"Yeah, sure, I remember. I hear you and my boss had quite the run-in yesterday in court."

Ellie was glad to see that the rapport she'd previously developed with Kristen had not been affected. "Mr. Sparks shares those sorts of colorful details with you, does he?"

"Are you kidding? He doesn't tell me squat. I heard him yelling about it in his office yesterday. I think I got the gist."

"I'm sure your boss was heartbroken by my brief period of incarceration."

"Uh, yeah, if what you mean is that it only lasted a day. Sorry, you probably aren't laughing about this yet."

"Would you be? I couldn't even keep my own underwear with me."

"Eeewww."

Rogan tapped one heel, his gaze affixed upward.

They both took the hint, and Kristen changed the subject. "You're wrong about him, you know."

"Wrong about what?" Ellie asked.

"About Sparks. He can be a p.r.i.c.k in his own way, but he's actually a decent person. There's no way he'd kill anyone."

Ellie smiled. Everyone was capable of killing someone. It was just a question of whom, and under what circ.u.mstances. But the last thing she wanted was to advertise their agenda to Sparks's personal a.s.sistant.

"Really," Ellie a.s.sured her, "he's not a suspect. I tried explaining it to the judge. The whole thing got blown out of proportion."

"'What if Sparks did it?' A cartoon showing him behind bars? It's kind of funny, I guess, but you're wrong. I swear."

"It was just doodling. Totally unprofessional, but not at all a reflection of where we are in this investigation. Your boss is not a suspect."

"Right. And that's why you tracked me down here, where Sam wouldn't know? But you know what? I don't care. When cops ask questions, I answer. And if Sam asks me point-blank whether you came to me, I'm not going to lie to him either."

"No one's asking you to lie, Kristen."

"Yeah, okay, but whatever. He's not going to ask. I'm sure that was your intention in coming here instead of the office. I was just saying, there's no way he'd hurt Robo, if that happens to be what you're thinking. So go ahead and ask whatever you want. I've got no problems with you guys."

She was about as straightforward a witness as two detectives could ask for. Loyal to her boss, but not so loyal that she'd want to lie.

"We're going back to the very beginning," Ellie said. "Making sure we didn't miss anything. We wanted to talk to you again about Mancini reserving the apartment for that night."

"Okay."

"So the way you explained it to us, you keep a calendar for the 212?"

"Right. Sam offers the penthouse to various business a.s.sociates when they come to town. More impressive than a hotel. I keep track of it all so I can make sure the maid service comes and cleans up after guests, changes the linens-that kind of thing. And that requires knowing when people are there and for how long."

"And then Sparks lets employees use the place, too?"

"Yeah. Not a lot, but, you know, it's the occasional little perk. I told you, he's not the evil s.h.i.t you think he is. Everyone knows not to take it for granted."

"And who's everyone?" Rogan asked.

"Not corporate employees, but more of just the personal staff. Me, the bodyguards-I mean, protection specialists," she said, smiling. "I think he even lent it to his contractor once."

"And none of these people has a key, right?" Ellie was pretending that she needed to hear all of this information again.

"No one keeps a key. There's a coded key compartment that hangs from the apartment door. You flip the digits around to match the code. The box pops open, and the apartment key's inside. One of my responsibilities after someone stays is to reset the code."

The night of Mancini's murder, they had found the door unlocked and the key inside on the kitchen counter. Mancini had not locked the door behind him.

"So when someone wants to use the apartment, they contact you to reserve their spot on the calendar and get the code."

"Exactly."

"Okay, and when did Mancini reserve the apartment for the night of May 27?"

"May 27 was the night of-the night he died, right?"

Ellie nodded.

"He called me that day. I think I told you before it was around two, but I wasn't sure."

In fact, Ellie and Rogan had pulled Kristen's call records from the cellular phone company used by Sparks Industries. Mancini had placed a call to her at 2:32 that afternoon.

