“That’s it? That’s the only time you were at her apartment?”

“Yes.”

“MacGhee, we’ve checked the LUDs from her cell. And there are dozens of calls from you, and from her to you, most of them after hours. What’s that all about?”

My pulse is quickening.

“Like I said, we’re close. The agency business is 24/7. We had lots of stuff to talk about, all the time.”

And I realize my right leg is pumping under the table at a hundred miles an hour, and I hope he’s not seeing it.

“Put that aside for the moment…Now, I want you to have a look at something.” He picks up his phone, swipes it a few times, and holds it out to me. Video starts playing.

Jesus!

“This is the lobby in Bonnie Jo’s apartment. As you can see, the lobby monitor has you entering her apartment building. This one’s from two weeks ago.”

Yup, there I am.

The video cuts to the next piece—me leaving.

“And, as you can see from the time/date code, you’re leaving her building some three and a half hours later. Can you explain that—since you’ve just told us you were only there once, to drop some stuff off?”

“Right…” I gulp. Hard. “Forgot. We had to crash on a new business pitch, so I hung around so we could work together, till the wee hours, you know?”

“So you say. There’s more. But I want you to look at this one. As you can see from the time/date code, this is from two nights ago.…”

Holy shit!

“The last time anyone saw her alive…”

“Okay, look. Yes, we had a relationship. We had an affair, actually. For a long time.”

“Obviously, MacGhee. We’ve searched her apartment. We’ve got pictures. The hall closet is filled with clothes that are your size, that will no doubt have your DNA all over them. The bathroom is loaded with men’s toiletries, presumably yours.”

“Oh, my God. Fine. We loved each other. And yes, I was there Wednesday night. She was alive and well. Anything that happened, happened after I left.”

“Really? Here’s the lobby video from the next morning. You were there until seven forty-five a.m.”

“Exactly! And we found out at work a day later that she had been murdered. Which of course is plenty of time for the killer to do his deed after I’m gone.”

“The medical examiner’s report on time of death isn’t going to support that,” Quinn tells me.

“Detective—ask my colleagues—I was crushed, shocked, heartbroken when we found out. Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t kill her. I loved her!”

“A strange coincidence, all of this, don’t you think, MacGhee? But that’s okay, you don’t have to answer that. Now I want to ask you about Tiffany Stone, the actress who was killed in Grand Central Station Tuesday night, the night of Ramon’s wake.”

“Can I have some more water?” I need a minute to try to bring some order to the utter chaos in my head.