1

For once it was a relief to be awake and moving around by daylight. The pounding on his door had rescued him from dreams of finding Lane's grave blown open as though by dynamite and Christopher Stroda sitting at the bottom of the gaping hole gestering for Garreth to join him. Lien's I Ching reading for the day gave him something else to think about. Number Three, Difficulty At the Beginning.

"It leads to supreme success, which comes through perseverence," Lien said at breakfast. "But no move should be made prematurely and one should not go alone; one should appoint helpers. A change line at the beginning reinforces the need to have helpers, that change line producing hexagram Number Eight, Holding Together. For good fortune we must unite with others who complement and aid one another."

Garreth followed Harry into the Hall of Justice elevator. Helpers. Sure. He grimaced. Who? It would be difficult to team up with Fowler again, even if he wanted to, and telling Harry everything would only make the case against him worse.

Girimonte already sat at her desk when they walked into Homicide. She looked up with a grin. "Good news. We finally ID'd Count Dracula. Clarence Parmley, formerly of Columbia, Missouri. His prints came in from the FBI this morning, on file from an arrest in 1971 for civil disobedience—protesting U.S. involvement in Viet Nam." She puffed her cigar. "I gather that was in the halcyon days of youth, before he became a vampire."

Serruto appeared in the doorway of his office. "Briefing. Let's get to it, troops. Bad news, Harry. Lieutenant Fogelsong in Burglary just called me. There was a break-in at the Philos Foundation last night. A blood bank technician is in the hospital with a concussion and the file cabinets were all jimmied open. Another tech in the building who caught a glimpse of the intruder describes him as a man with light-colored hair and a stocking over his face."

Garreth's stomach dropped in dismay.

"It couldn't have been Garreth," Harry protested. "I had his door locked from the outside."

"Did you have the window barred?" Girimonte asked.

Serruto said, "We ought to know something one way or the other before too long. The tech said she'd come downtown sometime this morning to look at mug shots. You won't mind sticking around here for a lineup instead of going out with Takananda and Girimonte, will you, Mikaelian?"

Harry's mouth tightened.

But Garreth made himself shrug. "Of course not."

He slumped in a chair, closing his eyes. A break-in. It had to have happened after he left. But . . . who? Lane? She had passed as a man before. Last night's dream came back to him. Cold ran down his spine. The hair color could be from dye, or a wig.

Had she followed him there? She must have. She must have been watching him all along. It was too much for coincidence that Maruska's killer intercepted him before Garreth arrived and that Holle's killer and the Philos burglar went to work just after Garreth left them.

After the briefing ended, Harry and Girimonte picked up their coats and headed for the door. "Oh, if you need something to do, Mikaelian, you can read the book Fowler gave me," Girimonte called back. "It's in the upper lefthand drawer of my desk."

You know what you can do with your book, honey, Garreth thought.

Fifteen minutes later he found himself reaching for the book anyway. It was the only thing to do. Everyone else remaining in the squadroom avoided him as though he had caught AIDS. Concentration proved as difficult as it had been the night before, though. His mind kept slipping back to the break-in and Lane, a distraction not helped by a tall, charming brunette in the book who reminded Garreth of Lane. He gripped the book, white-knuckled. How could she still be alive? How?

Serruto tapped his shoulder. "Let's go. That witness from the Philos Foundation is in Burglary."

Garreth had filled in for several lineups before. Since he had not been the man the technician saw, this should be no different, he told himself. Then while shuffling into the lighted box with four other lean, blondish officers, it occurred to him that the technician might have described not someone she saw at all but someone Lane, using hypnotic powers, told her she saw. He bit his lip. This could be the evidence Lane intended to incriminate him once and for all.

"Face the front," a voice said from the speaker overhead.

Garreth put his back against the height-graduated wall.

"Number three, take off your glasses."

Slowly he complied, and stood squinting into the lights that kept him from seeing who sat on the darkened side of the glass wall facing him.

An eternity dragged by while the hair prickled all over Garreth's body and cold ate into his bones. Smells of blood and aftershave and cigarette smoke pressed around him, strengthed by confinement in the lineup box.

"That's all," said the voice from the speaker.

He put his glasses back on and they all shuffled out.

To Garreth's surprise, only Serruto waited for him. Grinning, the lieutenant slapped his back. "Congratulations; you're too short."

He could not feel much relief. That might lift suspicion from him but a burglar taller than he did not rule out Lane.