“Let’s go to Jesse’s,” I said. “He’s been working on a shoot all day. He’ll go crazy if I don’t catch him up on everything.”

“Sure. So tell me about the old friend.”

“Why?”

“We started digging after he blew us off today. Did he mention he burned down a church?” asked Bruxton. I stared at him, waiting for the punchline. “I’m not kidding. You know the Church of St. Aristarchus?”

“I think I’ve heard of it.”

“On Lispenard, a block south of Canal and east of Church Street. Used to be an Orthodox church, but it hasn’t had a parish in decades. Martin Sklar wanted to build a hotel on the site, but a community group got landmark status for the church. Guess what happened?” We stopped at a red light and he watched me. “One night last March the place went up in flames. Then your old friend got to build his hotel.”

“I was living in Madrid last March. I never heard anything about it.” That wasn’t exactly true; the mention of a church fire tugged at my memory. I’d heard about this, but not from Martin.

“I drove by it tonight,” Bruxton added. “It’s a tacky piece of shit.”

I bit my lip. “If there’s evidence Martin did it, why not arrest him?”

“He has an alibi, of course. Out of the country. So he didn’t actually set the fire himself, and the investigators weren’t able to get anyone to admit he’d ordered it. But there was plenty of evidence the blast was deliberate, and the person who benefited from it was Martin Sklar. Proving guilt is tough, especially when you’re up against the top fundraiser for half of City Council. And no one died, so that made the case less pressing. Slippery guy, your old friend.”

I couldn’t imagine Martin doing anything like that. It was one thing for me to suspect that he scored low on the fidelity scale, another to see him as a criminal. “Martin does a lot of charity work, especially for children’s organizations.” I delicately tapped ash into the car’s overflowing ashtray. “He’s not someone who would do what you’re suggesting.”

“Loyalty is an overrated virtue.” Bruxton tossed his cigarette out the window and lit another. I’d smoked maybe a third of mine. “You want to hear about that girl who died in your sister’s apartment?”

“What do you think?”

Bruxton’s mouth twitched slightly. “Brace yourself. She didn’t drown in the tub.”

“What?”

“There’s no water in her lungs. She was already dead when her head went under.”

“Then how did she die?”

“Heart failure,” said Bruxton. “The ME said her heart gave out first. He could tell what order her organs shut down in, and the heart was first.”

“So a healthy twenty-seven-year-old woman had a heart attack?”