“What are you talking about?”

Milo didn’t answer.

“You come barging in but won’t tell me?”

“At this point, we need to be discreet, Ms. Suss. What about Steven Muhrmann?”

“Who?”

“You don’t know Steven Muhrmann?”

She chuckled. “You guys are wasting your time, this must be a computer mixup.”

“How about Stefan Moore?”

“How about not,” said Connie Suss. “That sounds like a movie monster, one of those Japanese films.”

“Stefan?”

“Merman. Merman Invades Tokyo.” She laughed.

Milo didn’t.

“Sorry, I’m sure you’re doing your job,” she said, “but you have to admit it’s weird coming in here while I’m trying to have my dunch—that’s a made-up word I use for dinner and lunch. I get GERD—reflux disease. So I like to eat early. Like a senior citizen.”

She eyed the ghost of the stain on Milo’s jacket. “You come in and throw names at me, that’s pretty darn weird.”

She reached for her magazine.

Milo said, “Markham Suss.”

Her hand withdrew. “My father-in-law? What does he have to do with this?”

“Tiara Grundy knew him. Well.”

“Mark passed away a while back.”

“You don’t seem surprised by the relationship.”

“Of course I’m surprised.”

“Honestly, you didn’t seem surprised, ma’am.”

She exhaled. “Okay, you’re obviously talking about one of Mark’s sluts, but that has nothing to do with me. What, she got herself killed and she had my business card or something? Maybe Mark recommended my gallery to her. Though I can’t recall his ever having an interest in the gallery. Or bringing any of them in—I used to own a glass gallery not far from here but I closed it down because we got a terrific offer on the building and frankly I was tired of working.”

“One of his sluts,” said Milo. “So there were a lot of them.”

“Sluts were pretty much a fixture in Mark’s life, it’s no big secret, Officer—is it Detective?”

“Lieutenant.”

“Excuse me. Lieutenant. Once my husband and I got serious, before he took me to meet his parents, he warned me to expect some strange things.”

“Such as?”

“A little more … freedom of expression than some folk.”

“Extreme tolerance?”

“Mark might’ve called it that,” she said, “but to me it was extreme ostrich-in-the-sand-ness. The unspoken truth, you know?”

“Denial.”

“Denial implies pretending. Mark made no pretense—I’m sorry, I feel disloyal talking about this. Now could you please let me dunch in peace?”

I said, “Everyone was aware of Mark’s behavior but no one acknowledged it.”

“If Lee—my mother-in-law—could live with it, what was it my business?” She frowned. “Not that any of this is your business, Mark’s been gone for nearly a year so he obviously had nothing to do with anything happening to this Tiara person.”

Milo said, “And you’ve never heard of Steve or Stefan Muhrmann.”