“Oh, Panther,” she said. “You’ve come for Panther. You know, I was afraid someone would. Come in, won’t you?”

She led me to an upholstered chair, brought me a cup of coffee, and apologized for the excess of furniture in the room. She was a widow, she told me, and had moved to this small apartment from a suburban house, and while she’d rid herself of a great many things she’d made the mistake of keeping too much furniture.

“It’s like an obstacle course in here,” she said, “and it’s not as if I just moved in yesterday. I’ve been here almost two years. But because there’s no real urgency I seem to find it all too easy to put it off and put it off.”

She had heard about Kim’s death from someone in the building. The following morning she was at her desk at the office when she thought of Kim’s cat. Who would feed it? Who would take care of it?

“I made myself wait until lunch hour,” she said, “because I decided I just wasn’t crazy enough to run out of the office lest a kitten go an extra hour without food. I fed the kitten and cleaned out the litter pan and freshened its water, and I checked on it that evening when I came home from the office, and it was evident that no one had been in to care for it. I thought about the poor little thing that night, and the next morning when I went to feed it I decided it might as well live with me for the time being.” She smiled. “It seems to have adjusted. Do you suppose it misses her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t suppose it’ll miss me, either, but I’ll miss it. I never kept a cat before. We had dogs years ago. I don’t think I’d want to keep a dog, not in the city, but a cat doesn’t seem to be any trouble. Panther was declawed so there’s no problem of furniture scratching, although I almost wish he’d scratched some of this furniture, it might move me to get rid of it.” She laughed softly. “I’m afraid I took all his food from her apartment. I can get all of that together for you. And Panther’s hiding somewhere, but I’m sure I can find him.”

I assured her I hadn’t come for the cat, that she could keep the animal if she wanted. She was surprised, and obviously relieved. But if I hadn’t come for the cat, what was I there for? I gave her an abbreviated explanation of my role. While she was digesting that I asked her how she’d gained access to Kim’s apartment.