We’d been going in circles since Renfrew had brought me into the Seventh Precinct and introduced me to her partner. Detective Bruxton was a pit bull disguised as a man, all lean muscle and sharp teeth and chilly blue eyes that never veered away from their target.

“That woman in the morgue looks a bit like Claudia,” I admitted. “She has dark hair and she’s about the same height. But Claudia has six tattoos–six that I know about, anyway. This woman doesn’t even have one. Claudia has a dragon on the back of her left shoulder and…”

“Tattoos can be lasered off.” Bruxton popped another piece of nicotine gum into his mouth. “Look, if that woman isn’t your sister, who is she?”

Detective Renfrew sat across from me, elbows on the table, hands folded together, amber eyes watching me impassively. I wished she would say something, even if it was just to jump in with her own set of accusatory questions. She hadn’t said much to me after leaving the morgue. She’d allowed her partner to take charge of the interview, but I felt the weight of her appraising gaze. She was judging every word that came out of my mouth.

“I told you, I don’t know. You’ve asked me that same question ten times in the past hour, and I still don’t know.” I pulled my coat around me tightly. I’d walked by the police precinct at 19-1/2 Pitt Street hundreds of times when I’d lived on the Lower East Side. It was literally a block south of my old apartment building on Rivington, and I’d often wondered what it was like inside. Now I knew: it was a freezing block of concrete walls and airless rooms and metal furniture that made me long for the cold winter sun outside. Still, I didn’t really give a damn. It wasn’t my sister in the morgue, after all, and I couldn’t hide my relief.

“It’s your sister, admit it,” Bruxton said.

“No!” I shook my head. “It’s not Claudia.”

“I don’t like people playing games with us,” he said. “There are a lot of things we need to be doing right now. This is an open-and-shut case.” I’d lived in upstate New York, and I recognized his broad, flat accent. I guessed he’d made it to the NYPD by proving that he was tougher and harder than anyone else.

“I am not making this up,” I protested. “I know, I haven’t been in touch with my sister in four months. This is the longest we’ve ever gone without speaking. I’ve been trying to call her and email her and I haven’t heard anything back. But I know what she looks like, and that woman in the morgue is not Claudia.”

“Brux,” said Renfrew. “Why don’t you tell her what you know?”