Stone was twenty minutes late to work. When he walked into the squad room, the place went quiet. Dino stood up from his desk and waved Stone toward the stairs.

“What’s up?” Stone asked as they trotted up the steps together.

“Leary wants us in the conference room. There’s brass here.”

“Oh, shit,” Stone said.

Down one side of the long table were arrayed the detective squad commander, Lieutenant Leary; Chief of Detectives Vincent Delgado, a slim, rather elegant man in his fifties; and an imposing black man Stone recognized from his photographs, who was wearing the well-pressed uniform of a deputy commissioner. Deputy commissioners were mayoral appointees. Stone didn’t know the other man, who looked like a banker, in a pin-striped suit, white shirt, and sober necktie.

“Chief, you already know Barrington and Bacchetti,” Leary said.

Delgado nodded, managing a tight smile.

“Commissioner Waldron, these are detectives second grade Barrington and Bacchetti,” Leary said unnecessarily.

“I’m glad to meet you, men,” Waldron said. “I’ve heard a lot about both of you.”

“Oh, shit,” Dino said under his breath, not moving his lips.

“Right,” Stone whispered back. Waldron had been a hot assistant DA when he had joined the campaign staff of the mayor, and, after the election, he had been the mayor’s first appointee to a law enforcement position. It was said Waldron had mayoral ambitions of his own, since the mayor had let it be known that he would not be running for a third term. Waldron had a reputation for meddling in police investigations.

“And, Detectives,” Leary continued, “this is John Everett, special agent in charge of the New York office of the FBI.”

Everett, expressionless, nodded sleepily.

“If you’ll forgive me, gentlemen,” Waldron said to Leary and Delgado, “I’ll tell the detectives why we’re here.”

“Of course, sir,” Leary said.

Delgado merely nodded.

Waldron turned to the detectives. “I want to forget what I’ve read in the reports and what I’ve read in the papers. I want to hear from you every step that has been taken in the Sasha Nijinsky investigation, from day one. From minute one. And don’t leave anything out.”

Goddamn Leary, Stone thought. If he’d given them a few hours’ notice he could have put together some kind of presentation. Now he would have to wing it.

“From minute one,” Waldron repeated. “Go.”

“Sir,” Stone began, “I was proceeding on foot down the west side of Second Avenue at approximately two A.M. on the night of the…occurrence. I was off duty. I happened to look up, and I witnessed the…Ms. Nijinsky’s fall.” He was still having trouble calling the event a crime and Nijinsky a victim.

“This actually happened?” Waldron interrupted. “The papers got it right?”

“Mostly, sir.” He continued to relate the events of that night. When he got to the collision of the ambulance with the fire engine, Waldron started shaking his head.