Dempsey got there just as the crime scene techs were arriving. He followed them into the building, ducking under the police tape that a patrolman held up, ignoring the questions yelled by the reporters and photographers jammed on the sidewalk. This was a hot story and everyone wanted a piece. 

He went to get on the elevator, but another patrolman was there to stop him. 

"Sorry, Lieutenant, but it's part of the crime scene." 

"What do you mean?" 

"They think the perp used it." 

Dempsey glanced inside the car. "How? Weren't our people down here?" 

The cop pointed. "There's blood on the floor, they think from his shoe. That's as much as I know." He cocked his thumb at a nearby door. "Everybody's using the stairs. But I'm supposed to tell you to watch where you step when you get to four, in case there's more traces." 

Up in the studio, Simone's body was still on the floor in its pool of blood, a cluster of uniforms and detectives standing over by the door. They moved aside as the CSOs came in with their kits and cameras and went over to the body to go to work. One of the detectives, a sergeant named Cochran, saw Dempsey come in and went over to him. 

"Hey, Loo, sorry about the stairs." 

"What's the story?" 

"It looks like your basic Sickblade. He took the tongue."  

"Your man downstairs said he used the elevator. That's pretty ballsy. Why wasn't it covered?" 

"We think he used it to go up," Cochran said. 

Dempsey squinted. After a moment he nodded. "To the roof." 

Cochran indicated the windows at the end of the room, the view of the buildings outside. "The SWAT guys are out doing the neighborhood." 

"What makes you so sure he went that way?" 

"Actually, it wasn't us." 

"What do you mean?" 

Cochran inclined his head toward a row of chairs at the opposite end of the room. Sitting in one, staring at the activity around Simone's body, was Lady Gaga.        

"She said she saw him up there," Cochran said. "Whatever that means. But when we found the blood in the elevator, it sounded right. And coming from her, I mean, she was here." 

Dempsey nodded and watched Gaga - then crossed the rehearsal floor and took a seat next to her. "Hello." 

"Hello," she said. 

"I'm sorry about your friend." 

Gaga nodded. 

"You OK?" 

"I'm fine." Not sounding it. 

He watched her for a moment sitting there stone-faced. "We'll find him." 

"We'll meet again, he said." 

"Excuse me?" 

"That's what he told me." 

"You spoke to him?" 

"Just before I got my ass out of here." 

Dempsey glanced over at the group by the door to make sure they were out of earshot. "You were in the car when you first called me. Is that right?" 

"Yes." 

"Like you knew this was happening." 

"I could see it." 

Dempsey cocked an eyebrow. "You could see it?" 

"It's a long story." 

"I'd like to hear it." 

Gaga looked toward the door, saw she was being watched. Even in New York, rock royalty gets attention, especially at a murder scene. 

This wasn't lost on Dempsey. "Would you rather we do this at my office? I have to take your statement." He gestured toward the other cops. "It won't be long before word leaks that you're up here. And it's a zoo downstairs." 

Gaga sat still for a moment -- then nodded and got to her feet. 

She went over to the milling cops and politely asked one of them to step aside with her, a woman officer wearing a blue N.Y.P.D. windbreaker and baseball cap. She spoke quietly to the woman who after a moment gave an accommodating nod. She turned around and let Gaga help her out of her jacket. 

Downstairs on the street, all media eyes were on Dempsey when he came out of the building. "We'll have something for you in an hour, I promise." There were groans and shouts from the reporters but Dempsey kept moving. 

No one paid attention to the female officer in the baseball cap and windbreaker who followed him over to his unmarked car, held the back door open and got in after him. 

                                                #          #          # 

At the Midtown North station house, Dempsey led her through the detective bullpen, cops at their desks hardly giving her a glance in the borrowed outfit. She stepped inside his cubbyhole office, took a seat in the visitor chair he offered. He sat down at his cluttered metal desk and asked if she'd like coffee. 

"No, I'm fine, thank you." 

They hadn't talked in the car, Dempsey not wanting the cop who was driving to hear what he sensed would be a strange conversation. 

"So tell me this long story," he said. 

Gaga took a few seconds to decide where to start. Took a resigned breath and began telling him how she'd always had what could best be described as psychic insights. 

"I always seemed to pick up on things that other people didn't." 

"Like what?" 

"Like knowing what people were thinking before they came out and said it. Or didn't say it, because it wasn't nice and they wouldn't want me to know." 

"That could strain a friendship." 

"Sometimes it did." 

"But this thing with Sickblade -- that's more than just picking up some waves." 

"It is." 

Dempsey took a minute to consider this. "At the cemetery the other day, you kept looking around, over your shoulder. What was that about?" 

"He was there. Watching the burial." 

