PROLOGUE

You are awakened out of a sound sleep at 3:47 A.M. by the persistent ring of your telephone.     Slowly coming fully awake, you hear the voice of a man that you do not recognize call you by name and apologize for calling you in the middle of the night.

 "My name is Howard Carletter," the voice says.  "I'm a deputy chief with the Toledo Police Department.  Your name was given to me as someone who could possibly help with an investigation."

 You ask what kind of an investigation.  "Homicide," Carletter replies.

 Before you can ask why you might be needed to help with a homicide investigation in Toledo, Carletter says, "A car will be at your residence in an hour.  You'll be well paid for your services.   I wouldn't be asking you to take part, but it's vital that someone with your skills assist us, and you were highly recommended to us.  Thank you for your help.."

 And before you can protest or ask any other questions, he hangs up.

 The hired limo pulls up exactly sixty minutes later, and the driver cannot tell you anything except that he was employed to take you to the airport.  A chartered jet takes you to Toledo, where two men in black suits greet you on the tarmac and lead you to another vehicle, a black SUV, where you find yourself in the company of other people who look as confused as you..  Some of them have the same questions you have, but no one has any answers.

 You are driven to a townhouse on the outskirts of the city, a quiet, peaceful neighborhood.  It is now early morning, and the sun is up but most of the local residents are not.  Your black-suited escorts lead you into the house and take you to the second floor.

 Howard Carletter is a tall, slender man with salt-and-pepper hair.  He wears plainclothes and shows no outward sign of being a policeman, but he is obviously the man in charge.  Quickly he introduces you to the others who were brought to this place with you, and their names mean nothing to you.

 Carletter says, "This is the residence of Alvin W. Rothstein, age 79, who has lived here for the past twenty-seven years.  He was a retired corporate attorney, divorced three times, two of his ex-wives now deceased.   At approximately eleven p.m. last evening, his daughter Mrs. Sandra Travers, worried that she could not reach Rothstein on the phone, came to this house.  She found all doors locked and the alarm armed.  Admitting herself with a spare key, she entered and found this."

 Dramatically, Carletter opens the door to what probably had been the man's study.  The room has been ransacked -- papers and books are strewn all over from what must have been a frantic effort to find something.  In the center of the room, lying face down, is the bloody corpse of an elderly man.  He is dressed in an undershirt, beige slacks, and slippers.  Several stab wounds are apparent in his back, and a pool of blood surrounds his torso and has soaked into the carpeting.

 "Alvin W. Rothstein was stabbed eleven times in the chest and back.  Our best guess is that at least four different edged weapons were involved, probably swords.  We'll know more after the autopsy.  Because I am a friend of her mother's family, Sandra called me and asked me to investigate personally.  At the moment, this is not yet an official investigation.  No report has been filed, no coroner has been notified.  The men who brought you here are off-duty Toledo policemen who answer to me and who are being paid by Mrs. Travers, same as you will be.  Until I get some answers to some curious features to this crime scene, there will be no police report.  I brought you in because I've been told you might be able to answer some of the questions I have."

 Someone asks what his questions are.  "First, how did the killer or killers enter the house?" Carletter asks.  "There's no sign of forced entry.  All the door and windows were locked and the alarm was set.  Even if someone had a key and knew the alarm code, there'd be a logged entry that the alarm had been deactivated for a time -- and there wasn't.    Also, what does this mean?"

 He removes a sheet of black plastic that had been concealing Rothstein's right hand and the carpet around it.  In his own blood, the man had written the letters SOF on the carpet.  "At the rate he was losing blood, Rothstein had only a few seconds to leave this message.  If only we knew what it meant.  And here's the last piece of the puzzle.  What do you make of this?"

 The police detective swings the study door shut.  In the heavy oak of the door, sunk to a depth of about two inches, is the blade of a large, heavy dagger.  Impaled on the dagger is a rectangular piece of thick paper, what seems to be at first glance some kind of playing card.  Moving closer, you can see that the card seems to be from possibly a Tarot deck, and the image painted on the card is that of a man, black-haired and green-eyed.  There is a sword on his hip, and his black cloak is fastened at the throat by a silver rose...

 

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