I pulled into traffic and refused to check my rear-view mirror for telltale clouds of smoke. Carmen lived several blocks east of Stark Street. Not a great neighborhood, but not the worst, either. Her building was yellow brick and looked like it could do with a good scrubbing. Four stories. No elevator. Chipped tile in the small ground-floor foyer. Her apartment was on the second floor. I was sweating by the time I got to her door. The yellow crime-scene tape had been removed, but a padlock was in place. There were two other apartments on the second floor. I knocked on each door. No one home at the first. A Hispanic woman, Mrs. Santiago, somewhere in her late forties, early fifties answered the second. She had a baby on her hip. Her black hair was pulled neatly back from her round face. She wore a blue cotton housecoat and terrycloth bedroom slippers. A television droned from the dark interior of the apartment. I could see two small heads silhouetted against the screen. I introduced myself and gave her my card.

"I don't know what more I can tell you," she said. "This Carmen only lived here a short time. No one knew her. She was quiet. Kept to herself."

"Have you seen her since the shooting?"

"No."

"Do you know where she might be? Friends? Relatives?"

"I didn't know her. Nobody knew her. They tell me she worked in a bar . . . the Step In on Stark Street. Maybe somebody knew her there."

"Were you home the night of the shooting?"

"Yes. It was late, and Carmen had the television on real loud. I never heard her play it so loud. Then someone was banging on Carmen's door. A man. Turned out he was a cop. I guess he had to bang because no one could hear him over the television. Then there was a gunshot. That's when I called the police. I called the police, and when I got back to my front door I could hear there was a big commotion in the hall, so I looked out."

"And?"

"And John Kuzack was there, and some others from the building. We take care of our own here. We aren't like some of those people who pretend not to hear things. That's why we have no drugs here. We never have this kind of trouble. John was standing over the cop when I looked out. John didn't know the man was a cop. John saw someone shot dead in Carmen's doorway, and this other man had a gun, so John took matters into his own hands."

"Then what happened?"

"It was real confusing. There were so many people in the hall."

"Was Carmen there?"

"I didn't see her. There were just so many people. Everybody wanting to know what happened, you know? People trying to help the dead man, but it was no use. He was dead."

"Supposedly there were two men in Carmen 's apartment. Did you see the second man?"