‘What?’ Deluthe slowly rose from his crouch on the floor.

Charles excused himself for a few moments, then returned to the kitchen, holding the frying pan found at the crime scene. ‘This is Natalie’s – solid iron. The handle would’ve been very hot. She’d need a potholder.’ He pointed to one of the pictures on the table. ‘See the hooks on this wall? Here by her stove – one hook for each potholder, and they’re all in place. But the sausages weren’t done yet. See? The front burner is still glowing. She was interrupted.’

‘Right,’ said Deluthe. ‘She died.’

‘But first – something less dramatic,’ said Charles, ‘like a knock on the door. Natalie had time to hang her potholder on a hook before she opened that door to her murderer. She wouldn’t leave sausages unattended for long, so you know the fight began immediately.’ He took the sponge from Deluthe and wiped spots offa crime-scene photo. ‘Judging by the number of sausages, I’d say you used too much water for your experiment.’ He glanced at a photo of Natalie’s apron. In Mallory’s enhancement, the longest borders of the grease stain were more sharply defined. Louis Markowitz’s notebook entry had been correct. This was not a splash or a splatter. It was a smear.

After separating one photo from the rest, Charles pointed to a mass of roaches on Natalie’s right hand. ‘Let’s assume she burned her hand. She also had a bad fall, and it knocked her out or stunned her. Natalie never got to swing the skillet. But she intended to use it as a weapon. Oh, and the killer never touched it at all.’

Deluthe folded his arms. ‘How could you know if – ’

‘Because your apron is dry, and the rest of the kitchen isn’t.’ Charles ran the frying pan under the tap, then returned it to the stove’s front burner. ‘Natalie’s facing her killer. No time to pull down a potholder – she grabs the skillet – ’ He grasped the handle and raised the pan quickly, spilling a bit of the water on his hand and arm. More liquid hit the floor behind him on the backswing. ‘The hot iron and grease burn her hand. Natalie lets go of the handle before she can swing the skillet forward.’

Charles released the pan, and it clattered to the floor beside him. ‘The killer advances. She backs off.’ He edged away from an invisible man. ‘She has grease on her shoes and loses traction. Her legs fly out from under her, and she falls facedown.’

Deluthe was in denial. ‘How do you know she fell? Or how she landed?’

‘Logic,’ said Charles. ‘If all the facts only fit one scenario, that’s the way it happened. May I?’ He held out one hand to take the proffered apron, then spread it on the floor. ‘Natalie’s down. She’s not moving. Probably hit her head on the corner of the stove. I know her skull fracture wasn’t made by an iron skillet. That would’ve caved in her skull.’ He straightened up and turned to Deluthe. ‘You’ll notice that my grease puddle is smaller than yours. It’s covered by the breast of the apron.’ He tapped the photo of the garment. ‘The edges of the grease stain wouldn’t be this straight if she struggled. So she was stunned or unconscious when he dragged her across the floor.’ Charles reached down and pulled the apron toward him. When he picked it up, the wet spot was the size and shape of the stain on Natalie Homer’s apron.

‘And that’s what the fly on the wall saw.’ Charles’s tone was almost apologetic when he said to Deluthe, ‘I’m sure you could’ve worked this out. But you’ve never cooked anything, have you?’

The floor had been recently mopped, and it bore the same chlorine odor as the city morgue. Riker could hear Charles Butler speaking to the young intern in the hallway outside the hospital room.

The rolling of Sparrow’s eyes was involuntary; Riker knew that, but this guise of dementia might be a window on her mind – what was left of it. He resisted the temptation to close her eyelids, a service performed for the dead.

The detective sat beside the bed, making confetti out of the hospital’s request to give the patient a more complete identity. He knew her full name, but he would never surrender it. Sparrow would not have wanted that. She had told him so one rainy night when he had given her coffee and shelter in his car. The prostitute had been sickly and bone thin all that winter. He had believed that she was only days away from dying, and that was before she had mentioned the plans for her gravestone.

He remembered laughing when their macabre conversation had turned to braggadocio. Sparrow – that was all she had wanted on her monument – no dates, no message, only the one name engraved in bold letters like a Las Vegas marquee, a token of fame. It fit her character so well, this gross presumption that cemetery visitors would know who she was… who she had been.

Done with his hallway consultation, Charles Butler entered the room and closed the door softly, as if Sparrow were not beyond being disturbed. ‘Well, you were right about her doctor. He hates policemen, but he’s giving her the best of care. One might say he’s on a mission to keep her alive.’ He nodded toward the pole beside the bed. It supported a plastic bag of liquid that flowed into the patient’s arm. ‘That’s an antibiotic to fight infection. And a collapsed lung explains the tube down her throat. Apparently this woman had a very hard life. For one thing, her doctor suspects a history of chronic respiratory ailments.’

Riker nodded. ‘She got sick every winter.’

‘And then there’s the long-term damage of malnutrition and drugs. Given her history as a prostitute, the doctor thinks venereal disease might account for a dysfunctional kidney. So it isn’t just the coma – it’s a gang of complications.’ He rested one hand on the detective’s shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Riker stared at the woman on the hospital bed – his friend until she died. ‘Could she be in there? I mean – with a brain going on all cylinders?’

‘It’s possible.’ Charles stared at a machine by the bed, watching the dip and spike of lines running across its screen. ‘Her present condition is best described as a dream state. In all likelihood, she’ll be dreaming when she dies. No pain, no fear. Does this help you?’

‘Yeah, it does. Thanks.’ Riker listened to her mechanical breathing and stared at the tubes running in and out of her body.

‘We should be leaving soon,’ said Charles. ‘I promised Mallory I’d get you to Brooklyn on time.’

‘Yeah – soon.’ The box of tissues on the nightstand was empty. Riker set the paperback novel on the bed, then searched all his pockets for a handkerchief.

‘I might have something to cheer you up,’ said Charles. ‘A lead on William Heart, the photographer who dropped his camera at Natalie’s crime scene. I called a gallery that – ’ He picked up the western and idly leafed through the pages. ‘Did you finish this yet?’

‘Never started it.’ Riker wiped away Sparrow’s drool.

‘I don’t blame you. The writing is terrible.’ Charles stared at the woman on the bed. ‘I imagine Mallory was a child when she met Sparrow – maybe ten? Younger than that?’

Riker froze in the act of dabbing Sparrow’s lips. He wanted a drink so badly. He was damned if he lied or told the truth, and even his continuing silence said too much.

Charles looked down at the book in his hand. ‘I managed to find a complete set of these westerns. I read them all last night.’

The handkerchief dropped to the floor. Riker closed his eyes and hoped that his voice conveyed only weariness when he said, ‘Bet that took all of four minutes.’

‘Longer, I read them twice. And I still don’t understand why Kathy read them so many times.’

These days, it was rare to hear Mallory’s first name said aloud. He knew Charles was speaking of Kathy the child he had never known. She had been all grown up when Lou Markowitz had introduced this man to his pretty daughter, the cop. On the day they met, Mallory had arrived at the SoHo cafe for a ritual breakfast with her foster father. Charles, normally a graceful man, had risen too quickly, knocking over his chair in a rush to play the gentleman. In another departure from grace, he had stared at her remarkable green eyes throughout the meal and smiled a foolish apology each time she looked his way. His every gesture, the food spilled in his lap and an overturned juice glass had said to her, I love you madly.