"Is there actually a funeral?"

"The squad's doing one. Nobody's been able to locate the nieces in Georgia, and all the guys want to arrange something for her. It'll be next week-I'll let you know what day."

It was an unspoken tradition among the elite homicide detectives that if there was no family to put a victim to rest with dignity, they often did it themselves. Queenie would go in a plot near the still-unidentified toddler known to the squad as Baby Hope, and the homeless man dubbed Elvis who played his guitar in the 125th Street subway station, slain for the few bucks he had picked up panhandling.

"What's on the floor?" I asked.

"Bastards even dumped out all her shoe and hatboxes. Took whatever cash she had left. That's just the pocket change you're playing with."

The dark closet floor was littered with silver coins, which gleamed against the wooden background. I kneeled again and scooped up a handful. "This must be the stash she used to tip the kids who bought her groceries."

I let the coins run through my fingers and clink against each other as they fell. Both Mike and I knew victims who had been killed for far less money than was sitting on the floor of Queenie's closet.

"I want you to promise me that someone's going to do a careful inventory of all these things," I said. "It may not look like much of value to you, but there's a lot of memorabilia here that shouldn't be thrown away."

"What I wanted you to do is look at these photos," he said, sweeping the bedroom walls with his hand. "You ever see anything like this? It's like a shrine to herself. I mean, it's a damn good body she had, but could these photos-could her own personal history-have anything to do with her murder?"

I recognized the bed on which her body had been found from the crime scene photos. The detectives believed that's where she had been killed. In addition to the Van Derzee portrait that had been above her head, there were seven other shots-all taken in different locations-which were erotic in nature. They weren't pictures of Queenie dancing, nor were they posed on a stage or in a studio. They were, pure and simple, pornographic.

This was not a situation I had seen before in a criminal case. Although the images' purpose may have been to arouse sexual interest sixty years ago, I couldn't imagine anyone responding to the partially paralyzed octogenarian in the same way today.

There was a dressing table opposite the bed's footboard. To the right of the mirror was another photo of the young Ransome, dancing as Scheherazade, wearing gauzelike harem pants and clasping tiny cymbals above her veiled head.

"Beats me," I said. "Can't rule it out."

To the left of the looking glass was a photo of two women facing each other in profile, both in strapless satin dresses, with trains hanging to the floor and pooling behind them. "Here's one more you've got to see. It's Queenie, nose to nose with Josephine Baker," I said, recognizing the American dancer who had lived much of her life in Paris and was considered to be one of the most sensual performers of all times.

"Later for the talent show, Coop. Are you getting anything in here?"

"Like what?"

"Vibes," Mike said, sitting on the stool at the dressing table and leaning on Queenie's metal walker. "Sometimes, when I just sit here alone, in the middle of the victim's world, with all his or her belongings around me, I get a sense of who might have come here to hurt them, or what it is they were looking for."

"How about if it's just random?" I asked.

"Doesn't matter. Sometimes the place and its people speak to me," he said softly. "This one's so incongruous. I wanna feel like she's my own grandmother, but this-this scene-"

"The photos bother you?"

"Don't they bother you?" he asked me.

"They're quite beautiful, actually," I said, tousling his hair. "It's your parochial school upbringing, Mikey."

The ringing of my cell phone interrupted the quiet, with only Ellington's tunes playing their scratchy sounds in the background on the old Victrola from the other room.

"Hello?"

"Alex, it's Mercer."

"Any news?"

"No sightings. But a ray of hope. I just got into work-we had a late night trying to interview everyone who saw the boy yesterday, before he disappeared. Did you hear from Paige?" Mercer asked me.

"No. But she's in the middle of cross. You know she's been instructed not to talk to me."

"She left a voice mail for me at the office, at about ten o'clock last night. I didn't pick it up until this morning. Dulles Tripping called her after I dropped her off from court. She had given him a slip of paper with her phone number on it, that first morning in the coffee shop. Paige said he sounded fine, just scared and lonely. Have you got a cell number for her?"

"For Paige? No. I've always found her at her office, or at home. Does she know where he is?"

"No. That's the point. There's no answer at Paige's apartment and I thought you'd know how to reach her. She called to say she's trying to bring the boy in herself."

15

The three-dimensional building, set back in tiers like a giant birthday cake, has the most distinctive windows in New York. They were modeled to look like the bulbous aft end of old Dutch sailing ships, and as we drove up to the front of 37 West Forty-fourth Street-the New York Yacht Club-its century-old limestone facade seemed like a throwback to another era.

I was a few minutes late for my meeting with Graham Hoyt. Mike had decided to work with Mercer, figuring I needed no help in bartering a deal with Dulles's lawyer.

"Beep us if he knows anything," Mike said to me.

"Of course. You do the same."

"Sure they'll let you through the front door? The lieutenant says it's tougher to get into this yacht club than into your pants."

"For certain I'm a cheaper date than trying to pay the dues here," I said, slamming the car door. "Speak to you later."

I had spent a lot of time in the building across the street from the club-the Association of the Bar of the City of New York-and I'd downed my share of cocktails in the sleek lobby of the Royalton Hotel. But this architectural beauty, with its galleon-styled windows, was one of Manhattan's great mysteries. Its elite membership, its fabled pedigree, and its prohibitive fees had long made it an object of curiosity. One couldn't buy his way in with money-it took a real knowledge of boating to penetrate the ranks. Despite myself, I was impressed that Graham Hoyt was a member.

Hoyt was waiting for me inside the lobby, so the doorman just nodded and let me pass through the grand salon.

"Shall we talk in the Model Room?"

"Whatever you like. I've never been here before," I said.

It was clear that the room was the centerpiece of the club. The entire history of yachting seemed to be displayed in its cavernous space, with hundreds of models of members' ships, with globes and astrolabes, and with braids of seaweed draping its huge mantel and wall trim.

"Is Chapman joining us?" Hoyt asked as we settled into a pair of corner seats.

"No. He's actually working on another case. Have you heard anything from Dulles?"

"Afraid not. I've got Jenna-my wife-sitting by the phone. I'm determined not to panic either one of us until another day goes by."

He leaned forward and cupped his hands over his knees. "Alex, why don't you just lay out what you've got, and tell me what you think the solution is? Perhaps we can fashion something that I can sell to Andrew, to convince him that pleading guilty would be in the boy's best interest."

"I think he's pretty well aware of the strengths of my case-and its weaknesses." I didn't trust anyone enough to reveal my personal thoughts about the witnesses.