And I could have walked over last night, after my meeting, when her number failed to answer. Would she still have been alive by then? I imagined her, lying on the bed, waiting for the pills and vodka to do their work, letting the phone ring and ring and ring. Would she have ignored the doorbell the same way?

Maybe. Or maybe she’d have been unconscious by then. But I might have sensed that something was wrong, might have summoned the super or kicked the door in, might have gotten to her in time—

Oh, sure. And I could have saved Cleopatra from the fucking asp, too, if I hadn’t been born too late.

I said, “You had a key to this place?”

“I have keys to all their places.”

“So you just let yourself in.”

He shook his head. “She had the chain lock on. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I used the key and the door opened two, three inches and stopped on account of the chain, and I knew there was trouble. I busted the chain and came on in and just knew I was gonna find something I didn’t want to see.”

“You could have gone right out. Left the chain on, gone home.”

“I thought of that.” He looked full at me and I was seeing his face less armored than I’d seen it before. “You know something? When that chain was on, the thought came to me right away that she killed herself. First thing I thought of, only thing I thought of. Reason I broke that chain, I figured maybe she was still alive, maybe I could save her. But it was too late.”

I went to the door, examined the chain lock. The chain itself had not broken; rather, the assembly had ripped loose from its moorings on the doorjamb and hung from the door itself. I hadn’t noticed it when we let ourselves into the apartment.

“You broke this when you came in?”

“Like I said.”

“The chain could have been unfastened when you let yourself in. Then you could have locked it and broken it from inside.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To make it look as though the apartment was locked from the inside when you got here.”

“Well, it was. I didn’t have to. I don’t get where you’re comin’ from, man.”

“I’m just making sure she was locked in when you got here.”

“Didn’t I say she was?”

“And you checked the apartment? There wasn’t anybody else here?”

“Not unless they was hiding in the toaster.”

It was a pretty clear suicide. The only thing problematic was his earlier visit. He’d sat on the knowledge of her death for over twelve hours without reporting it.