“What do you mean by animals?” he asked, and maybe he was trying to ease the tension, but she couldn’t be sure. “You talking four-legged or two-legged?”

She decided it was best to take him seriously and said, “I’m sure you deal with your share of two-legged animals, but in my book, that’s a terrible misnomer. Animals don’t have cold hearts and cruel imaginations. They just want to be loved, unless they’re rabid or have something else wrong with them or it’s about the food chain. Even then, they don’t rob and murder innocent people. They don’t break into apartments while people are gone for the holidays. I can only imagine what it was like to come home to find something as awful as that. Most of these apartment buildings around here are easy pickings, if you ask me. No doormen, no security, very few burglar-alarm systems. I don’t have one, I’m sure that hasn’t escaped your attention. Being attentive is your training, your job, and by the looks of you, you’ve been at it for a while. I meant the four-legged kind.”

“What four-legged kind?” Investigator Marino seemed on the verge of smiling, as if he found her entertaining.

It was probably her imagination. And the bourbon.

“Pardon my non sequitur,” she said. “I’ve read articles about Jaime Berger. What a fine woman. Anybody who’s a champion of animals is a decent person in my book. She’s cleaned up a number of these dreadful pet stores that sell sick and genetically compromised creatures, and maybe you’ve helped. If so, I thank you very much. I had a puppy from one.”

He listened with no discernible reaction. The more he listened, the more she talked and tentatively reached for her bourbon, usually three times before picking up the glass and taking a sip. She’d gone from thinking he found her interesting to believing he suspected her of something. All in a minute or two.

“A Boston terrier named Ivy,” she said as she clutched a tissue in her lap.

“I asked about a dog,” he said, “because I was wondering if you went out much. As in walking a dog. I’m wondering if maybe you’re observant about what goes on in your neighborhood. People who walk dogs notice what goes on around them. Even more than people with babies in strollers. That’s a little-known fact.” His glasses on her. “You ever observe how many people cross the street, pushing the stroller in front of them? What gets hit first? Dog owners are more careful.”

“Absolutely,” she said, elated that she wasn’t the only one who had noticed the same imbecilic thing about people letting strollers lead the way when they crossed busy New York streets. “But no. I don’t have one at the moment.”

Another long silence, and this time he broke it.

“What happened to Ivy?” he asked.

“Well, it wasn’t me who bought her in that pet shop around the corner. Puppingham Palace. ‘Where pets get the royal treatment. ‘ What it ought to say is ‘Where vets get the royal treatment, ‘ because vets around here must get most of their business from that unspeakable place. The woman across the street got Ivy as a gift, and couldn’t keep her and gave her to me in a panic. Not a week later, Ivy died of parvovirus. This wasn’t that long ago. Around Thanksgiving.”