“You were in luck, Vic: the administrator in charge of the ER in the mornings is so meticulous a follower of regulations that he’s wasted on Beth Israel’s small protocols. He bagged and labeled the clothes. Do you want to pick them up?”

“No. I don’t want anyone claiming I could have tampered with them. I want him to messenger them over to Cheviot Labs. With a note on where they’ve been since coming off poor little Ms. Aguinaldo’s body yesterday. Shall I call Max and ask for that? Or can you?”

She said it would be quicker if she handled it. “And on the other matter, the report the paramedics filed, Max is asking Cynthia to fax you a copy.” She hung up on my thanks: she was in the middle of a ferocious patient schedule.

One of the things I invested in when I moved to my new building was a set of detailed maps of most of the states and an art–supply cabinet for storing them. I pulled out the counties of rural Georgia where one of Continental United’s trouble spots lay, hoping that I wouldn’t have to go there in person to see why so many tire punctures occurred on County Road G. As I drew a line on the map from Hancock’s Crossing, where Continental’s warehouse sat, to the intersection of County G and Ludgate Road, Freeman Carter’s secretary called.

“Freeman wants to talk you, Vic. He has an opening at twelve–fifteen if you can stop by his office.”

I thanked her and turned back to my maps. I was betting either a driver or a dispatcher owned a service station on that corner: it had to be someone who could make sure trucks used a particular route which they probably strewed with nails. The drivers then had no choice but to hike up the road to the station for their tires. I called the director of human resources whom I’d met with yesterday, and asked him to fax me copies of the repair bills. It would be annoying to have to go down and confront these people in person; I hoped I could figure it all out from the paper trail.

Vishnikov returned my call as I was getting ready to leave for my appointment with my lawyer. “Vic! What’s up? Need help hiding a body?”

“It may come to that, if a police ape named Lemour harasses me any further. But this is about a body you already have—Nicola Aguinaldo. She died yesterday at Beth Israel in the OR and came in too late for you to work on.”