“How did you know the deceased?” Escobar again, still red and trying to recover.

It would be easier to be the bad cop, pushing and digging. It was much harder to make friends. I knew from experience. If that was true, MacLeish was the better policeman. The better cop, yet still the errand boy for the bribe money. And the junior officer to his younger partner.

“Not friends. Acquaintances.” I caught my nail peeling the edge of the notebook, thumbing pages. I put my hands in my lap. “I wouldn’t say we were friends.”

“You don’t seem too broken up about the fact she’s dead,” Escobar said.

I took a beat. I didn’t want it to sound prepared. I heard Lou’s voice in my head: It’s not a crime to know somebody who died. “It was a shock to hear she’d passed,” I said. “But I’m not expecting an invitation to the funeral. Like I said, we weren’t friends.”

“Someone at the St. Leo said you and the deceased were spotted there together. Frequently,” Escobar said. His palms were pressed hard against the arms of the chair, like he was ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. The deceased. I imagined freshly plucked blonde hairs threading between his fingers, tugging at his knuckles. Winding up his arms to his neck, strangling him.

Be human, Jo. And stay focused.

The news had said her friends called her Lenny. “I went there with Ellen once,” I said. “They have a good happy hour. Maybe the word I’m looking for is cheap.”

“So you admit you were at the St. Leo with the deceased.” Escobar looked like he’d won a prize.

I didn’t bother answering.

“Did Ms. Howard pay?”

“I’m sorry?”

MacLeish had asked the question casually, not even bothering to look at my face to see how it landed. “When you went to happy hour. Did Ms. Howard cover it?”

I’d paid with a card. Too traceable. “I believe I did. Why?”

“Ms. Howard came into quite a bit of money before she died,” MacLeish said, this time glancing up from his notebook to watch my face. I was biting my lip so hard I could taste blood. “Some”—MacLeish paused here, drew the moment out, his partner looking bored—“eight thousand dollars. Any idea where that came from?”

There it was, the other shoe. I studied the older detective while I tried to think of what to say. MacLeish had leaned forward so his elbows were on my desk and doubled his fists under his chin. Like we were having a real conversation, old friends catching up. His eyes both dreamy and focused. Like he was casually, lazily interested. I suspected not a move I made got by him.

I took a breath. Decided to gamble. “How much confidentiality does this conversation have?”