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critical.”
    “Hancock’s a busy ER. You’d expect ODs to show up there.”
    “I spoke to the hospital lab. They ran a routine gas chromatography on the man’s blood.It turned up a biphasic peak on the narcotics screen. Not quite an opiate, not quite cocaine.”
    Wheelock said nothing. He simply sat there, frowning at her.
    “Davis,” she said, “we’re seeing the start of an epidemic.”

W HEELOCK SHOOK HIS HEAD . “I T ’ S TOO early to call,” he said. “Too early to go to the press. You’ve only got three vics—”
    “Guess where the young man lived? South Lexington. Within five blocks of where the two women were found. I’m telling you, there’s something new, something that’s killing off junkies. And South Lexington seems to be its point of origin. Here’s what I think you should do, Davis. Get on the phone to the mayor. Call a joint press conference. Get the news out before we get more John and Jane Does cluttering up my basement.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What don’t you know?”
    “It could be a single batch. Maybe that’s all it is.”
    “Or maybe there’s a whole ton of the stuff sitting in some pusher’s warehouse.”
    Agitated, Wheelock sat back and ran his hand through his gray hair. “All right. I’ll talk to the mayor. It’s a bad time to be bringing this up, what with the city bicentennial and all. He’s launching his campaign this week—”
    “Davis. People are dying .”
    “All right, all right. I’ll call him this afternoon.”
    Satisfied that she’d made her point, Kat left Wheelock’s office and headed down to the basement. In the corridor, two of the overhead fluorescent lights flickered like a strobe flash. Everything seemed to be wearing down, wearing out. The building. The city.
    And there they were, celebrating the bicentennial. What are we celebrating exactly, Mr. Mayor? Two hundred years of decline?
    Back in her office, Kat considered drinking the last dregs of the coffeepot. No, she wasn’t that desperate. Two files lay on her desk, files she couldn’t complete, perhaps would never be able to complete. One was Jane Doe’s. The other was for Xenia Vargas, the second woman from South Lexington. She, at least, had been found with ID in her purse, though they hadn’t yetconfirmed Vargas was really her name. Nor had they been able to contact any relatives.
    Two dead women. And no one who could tell her how—or why—they had died.
    On a corner of her desk was a notepad, with the name Dr. Michael Dietz scribbled on it. He was the ER doctor she’d spoken to earlier, the one who’d admitted the male overdose victim at Hancock General.
    It was five o’clock; she could hear the evening morgue attendants laughing in the prep room, enjoying the brief and blessed lull before the madness of nightfall.
    Kat changed into her street clothes, pulled on her coat, and left the building.
    She didn’t drive home. Instead she drove to South Lexington, to Hancock General Hospital.
    It sat like a fortress in a war zone, its parking lot surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, the front entrance overhung by surveillance cameras. The ER clerk was sitting behind glass—bulletproof, Kat surmised. He spoke through a microphone; the tinny voice coming through the speaker made Kat think of a McDonald’s drive-through. “How can I help you?” he asked.
    “I’m Dr. Novak,” she said. “ME’s office. Iwant to see a Dr. Michael Dietz. It’s about a patient of his.”
    “I’ll page him.”
    Dr. Dietz emerged a few minutes later, looking like some weary veteran of the trenches. A stethoscope was looped around his neck, and his scrub pants were splattered with blood. “You just caught me,” he said. “I was going off shift. You’re from the ME?”
    “We talked earlier. About that overdose.”
    “Oh yeah. He’s up in intensive care. I can’t remember his name …”
    “Can we go up to the unit?” she asked. “I’d like to look over his chart.”
    “I guess it’s