The detectives had buzzed up unexpectedly at Jesse’s building, just after I’d made the trip back from the South Bronx. I’d pretended I had just gotten up, ditching my jeans for a black pencil skirt that was very Ava in The Sun Also Rises, and a pale blue angora sweater that did more than just hint at cleavage. When in distress, distract, that was my new motto. Neither Bruxton nor Renfrew had commented on my appearance, which meant that my concealer and foundation were doing their job. That, or the detectives’ eyes had glazed over when Jesse trotted out his collection of family Bibles. He kept a leather-bound one the size of an ink-jet printer on an end table. When guests commented on it, as they always did, Jesse played show and tell with the other five in his collection, including a Bible his great-grandfather had used as a boy in prep school in Meno, Oklahoma. Both Renfrew and Bruxton had looked relieved when I’d walked in.

“Mr. and Mrs. Decarno in 5A, right?” I guessed aloud. That elderly couple would never abandon their rent-controlled Lower East Side apartment, even if they loathed their neighbors. They had called sweet Mrs. Felesky “loose.”

Jesse carried two white china coffee cups out of his kitchen, setting them in front of the detectives. “Wasn’t it ole Mrs. Decarno who called you a ‘scarlet woman’?” Jesse grinned at me.

“When she was being polite,” I said. “Normally, I was the whore of Babylon to her.” Renfrew smiled wickedly from the sofa across from me. Next to her Bruxton blushed to the roots of his blond hair. Today, the pit bull was muzzled, almost shy. Fingerprints had proven that the dead woman was not my sister. The harsh skepticism in his eyes had been muted into annoyed bafflement. Still, I noticed that he was watching me closely, even though his reason for suspicion should have passed.

“That pair across the hall from your sister’s wouldn’t open the door to me, never mind the badge,” Renfrew said. She was wearing a pale gray pantsuit today with a simple strand of pearls that gleamed against her coppery skin. “I could swear I heard Johnny Rebel playing on their stereo. Bruxton had to put his white face up to the peephole before they’d open up.”

“Be nice if we could run people in for being schmucks,” said Bruxton. “Must’ve been a real treat to have them down the hall from you.”