LITMIR.BIZ

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brick warehouse. We threaded past four radio cars with light bars flashing, a Forensics van and what I took to be a command van. There was also an SUV from the Medical Examiner’s office. Whatever had gone down, the full cast and crew was present and accounted for.

      I saw a portly man shambling our way, his black hat tucked low and his gray raincoat rippling in the wind. Mr Raincoat opened my door and I stepped out.

      The guy looked in his late fifties, with a round face as morose as a bloodhound. His nose was large and beaklike. His eyes sagged above, bagged below, and probably looked sad even when a woman said Yes. Unlike everyone else, he seemed in no hurry. He offered his hand. “My name is Sheldon Waltz, NYPD. Friendlier folks call me Shelly, which I invite you to do. How was your flight?”

      The warmth and sincerity in his voice made me drop pleasantries in favor of the truth. “I hate jets, Shelly. I’d have preferred being shot here by cannon.” I paused. “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

      He sighed and patted my back. Even his pats seemed doleful. “Actually, I was hoping you might tell me.”

      The warehouse reeked of stale water and fresh rat droppings. We walked a plank floor toward a service elevator. A print tech dusted the paint-peeling wall for latents. I thought the tech was shooting me curious side-eyed glances, but realized he was studying Waltz. Also eyeing Waltz was a young guy in a Technical Services jacket who sat cross-legged on the floor with a small video monitor in his lap. He looked ready to spring into action, just as soon as someone told him what the action was.

      To the right the corridor opened into a side room, the light coming from a bank of ancient fluorescents, bulbs sizzling and giving a jittery quality to the scene. I saw three detectives inside, the Alpha dick spotlighted by a sharp bark as the others bobbed their heads. Alpha was a woman, early thirties, with an ovoid face, slender lips, dark hair pulled straight back and held with a rubber band. Efficient and aerodynamic. Her rust-colored, no-frills business suit had a gold badge hanging from the jacket pocket. Her eyes flashed with intelligence and she looked as hard and fit as a dancer.

      The woman’s eyes found me and glared, like I’d spit in her soup and run away laughing. I flicked a genial wave. Alpha showed me her back and her puppets followed suit. I heard one of the men’s voices mutter the word yokel.

      “Who’s that woman, Shelly?” I asked as we stepped into the elevator, a cage with a floor. Waltz thumbed the button and we jolted upward.

      “It doesn’t matter right now.”

      The elevator clattered to a stop and we stepped into a maze of semi-finished sheetrock walls dividing a large room. Waltz said, “The building’s being turned into lofts. The construction foreman stopped in at six a.m. to leave instructions for the workers, found the victim. The foreman’s an older guy with angina. The sight had him grabbing at his chest. The med types didn’t want him to add to the body count, so they sent him to a nearby ER.” Waltz nodded to a second doorway. “The victim’s back here.”

      I followed Waltz to a framed-in space I suspected would be a complete unit when finished, fifty feet long, twenty wide. At the end of the space a pair of sawbucks carried a sheet of plywood. Atop the wood was a blanketed shape I knew was a human body. I shivered, then realized the air conditioning was cranked to meat-locker level.

      “The cold’s helping stabilize the body,” Waltz said, seeing my puzzlement.

      “Until what?”

      “Until you got here.”

      There was a plastic runner on the floor, a path to walk without disturbing evidence. I saw a snip of hair beside the runner, a slender brown comma. Beside it was a tuft of white. I crouched, pursing my lips and puffing at the debris. The result floated in the air. “Several colors of hair,” I said. “Strange.”

      Waltz turned. “Come on, Detective. We don’t have much time. Forensics will deal with the minutiae.”

      The runner was slick and we walked with the care of men on ice. When we reached the form Waltz grabbed an edge of the white blanket. I took a deep breath and nodded, Go. Waltz pulled back the cover. I saw a woman’s body, headless. No, my mind suddenly screamed, the head was there. It had been jammed into a slashing cut made in the abdomen. The head, its eyes wide, stared at me from the belly. The scene was horrific and utterly incongruous.

      Then I realized: I knew the face in the belly.

      I gasped. My knees buckled and the room veered sideways. Waltz grabbed beneath my arm. I closed my eyes. Long seconds passed before they opened again.

      “You know her, right?” Waltz looked at my face. “Take your time.”

      I waited until the room stopped spinning. Found the breath to rasp out words. “Her name is Dr Evangeline Prowse. She’s the director of the Alabama Institute of Aberrational Behavior. It’s where some of the country’s strangest killers are kept, walking nightmares.”

      “I know of the Institute. You’re sure it’s her?”

      I nodded and strode to an open window to suck in air, hoping to stop the spinning in my head. Waltz appeared with a paper cup of water. He steered me to a chair.

      “Better?” he asked as I gulped water.

      “Getting there,” I lied.

      “How well did you know her?”

      “She consulted on several cases for the Mobile police. We enjoyed one another’s company. I guess you could say we were the kind of friends who always promise to see one another more, but can’t find the time.”

      We’d never find the time. I’d never speak to Vangie again, an incredible loss.

      “When did you last see Dr Prowse?” Waltz asked.

      “Two months ago. I was in the Montgomery area and stopped by. We shared a sandwich in her office, spent a half hour talking. That was all.”

      There was more to it than that. Much more. But only five people in the world knew that particular secret. Evangeline Prowse had been one of them.

      “Did she mention anything about coming to New York?”

      “Vangie grew up in Queens, lived in the city until her early thirties. Coming here was a regular event, no big deal.”

      “How about a professional angle? You and Dr Prowse weren’t working together? A case?”

      “Not for a couple years.”

      “You’re sure? Nothing?”

      “Shelly, why the hell am I here? Why not a co-worker or a –”

      He blew out an exasperated breath. “There’s a bit of a mystery going on. Follow me.”

      I accompanied Waltz back down the elevator to where the other detectives were waiting. The sleek Alpha lady was leaning against the wall with studied nonchalance, legs crossed at the ankles, cellphone nudging a high cheekbone. “I dunno what the Southern guy’s supposed to do. I’m waiting for him to pull the magnifying glass from his pocket, ask if there’s any footprints he can follow …”

      She hung up and tapped her watch with a crisp pink talon. “I’ve got places to be, Waltz. And given that goddamn convention, I expect you do, too. Let’s open and close this little play right now.”

      Waltz pursed his lips and whistled. The young guy in the Technical Services jacket appeared, cradling the battery-driven video playback unit as if it was an infant. His nameplate read J. Cargyle. The kid held the unit at chest level. Waltz tapped Play. Everyone gathered close.

      A shiver of electrons and my heart climbed to my throat: Vangie’s face in close-up, a white wall at her back. The camera’s tiny microphone distorted background sounds into a rumbling sludge. She was holding the camera close and her hands were shaking, her face moving within the frame. Vangie looked worn, her brown eyes circled with shadow.

       “If you have

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