It was nine-thirty by the time we sat down at the dinner table, and eleven when we settled in to go to sleep. "Want to see the news?" he asked me.

"Guess it's wiser if I don't. Mercer would have called me the minute Dulles showed up somewhere."

I slept fitfully, thinking of the child and his whereabouts, and was out of bed by 6A.M. I let Jake sleep while I made the first pot of coffee, struggled with the Times Saturday-morning crossword puzzle, and dressed in my leotard and tights to go to class.

I kissed Jake good-bye, went downstairs, and hailed a taxi to take me to my instructor's West Side studio. For the next hour I lost myself in the discipline of the ballet warm-up and exercises. I concentrated on the movements: stretches and pliés at the barre, floor exercises, and choreographed routines to classic Tchaikovsky.

As we changed clothes in the dressing room, my friends and I chatted about the past week's events. I declined an invitation to join two of them for a spontaneous shopping spree to fill in their fall wardrobes, and passed up an opportunity for brunch at an outdoor café on Madison Avenue. I didn't often envy them their daily routines, but when my plate was filled with people whose lives were disrupted by violence, my mind drifted to thoughts of what it would be like to be as unburdened by tragedy as most of them were.

Mike Chapman's department car, a beat-up old black Crown Vic, was double-parked in front of William's building when I came out shortly after ten. He was eating a fried egg sandwich on a hard roll and had an extra coffee container in the cup holder on the passenger side for me. "Want half?"

"No, thanks. I ate before class."

"But you must have worked up an appetite in there. Have some," he said, extending his arm in front of my face.

I pushed him away. "Hear anything about Dulles Tripping?"

"All quiet. Mercer says everyone's being very cooperative. Mrs. Wykoff, your buddy Hoyt, the school authorities. Everybody's optimistic. You know the agency records show he ran away more than a dozen times in the last two years?"

"It's a lot different to spend an overnight at a friend's house in a small town than it is to try and find your way around New York City when you've only lived here for a year, and you're just ten."

"Hey, there are no signs of a kidnapping, and no reports at any hospitals of an injured child. So don't fill that twisted head of yours with evil thoughts," Mike said. He was eating with one hand and steering the car uptown on Amsterdam Avenue with the other.

He parked at a hydrant near McQueen Ransome's tenement building. A uniformed cop had been sent by the precinct commander to meet Mike at the stoop and let us into the apartment. Half a dozen curious adolescents followed us up the steps and asked what we were doing at "Miss Queenie's" place. I closed the door behind us and then opened a window to let some air into the musty rooms, which had been closed tight since her death.

The whole apartment was in disarray. I could see more here than the crime scene photographs had captured. "Was this the way you found it, or is this a result of all the cops being in here?" I asked. Sometimes the investigators made more of a mess than the perps.

"This place was turned upside down by the killer. The landlord was going to give us another week before he boxed everything up and threw it out. The lady who did her banking thought there were a couple of nieces down in Georgia who might come close out the account-there's nothing to speak of in it-and take some of the furniture and the family photo albums."

The small parlor inside the front door had a sofa, two armchairs, a television set, and an old-fashioned record player on a side table, with a stack of 33 RPMs next to it. Mike turned it on, placing a needle on the vinyl disk that must have been the last music Queenie heard.

"Edward Kennedy Ellington. The Duke," said Mike. "Only fitting for Queenie."

The piece was called "Night Creatures." The distinctly American jazz sound filled the room and lightened the pall that the old woman's death cast over us.

The living room walls had a collection of photographs more sedate than that over Queenie's bed. Most of them featured Queenie. Several looked to be posed with family and friends.

"This must be her son," I said to Mike. She was dressed in a light-colored suit, the slim skirt covering her calves, and a Mamie Eisenhower-style hat and handbag complementing the outfit. She had her arm around the boy's shoulder, and he looked even younger than Dulles Tripping. They were standing at the base of the Washington Monument.

"You think this kid is African-American?" Mike asked, looking at the fair-skinned child with the sandy blond hair.

"Well, Queenie Ransome was pretty light-skinned herself. Maybe his father was Caucasian."

"Check this one out," Mike said. "She's in uniform."

It was another picture of Ransome on a stage, dressed in khakis designed to look like an army uniform. She was tap-dancing, it appeared, and her hand was about to salute someone with a touch of her cap. A USO flag hung from the bunting behind her. I took the photo off the wall and turned it over.

"Same year as those nightclub photos you brought to the office yesterday, 1942. This one looks like she was entertaining the troops."

"Here's another James Van Derzee portrait," Mike said. "Pretty spectacular."

It was a studio shot of the stunning young woman, again signed by the photographer, and probably taken after the Second World War, when she was still in her twenties.

Set against the faux backdrop typical of the period, she was dressed in a satin evening gown, her hair coiffed in a large bun atop her head, reclining against a marble column.

The gallery stopped at the far wall, which had a small bookcase across its end. Every book had been pulled off the shelf and strewn on the floor. I stooped to pick up a few-popular novels of the fifties and sixties-flipped through their pages but found nothing loose or stuck inside.

"What do you give me for a first-edition Hemingway?" Mike asked. " For Whom the Bell Tolls."

"Nineteen forty. That fetches a sweet number today." He knew I collected rare books. "I think the last one went at auction for about twenty-five thousand."

"Does his signature add value?"

"You're joking. Let me see." I took the book from his hand. The dust jacket was pristine, but whoever dumped it on the floor had cracked its spine by throwing it there. "'For Queenie-who is, herself, a moveable feast-Papa.' Take this one with you and voucher it. Let's look over all the books before we're done."

"Guess she didn't only kick up her heels for the boys in the 'hood. Don't you wish you'd had a chance to meet her?" said Mike, changing the record. "Just sit in this room and listen to her stories? She must have been something."

I turned the corner into the bedroom, flipping on the light. "Any reason I can't touch things in here?"

"Everything's been processed," Mike said, following me in.

The dresser drawers were all ajar, contents spilled out, as Mike had told me. The black fingerprint powder covered Queenie's old pink leather jewelry case. "Was there anything in this when you found it?"

"Just what you see."

There was a long strand of fake pearls, knotted the way that flappers once wore them. There were several large brooches that seemed to be made of colored glass, and lots of dangling earrings in bright colors, made of Bakelite or plastic. Some flea market vendor would relish this stuff, but none of it had any street value, and even the pettiest of thieves would have left it behind.

I opened the closet doors and separated the hangers.

"So much for those gowns and tiaras. Wear 'em while you can, Coop. This is what it all comes down to in the end," Mike said. There was an assortment of checked and flowered housedresses, and a couple of outfits that looked suitable for church-or burial. "The ME asked me to have you pick out a dress for Queenie to be buried in."