"I didn't look around. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible."

"Did you have any reason to go into the kitchen, to put things away or clean anything up?"

"No. That's his problem."

Even better. It meant there was a shot that we might get lucky and still find some inculpatory evidence if Mercer and I could get going on this.

"I know it's been a long day for you, Jean. Just give us a few minutes to put things together and we'll be back," I said, stepping out of the room behind Mercer, who had picked up the cardboard evidence collection kit that had been prepared by the nurse-examiner at the hospital. We were in the hallway of the quiet corridor that Special Victims shared with the Manhattan North Homicide Squad.

"How long will it take to get the tox screening back on these?" he asked, referring to the slides and plastic bottles inside the compact box.

In addition to the traditional testing of fluids and stains recovered from a patient's body during the emergency room treatment of a rape victim, the latest kits required samples be taken of blood and urine for the most refined testing, as assailants used more sophisticated methods to overcome their prey.

"Seventy-two hours, if they jump us to the front of the line."

"I'm sending this whole thing to the M.E.'s office, to Serology?"

"It starts there," I said. Mercer knew that our medical examiner's serology lab did most of the analyses we needed. "Unfortunately, if there are any exotic drugs involved, it'll go out to a private lab and take even longer."

"Damn. I hate to give this bastard a three-day pass. We'll even have the DNA results by this time tomorrow."

"DNA tells us next to nothing in a case like this. We know they spent the night in his apartment. We know the docs recovered semen specimens from both women. None of that's a crime unless he used force-"