Adam was trying another search engine when the doorbell rang. He figured it was reporters again, harassing him, and several seconds later when his mother called, “Adam!” he mumbled, “Goddamn it.” He’d told her not to answer the door for reporters under any circumstances; what was she doing? He headed downstairs, ready to explode.

It wasn’t a reporter, though. Detective Clements was standing there, and Adam had a feeling that went way beyond dйjа vu.

“What’s going on?” Adam asked, hoping there was good news. Maybe there’d been a break in the case- Tony or someone else had been arrested.

But Clements, looking cold and serious, said, “I need to talk to you, Mr. Bloom,” and Adam thought, Jesus, not again.

Adam said, “If you have news I’d appreciate it if you just told me what it is. This is a very difficult time for me, obviously.”

“I understand, and I promise it won’t take long.”

“If you’re going to question me I don’t want to do it without my lawyer here.”

“That’s up to you,” Clements said, “but this isn’t formal questioning. I’m just doing some more information gathering. If you want to call your lawyer, you can, but I can’t hang around here waiting for him to show up. You’ll have to come down to the station with me.”

That was all Adam needed- if the reporters saw a detective taking him in for questioning, what stories would they write then? Adam figured he’d see how it went. If they were just basic questions, he’d answer them. If not, he’d call his lawyer.

They went into the dining room and sat in the same seats they’d sat in during Clements’s other interrogations- at the middle of the table, Clements directly across from Adam.

“You’re getting to be a pro at this, huh?” Clements asked.

“I guess it’s to be expected when I’m a person of interest.”

Adam’s tone was dripping with sarcasm, but Clements either didn’t get it or wasn’t amused; he didn’t crack a smile.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “you’re not a suspect in the case.”

Adam didn’t believe him. “Really?” he said. “Do the reporters out there know that?”

“Like I said, this won’t take long. I just need to go over your whereabouts on Monday evening, from the time you left your office to the time of the nine- oneone call.”

“Are you kidding me?” Adam said. “We’ve been through all this how many times?”

“I understand, but we’re doing this with everyone involved in the case. We just need to make sure there are no discrepancies.”

“What about Tony’s whereabouts? Are you double- and triple- checking his alibi?”

“Yes, we’re still talking to Tony, and we’re talking to a lot of other people. So you said your left your office at around six fifteen, is that correct?”

Adam told Clements pretty much verbatim what he’d told him the other day- he left his office, rode the subway to Forest Hills, stopped at the grocery store, discovered the body, and after several minutes called 911. He gave Clements the same estimated times he’d given during the previous questioning.

“Is it possible you shopped for less than ten minutes?” Clements asked.

“No,” Adam said. “It was at least ten minutes, maybe closer to fifteen or twenty. There was a woman complaining at the checkout counter.”

“So you’re saying that you got home no later than seven twenty- five or seven thirty?”

“That’s an estimated time, but yes, that sounds about right.”

Clements wrote this in his pad.

“Can I ask why my whereabouts are so important if I’m not a suspect?” Adam asked.

“Everything’s important in a murder investigation,” Clements said, not answering the question. Then he added, “We have to create an accurate time line for Monday night. Forensics has given us a probable time of death of between six thirty and seven thirty, so we think your wife was dead for less than an hour before the time you say you discovered her body. We have the reports of your neighbors’ German shepherd barking very loudly at approximately six thirty, which also fits into the time your wife was killed. We’re also talking to your neighbors and other people in the neighborhood to see if anyone saw-”

“I have to talk to you about that,” Adam said excitedly.

“About your neighbors?”

“No, the dog,” Adam said. “I think I have some information you might find pretty… well, pretty damn interesting.”

He told Clements that the dog had barked at Xan earlier today and when he’d found the note from Tony, and that Xan had flirted with Dana a few nights before she was killed, and that there was strangely no information about Xan on the Internet. As Adam spoke, he thought the whole scenario sounded so flimsy, so outlandish, so circumstantial, that he was convinced Clements was going to laugh the whole thing off.

So he was surprised when he was through and Clements asked very seriously, “So why do you think Xan would forge notes pretending to be Tony?”

“That part I can’t figure out,” Adam said. “I admit there are holes in all of this, but I wanted to tell you anyway because there’re other things that seem… I don’t know, it’s just I hardly know this guy. My daughter’s only been dating him for about a week.”

“If I’d known this the other day I would’ve questioned him. He was the long- haired guy who was here when I was interviewing your daughter, right?”

Adam nodded and said, “If I’d even remotely thought about any of this, of course I would’ve told you about it then.”

“Did she start dating him before or after you received the first note?”

Adam thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “Before.”

“Well, this definitely sounds like something we should look into. It might go nowhere, but throughout my career dogs have sometimes given me my biggest leads. In fact, I used to work for the canine unit.”

“Really?” Actually, Adam couldn’t care less about Clements’s career, but he was glad to be on his good side for a change and not be treated as a suspect, at least for the moment.

“Yeah, for five years,” Clements said. “You really get attached to dogs, and they’re great to work with, a lot easier to work with than the human partners I’ve had, I’ll tell you that much. They’re even easier to get along with than a couple of my ex- wives.”

Adam forced a smile.

Clements went on, “The interesting thing is that Tony has continued to deny writing either of those notes so, yeah, everything’s worth looking into. Where’s Xan now?”

“With my daughter. They should be back at his place in Brooklyn by now.”

“Do you have a phone number or an address for Xan?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t. But Marissa said he lives in Red Hook.”

“That’s okay, we’ll get his info. Can you just spell his name for me?”

Adam spelled Xan’s full name for Clements and told him to also look under the first name Alexander. As Clements was writing that down, Adam said, “So if the same person wrote both of the notes and that person wasn’t Tony, it’s possible that the same person who wrote the notes broke into my house.”

“Anything’s possible,” Clements said.

“So maybe you should see if there’s a connection between Xan and Carlos Sanchez. I think that’s pretty remote, but-”

“Don’t worry, we’ll check out everything,” Clements said, getting up and putting the pad away. “By the way, Dr. Bloom, are you right- handed or lefthanded?”

“Right- handed.”

“Thanks very much, Doctor. I’ll be in touch with you again soon.”

Clements left, but his last question lingered. Adam figured it must’ve been forensics related; maybe they’d figured out, or were trying to figure out, whether the killer was a righty or a lefty. Well, so much for not feeling like a suspect. That had lasted for, what, a minute?

Adam’s mother had been eavesdropping on the conversation from the other room- why wasn’t Adam surprised?- and she said, “See, he doesn’t think checking out Xan is so crazy. I told you, I got a bad feeling about him.”