“Let me talk please,” she interrupted. “You know about Scarlett’s connection to a man named Evan Wingfield, correct?”

“Correct,” Joe said tersely. “Letty worked for him, when she first arrived in New York, right? It wasn’t clear to me what her job was.”

“Wingfield owns dozens of Airbnb units all over the city. Mostly Manhattan and Brooklyn, and most of them illegal. From what we can tell, he hired Scarlett as a sort of concierge. He put her up in an apartment in a building where he owns several units. Her duties included making sure the Airbnb guests got into his units quietly, without raising attention from the other tenants in the building. At some point, it appears they began a romantic relationship. But after Tanya moved to the city, Wingfield dumped Letty and took up with the younger sister. She moved in with Wingfield and had his kid.”

“Maya,” Joe said.

“Right. The sisters, naturally, were estranged for a couple years after the kid was born, but then they reconciled—right around the time Wingfield and Tanya broke up. Tanya Carnahan, by all accounts, had some serious substance-abuse issues, a fact that Wingfield tried to use against her when he sued for custody.”

“Wingfield and Tanya weren’t married, right?” Joe asked.

“Correct. But they were domestic partners, and he was listed as father on the kid’s birth certificate.”

“Maya,” Joe interrupted. “Her name is Maya. I still don’t understand how the FBI got involved in all this.”

“I’m getting there,” Vikki Hill said. “The bureau’s public corruption unit has had an ongoing investigation into Evan Wingfield’s illegal Airbnb business activities for the past eighteen months, which we initiated after we learned that he’d bribed a New York City housing inspector, as well as two members of the city’s zoning appeals board and a city council member. At that point, the bureau sent me in undercover, posing as a new inspector. And within minutes of meeting with me, Wingfield made not-so-subtle references to ‘arrangements’ he’d made with other inspectors.”

“The guy wasted no time,” Joe said.

“He’s efficient, I’ll say that about him. In my subsequent meetings with Wingfield he complained bitterly about his estranged girlfriend and what their custody battle was costing in legal fees,” she said. “But he didn’t mind the money he spent bribing me with cash, Broadway theater tickets, and trips to Vegas.”

“Why didn’t you just arrest him then? Maybe Tanya Carnahan would still be alive.”