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greeted us more quickly than Mike did. “
Signorina
Cooper.
Detectivo—buona sera.”
He called out to the headwaiter,
“
Dominick, give Ms. Cooper table one,
subito.
”
    The four of us made ourselves comfortable at the round table in the front window and ordered our drinks. Vickee and I decided to stay light with a glass of white wine.
    “Tell us everything,” I said to Mike.
    “It was a really frustrating day. I’m hoping we get a jump after the autopsy tomorrow. That’s set for two P.M. , and I’ll be there. Not much to go on so far.”
    “I’m glad you’ll stand in. I never got a chance to swing by the morgue today.”
    “Did you catch Scully’s clip on the news?” Vickee asked.
    “I heard it on the radio coming over.”
    “Did the search turn up anything?” I said.
    “Yeah. About ten minutes after you took off this morning, one of the rookies walked out of the bushes.” Mike pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and held it up with his knife centered inside it, the white cotton cloth draped around it. “He had his pen hoisted up and a pair of white panties—like maybe the biggest size they make—hanging off the pen so he didn’t mess them up. ‘These must have come off the dead girl,’ the kid says proudly.”
    “But she’s so thin.”
    “That’s only half the point. Within minutes, four other guys nosing into four other bushes come out with white panties in the air. Some with polka dots, one with glitter, one with lace—and a bright green thong, too. There was so much white cloth waving in the air, I thought the NYPD was surrendering to Hannibal.”
    “What does that tell you?” I asked. “The underwear, I mean.”
    “Springtime in Central Park, Coop. It tells me that all the young lovers with no place else to go try to find a sweet spot between there and Strawberry Fields to get it on late at night. It tells me that the lab will be up to its eyeballs in analyzing jism from intimate garments that have nothing to do with our homicide. But you can’t chance to ignore a single one of them.”
    “Do you have any idea how big that Park is?” Mercer asked.
    “Yeah, actually. We got some stats today,” Mike said. “843 acres, and we haven’t even done a thorough job on one of them so far. And they’re all being trampled by the press-hounds who are hoping to beat us to a solution. You’ve got entire countries—like Monaco—that are smaller than Central Park. It’s only 489 acres, the whole thing.”
    “It’s not a country,” I said. “Monaco, I mean. It’s a principality.”
    Mike rolled his eyes. “Another factoid from the vast archives of a Wellesley College scholar.”
    “I wasn’t correcting you. I was just—”
    “I know you weren’t, Coop. You were just being yourself. Hey, Dominick,” Mike called out. “What are the specials? We’ve got to get these broads to the airport.”
    Vickee and I split a tricolore salad and an order of orecchietti con broccoli rabe
,
while Mike and Mercer both started with the penne pasta special followed by veal chops. Murder was never an inhibitor for Mike’s appetite.
    “Obviously, you know you can call me if anything develops before we’re back,” I said. “Vickee will be getting constant info from DCPI. Are you working all weekend?”
    “I was supposed to anyway. Today was my first day back on. I’ll start at the canvass in the morning both days, be at the ME’s office tomorrow afternoon.”
    “Can I canvass with you on Monday?”
    “Suit yourself.”
    Mercer put his drink down. “Alex was really helpful to us on the Reservoir rapist case. People that didn’t want to be bothered breaking their jog for a tough old cop like me were willing to talk to her.”
    “Didn’t I just say she could come along? By then, Scully will have announced the formation of a task force, right?”
    Every major case that wasn’t solved immediately and might benefit from the collaboration of some of the special agencies within the NYPD