“You’re a cop. You should be able to tell if I’m lying.”

Langdon walked through the door. “You might be a good liar.”

“Is that your assessment of me?”

“No, but that would just mean you’re a better liar than I thought.” We walked up the stairs to the third floor, where Katie Albert was waiting for us.

She met us at the door, and her face darkened when she saw me. “What’s he doing here?” she asked Langdon.

“I thought he might be helpful to me,” Langdon said. “Someone in the same profession as your husband might be able to tell me about things I would otherwise be missing.”

Katie glanced over at me. “Uh-huh.”

“Would you prefer that Mr. Valdez wait out here while we talk?”

Katie was silent for a few seconds before she said. “No,” and opened the door to let us both in. She walked down her apartment hallway, toward the kitchen area in the back, without checking to see if we were following. Langdon gave me a look that said, we are going to have a talk about this, believe it. I shrugged. We walked down the hall, past the living room area of the apartment, which was still in disarray, and which still had blood on the rug and floor. I wondered whether the stain would ever get out of the rug.

In the kitchen Katie had propped herself up near the sink, holding a coffee cup. “Can I get you some coffee, detective?” she asked Langdon. I was aware I was not included in that invitation.

“Thanks, but no,” Langdon said. “We don’t want to take too much of your time.”

“Have you heard anything about Jimmy?”

“Not yet, but other detectives have been over to the Agency. We’re working to reconstruct his official appointments and duties and see if there’s anything there. And there should have been uniformed officers taking statements from your neighbors here earlier.”

“I saw them.”

“We’re working to find him, Mrs. Albert.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course.” Langdon nodded over to me. “I had a conversation with Mr. Valdez here earlier today about the job he and your husband share in common. We talked about the official Agency assignments, but we also talked about private engagements.”

A snort came out of Katie. “Yes, well. Tony would know about those.”

Langdon glanced over at me at this. I looked back at her blankly. “I was wondering if you knew whether your husband had any private engagements or clients recently,” she said, returning her attention to Katie.

“He had some in the past,” Katie said. She jerked a finger at me. “This one got a few of them for him. Real shitty jobs for creepy people. It brought in money but I told him I didn’t want him to do it anymore.”

“Why is that, Mrs. Albert?”