Milo fingered a huge, green funerary jar, then a mock-rosewood tansu that might last one dry summer. “Nice. What dynasty?”

The girl giggled. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

“Is Olga around?”

The girl’s smile froze. “Hold on.”

She hurried back inside. We followed, watched her scurry up a narrow aisle lined with tables, chairs, cabinets, altars, and plaster Buddhas.

Before she made it to the rear, a man came out. Thirty or so, black, dressed in charcoal overalls over a white T-shirt, he had the height of a shortstop and the width of a defensive tackle. The girl said something to him. He patted her head, as if comforting a toddler, and she ducked out of sight.

He came toward us smiling pleasantly, thighs beefy enough to turn his walk into a waddle. The denim scrape was audible.

“I’m William. May I help you?” Boyish voice, Jamaican lilt, meticulous enunciation.

The overalls were stitched in orange, fit well enough to have been custom-tailored. His face was clean-shaven with glowing skin and his milk-white teeth were perfectly aligned.

The healthy, happy visage of O.J. before the fall.

Milo badge-flashed. “I’m Lieutenant Sturgis. Is Olga here?”

“May I ask what it’s about?”

“Reminiscence.”

“Pardon me?”

“Shooting the breeze about old times,” said Milo.

William’s right thumb flicked the chest pocket of his overalls. He removed a pack of gum, slipped a stick between his teeth, and began chewing. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”

“No need to imagine.” Milo moved forward. William didn’t budge.

Then he did.

The woman eating a sandwich at her desk was white-haired, heavyset, looked older than the sixty-seven years her license claimed. The hair was curly as a poodle’s show-do and cut mannishly short with ridiculous bangs. The face beneath the frizz was a near-perfect sphere, tiny-mouthed, hog-nosed, pale with pink accents. Droopy but unlined; fat’s a good wrinkle filler.

The sandwich was an architectural masterpiece of pastrami, ham, turkey, coleslaw, white and orange cheese, red and green peppers. But the woman’s aqua frock was spotless, as were her lips. Her eyes were soft, hazel, world-weary. The office was large, bright, unpretentious, set up with a photocopier, a small fridge, and an old gray PC that would’ve brought a sneer to the lips of the Agajanian sisters.

Olga Koznikov looked like a woman who accepted herself at face value, and that brought a certain serenity. Only longish nails, French-tipped and glossy as they clawed the sandwich, testified to tension and vanity.

“Hello,” she said, motioning us to the two chairs that faced the desk. “It took you a while.”

She wrapped up what remained of the sandwich, lumbered to the fridge, and exchanged the food for a can of Diet Pepsi.

“Something for you?” Faint but distinct Russian accent.

“No, thanks.”

“You’re here about Tara.”

“You know that because …”

Because Gretchen told you it was coming.