“The window to the left? Lights are off now, but maybe thirty minutes ago, blazing as bright as a movie premier, and there she was.”

Marino stared at the dark window as if it would suddenly light up again and show him what he’d missed.

“Out of the shower, off came the towel. Nice tits, I mean real nice,” Morales said. “Thought I would fall off the fucking roof. God, I love my job.”

Marino would forgo seeing fifty naked women if it would spare him having to climb back down the ladder. Morales got to his feet, as comfortable up here as a pigeon, while Marino started scooting back toward the edge, his heart thudding again, and as he inched his way, he wondered what had gotten into him. All those years he flew on Lucy’s helicopters and jets. He used to love glass elevators and expansion bridges. Now he hated climbing up a stepladder to change a lightbulb.

He watched Morales walk off in the direction of the satellite dish and got a weird feeling about him. Morales had gone to fancy schools. He was a doctor, or could be one, if he wanted. He was nice-looking, even if he went out of his way to make people think he was the leader of a street gang or some Latino gangster. He was one big contradiction, and it didn’t make sense he would climb up here to install a camera, with a cop sitting two floors below, securing a homicide scene, and not say anything. What if the cop had heard him up here?

And Marino remembered what the neighbor had mentioned about a roof access, about seeing service people near the satellite dish. Maybe Morales hadn’t climbed up the ladder. Maybe he’d gotten up here another way—an easy way—and was too much of an asshole to let Marino in on the secret.

Cold steel bit into his bare hands as he gripped the rungs and made his way down slowly. He didn’t know he had reached the ground until he felt it beneath his shoes, and he leaned against the side of the brownstone for a moment to calm down and catch his breath. He walked to the entrance and stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up to see if Morales was watching. Marino couldn’t see him.

Attached to his keys was a small tactical light, and he directed the powerful beam at the lanterns on either side of the brownstone’s ivy-covered entrance. He checked the brick steps, the landing, then swept the beam over bushes and trash cans. He called the dispatcher and indicated he needed the officer inside Terri Bridges’s apartment to go to the building’s front door and let him in. He waited a minute, and the front door opened, and it wasn’t the same uniformed cop who had let him in earlier today.