"I have no idea," I said. I felt frazzled and it was hard to concentrate.

"Come on, it was only a few days ago," Glazer said. "Think."

"I don't know," I said. "Let's see Thursday night. Um, she was home, I guess."

"You guess?"

I remembered that Thursday night was the night I'd gone to meet Charlotte at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge.

I looked over at the cops, who were now meticulously examining each pair of Rebecca's shoes.

"Why does it matter where Rebecca was?"

"We're talking about after midnight, up till around three a.m. Friday morning."

I'd been with Charlotte until about two a.m.

"Can you please explain what's going on?" I said.

"Have you noticed a steel sharpener missing from your apartment?"

"What's a steel sharpener?"

"It's about ten inches long kind of shaped like a screwdriver."

"I don't own a steel sharpener," I said.

"Well, Rebecca Daniels did," Romero said.

"Can you just tell me what the hell's going on?" I said.

"We believe that Rebecca Daniels stabbed Charlotte O'Dougal to death with a steel sharpener between two and three a.m. on Friday morning,"

Glazer said. "The incident took place in the vestibule of Ms.

CDougal's apartment on East Sixth Street."

It was a good thing I was sitting down, because I was suddenly so dizzy I probably would've passed out. Even sitting, Romero and Glazer's faces became fuzzy.

"You okay?" Romero asked.

"Yeah, fine," I said, although I clearly wasn't.

"You want something to drink? Some water or something?"

"No, that's okay," I said.

"This is a photo of Ms. O'Dougal," Glazer said. "It's an old one, but it's the only one we could find."

I glanced at the crinkled snapshot of Charlotte that looked almost nothing like her. It must've been taken in high school, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She had waist-length brown hair and was smiling, leaning against a red sports car. She looked sexy in a slutty kind of way.

"Have you ever seen her before?" Glazer asked.

"Never," I said. My voice was still unsteady.

"So do you know how Rebecca could've known Charlotte O'Dougal?" Romero asked.

"No idea," I said. "So why do you think Rebecca killed this what was her name?"

"Charlotte O'Dougal," Romero said.

"Yeah, Charlotte O'Dougal," I said.

"We had no idea at first," Glazer explained. "There were no witnesses to the murder and no fingerprints or other physical evidence. All we had to go on was a price sticker on the murder weapon."

"A price sticker?" I said.

"The steel sharpener had been purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond," Glazer explained. "On the chance the purchase had been made recently, we contacted the Bed Bath and Beyond stores in the New York area and created a list of the people who had purchased this particular steel sharpener and who'd paid by credit card. Rebecca Daniels was on this list. She'd purchased the steel sharpener at the Sixth Avenue store on Thursday afternoon with a Discover card."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I said. "Just because she bought a steel sharpener, what makes you think she killed somebody?"

"I guess you don't know about Rebecca Daniels's history," Romero said.

"History?" I asked.

Romero and Glazer exchanged looks again.

"Three years ago Rebecca Daniels was living in L.A.," Romero said.

"Yeah, so?" I said.

"Did you know she was married to a man named David Hardle?"

So Rebecca hadn't been lying about her former husband, the other David.

"Yeah, she did tell me a little about that, just recently, as a matter of fact," I said. "She said they got divorced."

Romero and Glazer looked at each other, smirking.

"What's so funny?" I said.

"It wasn't a divorce," Romero said. "What your girlfriend might've forgotten to tell you is that one night she stabbed her husband to death in the chest with a steel sharpener. She claimed somebody broke into the house and did it, but the case was pretty much open-and-shut.

Her prints were on the murder weapon, and she had motive. The victim's friends said Hardle had been having an affair and wanted out of the marriage, and Daniels was giving him a hard time about it."

Feeling dazed, wondering if this was really happening, I said, "So if Rebecca killed her husband, why didn't she go to jail?"

"Thank the American legal system," Romero said. "Evidence was mishandled, witnesses lied, and, apparently, Daniels was good on the stand. She claimed her prints got on the weapon when she tried to pull it out of her husband's chest. The jury bought it and she got off and moved to New York."

One of the cops searching through Rebecca's things said, "Hey, Frank, check this out."

Glazer and Romero went over and the cop showed them a pair of Rebecca's shoes. Glazer examined the shoes closely, then said, "Looks good." The cop put the shoes in a plastic bag, and then another cop showed the detectives one of Rebecca's jackets.

As the detectives and the cops continued to talk, I tried to absorb the fact that for over a year I'd been living with a cold-blooded killer.

Rebecca had told me that I didn't really know her, and now I knew what she meant. Then I started to imagine what could've happened on Thursday night. I'd thought Rebecca had been asleep when I left to meet Charlotte at the bar, but she could've been awake. She could've followed me downtown, maybe in another cab, and seen me with Charlotte. She could've assumed that Charlotte was Angie, then followed her home and killed her.

Romero and Glazer returned to their seats on the couch.

"So you really had no idea about what happened in L.A.?" Romero said to me.

"If I knew, why would I stay with her?"

"Unfortunately we might have some more bad news for you," Romero said, and then he turned to Glazer.

"Charlotte O'Dougal," Glazer said to me, "the woman who was killed, was a junkie and a prostitute. She lived with a guy named Ricardo Alvarado."

Glazer showed me a picture of Ricky. This photo looked much more recent than the one of Charlotte. Ricky's scruffy face and dark, wolflike eyes looked painfully familiar. Somehow I managed to stay calm.

"Alvarado and O'Dougal had a history of domestic abuse," Glazer said.

"On Thursday morning he was found dead from severe head injuries in front of the building where he and O'Dougal lived. It was just a few feet away from where we discovered O'Dougal's body."

"Jesus," I said, still looking at the photo. I realized that my hands were tensing, and I had to consciously try to keep them still.

"Initially we thought Alvarado's murder had been drug-related, or maybe a botched robbery attempt," Glazer said, "but now that his girlfriend's dead it looks like there could be more to it. Do you have any idea what Rebecca's connection to these people was?"

"Nope," I said, shaking my head.

"Are you sure?" Glazer asked.

"Positive."

"Look at the pictures again," Romero said.

I glanced at them, then said, "Sorry, I've never seen these people before. I'm absolutely positive."

They seemed to believe me.

"Do you have any idea at all how Rebecca Daniels could've come into contact with them?" Glazer asked.

"Nope," I said, shaking my head. "I mean, Rebecca used to go out a lot I mean, dancing at clubs downtown. She also went to raves sometimes in the East Village and Alphabet City. Maybe she met them at a club or something."

"You know which clubs she went to?" Glazer asked.

I gave him the names of several clubs I knew Rebecca had gone to Vivid, Carbon, Chaos, Twirl. The way Glazer was writing in his pad I could tell he thought he had a serious lead.

"You told Detective Romero that Rebecca took various drugs," Glazer said. "What about heroin?"

"What about it?"

"Alvarado and O'Dougal were hard-core addicts," Glazer said. "Did your girlfriend shoot up?"