The clock in the tower read 11:59.

  "So, Byers," Corporal Walt Rhine said to the kid behind the wheel on Sunday afternoon. "How do you like your first day as a cop?"

  "It's great," Byers answered. "A little scary, though."

  Rhine, a big burly cop who had been on the force ten years running, smiled and nodded. "I know what you mean, kid. I remember my first day—I was scared shitless. I'd wanted to be a cop all my life, then the day finally came, and—boom!—I didn't know what the fuck to do. It's a hell of a lot of responsibility; there's so much to know. But don't worry, you won't get any heavy shit until your probationary period is up. And believe me, by then you'll know everything. You'll have seen it all, and you'll love it. It's the best job in the world."

  Now young Byers was exuberant. He wheeled the big patrol car around a corner, a slight smile creasing his lips. "I can't wait for some action."

  "You'll get action out the ass," Walt assured him. "All kinds. Shit, people get killed in this city every day. I'll bet we get a shooting call before the week is up."

  Byers didn't say anything after that. Walt supposed that maybe he was laying the action bit on a little thick. You don't tell a guy who's been on the force for one day that he's going to get a shooting call before he even knows what one is, he thought. He'll learn in time. Just like I did.

  Walt looked the new kid over, noticing how serious he appeared. Byers gripped the steering wheel as if he were sailing a ship. His eyes were straight ahead, his mouth taut and closed, posture stiff and attentive. Greenhorn, Walt thought. Greenhorn all the way. This kid's got a lot to learn, but he'll do all right. Most of the other cops didn't like breaking in kids fresh out of the academy. Everyone called them "crewts," and it was a name that had to be worked off. Generally, crewts were considered a pain in the ass because they didn't know anything; that's why everyone hated breaking them in. But Walt didn't mind. In fact, he liked breaking new guys in. He could remember way back in the olden days when he was a crewt himself. He had adjusted very well, and he suspected that Byers would too.

  The police radio between them crackled abruptly and emitted a short, high-pitched beep.

  "Fifty-seven," a woman's distorted voice said over the speaker.

  Walt picked up the black plastic microphone and broke. "Fifty-seven."

  "Citizen reports possible eighty-one at TA on Merriweather and Bladensburg."

  "Ten-four."

  Walt immediately hung up the mike and started laughing. Byers' confident face suddenly changed into a cast of worry and dread.

  "What's so funny, Walt?" Byers asked. "What's an eighty-one?"

  "Not what I would call action," Walt returned, still honking with laughter, "but it'll do."

  "Come on, Walt! What's an eighty-one?" Byers voice was now a frantic squeal. He knew something was going on.

  "You should've studied your code sheet, kid. Then you'd know---I don't fuckin' believe it. Your first day out, and you've got an eighty-one."

  "Tell me, Walt! Come on!"

  Walt was laughing so hard that it looked as though his face would crack. He straightened up. "Well, my boy, a signal eighty-one is commonly referred to as a death report. And it's all yours."

  Byers paused for a few troubled seconds. His mouth went slack. "Oh, shit, no. What am I going to do? I don't know how to handle something like that."

  "You will in a minute. But don't worry; I'll be there with you. I'll show you what to do."

  Byers became frantic. He could barely drive and think at the same time. "Where did she say? What was that address? Christ, I couldn't understand what she was saying through all that static."

  "Simmer down, kid. That's another case in point about police work. Always pay attention to the radio." Walt paused for another chuckle, then continued. "Now, she said the TA on Merriweather and Bladensburg. That's right on the district line. I think it's a potato chip factory or something. Just take South Dakota all the way down."

  Minutes later, they were cruising down Bladensburg Road, which ran perpendicular to the line between Washington and Maryland. To their right, they could see the desolate Fort Lincoln Cemetery, and to their left the red brick bulk of a small industrial complex. There was a long wooden loading dock on the left side of the buildings, paralleled by a sparse parking lot which was barren save for five or six cars in the far corner.

  "This is it," Walt said to the young recruit. "Pull in."

  Byers, his face still a mask of anxiety, wheeled the clumsy patrol car through the entrance, passing a huge white metal sign that read FRITO-LAY.

