City/Autumn/1941

The morning headlines reported that the Germans were closing in on Leningrad, but Detective Norman Cohen was focused on the more immediate task of cracking a murderer. He knew in his heart that Klemper had strangled Martha Dodd thirty-six hours before and he planned to prove it.

Jack Pierce entered the detective bull pen, humming "Chattanooga Choo-Choo."

"So how's the new father?" Cohen asked.

"Sixteen hours, twenty-three minutes, and four seconds old," Pierce replied, glancing at his Timex. "We named her Debra." He glanced down the corridor toward Interrogation Room 3. "I saw Klemper cooling his heels in Room 3. This trap of yours better work."

Cohen saw the door of Martha Dodd's apartment, the velvety white flowers that twined from the wooden trellis beside it. "It'll work," he answered confidently. "You know why?" He gave Pierce a thumbs-up. "Because we, my friend, are the good guys."

Pierce laughed and hung his hat and coat on the wooden rack just inside the door. "I'm ready."

Cohen glanced at the clock. Six fifty-eight A.M. "Okay. Let's do it."

"Ready."

They walked together up the corridor to Interrogation Room 3.

Klemper was seated at a square wooden table, back erect, hands folded neatly before him. "How long will this take?" he asked, smiling genially when the two detectives entered. "I have to be at work by eight."

Klemper was a bookkeeper for a shoe factory on Dawson Street, and to Cohen's eye, he looked the part. His dark hair glistened with Brilliantine. His gold-rimmed glasses had lenses so thick they magnified the calculating eyes behind them. His suit was pressed, his vest buttoned, the crimson bow tie an unexpected gout of color. Everything was properly placed . . . and to Cohen all of it rang as false as two sets of books.

"I don't know why I'm being questioned again," Klemper told them.

"Because you have a record, for one thing," Pierce replied. "That little matter of attempted murder, remember?"

"That was over twenty years ago."

"The girl you tried to kill was the same age as Martha Dodd," Cohen reminded him.

"The method was the same, too," his partner added. "Strangulation."

"I was twenty-four, for God's sake." Klemper looked offended by the very notion that such an old offense was being used against him now. "And besides, I paid my debt to--"

"Martha Dodd worked for Dawson Shoes," Cohen interrupted.

"There must be forty or fifty girls in that factory," Klemper scoffed.

"Have you ever been to Braxton Apartments?" Pierce asked.

"Never."

"But you know where they are, don't you?" Cohen asked.

"No, I don't."

"Martha Dodd lived in 8-D."

"So you've told me." Klemper drew a shiny watch from his vest pocket, and flipped the lid. "I really need to be going. . . ."

Cohen sat across the table from Klemper. He looked him dead in the eye. "Tell me, Art, you want to live or die?"

"That question is absurd."

"The chair, that's what we're talking about." Pierce leaned over to take the watch from Klemper's fingers. "Whether you fry in it or not."

"You're wasting your time with these outlandish--"

"What'll it be, Art?" Cohen broke in sternly. "Life? Or the chair?"

Klemper brushed his right sleeve. "If you have some reason for keeping me here, Detective, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, I intend--"

"Remember Patricia Clayborn? Eileen McDowell? Both strangled in their apartments." Cohen dropped the easy banter. His voice turned as wintry as his eyes. "You and Patty Clayborn both worked at Lambert Hospital Equipment. Patty was murdered. The same with Eileen McDowell, only that was at Klein Metal Shelving."

"Coincidences. So what?"

Cohen leaned forward. "Here's the deal. You tell us exactly what you did to Martha Dodd, or we'll tell you exactly what you did to her. If you put us to the trouble of doing that, the D.A. won't settle for anything less than death. If we tell you first, you'll go to the chair. It's that simple." He waited for a response, and when none came, he said, "There's this old German movie. A guy kills a kid, and somebody finds out, and the guy who finds out takes a piece of chalk and writes a great big M on the killer's coat. M -- for 'Murderer.' You ever see that movie, Art?"

"This is nonsense." Klemper lifted his head haughtily. "If you have nothing further, I'd like to be on my way."

Cohen drew an envelope from his jacket pocket and tapped it lightly against the table. He opened the envelope and scattered a few pink specks onto the battered surface of the table.

Pierce raised his wrist and glanced at his Timex. "You have sixty seconds, Klemper."

"To do what?" Klemper demanded.

Cohen was studying the specks on the table, no longer looking at Klemper. "To tell us what you did to Martha."

"Do you honestly believe that--"

"Fifty-five seconds," Pierce said.

Klemper glared at Pierce. "You can stop that melodramatic countdown."

"The apartment building where Martha lived is owned by Robert Braxton," Cohen said, nudging one of the specks with his fingertip.

"Fifty-one."

"Mr. Braxton is something of a horticulturist."

"Everyone needs a hobby," Klemper said with a slight chuckle.

"Forty-five."

"He grows rare flowers," Cohen continued. "There's a particularly rare one right at Martha's door. A vine. It has big white flowers, remember?"

"I was never anywhere near that girl's apartment," Klemper said evenly.

"Thirty-five."

"Braxton gave me the scientific name, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that those flowers are the only ones in the city."

"Thirty."

"That's why we got a warrant to search your apartment this morning," Cohen continued. "Our guys are there now."

Klemper's face tensed.

"Looking in your closet."

"Twenty."

"Looking for pollen from those big white flowers. Seems it's real messy, that pollen." He raised a pollen-smeared finger and turned it toward Klemper. "Sticks to anything the wind blows it on. Like your coat, Art. Or your shoes."

"Ten."

"Your clothes are marked," Cohen said ruthlessly. "Just like that guy in the movie."

"Five."

Klemper shifted in his seat. "Listen, maybe--"

"Marked by pollen." Cohen blew gently on his fingertip, sending a fine pink spray into the air.

"Four."

"Stop it!" Klemper snarled at Pierce.

"Three," Pierce said evenly.

"So what's your choice?" Cohen inquired, as if willing to do Klemper a very big favor.

"Two."

"Live?" Cohen asked.

Klemper stared around frantically.

"Or fry?"

"One."

"Live!" Klemper yelped.

Cohen's gaze swept over to Pierce, caught the satisfaction in his partner's dark eyes. He turned back to their prisoner. "Don't leave anything out, Mr. Klemper, or our deal is off."

Klemper was blinking frantically behind his thick lenses. "Pollen," he whispered.

Cohen looked down at the face powder he'd borrowed from one of the secretaries. He thought of the small gust that had stirred the sterile white blooms, a little breeze, nothing more, but one he suddenly imagined as rising from deep within the scheme of things, a gift to the good guys, dropped from on high into their outstretched hands.