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Wait a minute. A neighbor. Dana Catrell still has the extra key. She took care of our house a week or two ago while we were away. I was trying to . . . reconnect with my wife, I suppose. Fat lot of good that did.”
    Lon Nguyen is smaller than Jack expected. He looks like a kid, slipping in off the elevator and padding down the hall in his shortsand flip-flops. He stands for a minute in the doorway, watching people in the cluttered office as they sit for questioning or come in with reports.
    â€œDetective Moss?”
    â€œYes.” Jack stands up, sticks out his hand. Nguyen takes it in a brief, obligatory shake, and Jack heads back down the hall to the interrogation room with Lon Nguyen in tow. Jack can tell he hates the looks of it. A lot of people do; they get skittish in a closed room, claustrophobic. “Relax,” he says. “We can leave the door open. We’re just here for privacy.” He goes in first and sits down, motions for Nguyen to take a seat. “So your neighbor,” Jack says. “You saw her the day she died?”
    Nguyen nods. “Yes.”
    â€œWhen was that, Mr. Nguyen?”
    â€œIt was in afternoon. I was outside. When summer is hot and so much smog, I wash my car often.”
    â€œWhat time was this?”
    He shrugs. “Shortly after I return from work.”
    â€œSay five?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œFive-thirty?”
    â€œMore like five-thirty.”
    â€œAnd Celia?”
    Nguyen stares at the floor or maybe at his flip-flops, Jack can’t tell.
    â€œWhat was Mrs. Steinhauser doing when you saw her?”
    â€œShe was yelling.”
    â€œWhere was she?”
    â€œIn her front yard, out by the street.”
    â€œWho was she yelling at?”
    â€œMy neighbor.”
    â€œWhat’s your neighbor’s name?”
    â€œDana.”
    Jack looks down at his notes. “Dana Catrell?”
    â€œI don’t know their last name,” he says.
    â€œ Their last name?”
    â€œDana and her husband and their son.”
    â€œOkay. So what was she yelling?”
    â€œShe tell Dana to come to her house.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Lon shrugs again.
    â€œWhat did Celia—Mrs. Steinhauser—say, more or less?”
    â€œâ€˜Come here right away. It is matter of life and death.’”
    â€œThen what happened?”
    â€œDana close her door and run to Celia’s home.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œI finish washing my car and I enter inside my house.”
    â€œThat it?”
    â€œYes. That is it.”
    â€œDid you see anyone else at the Steinhausers’?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you happen to notice when Dana Catrell left their house?”
    â€œNo. I was already inside.”
    â€œDid you hear anything? Besides what you told me, of course.”
    â€œNo. Nothing else.”
    â€œAll right, then.” Jack stands up, and Nguyen is on his feet and halfway out the door before he can even extend his hand. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Nguyen,” he says as the man bolts out, mumbling what Jack assumes are parting words. By the time he picks up his notes and steps into the hall, Nguyen is nowhere in sight.
    Jack stretches his arms over his head and yawns. He’ll call Dana Catrell, have her come down and see what she’s got to say. He hasn’t spoken to her himself. One of the officers at the scene jotted down her name and phone number—said she was a neighbor, a friend, maybe; it’s in his notes. At this point in the investigation, she’s the last person to see Celia Steinhauser alive, and hehopes she’s more forthcoming than Nguyen. Man, he’d have told Ann a few days ago, sitting at the table after dinner. It was like pulling teeth talking to that guy.
    It’s you, Jack, she would have said, clearing the dishes, stacking them in the sink for him to get to later. She’d turn to him, catch him on his way to the back door, trap him with her