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he take a bus or the subway or a cab? Did anyone see him arrive? Was he alone?” I looked pointedly at the detectives. They stayed mum. “Was anyone else here already,” I pressed on, “and if so, how did they get in? Also, what happened to Yakovlev’s cell phone? You didn’t find one here, did you?”
    Adams shook his head.
    “’Cause there’s no sign of it downstairs,” I continued, “and he had to have one, right? And who else was here? Clearly, someone was. Was it the Sokolovs? Someone else? Either way, how did they leave? Is there a back entrance to the building, a service entrance? Did anyone see them leave? Do they have any cars and if so, where are they?” I let the barrage of questions hang there for a moment. “So there’s a whole bunch of legwork that needs to be done here.” I then added, eyeing Adams as I said it, “And you can either lose the attitude and make yourself a couple of friends at Federal Plaza, which could come in handy someday, or you can stop wasting our time and get your ass out of here and let us do our job. Your call. But make your play, here and now.”
    Giordano glanced at Adams and said, “We’re cool here. And we’re glad to help. As long as you keep us informed on what you find. It’s gotta be a two-way street.”
    “Sure thing.”
    “And we’d like to share the collar,” he added.
    “Not a problem. Though if we end up following this thing halfway across the planet, it might not work out that way.”
    Aparo chuckled. “These things do have a habit of turning out that way with him,” he said, referring to me.
    I glanced at Adams. Giordano gave him a look.
    He frowned, then nodded grudgingly. “Sure. Whatever.”
    Aparo cut the tension by remarking, “Hey, was this open like that when you came in here?”
    We all turned to see what he was talking about.
    He was pointing at the stereo. I stepped over for a closer look.
    The stereo was a stack of black, clunky, old-style components—amp, tuner, cassette player, and CD player. The cassette player had two decks in it, but it was the CD player that had caught Aparo’s eye. It was one of those five-CD changers that stored the discs not in a stack, but on a tray the size of a twelve-inch vinyl album that slid out when you hit the Eject button, allowing you to place the five CDs in their respective slots around its rotating platter. The tray was in its out position. I took a closer look. It had four CDs still in it. The slot farthest out—the one that would start playing if you hit the Play button and it had a CD in it—was empty.
    Which was curious, sure. But whether it actually meant something was doubtful.
    Aparo was studying the names on the CDs with a smirk on his face. “Whoa. Get a load of the opera and classical stuff they’ve got in here. And given the size of those speakers . . . the neighbors must love them.”
    We all looked at him blankly.
    He shrank back. “I’m just saying.”
    “What about the media?” Giordano asked. “They’re waiting for something from us.”
    I thought about it for a moment, then handed Giordano the framed photo. “Let’s put it out. Say we need to talk to the Sokolovs, it was their apartment, but they weren’t here when the tragedy happened. Choose your words and your tone carefully and make sure you don’t paint them as suspects, that needs to be clear. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will call in.”
    Giordano nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
    I took in the room again.
    A Russian diplomat had been pushed out a window after some kind of fight, and an older couple was missing.
    Not exactly worthy of raising the threat alert level to orange. Or even beige, for that matter.
    I had to admit I wasn’t too excited about dealing with it. It was, well, a murder investigation, and as such, it was probably better left to the local homicide detectives, at least to start with. Even a jackass like Adams could probably put it to bed effectively. The only reason Aparo