"You'd be upset if you were me."

"Now, that's a statement I can't interpret without a bit more information. But, you know, Laurie, I hate to see us going at each other like this. We're like two blind people flailing away in the dark."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Well, then, why don't you tell me whatever it is you need to tell me and put it behind us."

"I don't want to talk about it here in this setting. I want to be away from the OCME. It has nothing to do with work, and I don't want to be here. I made a reservation at Elios at five-forty-five."

"Whoa! Is that going to be dinner or a late lunch?"

"Very funny," Laurie said impatiently. "I warned you it might have to be early. It's Friday night, and they are booked. I was lucky to get what I did. Are you going to be there or not?"

"I'll be there, but it's going to be a big sacrifice. Warren is going to be disappointed I won't be showing up on the basketball court for the big Friday-night run. Well, actually, that's a lie. I've been playing so poorly since you left that he won't have me on his team. I've become a relative persona non grata on my own court."

"I'll see you at Elios," Laurie said, "provided you deign to show up." She turned and walked out of the office.

Jack leaped from his chair, and, holding onto the doorjamb, he leaned out into the hall. Laurie was already a good distance down the corridor in the direction of her office. There was no hesitancy in her step, and she was moving at a good clip. "Hey," he called out. "Saying it was a sacrifice meeting you for dinner was supposed to be a joke!"

Laurie didn't slow or turn around and soon disappeared from view into her office.

Jack righted himself and regained his desk chair. He wondered if he had overdone his sarcasm. He shrugged because, knowing himself, it would have been hard for him not to do otherwise. Such repartee had become his defense against the uncertainties of life. In the current situation, he feared he was going to be blindsided by Laurie in some form or fashion. He had no idea what was on Laurie's mind. Yet Lou's comment that she wanted to patch things up still resonated and gave him a sliver of hope.

The combination of street basketball and work was usually Jack's solace, and with basketball not as satisfying, as he'd explained to Laurie, work had taken over. During the previous five weeks, Jack had been a virtual workhorse. Within the time frame of slightly more than a month, he'd gone from Calvin's nightmare in respect to getting cases signed out to Calvin's darling. Not only was Jack doing significantly more cases than anyone else, he was getting them out faster. Jack returned to his microscope and the trays of slides he'd just brought down from histology that morning.

Time flew by. Chet returned, and Jack insisted that Chet take back his fiver with the explanation that the bet hadn't been fair be- cause Jack had been a hundred percent certain. After a time, Chet had gone out again, but Jack labored on. The progress he made calmed him and gave him a sense of satisfaction, but best of all, it made it possible not to think about Laurie.

"Hey, come up for air," a voice said, breaking Jack's concentration. He'd been staring at a strange hepatic parasite he'd stumbled onto in the liver of a gunshot-wound case. He looked up to see Lou Soldano standing in his doorway. "I've been watching you for five minutes, and you haven't moved a damn muscle."

Jack waved the detective into the office with one hand while he turned Chet's chair around with the other.

Lou sat down heavily and tossed his hat onto Chet's desk. He was wearing his usual sleep-deprived face such that he had wrinkled his forehead to keep his eyes open.

"I just heard the good news," Lou said. "I think it's great."

"What are you talking about?"

"I just stuck my head in Laurie's office. She told me you and she have a date tonight at Elios and that she asked you out. What did I tell you? She wants to get back together."

"Did she tell you that specifically?"

"No, not specifically, but come on! I mean, she asked you out to dinner."

"She said she wanted to tell me something, but maybe it's something I don't want to hear."

"God, what a pessimist! You sound as bad as me. The woman loves you."

"Yeah, well, it's news to me! How did she happen to tell you we have a date, anyway?"

"I asked her. I don't hide the fact that I want you two back together, and she knows it."

"We'll see," Jack said. "Meanwhile, what's on your mind?"

"The freaking Chapman case, of course. We've been working flat out and have interviewed just about everybody over at the hospital. Unfortunately, nobody saw anybody suspicious, not that that's so strange. But we've got nothing. I was hoping that you might have come up with something. I know my captain came over to talk with Calvin Washington."

"That's weird. Calvin doesn't know anything about the case, and he didn't talk with me."

Lou shrugged. "I thought maybe you had. Anyway, do you have anything at all?"

"I haven't gotten the slides back, but they're not going to tell us anything. You got the slugs, which I think is about all you're going to get from the autopsy. What about the positioning of the victim and the fact that whoever shot her was probably sitting in the car? Are you working on the angle that the victim might have known the perpetrator?"

"We're working every angle. I tell you, we are interviewing everybody that had access to that garage. The problem is, we have no prints. Except for the shell casings, we've got nothing!"

"Sorry not to have been more help," Jack said. "On another subject, did Laurie say anything about her series of suspicious deaths that I mentioned to you yesterday?"

"No, she didn't."

"I'm surprised," Jack said. "Things are hopping in that regard. She's up to seven cases now at the Manhattan General, including one I posted today, plus she's come across six others at a hospital out in Queens."

"Interesting."

"I think it's more than interesting. In fact, I'm starting to believe she's was right about this from the start. I think she might be on to a serial killer."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding! So maybe you'd better start thinking about getting involved."

"What's the official take? Are Calvin and Bingham on board, too?"

"Hardly. In fact, I found out Laurie was pressured to sign out her first cases as natural deaths by Calvin, who was pressured by Bingham, who was pressured by somebody over in the mayor's office."

"Sounds political, which means our hands are tied."

"Well, at least I warned you."

fifteen

JACK PUT SOME SERIOUS muscle into his pedaling, and his bike responded. He was presently streaking past the United Nations building, heading north on First Avenue. Although the five-thirty traffic was at its peak, Jack had no altercations with any of the drivers. He had scaled back his aggressiveness to a degree following the recent arrival at the morgue of one of the city's many bicycle messengers. That poor fellow had had a dispute with a sanitation truck, for which he paid dearly. When Jack saw him in the morgue, his head had the diameter of large beach ball but the thickness of a quarter.

Ahead loomed the massively pillared viaduct of the Queensboro Bridge. Jack clicked into a higher gear as the roadway began to drop away in a gradual decline. With the help of gravity, Jack was neck and neck with the traffic, and the wind was whistling through his helmet. As usual, the exhilaration gave him a sense of detachment, and for a few minutes all his cares, worries, and bad memories evaporated in a wash of endorphins.

Earlier that afternoon, Jack had turned off his microscope light, put his desk in order, and walked down to Laurie's office with the idea of discussing with her how they should get to the restaurant. But he'd found her desk empty just like he had on his many visits that morning. On this occasion, Riva had explained that she had gone back to her apartment to change clothes. Jack gathered that his expression had been one of surprise, because Riva had gone on to explain that it was a woman thing, although that explanation only confused him more. Laurie's attire had been perfectly appropriate for their early dinner. More than anyone else at the OCME, Laurie always dressed in a smart, feminine fashion.