AS BEST ANYONE could reconstruct events at this time, Benton had been lured to his dreadful death. We had no clue as to what had drawn him to the small grocery store on Walnut Street, or if, perhaps, he simply had been abducted somewhere else and then forced up a ladder into the plenum of that small building in its bad part of town. We believed he had been handcuffed at some point, and the continuing search had also turned up wire twisted into a figure eight that most likely had restrained the ankles that had burned away.

His car keys and wallet were recovered, but not his Sig Sauer nine-millimeter pistol or gold signet ring. He had left several changes of clothing in his hotel room, and his briefcase, which had been searched and turned over to me. I stayed the night in Teun McGovern’s house. She had posted agents on the property, because Carrie was still out there somewhere, and it was only a matter of time.

She would finish what she had started, and the important question, really, was who would be next and if she would succeed. Marino had moved into Lucy’s tiny apartment and was keeping watch from her couch. The three of us had nothing to say to each other because there was nothing to say, really. What was done was done.

McGovern had tried to get through to me. Several times the previous night she had brought tea or food into my room with its blue-curtained window overlooking the old brick and brass lanterns of the row houses in Society Hill. She was wise enough not to force anything, and I was too ruined to do anything but sleep. I continued to wake up feeling sick and then remember why.

I did not remember my dreams. I wept until my eyes were almost swollen shut. Late Thursday morning, I took a long shower and walked into McGovern’s kitchen. She was wearing a Prussian blue suit, drinking coffee and reading the paper.

“Good morning,” she said, surprised and pleased that I had ventured out from behind my closed door. “How are you doing?”

“Tell me what’s happening,” I said.

I sat across from her. She set her coffee cup on the table and pushed back her chair.

“Let me get you coffee,” she said.

“Tell me what is going on,” I repeated. “I want to know, Teun. Have they found out anything yet? At the morgue, I mean?”

She was at a loss for a moment, staring out the window at an old magnolia tree heavy with blossoms that were limp and brown.

“They’re still working on him,” she finally spoke. “But based on indications so far, it appears his throat may have been cut. There were cuts to the bones of his face. Here and here.”

She pointed to her left jaw and space between the eyes.