'Not right now. I need to see these people. I need to get a sense of whether they're on the level or not. You know as well as I do that I should be here at this meeting.'
Chuck clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. Lee was right, but he really didn't feel good about seeing his friend up on his feet after the attack of the previous night. The two mysterious assailants, obviously professionals, had worked quickly and efficiently, Lee had said-and they had taken nothing, not even bothering to stage the attack as a robbery. They had even worn gloves, minimizing the possibility of gathering DNA evidence. It was obviously a message-but from whom? The whole thing gave him the creeps.
'I'll tell you one thing,' he said. 'That's the last time you go anywhere without a tail. From now on counter- surveillance is twenty-four-seven.'
They rounded another corner and pushed open the door to the foyer, where Pamela Stavros's parents were waiting for them. They were the only people in the dingy waiting room, with its collection of mismatched plastic yellow chairs and dying spider plants crowded together on the dusty windowsill, thin and straggly in their cracked green pots. The only other living creature in the room was a fly trying vainly crawl up the dirty windowpane, buzzing feebly as it slid back down. Some places give the impression of having gone downhill, while others look as if they gave up before ever trying. The waiting room in the ME's office was one of those places.
The Stavroses were blunt, plain people who were obviously in shock. Theodore Stavros was a square, stolid man with meaty arms and legs, and sported the buzz-cut, flattop hairstyle he had probably worn since he was a boy. It looked like you could bounce a quarter off the meticulously mowed top of his head. He held his wife protectively to his side. Her face had sunk into a doughy middle age, though Lee could see that the delicate features must have once been pretty.
'I know this is very hard for you,' Chuck said to the couple as he led them back through the corridors toward the exam room that held their daughter.
It was the second time Lee had been there in a week, and he still couldn't bear the smell of formaldehyde seeping into the halls from behind the closed and bolted metal doors lining the corridor. His head ached, and his ribs hurt with every breath, but he clenched his jaw and tried to keep his face impassive. After reporting the attack on him to the Chinatown precinct commander, he had fallen asleep, slept eleven hours, and woke up feeling like hell. But he had insisted on being here today, and here he was.
'You don't have to do this if you don't want to,' Chuck told Mrs. Stavros. She looked at her husband and pressed her trembling lips together.
'She'll get through it,' Mr. Stavros replied. 'Let's get this over with.' His accent was as flat as the Maine coastline. He glided over his r's like a seagull swooping over the frigid coastal waters of New England.
As they entered the room with the wall-to-wall compartment containing all the unidentified corpses, they found a young technician waiting for them. He was Asian, with thick black hair and a delicate pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Lee was reminded of the sweet-faced Asian girl who had helped him the night before. He didn't even know her name. The technician nodded at Chuck and Lee, waiting as the little group assembled themselves in the room.
Mrs. Stavros made a gurgling sound that was like a stifled sob. Lee glanced at Chuck, who looked embarrassed and miserable. Chuck had never been relaxed in social situations where the rules of conduct were not clearly spelled out. As a policeman, he had entered a society full of rules, regulations, and prescribed behavior. In college, it had been Lee's job to smooth over social situations with a joke or a witty remark-he had been the charmer, while Chuck was the serious one.
The Stavroses stood still as stone, their faces rigid and swollen with unshed tears, as the medical technician pulled out the tray with their daughter's body. Once again Lee was struck by the spotless, shining metal and the pristine whiteness of the sheet covering Pamela's body. Chuck nodded, and the technician lifted the sheet, exposing the girl's face. It was untouched, white as chalk, but dark purple strangulation marks were visible on her neck.
Mrs. Stavros gasped and buried her face in the crook of her husband's thick arm. Chuck gave another brief nod to the attendant, who replaced the sheet and slipped the body back into the freezer unit. Mr. Stavros hid his wife's face from the terrible sight.
