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“How can you know that?”
    “Carmella abandoned her family, but Alta never abandoned her. She told me she was very proud of her little sister and had followed her career as a detective and all. She had a scrapbook and everything. Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Prager—”
    “Moe. Please, call me Moe.”
    “Don’t be so surprised, Moe. When you were a cop, didn’t you and your partner ride a lot of miles stuck in a car together? What did you guys talk about?”
    “Women mostly.”
    She laughed, her smile lighting up the room. Still, it seemed almost painful for her, like she was out of practice. “No, seriously, Moe.”
    “We told stories, talked about our families, talked sports, politics.”
    “Us too,” she said. “Alta and I spent a lot of hours together talking.”
    “Alta told you a lot, but did she tell you why Carmella changed her name and broke away from her family?” I asked.
    That wiped away any last traces of a smile from Maya Watson’s face. The air went out of her as if I’d sucker punched her in the belly. She dropped the cigarette into an old cup of coffee and we listened to its death hiss. She lit another. Yeah, the last few months had taken a toll on her nerves. I repeated the question.
    “That her mama was ashamed of her on account of her getting raped as a little girl, that their mama blamed her.” Maya bowed her head. “Shame is a powerful thing, Moe, a powerful thing.”
    She was right about the power of shame. Problem was that these days, no one seemed capable of feeling it. That didn’t seem to be one of Maya Watson’s issues. Apparently, whatever had gone on with Tillman had stirred up a lot of shame in her. After a few more puffs on the cigarette, she looked up at me.
    “But what are you doing here anyway? You didn’t come here to talk about Carmella.”
    “In a way, I did. Carm was the one who asked me to look into Alta’s murder.”
    “She’s a little late to the game, don’t you think? She might’a thought about doing something for Alta when she was alive. Like when her face was plastered all over the news. Alta could’ve used some support then.”
    “Maybe you’re right, Maya. Carmella’s wounds are old and deep, but I think she’s feeling thirty years of guilt and loss all at once. I guess there’s plenty of shame to go around these days.”
    “Carmella’s shame won’t do Alta no good now.”
    “Like I said, maybe you’re right to be so hard on Carmella, but I had an old friend who survived Auschwitz. He had every right in the world to be angry and judgmental, but he was slow to judge and when he did judge, he never did it harshly. ‘Look in the mirror,’ he used to say, ‘then judge.’ Besides, I’m here, not Carmella, and I need your help.”
    She dropped the second cigarette into the coffee and gestured for me to sit at the table. When I sat, she sat.
    “What do you need?” she asked.
    “Whatever you can give me. I need a sense of who Alta was. What kind of men did she date? What did she love? What did she hate? That sort of thing.”
    Maya Watson didn’t need any further prompting. She spoke for nearly forty minutes, stopping only to breathe and light up cigarettes. Alta was tough. She had to be. Female EMTs were now going through what women cops had gone through in the seventies and eighties. And minority women … forget about it. You had to be three times as good at your job just to tread water. Alta had taken Maya under her wing and had protected her from the worst parts of the job. Like Carmella, Alta had a temper, but was fierce and fiercely loyal. Alta would take a bullet for someone. She loved movies and detective novels and Indian food. But Alta was pretty secretive about who she dated. Eventually, Maya ran out of steam. Tears formed in the corners of her otherworldly eyes.
    “What is it?” I asked, gently laying a hand on her shoulder.
    “I couldn’t go to her funeral and I’ve had to grieve Alta here, alone. I’ve been cooped