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natural might be disguised homicide. This one fellow who choked to death on his own vomit, well, there's a way to make that happen."
    "How, for God's sake?"
    "The victim has to be unconscious. You jam a pillow or towel over his face and hold it there while you induce vomiting. There's an emetic you can give by subcutaneous injection, but something might show up in an autopsy if anyone had the wit to look for it. A knee in the pit of the stomach is almost as effective. The victim vomits and there's no place for it to go, so he automatically aspirates it into the lungs. It's an easy way to knock off a drunk, you just wait until he's passed out and sleeping it off. And drunks are apt to die choking on their vomit, so it's a very plausible kind of accidental death."
    "It sounds absolutely diabolical."
    "I guess. Back in the mid-sixties there was aUnited States senator who died like that, and there were strong rumors that he'd been assassinated, either by the Cubans or the CIA, depending on who was telling the story. But this was in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, when every public death brought rumors of murder and conspiracy. If a politically prominent person died of Alzheimer's, you'd hear that the Illuminati had been putting aluminum salts in his cornflakes."
    "I remember." He drew a deep breath. "I figured there might have been some elaborate way Eddie Szabo's death might have been brought about. But I had no idea it could have been managed that simply."
    "And it also could have been just what it looks like."
    "An accident."
    "Yes."
    "But on balance you think I have reason to be concerned."
    "I think it calls for investigation."
    "Would you be willing to undertake that investigation?"
    I was expecting the question and I had my answer ready. "If this is what it's beginning to look like," I said, "you're dealing with a serial murderer with a remarkable degree of patience and organization. This isn't some drifter on a cross-country spree, snatching truck-stop hookers at random and strewing their corpses along I-80. He's picking specific targets and taking his time knocking them off. He's probably killed eight people, and maybe more.
    "All of which calls for a full-scale investigation, and I'm just one guy. If this were an NYPD investigation, they'd have a whole roomful of detectives working on it."
    "Do you think I should take this to the police?"
    "In an ideal universe, yes. In the real world, I think they'd just shine you on. The way the bureaucracy works, no cop would be all that eager to open this can of worms. You're looking at a whole crazy quilt of conflicting jurisdictions, and some possible homicides dating back twenty years. If I were a cop and this landed on my desk, I'd have every reason to drop it in a file folder and lose track of it." I took a sip of coffee. "If you really wanted to get the police moving on this, the best way would be through the media."
    "How do you mean?"
    "Just tell some eager reporter the same thing you told me. It's got plenty of news value all by itself, and a whole lot more when you toss a couple of prominent names in the hopper. Boyd Shipton, for one. And your survivors list shows a Raymond Gruliow onCommerce Street. I assume that's the lawyer."
    "The defense attorney, yes."
    " 'The controversial defense attorney' is how the press generally phrases it. If you went around telling cops Hard-Way Ray was on somebody's hit list, nine out of ten of them would try to find the guy just so they could buy him a drink and wish him good luck. But if you told a reporter, you'd get a ton of coverage."
    He frowned. "The idea of publicity," he said, "is one I find very disturbing."
    "So I'd imagine."
    "If what I suspect is true, if there's a murderer stalking us and thinning our ranks, then I would do whatever's required to stop him. I'd go on Oprah, if it came to that."
    "I don't think it will."
    "But if I'm just overreacting to a statistical coincidence, well, it would be a shame to destroy the