"You saw him?" 

"No, but he was there." 

"You sensed him." 

"People like him do that, getting their jollies." 

Dempsey nodded, knowing this was true. 

Gaga continued. "I'm pretty sure I did see him, though, another time besides today, when I was coming offstage after a concert." 

"How did you know it was him?" 

"Just that feeling. I think he was a stagehand." 

"This was recent?" 

"My show last week at the Beacon." 

 Dempsey studied her. "Could you describe him to a sketch artist?" 

Gaga shook her head. "He was back in the shadows. It was more like I felt him there, his presence, like it was coming back from some dream." 

Dempsey tried not to look skeptical. He reached for a legal pad and made some notes. Looked up. "Going back to the cemetery..." 

"What about it?" 

"You never did tell me the name of the brother of that girl who was buried in that other grave. The friend of Szu." 

"Does he have to be involved?" 

"He already is." 

Gaga hesitated... then said, "His name is Toko. Spelled with a k." 

Dempsey wrote it on his pad. "Last name?" 

Again the hesitation. 

Dempsey looked at her. "Is it the same as the name on her headstone?" 

She was about to say yes, was interrupted by a voice at the open door.   

"Excuse me, Lieutenant..." A patrolman stood in the doorway holding Gaga's dance bag. "They sent this over for the lady." 

"Thank you," Gaga said, and got up to take the bag. "Here, let me give you these." She put the bag down and took off the ball cap and windbreaker she'd borrowed. The patrolman blinked when he recognized her.

"Will someone be going back?" Gaga said. "They belong to officer McKeon." 

 The patrolman looked at Dempsey, who said to Gaga, "We'll make sure officer McKeon gets her things." He asked the patrolman, "Any report on the perp?" 

"Not that I heard." 

Dempsey gave him a nod of thanks and dismissal, tossed the legal pad onto his desk and asked Gaga, "What's your bodyguard situation?"   

Gaga finger-combed her hair back. "I have a couple guys for public appearances, concerts and stuff. But mostly I just stay low-profile, fake it, try to blend. Why?" 

"You're in jeopardy now. This guy wants you. You'll have to rethink your security." 

Gaga frowned. "I like my freedom." 

"Don't we all. But these are different times." 

                                                #          #          # 

The unmarked car pulled up to the San Cristo apartments on Central Park West. Gaga got out and thanked the plainclothes cop who drove her, glanced at the unmarked that had followed them and was pulling into a No Parking zone. The two detectives in it had been detailed by Dempsey to watch her. 

She nodded to the doorman on her way inside, went over to the elevators and got into one that was waiting. 

She took it up to the apartment on fifteen, got off in the hallway and got her adrenaline jolted. 

"Jesus," she said when the elevator doors closed behind her and I stepped into the hallway. "I forgot you were going to be here." 

Her lawyer and his family were coming back from Florida and she had to move back to her own place. I told her I'd help and she'd left word with the super to let me in. 

"You look frazzed," I said. 

"You don't know the half." 

I took her dance bag from her and we walked back to the kitchen. She got herself a glass of water and started telling me about her day. 

Some day.

"Sit down," I said after she'd hit the high points. "I'll make us a sandwich." 

"I'm not hungry." 

"You gotta eat." 

I went over to the fridge. "So you found her body and he was still there? How'd you get out?" 

"Fast." 

I pulled out some cold cuts and mayo, put them on the counter and got down some plates.  

She said, "They want me to get a full-time bodyguard." 

"That's probably not a bad idea." 

"You got any interest?" 

"Yeah, right. Giant me."  

"I'm serious. I need someone who can keep an eye out, knows my shtick and can blend. Who won't be a pain in the ass. There's already two cops assigned to me. They're downstairs. My cell is hooked in, we can call them if we need to. Anyway, think about it."  

While I thought about it and made the sandwiches (I could use the money, which I figured there'd be) she told me about how Dempsey had put this detail on her, how he'd sent in the SWATs when she'd called about Sickblade, how he'd handled the reporters at the crime scene and stuff. 

"Sounds like he's running the show," I said. 

"He's running it because I called him. I had his card from the cemetery. It's actually not his jurisdiction." 

"Uh-huh." Of course, I was thinking how he was connected to Tanya's fetus. How if he could kill Sickblade, then Tanya's murder would die too. Clear the case and her killer walks.  

I put some mayo on a pair of turkey sandwiches and passed her one. 

"Thanks," she said, and took a bite. 

"It sounds like Dempsey's making a take-no-prisoners run at Sickblade." 

"It's his job. Or he's making it his." 

"Uh-huh. Using you as bait." 

She thought about that while she chewed. "I hadn't looked at it that way." 

"Well maybe you better."

        (To be continued...)