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gracefulness. He never grew tired of looking at her. It wasn't
just that she excited him. By some magic that he could not
understand, the sight of her also relaxed him and made him feel that
all was right with the world and that he, for the first time in his
often lonely life, was a complete man with a hope of lasting
happiness.
    Impulsively he put down the knife with which he had been slicing a
tomato, took the knife from her hand and set it aside, turned her
toward him, pulled her against him, slipped his arms around her, and
kissed her deeply. Now her soft mouth tasted of champagne instead of
chocolate. She still smelled faintly of jasmine, though beneath that
fragrance was her own clean and appealing scent. He moved his hands
slowly down her back, tracing the concave arc to her bottom, feeling
the firm and exquisitely sculpted contours of her body through the
silky robe. She was wearing nothing underneath. His warm hands grew
hot-then much hotter-as the heat of her was transmitted through the
material to his own flesh.
    She clung to him for a moment with what seemed like desperation,
as if.she were shipwrecked and he were a raft in a tossing sea. Her
body was stiff. Her hands clutched tensely, fingers digging into him.
Then, after a moment, she relaxed against him, and her hands began to
move over his back and shoulders and upper arms, testing and kneading
his muscles. Her mouth opened wider, and their kiss became hungrier.
Her breathing quickened.
    He could feel her full breasts pressing against his chest. As if
with a will and intention of their own, his hands moved more urgently
in exploration of her.
    The phone rang.
    Ben remembered at once that they had forgotten to put it on the
answering machine again when they had finished contacting people with
the news of Eric's death and funeral, and in confirmation it rang again, stridently.
    “Damn,” Rachael said, pulling back from him.
    “I'll get it.”
    “Probably another reporter.”
    He took the call on the wall phone by the refrigerator, and it was
not a reporter. It was Everett Kordell, chief medical examiner for
the city of Santa Ana, phoning from the morgue. A serious problem had
arisen, and he needed to speak to Mrs. Leben.
    “I’m a family friend,” Ben said. “I'm taking all calls for her.”
    “But
I've got to speak to her personally,” the medical examiner insisted. “It's
urgent.
    “Surely you can understand that Mrs. Leben has had a difficult
day. I'm afraid you'll simply have to deal with me.”
    “But she's got to come downtown,” Kordell said plaintively.
    “Downtown? You mean to the morgue? Now?”
    “Yes. Right away.”
    “Why?”
    Kordell hesitated. Then, “This is embarrassing and frustrating,
and I assure you that
it'll all he straightened out sooner or later, probably very soon, but… well, Eric Leben's
corpse is missing.”
    Certain that he'd misunderstood, Ben said, “Missing?”
    “Well… perhaps misplaced,” Everett Kordell said nervously.
    “ Perhaps?”
    “ Or perhaps… stolen.”
    Ben got a few more details, hung up, and turned to Rachael.
    She was hugging herself, as if in the grip of a sudden chill. “The
morgue, you said?”
    He nodded. “The damn incompetent bureaucrats have apparently lost
the body.”
    Rachael was very pale, and her eyes had a haunted look. But,
curiously, she did not appear to be surprised by the startling
news.
    Ben had the strange feeling that she had been waiting for this
call all evening.

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4 DOWN
WHERE THEYKEEP THE
DEAD
    To Rachael, the condition of the medical
examiner's office was evidence that Everett Kordell was an obsessive-compulsive personality. No papers, books, or files cluttered his desk. The blotter was new, crisp, unmarked. The pen-and-pencil set, letter opener, letter tray, and silver-framed pictures of his family were precisely arranged. On the shelves behind his desk were two hundred or three hundred books in such pristine condition and so evenly placed that they