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I started to say, but I was too exhausted to fight that battle tonight. Nadia was dead, and whatever one called her, it wouldn’t bring her back to life. I didn’t move from the bench facing the stretcher but croaked out a yes.
    â€œCan we talk inside, ma’am?” the cop said. “The EMTs are going to take the dead girl to the morgue as soon as the photo team is through, and it’s five degrees here in the parking lot.”
    I handed the blanket back to the ambulance crew and let the cop give me a hand as I jumped off the back. Nadia was lying where I’d left her, her face silver under the blue strobes, the blood on her chest black. My coat was still underneath her. I walked over and fished my car and house keys from the pockets despite cries from the evidence team. My handbag was lying a few feet from the “dead woman,” I muttered out loud. I picked up the bag, also against the outraged shouts of the officer in charge.
    â€œThat’s evidence.”
    â€œIt’s my handbag, which I dropped when I was performing first aid. You don’t need it and I do.”
    I turned on my heel and walked back into the Club Gouge. The bag was handmade from red leather, an apology of sorts from the friend of a dead client, and I wasn’t going to risk losing it or my wallet in an evidence locker.
    Everyone who’d been in the club or the parking lot, except those crafty enough to escape ahead of the team in blue, had been herded into the building. A minute before, I’d been too cold, but the club atmosphere, hot, nearly airless, made me ill. I started to sweat and fought a rising tide of nausea.
    The club staff, including my cousin Petra, was huddled by the bar. After a moment, when I decided I wasn’t going to vomit, I shoved my way through the crowd to Petra’s side.
    â€œVic, what happened?” Petra’s blue eyes were wide with fear. “You’re covered with blood.”
    I looked down and saw Nadia’s blood on my jeans and sweater, on my hands. My scalp crawled: Maybe her blood was in my hair.
    â€œSomeone shot a woman as she left the club,” I said.
    â€œWas it— Who was it?”
    â€œI heard her called Nadia,” I said slowly, fixing Petra with a hard stare. “I don’t know if that’s her name, and I don’t know her last name. If the cops, or a reporter, ask you questions about what happened tonight, you can answer only truthfully about things you actually know and saw. You shouldn’t answer questions about things that are just guesses because that could mislead the cops.”
    â€œIt would be best if you don’t consult the other witnesses,” a voice said.
    A female officer had fought through the shouting, texting, Twittering chaos to appear at my side.
    Under the club lights, I could see her face, narrow, with pronounced cheekbones, and lank black hair cut so short the ends only just appeared below her cap rim. I read her badge: E. Milkova. E. Milkova didn’t look much older than my cousin, too young to be a cop, too young to be telling me what to do. But—she had the badge. I let her guide me to the small stage at the back of the club, which the police had roped off with crime scene tape so they could use it for interrogations. She lifted the tape so I could crawl under, then dragged a couple of chairs from the nearest table. I reached a hand out and took one of them from her.
    I was in that numb place you inhabit after you’ve been part of violence and death. It was hard to focus on Milkova’s questions. I gave her my name. I told her I’d heard gunshots and run to see what the problem was. I told her I didn’t know the dead woman.
    â€œBut you knew her name,” Milkova said.
    â€œThat was just from hearing someone call her Nadia. I don’t know her last name.”
    â€œMost people run away from gunshots.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œYou ran toward