"Do you know Jim and Rico pretty well?"

"Uh-uh, no way, I'm not getting into personalities. Not when you drag me here and make vicious accusations."

"The accusations are not ours, Pat. They're Elise's."

"How do I know that's true?"

"Why else would we be talking to you?"

"And Jim and Rico."

"Let's concentrate on you right now, Pat."

"There's nothing to concentrate on. I want to get out of here."

"That's your right," said Milo. "But it will result in a subpoena and further questioning at the police station."

Pat Skaggs gaped. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"A woman's dead and leaves behind a taped accusation. If we didn't follow through on something like that, would we be doing our job?"

No answer.

"What kind of grade would you give us for that type of sloppiness, Pat? D? F?"

Pat Skaggs ground her teeth. "She may have said it, but it never happened. Elise's death has nothing to do with me."

"That's why we need to sit back down and hear what you have to say."

"Oh, God," she said. "This is Kafkaesque."

Same adjective Hauer had used. If a tormented, tubercular Jew hadn't penned a handful of stories, what would academics do for emotional shorthand?

"I'm sure it feels that way, Pat. Let's head back and clear everything up."

"There's nothing to clear up," she said, but his gentle prod got her walking.

When she was back in the chair, I said, "So the sex was consensual?"

Milo's turn to blink.

Pat Skaggs didn't notice, her eyes were on me, wild and red-veined and bulging. Stricken as if I'd stripped her naked.

In a way, I had.

She let loose another flood of tears but made no attempt to bolt. Sat there snuffling and mumbling.

Milo said, "What's that, Pat?"

"It was only twice." She sat up. "Now you're going to say it's because of Wellesley, well, it's not, I'm tired of all those Harvard-boy jokes and I wasn't gay at Wellesley, I had a boyfriend, I was engaged to be married."

"Your sexuality doesn't matter to us, Pat, except as it relates to Elise Freeman."

"Twice," she said. "Two damn times. Okay? Satisfied? And you cannot tell my girlfriend, you simply cannot!"

The girlfriend was a harp teacher from Glendale named Michelle Washburn. She and Pat Skaggs had been living together for three months in an apartment not far from the Galleria.

The dual sexual encounters with Elise Freeman preceded that arrangement, though Skaggs and Washburn had been dating seriously. Skaggs's account evoked James Winterthorn's story: Following drinks and dinner, Elise Freeman had initiated contact. Substituting "soft kisses and affection" then a grope up Skaggs's skirt for the sudden fellatio she'd performed on Winterthorn. Both times, the women had ended up at Elise's house. Both times, Skaggs had left without spending the night, worried about giving herself away to Michelle Washburn.

"Brief encounter, then good night," said Milo.