself, though in civilian life, she ran a small advertising agency out of her apartment in Chelsea. You know what they say, scratch an ad exec, find a Wiccan. It turned out to be a good talk, much more engaging than I had expected, but even so, the buzz in the auditorium during the reception afterward barely included the word “Wicca.” The murders of Riddick and Robin Burrell had taken place a mere quarter mile from the museum, and their grip on the crowd was palpable. Even the Wiccan, when Margo introduced us and told her what I did for a living, shrugged off my compliment on her presentation and asked my opinion on Marshall Fox in light of these recent killings. The woman was in her sixties, overweight in a hippie-gone-willingly-to-seed way. She was wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a gold breastplate necklace that shot off reflected light every time she moved. A thick graying braid nearly as stout as one of her arms snaked down her broad back.

“Innocent until proven guilty,” I said colorlessly.

“But your opinion. I’ll share mine. Mr. Fox is serving as a touchstone, if you will.”

“Touchstone.”

“I see these as ritual killings. Maybe not so much sacrifices. But more a ritualized and symbolic cleansing. Purifying.”

“You’ll excuse me, but I fail to see what is purifying about slitting innocent people’s throats.”

The Wiccan brought her fingers together as if in prayer. Her tiny smile was astonishingly smug. “Innocence is in the eye…or, should I say, the heart of the beholder. From the sphere the killer or killers are operating on, these subjects were clearly anything but innocent. In fact, they were probably considered a poison, or represented a poison, and so it was necessary to remove them from the world.”

I glanced at Margo again to see how she was taking this. She had slipped on her inscrutable mask. “So where does Marshall Fox fit into all this?”

“He’s the touchstone. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say the godhead.”

“I’m sure he’d be flattered to hear that.”

“Mr. Fox held a position of great significance for millions of people. Don’t forget your Simon and Garfunkel: ‘And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.’ The television is our society’s alternative altar. A person such as Mr. Fox takes on the symbolic role of the deity.”

I said, “And religion makes some people go cuckoo.”

She nodded. “There is a history of excess and frenzy, yes.”

Excess and frenzy. I liked that. You could slap that headline on the morning paper each day of the year, and you’d never be wrong. I asked, “So you don’t think that Fox murdered those two women last year?”

The Wiccan pushed her glasses back up on her nose. “I don’t. I believe each killing was performed by a unique participant.”

Margo’s mask dropped. “You mean a different person for each killing? That’s four separate murderers.”

“That is correct.”

“My God. That’s crazy.”

“From the perspective of our sphere, absolutely. But you recall Charles Manson and the so-called Manson family? This was a group of people completely at peace with their actions. Ritualized killings. Purgings. Cleansings. Symbolic. Iconic. However you wish to term it.”

I blurted, “What was so iconic about Robin Burrell? Or any of them?”

“I could hardly say with any certainty. All were intimates of Mr. Fox. We know that much. Perhaps the killer or killers perceived that the victims had betrayed Mr. Fox or were a source of danger to him. Or that they were in some way corrupting him.”

“That’s a joke.”

Margo asked, “Do you really think it’s some kind of a cult? Four different killers? The idea makes my skin crawl.”

“It’s merely a theory, dear.”

I said, “I can tell you the police wouldn’t be too happy with your theory.”

She gave her tiny smile again. “People do not kill in order to make the police happy.”

The morning after the Wicca talk, Margo and I had another tussle. It started while I was shaving, though the seeds had been planted ten minutes earlier, right as Margo was stepping into the shower, when I had told her that I was planning to go to Robin Burrell’s memorial service that morning. I’d fudged somewhat. I was actually planning to attend Robin’s weekly Quaker meeting, not precisely her memorial service. A phone call to one of the Quaker elders in charge of the meeting had informed me that Robin’s death would be the unofficial agenda that Sunday morning. Margo had taken the information in deafening silence, pulling the shower curtain closed with a little extra something.

I was running a razor down my cheek when Margo, in her robe and with a twisted towel piled high on her head, passed behind me on her way out of the bathroom.

“Got to look good for your big date?”

She moved into the apartment, tightening the sash on her robe. The bathroom was warm from her shower, but her exit left behind a chill nonetheless. I took a deep breath and squared off with my reflection. “Let it go.”

Margo barked from the next room, “I heard that.”

I should have counted to ten. Instead I barked back, “If you did, then you were eavesdropping. I wasn’t talking to you.”

The face in the mirror shook its head sadly. Not good. Margo gave a response that I didn’t hear. But I caught its drift. She went on to the kitchen. I quickly finished up the shaving, rinsed off my face and followed her. She was running water into the kettle, staring a hole deep into the sink.

“This isn’t like you,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

She cranked off the water. “Let me check. You are talking to me this time?”

I made certain of an even tone. “I’m talking to you.”

“Nice.” She set the kettle on the stove and kicked up the flame. It’s one of those stoves that makes a click-click-click when you’re activating the pilot light. Maybe it was just me, but I thought she let it click a few seconds longer than necessary. “This isn’t like you, either,” she said.

“What isn’t? Attending funerals and memorial services for the victim is straight out of the handbook. You know that. If you don’t believe me, ask your old man.”