"And it was just for that night?" Ellie asked.

"Yeah. It's always just one night when we're using it. Like I said, we don't want to take advantage."

"And did you tell anyone that Mancini would be using the apartment?"

"No," she said, shaking her head.

"Not even a housekeeper to get the place ready?"

"Nope. The apartment had been cleaned two weeks earlier. For the CEO of General Electric, I would have had a fresh cleaning. Robo could live with a little dust."

"And where were you after two o'clock?"

"Me?"

"Like I said, we're covering all the bases. Sorry," Ellie said, offering her best supportive head-tilt.

Ellie had no interest in Kristen's whereabouts, but focusing on the a.s.sistant's schedule gave them a back door to talk about her boss's timeline. And if Kristen was on the defensive, she might not notice the maneuver.

"I was in my office taking care of a ton of details for a party Sam was having the following week. Finalizing the bartenders, the catering menu-I swear I wish the man would get married so his wife could take over his social affairs."

"Married?" Rogan interjected. "I'm surprised you even mentioned the possibility, given the rumors."

"Which ones?" Kristen asked. "You listen to the local tabloids, and he's either an irrepressible playboy or the most popular ride at Big Gay Al's h.o.m.os.e.xual theme park."

Ellie coughed. "We hadn't heard it put in quite those terms."

"Well, I have. And the rumors aren't true. He dates a lot, but mostly to avoid the rumors that come about when a wealthy bachelor is by himself too often. Hasn't done him much good, though."

"So the party planning," Ellie said, pulling Kristen back to the timeline. "That was enough to keep you busy the entire afternoon?"

"Pretty much. I'm sure I worked on other stuff as well, but I'd have to go back and try to reconstruct it all from my e-mails, and-"

"But you were in the office working? You didn't have to leave, perhaps with Mr. Sparks?"

"No," Kristen said, apparently not noticing the pointed direction of Ellie's comment. "He was in the field with his architects that whole afternoon, touring the properties under construction. And after that he had to run straight to a fund-raiser for the Conservation Voters. I remember because I knew from his calendar that I had a big chunk of time to get some work done and then get out early for the day."

"Did you speak to Mr. Sparks at any point that afternoon?"

Again, Kristen shook her head. "I even teased him the next day that he'd made remarkable progress in his independence. Not a single call, e-mail, or text message."

Kristen's recollection was consistent with the information she'd given them nearly four months earlier. And Ellie and Rogan had confirmed it against her phone records: there had been no contact between her and Sparks from the time Mancini booked the apartment to the time of his murder.

Ellie thanked Kristen for her time. "You want a ride somewhere?" she offered.

"No, thanks. Sam's done with me for the day, so I'm meeting a friend up here."

As Ellie led the way back to the Crown Vic, she ran through the timeline in her head again. If Sparks had known where Mancini was going to be that night, he had not learned it from Kristen Woods.

It would be three more days before Ellie realized her mistake.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

5:15 P.M.

The Fifth Precinct of the NYPD is located on Elizabeth Street and Ca.n.a.l. Forty years ago, the spot would have been at the dividing line between Little Italy and Chinatown. But when the federal government changed its immigration laws in 1965, allowing more Asian immigrants into the country, the population of Chinatown exploded. Now Mulberry Street, with its tourist-trap restaurants and sidewalk vendors hawking Bada Bing and Fuggedabout.i.t T-shirts, was the last remaining enclave of what had once been a real Italian neighborhood. And the Fifth Precinct now stood at the epicenter of an ever-expanding Chinatown.

Rogan parked the car on Elizabeth, just south of Ca.n.a.l, and began making his way north to the precinct.

"Hold up," Ellie called out as she pulled open a gla.s.s door stenciled with gold Chinese lettering. She emerged sixty seconds later with a roasted pork bun wrapped inside a napkin, the first real food she'd seen since shunning the slop masquerading as lunch at the jail.