'It's her,' he said brusquely, as if he was angry with Chuck for bringing him here. Lee had seen this displaced anger before, and he felt sorry for his friend. These people were so filled with grief and rage, and they vented their frustration on the only person available: Chuck Morton. Lee knew it was hard on his friend. As precinct captain, Chuck was used to giving orders and being obeyed, but to Pamela's parents he was simply the bearer of bad news.
The four of them walked in silence back through the hallways toward the building entrance. Lee knew that the Stavroses' anger would make it harder for him to do his job. They would resist his questions, and maybe even refuse to answer them. As they entered the lobby of the building, he decided to take a stab at a pretty obvious sales tactic.
'Would you mind answering a few questions that will help us catch your daughter's killer?' he said, leading them to a row of scuffed yellow plastic chairs in the corner of the room.
Mr. Stavros turned around to face him. 'Catch him? Catch him? I'll help you fillet, boil or fry him,' he said, spitting the words out. 'Better yet, you lead me to him, and just leave the rest to me, huh?'
Theodore Stavros was a big man, solid as a slab of granite, and Lee felt the physical threat as Stavros hovered over him, his small blue eyes shot through with burst blood vessels and rage. He had an abrupt realization: Ted Stavros was an alcoholic. He wondered that he hadn't noticed it before-the ruddy cheeks, the bloodshot eyes, the slight tremor in his powerful hands. Probably at his wife's insistence, he hadn't had a drink today, but he sure as hell looked like he needed one.
Lee looked at the timid, frightened expression on Mrs. Stavros's face, and he suddenly realized what Pamela had been running from. This was not a happy family. Ted Stavros was a man who could get nasty. Violence leaked from his pores like sweat; barely concealed rage was evident in the way he held himself, in the tightness of his mouth, the deliberate flatness of his voice. For a teenage daughter, it was probably terrifying.
'Wh-what do you want to know?' Mrs. Stavros asked, sitting in one of the chairs.
'Do you have any idea who Pamela's friends were, who she saw here in New York?' Chuck asked.
Mrs. Stavros shook her head. 'No. She, uh, didn't tell us where she was going. We didn't even know she was in New York until we…' She tried bravely to master her emotions, but her voice gave out.
Her husband finished for her. 'Until we saw your Web site. She had a 'boyfriend,'' he continued, pronouncing it as though he had said 'cockroach.' 'He was a creep, a two-timing junkie, but she was hooked on him.'
Garbage in, garbage out, Lee thought. We all follow patterns we're familiar with, he wanted to say, and your daughter is no exception. But he said nothing, and arranged his face in a mask of sympathy and concern.
'So you think she came here with him?' Chuck asked.
'I dunno,' Stavros replied. 'He wasn't from around here-and he turned up back in town a couple of weeks ago, saying he had nothing to do with her disappearance.'
'Did you believe him?' said Chuck.
Ted Stavros looked away, a slight smile prying the corners of his mouth upward. Lee could picture the scene: Stavros threatening the young man, or worse.
'Yeah, I guess,' he said. 'I gave him every chance to change his story.' Lee silently translated his comment. He had given the boyfriend a severe beating, and when the terrified kid stuck to his story, even under torture, Stavros believed him. However bad the boyfriend was, Lee thought, he wasn't as bad as the father. Stavros seemed pleased with himself.
He looked at Mrs. Stavros. What he had taken before as behavior caused by severe grief he now saw as telltale signs of a battered spouse. Her shoulders rolled inward, as if she was afraid of taking up too much space. She looked at her husband constantly, checking with him before she said or did anything, as if she feared incurring his displeasure. Classic submissive behavior, Lee thought, and he felt sorry for this once-pretty woman who was shackled to this oafish bully, bonded by their shared history-and now, their shared grief.
'One other question,' he said. 'Was your daughter religious?'
Ted Stavros frowned. 'What's that got to do with anything?'
'No, not especially,' his wife answered. 'We're Greek Orthodox, but she wasn't exactly fervent or anything.'
'Did she wear a cross around her neck?'
Mrs. Stavros seemed surprised by the question. 'Yes, as a matter of fact, she did. Remember?' she said to
