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    Heaving a half-regretful sigh, he wandered back into the squad room, just as the call came in about the burned-up body in the alleyway off Times Square. His adrenaline rose in conditioned response as he headed for the door.
    “What the hell, I’ll ride with you one last time,” he said to Pete Piatowsky, his partner of five years.
    Piatowsky threw him a shrewd sideways glance. “You’re never going to make it, alone out there in the sticks. You can’t even get yourself outta here and into the saloon for your own farewell party—you‘ve still gotta hit the streets. What’s the bettin’ you’re back in three months?”
    “Five-to-one on two,” Dan heard someone yell over the laughter in the squad room.
    Piatowsky’s fair-skinned amiable face split in a snaggle-toothed grin. If making book wasn’t illegal, he’d have shortened those odds.
    Dan was tall, but Piatowsky was a blond giant. He was forty-two years old, wore his thinning blond hair combed carefully across his high forehead, and his blue eyes had a deceptively mild expression. Dan knew him to be sharp as a razor, in sync with life on the streets. He was a good detective as well as a good friend. And Piatowsky had saved his life. He owed him.
    The sickening stench of charred flesh hit them as soon as they stepped out of the car. Death on the streets was never pretty and this one was stomach-churning gruesome. The flames had not eliminated the cross etched deeply into the woman’s forehead, curling back the blackened edges of the cut flesh like pages in a book,exposing her skull. And her eyes bugged from her head in the terrified stare Dan knew she must have given her killer at the moment of death.
    The Medical Examiner arrived just after they did, leaning over the stinking Dumpster, doing what he had to do. Dan didn’t envy him his job, and he reminded himself again of the blue skies, the sunshine, the fresh country air that would soon be his.
    “I’d bet it wasn’t the knife that killed her,” the ME said finally. “Nor the fire. It was manual strangulation. Mutilation came after death, and the fire was probably an attempt to destroy the evidence.”
    To their disgust, the fire department had washed away any possible clues with the fierce water hoses.
    “Whoever he is, he’s a lucky bastard,” Piatowsky said wearily to Dan. “Anyhow, why did he have to carve a cross on her forehead after she’s dead? What kind of a sicko is he? Some New Age disciple, out to reform Manhattan his way?”
    “It’s his signature, an ego thing. My guess is he’s done it before. You might check records, see what nut has just finished a prison sentence and hit the streets again.”
    “Thanks a lot, buddy.” Piatowsky could have used that drink and the companionship of his colleagues in the nearby saloon, but he had a long, hard night in front of him. “Why don’t you take your smart-ass FBI profiling outta here and go to your own farewell party.” He shook Dan’s hand, slapping his shoulder affectionately. “Wish I could get there, but as usual, I’m stuck with the body.”
    Now the time had come, Dan hated like hell to leave. “I’ll have that guest room all set for you in sunny California.”
    “I’ll bring my fishing rods—and the kids.” Piatowsky turned back to the crime scene.
    Dan knew friends like Piatowsky didn’t cross your path often in life. Straightening his shoulders, he walked into the crowds and the anonymous night.
    He returned to the precinct, turned in his badge, shook hands all round and headed to the saloon to drown his regrets with his colleagues.

         7
    E LLIE POUNDED HER FISTS INTO THE BALL OF BREAD dough, kneading it until it was smooth and elastic enough to satisfy her standards. Dusting it with flour, she covered it with a cloth and set it near the warm stove, to rise. She cleaned off the marble worktop, fetched butter from the refrigerator, and began to prepare the pastry for the
tarte tatin.
The