“Which you half-figured.”

“True,” I said, “but I didn’t think it would be too far off the mark. I don’t know what I thought she had, but I didn’t think it was this.” I handed her the photo of Paulson in his skivvies.

She raised her eyebrows. “OK,” she said slowly, “but still, so what? This picture’s, like, six or eight years old, and all it shows is Paulson, half-dressed. However unappetizing, it’s not news. Not worth killing over.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Look at the guy with Paulson, though. He doesn’t look like he runs in the same circles exactly.”

She looked at the guy. He was slim, wearing a blue crew-neck shirt over a pair of white trousers. He wore a lot of gold on his wrists, his neck and his hair looked simultaneously matted and flyaway. His eyes were all sullen reproach, those of the terminally angry. He looked to be about thirty-five.

“No, he doesn’t,” she said. “We know him?”

I shook my head. “He could be Socia. He could be Roland. He could be neither. But he definitely doesn’t look like a state rep.”

“He looks like a pimp.”

“That too.” I pointed to the cheap chest and mirror in the photo. Reflected in the mirror was a bed, unmade. Beyond that, the corner of a door. On the door were two square pieces of paper. I couldn’t make out what they said, but one looked like the rules and regulations of a motel, and the smaller one below it looked like a check-in, check-out time reminder. A Do-Not-Disturb sign hung from the doorknob. “And this looks like...”

“A motel,” she said.

“Ver-ry good,” I said. “You should be a detective.”

“You should stop impersonating one,” she said and flipped the photo back on the table. “So, what’s all this mean, Sherlock?”

“You tell me, Spanky.”

She lit a cigarette and sipped her beer and thought about it.

“These photos might be the tip of the iceberg. Maybe there’re more of them, and they’re a lot worse. Someone, either Socia or Roland or dare I say it? someone in the political machine had Jenna eliminated because they knew she’d blow the whistle on whatever it is. That what you’re thinking?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Well,” she said, “either they’re really dumb, or you are.” “Why’s that?”

“Jenna had the pictures in her safety-deposit box, correct?”

I nodded.

“And when someone is murdered, standard police procedure is to get a court warrant and open every can of worms the victim had in her pantry. Of which, the safety-deposit box is definitely one. I assume they’ve already figured the bank was the last place before she...”

“Died,” I said.

“Yes. So, they’re probably on their way down to open it as we speak. And anyone with half a brain could have foreseen that.”

“Maybe they figured she’d taken everything out of there and given it to me.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But that’s leaving an awful lot to chance. Don’t you think? Unless, somehow, they were positive that she wasn’t going to leave anything behind in there.”