  Walt noticed that a small crowd had gathered around the automobiles in the corner. All of the people wore white paper hats and dirty aprons.

  "Christ, Walt," Byers said at the last minute. "I've never seen a dead body before."

  "It's nothing to get all worked up about. This time next year, you'll think nothing of it. Some guy probably dropped dead from a heart attack. No big deal. He won't look any different than if he was asleep."

  The patrol car slowed and stopped in front of the parked cars and the group of men. Walt saw that all of the men were black, and with grim eyes, they stood huddled around something, looking down. One of them shuffled over as Walt and Byers got out of the car.

  "Where's the body?" Walt asked.

  "Over here, officer. Over here," the black man said, rubbing his hands over his smudged apron. He led the two cops over to the parked cars. "Oh, sweet Jesus, it's horrible, horrible. I just walked out to my car, and there she was."

  The other workmen made way as Walt stepped to the rear of the cars. He immediately grimaced when he looked down between the fenders. The acrid smell of vomit pierced Walt's nostrils.

  Next to the front wheels of the two cars on the end, there was a large, motionless bundle wrapped in a milky-clear plastic sheet, tied in three places with brown twine. The plastic was beaded with water—it had rained slightly that morning—and there were several curious holes in the bundle. Apparently, rats had gotten to it. Some of the plastic at the top end had been pulled away.

  "How do you know this is a woman?" Walt asked the black man.

  "That's the first thing I done. I opened it up when I found it. Oh, sweet Jesus ..."

  "Are you sure she's dead?"

  "I'm positive. Ain't nothing that looks like that could be alive. And when I opened the top, this big rat ran out of it."

  Walt dropped to one knee and looked closer. "Jesus."

  He strained his eyes and could make out the pale shape of a face beneath the plastic. His cheeks shriveled up in disgust when he tugged back the plastic shroud and revealed what lay inside.

  There, staring Walt in the face, were two wide-open, bulging eyeballs. He couldn't see the dead girl's mouth—there was a tight band of silver duct tape wrapped over her lips and around her head. Her brown hair was disheveled and splayed this way and that across her face. Uselessly, Walt poked his fingers up under her jaw to check for vital signs, even though he knew the girl had been dead for hours. Her flesh was doughy and cold to the touch; when he pulled his fingers out from under her jaw, the indentations remained, as if she were made of clay. Gaping, corrosive holes mottled her bare shoulder and the back of her arm. Holes filled with coagulated blood which had turned to an ugly purple hue. Gnawmarks, he thought. From where the rats had eaten her.

  And the skin of her face was white as paper.

  Swallowing, Walt looked over his shoulder toward Byers. The young officer was doubled over at the waist by the end of the car. There were wretching sounds.

  "When did you find her?" Walt asked the man as he got back up to his feet.

  There was a mute panic in his voice. "See, I was workin' a double shift last night, so at noon I come out to my car and I see this bundle layin' next to my wheels. I guess it was about twenty minutes ago when I called the police... . Oh, sweet Jesus, it's the horriblest thing I ever seen."

  A strange silence hung over Walt's head as he passed his bleak-faced partner and walked back to the car. There, he radioed the discovery to the precinct and sat alone for a moment, holding the mike and listening to the squelch. His stomach tossed, and his mouth seemed dry as dirt. He hadn't seen anything this bad since the time he had answered that domestic call in Georgetown—the one where the woman had put her four-month-old baby in the microwave oven.

  A terrible slowness inhibited his limbs when he climbed out of the car and walked back to the scene. Byers faced him now, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. "It's got something to do with that Electrocutionist, doesn't it, Walt? The stories in the newspaper said that those other girls were found the same way."

  "Yeah, it looks that way. Same m.o. It's got to be the same guy who did this. The homicide people are on the way down. They'll know for sure."

  Grimly, they paced back to the body and looked down at it again. The bright Sunday afternoon light bounced off the wrinkles in the plastic and flashed in Walt's eyes.

  That's when he noticed the irregularity.

  "What the fuck?"

