She said, "Yeah, Tighe. I remember the original case. I was in Guat at the time, but I read what the wire services had on it. I recall thinking that it was hard getting all excited about a couple or three people getting killed in New York when we had them in windrows along every road in the country. That was the guy that snatched Marlene, or was that his brother?"

"The brother," said Karp. "And the mom. She was running a Satanic pedophile ring out of a fancy day-care center. The brother was a feeb, and she'd trained him to pick up stray little girls off the streets, like a Labrador retriever. She was aiming to make Felix the next prince of darkness, or whatever, but he liked freelance evil instead. Go have children."

"I thought that whole Satanic ritual in the day-care center was a load of horseshit. Like an urban legend."

"It is," said Karp. "But there's always the exception. One giant alligator really does live down in the sewers, and one poodle really did go into the microwave. This one was it for the Satanic day cares. We never tried the case. The old lady killed herself in custody and the brother died, too, and the only other witnesses were the kids, and I wasn't going anywhere near that."

"Marlene plugged him, didn't she?" asked Stupenagel. "Now it's coming back. God, how the years fly! This was when you were still a rug rat, Murrow. I might have dandled you on my knee. I might still, if you're lucky. Yeah, now that I think about it, that was Marlene's first hit, wasn't it?"

Karp was silent.

"Yeah, it was. But not anywhere near the last. What's the count now, or don't you keep track? No comment? Oh, right, this is talking rope in the house of the hanged, isn't it?" She slapped her cheek. "Naughty, naughty Stupenagel- again! Murrow, this is why I so infrequently get invited back, except regrettably, by horny short men. There was something else about the mother, too, wasn't there? Didn't get a lot of play?"