"A buck twenty-five," Ellie said, popping a piece of the doughy ball of marinated meat into her mouth. "You can't beat Chinatown."

By the time they turned the corner to reach the sky-blue door of the white-brick building that housed the Fifth Precinct, Ellie had finished her makeshift lunch. A civilian aide with a round Charlie Brown head sat at the front service desk.

Rogan pulled back his jacket to reveal his detective's badge. "Narcotics?"

The aide gestured toward a staircase just beyond the entrance. "Next floor up."

A few years earlier, police a.s.sumed that all home invasions were drug-related. Teacher? Priest? Hero landing an airplane in the Hudson? Wouldn't matter. Home invasion victims were always and automatically labeled as drug dealers. But in recent years, police had seen an increase in both home invasions and the number of tragic cases in which innocent people had found themselves targeted by the most predatory and violent offenders, simply because their address was one digit away from a reputed drug house.

On the second floor, Rogan asked a second civilian aide to see Sergeant Frank Boyle.

"The sergeant had to leave. Are you Detective Rogan?"

Rogan nodded. "And Hatcher. I called Boyle a little more than an hour ago. He was expecting us."

"Something came up."

"Like maybe five o'clock?" Rogan said, glancing at his watch.

The aide smiled politely. "Perhaps. He said to see Detective Carenza over there." He pointed to a refrigerator-sized man standing over a desk toward the back of the squad room.

As they walked toward the man who was apparently called Carenza, Ellie noticed that his tanned, veiny biceps were challenging the seams of his fitted black T-shirt. The rest of the ensemble consisted of faded blue jeans, pointed alligator shoes, and a heavy gold chain.

"Ellie Hatcher," she said, offering her hand. "Your sergeant left word to see you?"

"Tony Carenza." The detective gave her a firm handshake and then turned to Rogan to offer the same. "Then you must be Rogan, because Boyle told me some guy from Homicide was coming."

"You heading out on an undercover?" Rogan asked, eyeing the wardrobe.

Carenza glanced down at his own clothing and shrugged. "Nah, man. Just wrapping up some paperwork here, and then I'm audi."

Rogan was nodding politely when Carenza broke out laughing. "Gotcha nervous there, didn't I? Nah, my stuff might not be quite up to what you got going on here," he said, pointing at Rogan's three-b.u.t.ton Ca.n.a.li suit, "but this getup's definitely for the job. The mod's running some buy-and-busts tonight at some of the clubs." In addition to the teams of stop-and-frisk uniform cops that had made New York's zero-tolerance policing famous, the narcotics division used so-called investigatory modules to run undercover operations.

Carenza pulled at the diamond-encrusted dollar sign dangling from his gold chain, most likely a trophy seized during a prior bust. "Too much?"

"Fierce," Ellie said.

"Yeah, I thought so. So what can I do you for? My sergeant made a point of instructing me to be helpful, so consider me your most helpful helper."

Rogan scratched his cheek while he spoke. "We're still chasing a case from May-dead body left behind in a home invasion on Kenmare and Lafayette."

"Yeah, I know that case. The 212. Should be called the 646. Last time I checked, no one could get a 212 number anymore. The place belonged to Sam Sparks, right?"

Rogan nodded, and it struck Ellie that Sparks might be better known to the general public than she had realized, even without the a.s.sistance of a reality show.

"We checked with Boyle at the time to see if we might be looking at a case of mistaken ident.i.ty. He came up with nothing. Now Sparks's lawyer says he hears otherwise. He claims you're running an operation on one of Sparks's neighbors."

"I wouldn't call it an operation," Carenza said, handing Ellie a DD5, the departmental form used to report on ongoing investigations. This one related to for Apartment 702 at 212 Lafayette.

"It's directly next door," she said.

Rogan glanced at the sheet of paper over her shoulder. "The only other apartment on that floor, as I recall."

The DD5 contained entries for three events-two in March, one in June.