  There seemed to be a dull brown reflection coming from inside of the plastic. Again, Walt dropped down to one knee and leaned over the pallid corpse. With the penknife on his key chain, he snapped the second cord tied around the bundle and pulled the plastic back as far as it would go. He stared for a few seconds, blinking, unable to speak.

  "Holy Mother of God," Walt muttered very slowly when he realized what had caused the dull reflection.

  Pinned directly into the flesh of the dead girl's left breast was a small, gold Metropolitan Police detective's badge.

  Chet Winslow, the last of the homicide sergeants, arrived at Dignazio's office just after eight o'clock on Sunday night. Dignazio looked at his watch with a frown; David Elliot, his lieutenant and right hand man, had still not shown up.

  The office was very dark. It had always been that way, for as long as Dignazio could remember. The only light in the room came from a fluorescent lamp on Dignazio's desk. He kept forgetting to put some more lamps on order.

  Leaning forward over his desk, Dignazio swept a glance across the room at the six people sitting in a rough semi-circle in front of him. They all sat very still, like members of some black conclave, their faces gaunt and spectral, obscured by the darkness such that he could barely make out their mute shapes.

  "I guess by now, you've all heard what happened," Dignazio began, his quiet voice signaling the start of the emergency meeting.

  Without a word, they all nodded. No one said anything for what seemed several minutes, their eyes downcast, mouths closed.

  "Are you sure it's her?" Chet Winslow asked, finally breaking the stifled silence. "I mean, has anyone been down to see the body?"

  "Yeah, it's her all right," Dignazio said. "I was here when the call came in, so I went down to the Frito-Lay plant to have a look. We'll have the autopsy report in the morning to verify the details. ... But, yes, it's her. You wouldn't have had to look at her to know—her fucking tin was pinned to her breast, and her gun had been ..." His words trailed off; the detestable elements were unnecessary. "Anybody know where the fuck Dave is? We can't wait all night."

  They shook their heads. Then, more silence.

  Dignazio pursed his lips. "Then we'll have to go on without him...The reason I called you all here on such short notice is obvious. This case gets shittier every day; it seems the worst thing that could possibly happen, did happen. And there's no way to keep this one out of the papers like the first two. We've got to move, and we've got to move fast."

  "Do you think the brass will take action?" Rita Benson, the sergeant over the decoys, asked.

  "I don't know. They might; they might even relieve us of the whole case. That's been known to happen when a cops gets killed. But it doesn't matter. They're definitely going to raise some shit regardless. That's why we've got to get hopping right away—before this killer does it again."

  "Do you want me to pull the rest of the decoys out?" Rita asked.

  "No. Not unless we get the word from upstairs. I want them on the street till the very last minute. They're our only hope right now."

  "When will the services be held for Diane?" someone else asked.

  "I don't know that either. Couple of days, I suppose. But we don't have time to worry about funerals. Right now, we got our hands full trying to prevent them."

  Just then, David Elliot walked into the room. "Sorry I'm late, Captain," he said. "Just as I was coming in, I got stopped by a bunch of brass from division. They want to see you upstairs right now. Deputy Chief Mullins."

  This didn't surprise Dignazio at all. The whole thing reeked of Major Case. "Deputy Chief who?"

  "Mullins."

  "Who the fuck is he? I've never heard of him."

  Elliot shrugged.

  "Too many chiefs and not enough fucking Indians," Dignazio said, and stood up at his desk. "Dave, Chet, you guys stay here till I get back. Everybody else get back on the street. If anything important develops, I'll have you landline me tonight."

  Before leaving the office, Rita asked, "Do you think they'll organize a Major Case, Captain?"

  "Maybe," he replied, not wanting to fully acknowledge the possibility. "But whatever happens, I'll let you know the minute I find out."

  Dignazio parted and left the office for the stairwell. His mind was totally blank as he ascended the steps and turned down the corridor of the third floor toward the branch office. The door to Room 300 was open.

  He hesitated for a long moment before entering.

