"Of course, Mother. Baby, you do that. Call at least once a week and reverse the charges."

"All right, Dad."

"You take care of yourself now, y'hear?"

"I will. Thank you for calling. Goodbye, Mother. Goodbye, Dad."

"Goodbye, Zoe."

"Goodbye, baby."

She hung up, and when she looked at her hands, they were trembling. Her parents always had that effect: made her nervous, defensive. Made her feel guilty. Not once during the call had she said, "I love you." But then, neither had they.

She ate a sandwich of something she couldn't taste. She drank another vodka, and swallowed vitamins, minerals, two Anacin, and a Valium. Then she took a shower, pulled on her threadbare robe.

She sat on the living room couch, drained by the conversation with her parents. It had taken energy, even bravado, to speak brightly, optimistically, to calm their fears and forestall their coming to New York and seeing her in her present state.

She supposed that when they thought of her, they remembered a little girl in a spotless pinafore. White gloves, knee-length cotton socks, and shiny black shoes with straps. A cute hat with flowers. A red plastic purse on a brass chain.

Zoe Kohler opened her robe, looked down, and saw what had become of that little girl. Tears came to her eyes, and she wondered how it had happened, and why it had happened.

As a child, when balked, scolded, or ignored, she had wished her tormentor dead. If her mother died, or her father, or a certain teacher, then Zoe's troubles would end, and she would be happy.

She had wished Kenneth dead. Not wished it exactly, but dreamed often of how her burdens would be lightened if he were gone. Once she had even fantasized that Maddie Kurnitz might die, and Zoe would comfort the widower, and he would look at her with new eyes.

All her life she had seen the death of others as the solution to her problems. Now, looking at her spoiled flesh, she realized that only her own death would put a stop to…

She was sick, and she was tired, and that thin, sour man she saw as "police" was stalking closer and closer. She wished him dead, but knew it could not be. He would persevere and…

That drawing was so accurate that it was only a matter of time until…

She might return to her parents' home and pretend…

Thoughts, unfinished, whirled by so rapidly that she felt faint with the flickering speed, the brief intensity. She closed her eyes, made tight fists. She hung on until her mind slowed, cleared, and she was able to concentrate on what she wanted to do, and find the resolve to do it.

She phoned Ernest Mittle.

"Ernie," she said, "do you really love me?"

July 11-12; Friday and Saturday…

Detective Sergeant Thomas K. Broderick and his squad had been assigned the task of tracing the why not? bracelet worn by the Hotel Ripper, but it was proving to be another dead end. Too many stores carried the bracelet, too many had been sold for cash; it was impossible to track every one.

So Broderick and his crew were pulled off the bracelet search and given the task of finding victims of Addison's disease who had purchased a medical identification bracelet and emergency kit in New York.

Broderick decided to start with the island of Manhattan, and the Yellow Pages were the first place he looked for names and addresses of medical supply houses.

Then he talked to police surgeons and to a small number of physicians who were police buffs or "groupies" and who were happy to cooperate with the NYPD as long as they weren't asked to violate the law or their professional ethics.

From these sources, Broderick compiled a list of places that might conceivably sell the things he was trying to trace. Then he divided his list into neighborhoods. Then he sent his men out to pound the pavements.

Most of the pharmacists they visited were willing to help. Those who weren't received a follow-up visit from Broderick or Sergeant Abner Boone. Both men were armed with opinions from the Legal Division of the NYPD, stating that the courts had held that communications to druggists and prescriptions given to them by customers were not confidential and not protected from disclosure.

"Of course," Boone would say, "if you want to fight this, and hire yourself a high-priced lawyer, and spend weeks sitting around in court, then I'll have to get a subpoena."

Cooperation was 100 percent.

As the names and addresses of Addisonian victims began to come in, Broderick's deskmen put aside the obviously masculine names and compiled a list only of the women. This list, in turn, was broken down into separate files for each borough of New York, and one for out-of-town addresses.

"It's all so mechanical!" Monica Delaney exclaimed.

"Mechanical?" the Chief said. "What the hell's mechanical about it? How do you think detectives work?"

"Well, maybe not mechanical," she said. "But you're all acting like bookkeepers. Like accountants."

"That's what we are," he said. "Accountants."

"Wise-ass," she said.

They were having dinner at P. J. Moriarty on Third Avenue. It was a fine, comfortable Irish bar and restaurant with Tiffany lampshades and smoke-mellowed wood paneling. For some unaccountable reason, a toy electric train ran around the bar on a track suspended from the ceiling.

They had started with dry Beefeater martinis. Then slabs of herring in cream sauce. Then pot roast with potato pancakes. With Canadian ale. Then black coffee and Armagnac. They were both blessed with good digestions.

"The greatest of God's gifts," Delaney was fond of remarking.

During dinner, he had told her about Dr. Ho's report on Addison's disease, and exactly how Sergeant Broderick's men were going about the search for Addisonian victims in New York.

"He says his list should be completed by late today," he concluded. "Tomorrow morning I'm going down to the precinct. We'll crosscheck the lists and see if we have anything."

"And if you don't?"

He shrugged. "We'll keep plugging. Every murder in the series has revealed more. Eventually we'll get her."

"Edward, if you find out who it is-what then?"

"Depends. Do we have enough evidence for an arrest? For an indictment?"

"You won't, uh…"

He looked at her, smiling slightly.

"Go in with guns blazing and cut her down? No, dear, we won't do that. I don't believe this woman will be armed. With a gun, that is. I think she'll come along quietly. Almost with relief."

"Then what? I mean, if you have enough evidence for an arrest and an indictment? What will happen to her then?"

He filled their coffee cups from the pewter pot.

"Depends," he said again. "If she gets a smart lawyer, he'll probably try to plead insanity. Seems to me that slitting the throats of six strangers is pretty good prima facie evidence of insanity. But even if she's adjudged capable of standing trial and is convicted, she'll get off with the minimum."

"Edward! Why? After what she's done?"

"Because she's a woman."

"You're joking?"

"I'm not joking. Want me to quote the numbers to you? I don't need Thomas Handry's research. The judicial system in this country is about fifty years behind the times as far as equality between men and women goes. Almost invariably females will receive lighter sentences than males for identical or comparable crimes. And when it comes to homicide, juries and judges seem to have a built-in bias that works in favor of women. They can literally get away with murder."

"But surely not the Hotel Ripper?"

"Don't be too sure of that. A good defense attorney will put her on the stand dressed in something conservative and black with a white Peter Pan collar. She'll speak in a low, trembling voice and dab at her eyes with a balled-up Kleenex. Remember when we were first arguing about whether the Hotel Ripper could be a woman, and you asked people at one of your meetings? All the men said a woman couldn't commit crimes like that and all the women said she could. Well, an experienced defense lawyer knows that, even if he doesn't know why. If he's got a female client accused of homicide, he'll try to get an all-male jury. Most of the men in this country still have a completely false concept of women's sensibilities. They think women are inherently incapable of killing. So they vote Not Guilty. That's why I think there should be an ECA."