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a uniform as an escort because I was hoping to get her back alive.”
    “Stapleton’s apartment,” Dartelli clarified, itching for whatever information Bragg could supply and trying to appear nonchalant about it. The area north of the city where Stapleton had lived was not safe for a Caucasian out of uniform, even in the daytime.
    “We didn’t lift any red pubic hairs or head hairs, for that matter. And though the neighbors knew there was a girlfriend involved—a lot of shouting, evidently—she, Sam, didn’t get a name from them.”
    Dartelli had wanted to handle these interviews himself but had decided that on a north end suicide it might attract unnecessary attention within the department for him to express such interest. Leaving it to Bragg and Richardson had been difficult. Dart liked to maintain control, but he had complete faith in Bragg—at least when the man was healthy.
    “No name?” Dartelli asked, frustrated by the thought he might have lost his chance to connect Stapleton to whoever had been in that room with him.
    Lots of unanswered questions remained: Why had Stapleton traveled downtown to the De Nada, if his intention had been to commit suicide? And if his intention had not been to commit suicide, then why did he come prepared with the special screwdriver? And if his sole intention had been to have a whore on the night of his suicide, then why had Vice/Narcotics failed to produce the missing redhead? Given the two-hundred-dollar finder’s fee offered for information leading to the woman’s identity, it seemed inconceivable to Dartelli that they still had no solid leads. This was not a big town.
    “I didn’t say that,” Bragg corrected, “just that the neighbors were worthless as usual.”
    “You did get a name!” Dartelli said, seizing on the fact and belying his external calm. Give me the fucking name! he felt like shouting.
    “Sheesh, think you won the lottery or something,” Bragg said suspiciously. Knowing he had the man, Bragg was withholding the vital information. “No sign whatsoever of this woman currently residing in the apartment with Stapleton, except for an empty closet and a couple of empty drawers in the bathroom. Maybe she moved out, or something. And as I said: no red hairs—all black. Sam said the place was trashed up pretty bad; guy lived like a slob.”
    “Her name?” Dartelli asked, as calmly as possible.
    “And she didn’t find a note, or anything even close to explaining why he might have took the dive.” Studying Dart’s reaction, he said, “I didn’t think you’d like that.”
    “I need the woman’s name, Buzz. That’s where I start.”
    Attempting to sound definitive, Bragg stated, “You’re not going to ask us to compare fibers.” Adding quickly, “Not on a north end jumper, for Chrissakes. Put it to bed.”
    Dartelli hesitated and said, “Not for a north end jumper, no.”
    Bragg looked bothered. Dartelli couldn’t be sure if he was reading the man right, or if Bragg was indeed physically ill, but he was acting oddly, as if he might be concealing something. “Buzz?” Dartelli inquired, reminding himself at that moment of Ginny Rice because she always used Dart’s name as an interrogative, and it bothered him.
    “Priscilla Cole,” Bragg volunteered, heading off Dart’s inquiry. “Sam found phone and electric bills in the name of Priscilla Cole. Got to be the girlfriend.”
    Making note of it, Dartelli thanked the man.
    “What’s bugging you, anyway?” Bragg asked.
    Dartelli tried his best to wash the concern off his face. “Nothing.”
    “About this jump, I mean,” the lab man said. “I felt it from the get-go.”
    “I’ll be happier once I’ve talked to this redhead,” Dartelli explained. “Loose ends, you know.”
    “Zeller,” Bragg said.
    Dart’s throat constricted and he felt choked. Does Teddy know? he wondered.
    “He turned you into a worrier, just like him,” Bragg stated.
    The explanation flooded Dartelli with