  When he looked at the man sitting behind the desk, Dignazio immediately thought of death. What did Elliot say his name was? he thought. Mulligan? No, Mullins. Something like that. But what ever his name was, the guy behind the desk looked like he had died about six weeks ago. Dignazio stepped into the room without being noticed, and he examined the man for several seconds. The man was wearing his police uniform (all the top brass did), but the body under the uniform resembled a medical cadaver that had gone bad. His head seemed little more than a flesh-colored skull, with eyes sunken so far back in the sockets that they looked like holes. He was deathly thin, and Dignazio could see thick, blue, tubular veins protrude under the skin of the man's bony hands. Lastly, he was bald as a cue ball. Christ, Dignazio thought, if I ever look like this guy, I think I'll blow my fucking head off. Either police work had taken a devasting toll on this man, or he was incredibly old. There was no way of making an accurate guess as to his age, though Dignazio mused with a smile that he must be somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty.

  "Deputy Chief Mullins?" Dignazio announced, hoping he'd gotten the man's name right.

  The man looked up. "Yes."

  "I'm Captain Dignazio of the homicide squad. One of my men said you wanted to see me."

  "Yes. Sit down." Mullins pushed some papers away from his desk, then steepled his gnarled fingers in front of him, while Dignazio pulled up a chair.

  "First, I have some questions regarding the Electrocutionist case." Mullins' voice was raspy and hoarse.

  Dignazio nodded.

  "How many female decoys did you have on the street? Five?"

  "Yes, sir, five ... er, four now."

  "And how many back-up personnel for each of them?"

  Oh shit. "None, sir. My orders were to spread out as many people in different locations as possible. Each decoy was operating alone."

  Mullins' lips became a crinkled line. "You mean you put female decoys on the street without any tails?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "That's very unusual. Why didn't you assign tails for each one?"

  "My orders from division, sir, were to get as many detectives out as possible. Seeing the seriousness of this case, it only makes sense to put back-up personnel out on their own."

  "Division told you to do that?"

  "No, sir. Division put me in charge of the decoy operation. Division authorized me to recruit female volunteers from vice. And division gave me the case. Not tailing the decoys was my decision, since I am in charge of the homicide squad. In my professional opinion, I saw back-up personnel as a waste of time. And all of the decoys volunteered under that condition."

  Mullins nodded. "And if your professional opinion had indicated that the decoys be assigned tails, then Diane Slezak would still be alive."

  I knew it. "Yes, sir, that's probably true, but if we had back-up people hiding in the shadows behind every decoy, then we never would have encountered the killer."

  "Oh, that's for sure," Mullins goaded, raising a brow, "but instead, one of your girls did encounter the killer. And now she's dead."

  "Yes, sir. It's a sad circumstance, but that's the way it goes. This is a murder case, if you'll recall, the biggest murder case in the history of the city. There's a lot of risk involved, and if you want us to grab this guy, you're going to have to accept the fact that we may lose some people. We're all police officers; we have to take chances if we want to get things done. Detective Slezak was well aware of the risk. She volunteered for the assignment. She was a well-trained police officer; she knew how to take care of herself."

  "Obviously not enough."

  "Yeah, and like I said, that's the way it goes. This is a big psycho-killer case, sir—not some guy stealing Snickers bars from the candy store. There's no exclusively safe way to go after someone like this without sticking our necks out."

  "But still, a police officer is dead."

  Dignazio was fuming now. "Look, sir, if you're trying to say that the murder of Detective Slezak is my fault, then cut the penny-ante bullshit and say so."

  Mullins almost smiled. "No need to get defensive, Captain. To be honest with you, I couldn't agree with you more. I was just asking what I am supposed to ask—you're aware of the complications that arise whenever a police officer is murdered. No one is saying that Diane Slezak was killed as a result of an error on your part or anyone's part. These inquiries are routine. Your record speaks for itself, and your capabilities in this matter are not in question."

  "Then what is?"

  "Nothing. It's just the nature of the problem. We have to consider the possibility that this case is too much for you and your personnel to handle on your own. This afternoon, when we learned of the discovery of Diane Slezak's body, the police chief and his deputies and assistants met, and we came to the conclusion that this case is serious enough to warrant the formation of a Major Case Squad."