Placing the cassette atop the plastic cover of my turntable, he removed a small brush and a vial from the case. Dipping the brush into the vial, he dusted the cassette with a pale, ashlike powder, squinting as he worked.

“Well, looks like we've got some nice ridges and swirls,” he said. “But they could all be yours. Your prints are on file with the medical board, right, so I can check?”

“They printed me when I got my license.”

“Meaning a week or two going through channels in order to pry it loose from Sacramento—noncriminal stuff's not on PRINTRAK yet. You haven't been arrested for anything recently, have you?”

“Nothing I can remember.”

“Too bad. Okay, let's get a quick fix on your digits right now.”

He took an inkpad and fingerprint form from the case. The dog watched as he inked my fingers and rolled them on the form. The audiocassette was near my hand and I looked at the concentric white patches on its surface.

“Keep that pinkie loose,” said Milo. “Feel like a scumbag felon yet?”

“I don't say squat without my lawyer, pig.”

He chuckled and handed me a cloth. As I wiped my fingers, he took a small camera out of the case and photographed the prints on the tape. Flipping the cartridge over with the pencil, he dusted, raised more prints on the other side, and took pictures of them, muttering, “Might as well do it right.” Then he lowered the cassette into a small box lined with cotton, sealed the container, and put it into the case.

“What do you think?” I said.

He looked at my print form, then at the tape, and shook his head. “They always look the same to me. Let the lab deal with it.”

“I meant about the tape. Sound like any movie you know?”

He ran his hand over his face, as if washing without water. “Not really.”

“Me neither. Didn't the kid's voice have a brainwashed quality to it?”

“More like brain dead,” he said. “Yeah, it was ugly. But that doesn't make it real. Far as I'm concerned, it's still filed under B for “bad joke.' ”

“Someone getting a child to chant as a joke?”

He nodded. “We're living in weird times, Doc.”

“But what if it is real? What if we're dealing with a sadist who's abducted and tortured a child and is telling me about it in order to heighten the kick?”

“The screamer was the one who sounded tortured, Alex. And that was an adult. Someone's messing with your head.”

“If it's not Wallace,” I said, “maybe it's some psychopath picking me as his audience because I treat kids and sometimes my name gets in the papers. Someone who read about Becky's murderer screaming “bad love' and got an idea. And for all I know, I'm not the only therapist he's contacted.”

“Could be. When was the last time you were in the papers?”