Myron shook his head.

"A plane crash killed my Michael three years ago. Now an animal has tortured and killed my girl. My wife, her name was Melina too, passed away fifteen years ago. There is no one. Forty-eight years ago, I thought I came to this country with nothing. I made a lot of money. And now I truly have nothing. You understand?"

"Yes," Myron said.

"Is that all, then?"

"Your daughter had an apartment on Broadway."

"Yes."

"Are her personal belongings still there?"

"Sandra--that's my daughter-in-law--she's been packing her things. But it's all still there. Why?"

"I'd like to go through them, if it's okay with you."

"The police already did that."

"I know."

"You think you might find something they didn't?"

"I'm almost positive I won't."

"But?"

"But I'm attacking this thing from a different perspective. It gives me a fresh set of eyes."

George Garston flicked on his desk lamp. The yellow from the bulb painted his face a dark jaundice. Myron could see that his eyes were too dry, brittle like fallen acorns in the sun. "If you find whoever killed my Melina, you will tell me first."

"No," Myron said.

"Do you know what he did to her?"

"Yes. And I know what you want to do. But it won't make you feel any better."

"You say this like you know it for a fact."

Myron kept silent.

George Garston flicked off the light and turned away. "Sandra will take you over now."

"He sits in that study all day," Sandra Garston told him, pressing the elevator button. "He won't go out anymore."

"It's still new," Myron said.

She shook her head. Her blue-black hair fell in big, loose curls, like thermal fax paper fresh out of the machine. But despite the hair color, her overall effect was almost Icelandic, the face and build of a world-class speed skater. Her features were sharp and ended rather abruptly. Her skin had the red of raw cold.

"He thinks he has no one," she said.

"He has you."

"I'm a daughter-in-law. He sees me and it's like a tether to Michael. I don't have the heart to tell him I finally started dating."

When they reached the street, Myron asked, "Were you and Melina close?"

"I think so, yes."

"Did you know about her relationship with Stan Gibbs?"

"Yes."

"But she never told her father."

"Oh, she would never. Papa didn't approve of most men. A married one would have sent him off the ledge."

They crossed the street and into the mid-city wonder known as Central Park. The park was packed on this rather spectacular day. Asian sketch artists hustled business. Men jogged by in those shorts that look suspiciously like diapers. Sunbathers lazed around on the grass, crowded together yet totally alone. New York City is like that. E. B. White once said that New York bestows the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. Damn straight. It was like everyone was plugged into their own internal Walkman, each playing a different tune, bopping obliviously to his or her own beat.