I was so angry and preoccupied that I hadn’t noticed anyone else come into the lobby. “What the hell is he doing here?” Jesse bellowed as he strode over. He dropped my black handbag on the sofa between Martin and me. It landed with a heavy thud.

“Hello, Jesse.” Martin stood up and put out his hand to shake. “It’s been a while.”

“Not nearly long enough.” Jesse wasn’t giving any ground.

“Well, it’s good to see you, in any case.” Martin smiled, unfazed, and sat down again. “I wanted to see for myself whether you were taking good care of Lily. Sending flowers and chocolates didn’t seem like enough.”

I looked up at Jesse. Flowers and chocolates? I’d been back at his apartment before we went to do surveillance on Claudia’s building, and I hadn’t seen anything. Jesse avoided my eyes. “Now you’ve seen her, so you can get outta my building.”

“You know, Jesse, you’re always worked up about something whenever we meet.” Martin’s voice was calm. “You look as if you just realized you’d handed over your life savings in exchange for the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“I’d rather be the man who bought the bridge than the one who sold it,” Jesse snapped.

“We were just talking about Claudia,” I interrupted. “She called Martin just after Christmas.”

“For cryin’ out loud, why the hell would she do that?”

Martin shrugged. “I’m not sure. Who knows why she does the things she does?” He looked at me. “Who was the woman who died, if it wasn’t Claudia?”

“The police don’t know that yet,” I said impatiently. “Tell me everything you remember about the conversation with my sister. How did she seem? Was she upset? Angry? Did she mention a friend who was staying with her?”

“Sweetheart, calm down. All she said was that she’d been having a lot of problems and she was trying to get her life under control. She really wanted to get clean this time, she said something like that.”

“How original,” said Jesse. He was standing in front of us with his arms crossed. At least he wouldn’t be throwing any sudden punches that way.

“Was there a reason she was calling now?” I prodded Martin, desperate for any insight. Interpreting my sister’s motives through small hints in her words was an inexact art, like reading tea-leaves. I’d been trying for most of my life and still wasn’t much good at it. “Tell me exactly what she said.”