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we’re gone?”
    â€œSure thing.”
    â€œAnd maybe start looking for the other tenants,” Jane said. “If they’re not in the building, we’ll have to find them to reinterview them.”
    MacHovec started writing down names. “As good as done,” he said airily.
    Jane wasn’t so sure.
    â€œSo you’ve got the Quill case.” Charlie Bracken was a big man with dark, graying hair, a gut, and sharp eyes. He was wearing a worn sports jacket, the pockets stretched out of shape, and dark gray pants. He pulled another chair over to the desk. “Sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”
    They said yes, and Bracken brought three Styrofoam cups back and a handful of sugars and whiteners. Defino put everything in his and stuck a wooden stirrer in it and kept it moving.
    â€œBroke my ass on that case. Looked like a push-in but it didn’t feel right. Nothing was taken. Wallet, keys, watch, money. Everything was still there.” He shrugged. “Guy had an uncontested divorce, ex-wife was out of the country when he was killed, coworkers said he was a nice guy, did his job, never said much. Most of ’em didn’t care much whether he was dead or alive, but no one
wanted
him dead. Other people in the building didn’t know he existed.”
    â€œPay his rent on time?” Defino asked.
    â€œNo complaints. His apartment . . . what can I tell you? Not scrubbed clean but everything in place, checkbook up-to-date, food in the fridge, stuff in the freezer, extra rolls of toilet paper in the closet, clean sheets on the bed. Looked like he was planning to stay awhile.”
    â€œAny girlfriends?” Defino asked, and after a moment, “Boyfriends?”
    â€œNah. I got the feeling he hadn’t gotten over his wife yet. She’s a looker. Met her second husband at work. He also got divorced to marry her.”
    â€œThe other woman remarry?” Jane asked.
    â€œNot at the time of the homicide.”
    â€œThe other tenants,” she said. “They all clean?”
    â€œAs clean as anyone in New York. There was one guy. . . .” He opened a drawer and took out a dog-eared file folder and opened it. “On the top floor . . . there was only one tenant on four; the other apartment was empty—there was a guy named Hutchins. Something about him. He didn’t fit. Came from out west somewhere. Talk to him, he never laid eyes on Arlen Quill.”
    Defino said to Jane, “Tell him.”
    Jane watched Bracken’s face warm with expectation. A detective never lost interest in his old cases. “I went by the house yesterday,” she said. “The names on the mailboxes were all different. None of the tenants from the time of the homicide are living there.”
    Bracken’s eyes narrowed. “Crazy.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThe woman on the first floor, Best is her name, she died maybe six months after Quill. Stroke, I think. She was a funny old gal, wore a black wig with bangs, looked like Mamie Eisenhower. But the others, last time I checked they were all there.”
    â€œWhen was that?”
    â€œSix, eight months after the homicide. I never called any of them again after that.”
    â€œWe’ve got someone on our team checking them out,” Defino said. “We need to reinterview them if we can find them.”
    â€œFour people moved out in four years,” Bracken said. “Rent-controlled building. Doesn’t make sense.”
    â€œThat’s what we thought.”
    â€œMakes you wonder. I didn’t hear anything bad about the landlord. He owns a bunch of buildings on the West Side. No complaints about heat, no fights that I heard about. He sure as hell didn’t move his family into Quill’s apartment. I even went up to a couple of his other buildings and asked around. Nothing.”
    â€œSounds like you did a thorough job,” Jane said.
    â€œSo why did they move? Don’t