“By all accounts. Only thing I can think, and it fits with your kill-the-messenger theory, is that this Sam was an even bigger dope than Charlie thought, and didn’t realize Shana was sleeping around. Then he’s passing through the shortcut with the lilac bushes, and he overhears Donnie breaking up for Charlie. But what Sam really hears is that Shana had another boyfriend in the first place. And that sends him into a frenzy.”

“Did anyone see him that night?” Alex asked reasonably. “Witnesses that spotted Sam returning home bloody, or maybe the foster mom found blood-soaked clothes?”

“Nada. Whereas, Shana wins on all those accounts. So again, I’m liking Shana for the murder of Donnie Johnson. However—”

“Excellent. I enjoy a good investigative however—”

“I think there’s something we still don’t know about thirty years ago. Hence, my problem, because I can’t know what I don’t know, right? But you raised an important question the other night.”

“Thank you.”

“Why now? What’s the inciting event? Shana’s been locked up thirty years, Harry Day’s been dead forty years. Why all this madness now?”

“And the answer is?”

“I think it’s Charlie Sgarzi. He decided to write this stupid book about his cousin’s murder, apparently to cleanse his own conscience, and as a result, he’s been dredging up old business. And that got someone’s juices flowing.”

“Someone who never even met you but decided to push you down a flight of stairs?”

“I can’t know what I don’t know,” D.D. assured him.

“Interesting alibi. Do you remember anything yet?”

“No.” She rubbed her forehead. “Just Jack’s favorite lullabye, Rockabye, baby, on the treetop . . .” She started humming it; she couldn’t help herself. “I can hear it all the time, playing in the back of my mind. Like a radio song you get stuck in your head. Except I don’t think it came from the radio. I was humming it at the scene, and then . . . a sound. I heard something. Then I must’ve done . . . something? Maybe confronted the killer somehow. But my gun was out, right? I couldn’t have drawn after I started falling. The gun had to come first. Meaning I did see something that night, engaged in some kind of altercation. Rather than run away, however, the killer decided to give me a giant shove off instead.”

Alex smiled at her sympathetically, massaged her feet. “How’s Melvin?”

“Oh, we’re getting more used to each other. At least investigative work is distracting. I know they’d never clear me for duty yet, but I swear, Alex, if I didn’t have this case to occupy my mind . . .”

She was thinking of his earlier point, that faint whiff of blame that while being pushed down the stairs might not have been her fault, her actions since had basically drawn a murderer even closer into their lives.