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coffee?"
    If I had encountered Deanna Compton and her unruly mane of red hair on the street, I would have taken her for either a real estate maven or a well-to-do matron. She was dressed in a flawless, navy-colored, double-breasted pantsuit. She wore spike heels that barely peeked out from beneath the hem of her pants. With all the gold on her body—rings on nearly every finger, earrings, and several gold chains—I'm surprised she didn't clank like a knight in armor.
    "Is your coffee genetically engineered?" I asked.
    Deanna smiled again, this time with somewhat strained tolerance, as though mine was an old and not entirely welcome joke.
    "I wouldn't know about that," she said. "We use Starbucks. You'll have to ask them."
    Chip passed on the offer of coffee; I accepted. While she went to fetch same, I examined our surroundings. The mostly glass-walled conference room was sumptuously appointed. The windowed wall to the west looked out almost eyeball to eyeball with the huge globe that sits atop the Seattle Post-Intelligencer building on Elliott. Beyond that was the slate expanse of Elliott Bay edged by Bainbridge Island in the distance.
    The furnishings in the conference room—oblong table, ten chairs, and an enormous credenza—were made of some kind of light-colored wood, polished to a high gloss. Like everything else in the D.G.I. building, the furniture spoke of quality, of designers working for someone with both an eye for class and a bottomless checkbook.
    Chip and I both took chairs along the far side of the table. When Deanna Compton returned, bearing a cup of coffee, she opened a drawer in the credenza and pulled out a brass, felt-bottomed coaster. Examination of the coaster revealed an engraved version of the Designer Genes International company logo—the letters D, G , and I artfully entwined to mimic a credible modern rendering of an ancient coat of arms.
    "First class all the way," I muttered to Detective Raymond, passing him the coaster.
    He glanced down at it with an "I'll say," and handed it back.
    "Sorry to keep you waiting," a portly, balding man announced from the open doorway of the conference room. Compared to the way the secretary was dressed, this guy looked like your basic rumpled bed. His khaki-colored double-breasted suit could have used a good pressing. "I see Deanna brought you coffee," he said.
    Chip and I both rose in greeting. "Mr. Whitten?" Chip asked.
    "Yes."
    "I'm Detective Raymond with Missing Persons. I talked to you on the phone earlier. This is Detective Beaumont."
    Whitten moved briskly into the room and shook our hands with a broad-handed, surprisingly strong grip. Then he took a seat at the end of the table. "I don't know why you guys are bothering to hang around here," he grumbled irritably. "If Don Wolf had shown up for work this morning, I wouldn't have called you, now would I?"
    "It's possible we may have already found him," I suggested quietly.
    Whitten looked at me sharply. "Really. Where?"
    Without a word, I extracted one of my business cards from my wallet and slid it down the table where it stopped directly in front of him. Whitten picked it up, held it out at the far end of his arm, and squinted at it.
    "This says Homicide ," he objected, looking questioningly from the card back to me. "I thought you were from Missing Persons."
    "Chip here is from Missing Persons," I said. "I'm Homicide."
    There was a long pause during which Bill Whitten's eyes sought mine. It's a moment that happens in every investigation when the people closest to the victim first become aware that the unthinkable has happened. Homicide cops are trained to observe the survivor's reactions, to gauge whether or not the response is typical, and if not, why not.
    Whitten leaned back in his chair and steepled his thick fingers under his chin. "I see," he said. "You're saying you think Don Wolf is dead? When did this happen?"
    His was a measured, emotionless reaction, the response of someone to expected, rather