“But I saw the gun,” she said. “The murder weapon. In the penthouse at the Saratoga. It was my mother’s gun. The one Ernest gave her.”

“It’s a common enough gun,” I said. “I saw plenty of guns like that during the war.”

“Her gun is missing,” said Dinah. “I already looked for it.”

I was shaking my head. “Do you remember the other day? When you said you thought she was suicidal? I took the gun away just in case she decided to use it on herself. I should have mentioned it at the time. I’m sorry.”

“You’re lying,” she said.

She was right, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “No, I’m not,” I said. “The gun is missing, and so is she.”

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly simple explanation for why she’s not here.”

“Which is that she murdered him. She did it. Or Alfredo López. That’s his car out there. Neither of them liked Max. One time Noreen as good as told me that she wanted to kill him. To stop me from marrying him.”

“Just how much do you really know about your late boyfriend?”

“I know he wasn’t exactly a saint, if that’s what you mean. He never professed to be.” She flushed. “What are you driving at?”

“Just this: Max was a very long way from being a saint. You won’t like this, but you’re going to hear it anyway. Max Reles was a gangster. During Prohibition he was a ruthless bootlegger. Max’s brother, Abe, was a hit man for the mob before someone tossed him out of a hotel window.”

“I’m not listening to this.”

Dinah shook her head and stood up, but I pushed her back down onto the chair again.

“Yes, you are,” I said. “You’re listening to it because somehow you’ve never heard it before. Or if you did, then maybe you just buried your head in the sand like some stupid ostrich. You’re going to listen to it because it’s the truth. Every damned word. Max Reles was into every dirty racket that there is. More recently he was part of an organized crime syndicate started in the 1930s by Charlie Luciano and Meyer Lansky. He stayed in business because he didn’t mind murdering his rivals.”

“Shut up,” she said. “It’s not true.”