“I have some bad news about Nicola Aguinaldo. She ran away from prison last week. Did you know that? She died yesterday. Someone hurt her very badly when she was on her way to this apartment building, and I would like to learn who did that.”

“What? What you are saying?” Mrs. Attar demanded.

Mina snapped off a string of Arabic. Mrs. Attar dropped her hold on the girl and demanded information. Mina turned back to me to translate. That role was familiar to me as well. My mother’s English became fluent with time, but I could still remember those humiliating meetings with teachers or shopkeepers where I had to act as interpreter.

“The girls say you looked after Sherree when the baby was in the hospital. Was that after Nicola was sent to jail? I know the baby was sick before.”

When Mina translated, first for me and then for her mother, she said, “My mother doesn’t remember Sherree staying here.”

“But you remember, don’t you?” I said. “You agreed with your playmates when they brought it up.”

She looked at me slyly, pleased to be in control. “There are so many kids in this building they probably got confused. Sherree wasn’t here.”

Mrs. Attar ripped off a question to her daughter, probably wanting to know what our side conversation was about. While they talked I sat back on the crinkling plastic and pondered how to get Mrs. Attar to talk to me. I didn’t care whether she’d ever looked after Sherree Aguinaldo. What I needed was the address where the grandmother had moved with Sherree, or the names of any men Mrs. Attar might have seen with Nicola Aguinaldo.

I looked Mrs. Attar in the eye, adult to adult, and spoke slowly. “I’m not with the government. I’m not with Children and Family Services. I’m not with INS.”

I opened my handbag and spread the contents on the cluttered coffee table. I laid out my credit cards and my private–eye license. Mrs. Attar looked puzzled for a moment, then seemed to understand what I was showing her. She scrutinized my driver’s license and the PI license, spelling out my name from card to card. She showed it to her daughter and demanded an explanation.

“You see?” I said. “There is no badge in here.”

When Mrs. Attar finally spoke to me, she said in halting English, “Today is?”

“Thursday,” I said.

“One ago, two ago, three ago is?”

“It’d be Monday, Ma,” Mina cut in in exasperation, adding something in Arabic.

Her mother put a light hand over her daughter’s mouth. “I tell. Men comes. Early early, first prayers. Is—is—”

She looked around the room for inspiration, then showed me her watch. She turned the dial back to five–thirty.

“I wake husband, I wake Mina, I wake sons. First wash. Look outside, see men. I afraid. Woman here, have green card, I find.”