“You don’t have to trust me. Just . . . give me a few more minutes. Okay? How well did Madeline and Sophia know each other?”

He stares at me for a long time. And I think he’s going to go ahead and send me packing. Instead, he says, “Sophia knew a lot of people. Everywhere she went, she met somebody new. That’s why the cops had to cast such a wide net to figure out who killed her. She came in contact with so many people.” He pauses, lifting a hand to his forehead. He rubs the flesh there as if he’s easing a sharp pain. “I have to tell you, man, I don’t know how this became my life. Talking about my wife being murdered. Talking about suspects. Like I’m in the middle of a fucking TV show. I just want them to solve the crime so it all goes away. So I feel . . . peace.”

“Did Sophia talk about Madeline a lot?” I ask.

Zachary drops his hand from his forehead so it again hangs limply at his side. “You have to understand something. Sophia was a sucker for a hard-luck case. She was always befriending someone, always talking to someone about their troubles. She had this instinct . . . a vibe she gave off, and others just responded to it. Like a tuning fork. Or a divining rod. She’d go to the grocery store to buy milk or the post office for a stamp, and she’d be gone for an hour or more. When she’d come home, I’d ask what happened. ‘Oh, the woman in line behind me started talking about her daughter’s drug abuse, so we had coffee.’ That happened all the time. For all I know, that’s why she got killed. And I told the cops that. Somebody probably took advantage of her kindness.”

“Could it have been Madeline?”

“If Madeline had any problems, Sophia would have talked to her about them. I can guarantee you that.”

“Do you know what Madeline’s problems were?”

“I think they talked about Madeline’s classes. Life in general, I guess. You’ve really thrown me for a loop today. I’ve been trying to move on. To . . . get past all of this. And now . . .”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know how that is.”

“Sophia not only was on the lookout for hard-luck cases, but she really saw herself as a protector of younger women. She took women under her wing at work. The interns from the university, the kids who just graduated and were working their first jobs. That’s who they could afford to hire at a literacy nonprofit. She wanted to be the big sister to the whole world.”

“That’s not a bad quality.”