“Like you need to tell me,” she muttered, raising a gloved hand to wave him off. She sent him a look that silently suggested she might want to raise her middle finger, but didn’t. “Sheesh, Bentz. How long we worked together? Ten years? Fifteen?”

“Too long, Rosie. Too damned long.”

“Yeah, and I love you, too.”

As Bentz and Montoya stepped outside, Espinosa fluttered into motion. The super grabbed a rag from his back pocket and stepped back, trying to look busy, which was kind of tough when he’d probably been warned not to sweep or touch anything. Somewhere near sixty, his swarthy skin deeply lined, he wore a faded Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts. His hair was pulled back into a thin, graying ponytail that heightened his receding hairline.

“You the building supervisor? Mr. Espinosa?” Bentz showed his badge, introducing himself and Montoya.

“Yeah, that’s me. Folks call me Vincente.”

“You called 9-1-1?”

He nodded. “I already told the other cop.” Vincente’s eyes were black as obsidian as he squinted against the midday sun.

“So let’s go over it again. We want to hear everything you know about Miss Gaines.”

“It ain’t much.”

Bentz managed a smile. “Let’s start with when she moved in.”

“Three, maybe three and half years ago?” It was a question. “You’d have to ask the owner of the building for sure. Crescent City Developers. They’d have records.”

Bentz was making notes.

“She have a kid?” Montoya asked.

“Yeah, a boy. About nine or ten, I think.” So the picture was a couple years old. “But he was never here. Lives with his dad.”

“Do you know where we could find him?”

“Beats me,” Vincente said. “I didn’t really know her. We never talked much. I just know she had a kid. Lived with his old man, out of town. Don’t know where.”

Someone would have to call the ex and relay the bad news that his son’s mother was dead, the victim of a homicide. The kid had to be found.

“So you knew that she was turning tricks out of her apartment?”

“I didn’t know it. But, yeah, that was the word on the street. And with the hours she kept, the people going in and out . . .” He shrugged. “It seemed likely. But hey, she was a good tenant. Gave me no grief, and she had to do what she had to do, y’know?”

“You see anyone come into her apartment last night?” Bentz asked.

“Me?” Vincente shook his head, the ponytail whipping back and forth. “Nah, I’m in bed before the sun goes down. Watch a little TV, mainly sports. The Saints, they ain’t playin’ now, so I have to settle for baseball. I like the Rays, y’know. Tampa Bay?”