“I was at the hospital,” Cohen said quietly as he walked toward his office.

“Damn it!” Leetch said. “I was trying to reach you all day.”

Cohen stopped. “Sorry. I had to turn my cell phone off in the hospital.”

“You telling me you spent the whole day at the hospital with Carol from the alley?”

Cohen didn’t respond.

“Look, I don’t want to meddle or anything. And far be it from me to judge … but I think there’s a potential problem in your latest relationship.” He paused, but Cohen didn’t bite. “I’m not talking about the fact that she’s lives in a garbage bin and has a hundred-dollar-a-day coke and heroin habit. Those are just normal relationship bumps to work out.” His voice took on a quiet conspiratorial tone. “But Seth, I don’t think Carol is Jewish.”

“She’s dead,” Cohen said flatly. He shook his head and strode into his office, closing the door behind him.

No sooner had Cohen sat down behind his desk before the door burst open. “What are you talking about?” Reaching the far edge of the desk, Leetch’s round face crumpled into a grimace. “Dead? You just took her to the hospital this morning. It was only her arm!”

Cohen shrugged. “Septic shock.”

“Which is?”

“Apparently, an overwhelming infection in the bloodstream,” Cohen said.

“How did it happen?” Leetch asked quietly.

Cohen gave Leetch a brief rundown of what happened in the ER, but he left out the personal details Carol had shared with him.

“And you stayed with her the whole time?” Leetch asked, incredulous.

Cohen nodded.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She was alone.” He didn’t tell Leetch about Carol’s last shaky words to him or anyone else: “Please don’t leave me.” The phrase had hit Cohen hard. His mother had spoken the same words to his father and him right before she slipped into a terminal coma.

Cohen shook off the memory. “They moved her into the resuscitation room,” he said impassively. “They put her on a ventilator. Hung all these IVs. They worked on her for hours. Just as they were about to transfer her to the ICU, her heart stopped.”

“Shit!” Leetch said. “I’m sorry.”

Cohen shrugged again, deliberately disguising his deeper-than-expected sense of loss.

Leetch pulled up a chair and sat down across from Cohen. They sat together in silence for a few moments. Cohen cleared his throat. “Guess we should get on with finding out who killed Jimmy and Frige.”

“Good idea.” A mischievous grin broke across Leetch’s lips. “Otherwise, what am I going to do with the trophy I got for the killer?”

Cohen chuckled. “Rome, don’t you find the whole scenario with Carol and the two victims a bit unusual?”

Leetch drummed his fingers on the desktop. “You mean because the guy who gave the free drugs to Carol might be the hitter on Jimmy and Frige?”

“Exactly.”