“Everyone’s a suspect.” Bruxton took a long drag. “Think about it. This dame lives down the hall, has easy access to the victim, gets into her apartment and kills her. Damn, that’s a case you could sell to a jury, just think up something, maybe a love affair gone bad, for motive. Instead, we got Sarah going to a party on the Upper East Side that night, a fundraiser for people with Parkinson’s Disease. Video in the foyer shows her going out at seven-thirty, and a dozen people verified she was at the party.” He exhaled loudly. “Not that that proves much. We checked her out. No criminal record. Never been married. Know what she does for a living? She’s a Life Management Specialist.”

“What’s that?”

“She gets suckers to give her money for ‘life coaching’ over the phone or online. Can you believe that?” He crushed his cigarette and lit another. “She’s lived all over the Eastern Seaboard—Boston, Philly, Portland—but she spent the past five years in California, taking care of her mother, who had Parkinson’s, by the way. Sarah told my partner she just up and moved to New York in November to get away from sad memories. Your superintendent told us that when she moved in, she had the choice of a place on the third floor or the fifth. For some reason, she chose the fifth. In a walk-up? Makes you think she’s kind of a weirdo.”

“In case you’re wondering why she doesn’t like you, listening to you talk is scary,” I said, feeling defensive. What did it say about me that I’d up and moved from New York to Madrid, then uprooted myself again for Barcelona? “It’s like you wish you could pin it on her. You’re making me glad I was in Spain when this woman died.”

“Cops learn to be suspicious,” Bruxton said. “People never give you the straight story. The thing that gets her off the hook, at least partway, is that somebody went to a lot of trouble to get into your sister’s building without being seen that evening. The power went out briefly just before eight P.M. Not a big deal, except that when the power came back on a few minutes later, somebody had broken the security camera.”

“Wait, someone deliberately—”

“Let’s put it this way. The power was out for two and a half minutes. Long enough to get inside and bust the camera. But there’s no forced entry with the outside door, so whoever did it probably had a key. An expert could’ve jimmied the lock, but not with enough time to take out the camera afterwards.” He took one last drag and threw the cigarette into the gutter. “We should go back up. Norah’s got to be wrapping up the interview now.”