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Manhattan’s trendy Upper West Side. Not exactly where I’d expect to find someone selling stolen medical equipment on the black market.
    The head shot Hutchings showed us of Lynn Lyon hadn’t done her justice. She opened the door wearing jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and a sauce-spattered apron. Even with no makeup and her hair caught up in a blue bandanna, I got that rush men get when they’re suddenly face-to-face with a naturally beautiful woman.
    We ID’d ourselves and told her we had some questions to ask her.
    “I’m right in the middle of something,” she said. “Can you come back later?”
    “No, ma’am,” Kylie said. “It can’t wait.”
    “Neither can my risotto,” she said. “We’ll have to talk in the kitchen.”
    She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m a food blogger, and I’m working on my next post,” she said, leading us into a cluttered kitchen, where I picked up the earthy smell of mushrooms.
    “My take on porcini-asparagus risotto,” she said, picking up a wooden spoon and stirring a shallow pot. “What’s this about?”
    “There’s been a robbery at Mercy Hospital,” I said.
    “Well, that’s hardly a big surprise,” she said. “I warned them.” With all the poise of a TV chef, she turned to the oven and took out a loaf of fresh-baked bread, set it on the counter, and picked up a camera.
    “What do you mean you warned them?” I said.
    “Some of these volunteers will leave the gift shop and run off to grab a cup of coffee,” she said, clicking off a few photos of the bread. “Instead of locking the place up, they hang a sign that says ‘Back in five minutes.’ They’re too trusting. It was bound to happen.”
    “It wasn’t the gift shop, Ms. Lyon,” Kylie said. “They stole six new dialysis machines.”
    “Six…I don’t understand,” she said, ladling broth from a stockpot onto the risotto. “I work in the gift shop, but…Oh my God—I was in with the new dialysis machines last week.”
    “Taking pictures,” Kylie said, gesturing at the camera.
    Most people—guilty or innocent—would respond with indignation: “Are you calling me a thief?” Not Lyon. She put the hand that wasn’t stirring the risotto to her mouth. Her eyes watered up, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “This is so embarrassing,” she said.
    “What were you doing in a restricted area?” Kylie asked, all bad-cop body language and tone of voice.
    “It didn’t say Restricted, and the door wasn’t locked. I have a friend who is a dialysis nurse upstate. I was telling her about this new equipment Mercy bought, and she asked me to send her a picture, so I did. That’s all. It was harmless. I can’t believe you’re accusing me of stealing.”
    “Nobody is accusing you of anything,” Kylie said. “I’m just asking a few routine questions.”
    “If you knew me, you wouldn’t ask things like that. I don’t steal. Cooking and volunteer work are my passions. My soul needs redemption, and I get that from both.”
    The tears were gone now. “I have a few questions of my own,” she said. “How am I supposed to get six dialysis machines out of the hospital? And what would I do with them if I had them? It’s not just embarrassing; it’s insane. Unless you’re planning to arrest me, please leave.”
    We left.
    “You bought her act?” Kylie said once we were back in the car.
    “How do you know it was an act? You hit her with some circumstantial evidence, and she had a plausible explanation.”
    “Oh please: pretty lady, at home in the kitchen, turns on the waterworks. Guys fall for it all the time.”
    “So all of a sudden I’m a guy? I thought I was a cop.”
    “I’m a cop too, and the first thing I thought of was, if I were going to send someone to case a hospital, I’d send someone who could fly under the radar. She fits the bill.”
    “Well, right now we have nothing to go on,” I said.
    “So why don’t you humor me? Let’s look at the other hospitals that were hit