Inside my office I sternly turned my back on the futon behind my photocopier and powered up my computer. I logged on to LifeStory and submitted the name and social security number of the man Darraugh wanted to put in charge of his paper division.

Most investigators use a service like LifeStory. Data on things you imagine are private, like your income, your tax returns, those education loans you welched on, and how much you owe on that late–model four–by–four—not to mention your moving violations in it—are all available to people like me. In theory you have to know something about the person, like a social security number and perhaps a mother’s maiden name, to get this information, but there are easy ways around that, too. When I first went on–line two years back, I was shocked by how easy it was to violate people’s privacy. Every time I log on to LifeStory I squirm—but that doesn’t make me cancel my subscription.

The menu asked me how much detail I needed. I clicked on FULL BACKGROUND and was told that it would be a forty–eight–hour turnaround for the report—unless I wanted to pay a premium. I took the slow cheap route and leaned back in my chair to look through my notes. The rest of the assignment would keep until tomorrow, when I’d be—I hoped—more alert. I checked with my answering service to see if anything urgent had come in and then, before calling it a day, phoned over to the morgue.

Dr. Bryant Vishnikov, the medical examiner and the only pathologist I know personally, had left at noon. When I explained that I was an investigator working for Max Loewenthal over at Beth Israel and wanted to know about the Jane Doe we’d sent in this morning, the morgue attendant tried to persuade me to wait until morning when Vishnikov would be in.

I could hear the television in the background, loud enough to make out Chip Caray’s patter about the Cubs. It’s amazing how little actual information about the game in progress sportscasters give—I couldn’t even tell who was at bat.

“The Cubs will still be here tomorrow, and maybe you will be too, but I can’t wait that long,” I told the attendant.

He sighed loudly enough to drown out the squawk of a chair scraping back from the desk.

“They haven’t done the autopsy yet,” he announced, after I’d held for four minutes. “She came in too late for the doc to start on her, and he didn’t want anyone else working on her, apparently.”

“What about her ID? Did the cops have any luck with AFIS?”

“Uh, yeah, looks like we got an ID.”

He was making me pay for forcing him to work while on shift. “Yes? Who was she?”

“Nicola Aguinaldo.”