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level of education people had and their attitude toward the police. Cops didn't even know they were adjusting the circumstances in each case to fit their own particular prejudices. It wasn't conscious. And color probably made the most difference of al. Color made people nervous, made them jump one way or another, changed the way they acted or didn't act. Color raised the stakes on the possibility of political repercussions. It guaranteed deeply emotional and often dangerous responses that were camouflaged or not depending on the parties involved. Anybody who said only the facts mattered was dreaming.
    Patrice Paul was a witness. It was more than likely he knew more than he was telling. Maybe he was more involved than he would like to admit. What if Petersen had died of other causes? They'd been in -a restaurant, had eaten and drunk. Maybe he'd been poisoned somehow and been stricken when he got outside. It would explain how two people had been taken out so suddenly without a fight. Maybe the death of Merrill Liberty was an employee/boss's wife thing. Maybe it was a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. Maybe it was a race thing. Maybe it was a random act of violence, which would make it the worst possibility of all—a mystery. No one liked a mystery.
    April wanted to handle this correctly. She knew this was an explosive situation no matter who had killed the victims or what the motive had been. Even if the perpetrator turned out to be a white homeless person who didn't even know them—which everyone who had seen the victims tended to doubt—there would still be plenty of battles fought over this case. The two victims were white, rich, and celebrities. The husband of one victim and the employee who went out to help them were black. It wasn't supposed to make a difference but it would.
    It was a visceral thing. A lot of people of all colors and ethnic backgrounds didn't like each other. And they especially didn't like mixed marriages of any kind—people like her mother and her father who were otherwise fine people. But Sai and Ja Fa Woo didn't stop at disliking blacks. April's parents didn't like anybody—not whites, not Hispanics, not Pakistanis or Native Americans or Koreans. Chinese were best people to them. That was it. Nobody else counted. It was hard to take, especially considering April's current not-so-secret passion for a Latino. She sneaked a look at Mike.
    Very few cars were out to challenge the snow on the street. The Camaro was low, and it plowed through some fresh inches, making grumpy, straining car noises. Mike seemed concentrated on his driving. She could tell he was in his waiting mode. He knew all about male sexual jealousy and how lethal it could be, but he would not make anything of Merrill Liberty's having been out with her husband's best friend, a white man, and the possible implications of that until there was something to make of it.
    April couldn't help remembering the speculative way the ME had looked at Patrice, and then the way Dr. Washington's gaze had returned to the restaurant door more than once, as if she thought the killer might have come from inside the restaurant with an ice pick and not from the street. Why did the medical examiner think that? April made a mental note to ask Dr. Washington what her suspicions were. But April also had her doubts that Rosa Washington, well known for her rigid correctness, would tell her anything unless she knew April really well and trusted her. And the doctor had seemed extremely professional, not the kind of person to speculate about things she couldn't prove.
    The Camaro took the turn through six inches of slush on Fifty-seventh Street like a small motorboat heaving through a mighty swell. It pulled up in front of a building that was splendid even at four in the morning on a storm-ravaged January night. Mike crossed himself. Whether in gratitude for getting there without mishap or in comment about the place itself April couldn't tell.
    Like a sentry on either