"I'm really surprised. You've explained the new evidence to her? You told her she's looking at a murder charge?"

"D'you tell her that if Coop sends her up the river for slaughtering an eighty-two-year-old woman, P. Diddy'll be Puff Great-Granddaddy by the time she sees daylight?"

"I don't look at it that way, Detective. You don't have anything on Tiffany. She and her mother used to live on the same block as the deceased. Any of the kids will tell you she was in and out of Ms. Ransome's apartment all the time, just like the rest of them. Tiffany carried her groceries, helped her with laundry-"

"I'm talking a fresh set of prints, Ms. Lisi. Not old, not smudged."

She ignored Chapman and kept talking to me. "Actuarially, Alex, McQueen Ransome's life expectancy wouldn't have been-"

"What did you just say?" Mike asked.

"I said that if you look at an actuarial table for African-American women in the United States, living below the poverty level, you'll find that the average life span-"

"That is the single most stupid remark I've ever heard in my life," Mike said. "You're gonna stand in front of a judge at Tiffany Gatt's arraignment and ask for bail because Queenie would have dropped dead someday anyway? I'd like to take that hideous hank of hair you use for toilet paper and wrap it around your throat for about ten minutes, nice and tight so you can't breathe too good. Maybe when I let go it'll open up some of the arteries that are supposed to be feeding your brain."

"You want me to advise my client to cooperate with someone who talks to me like this?" Helena asked. "Her mother already thinks you're railroading her daughter, Alex."

"Fingerprints in the deceased's apartment and Ms. Ransome's coat on her back. It's a compelling combination," I said.

"What about the coat? The lady was hardly aristocracy. Explain to me how Ransome's name matches up to the monogram in the coat."

I couldn't.

"Maybe she bought it at a secondhand shop," Mike offered.

Helena Lisi ignored him. "I told Tiffany everything. She doesn't want to talk to you and that's all there is to it. Can you get her back to Rikers before dinnertime so she doesn't miss a meal?"

I followed Helena across the hallway and into the conference room, where a female detective and her partner were guarding the teenager. As I entered the room to give them instructions to return the prisoner for lodging, Tiffany clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, letting out an audible "tssssh" at the sight of me. She murmured to her keepers, "What the bitch want?"

I told the team to get started back to the jail. As they directed Tiffany to stand up and placed the cuffs on her, she kicked against the table leg with the toe of her sneaker.

"I ain't got nothing to say to you, so don't be bothering my lawyer again, you hear?"

"Tiffany," Helena said, flicking her hair off her shoulder, "don't speak another word."

"I can say whatever I want. She don't control me. I don't want to be in her office, I don't want her to be in my face-"

"Stop talking, Tiffany," Helena said. "I want you to be quiet right now."

"Shit. My mother paying you, lady. Don't you tell me to shut up. You working for us now."

"I'm asking you to be quiet, Tiffany, because I know what's best for you. I'm your lawyer."

"Yeah, but that bitch ain't," the girl said, jerking her head toward me.

"There's no reason to be saying anything," Helena again cautioned her agitated client.

Tiffany looked up at me as the detectives tried to pull her along. "You can't prove no murder case on me, sweetheart. By the time I got to that ol' lady's house, she was already dead."

19

"How many times have you heard that one before? 'I was counting on killing Queenie, but she was already dead when I got there,'" Mike said, mocking the girl.

I didn't dismiss Tiffany Gatts's denial as easily as he did. "It's one thing when you get that kind of statement thrown at you from somebody who's been through the system a few times. This kid's just flailing around like she's been hung out to dry. Maybe it's the truth."

"Don't go all soft on me, blondie."

"No danger of that. But she must have convinced Helena in just those ten minutes in the conference room that there was nothing to worry about on a murder charge. Helena didn't even try to cut a deal or offer to flip the kid."

"So maybe Tiffany waited outside on the stoop while Kevin Bessemer went into the apartment and killed Queenie. That still fits with the old lady already being dead when she got inside. She's playing with you, Coop."

Laura opened the door. "Were you expecting anyone from the FBI?"

"No."

"Two agents here. Say they need to interview you."

I waved them in. An attractive young woman in a smart gray pinstriped suit was accompanied by an older man. He looked like a central casting hire for a federal agent, while she looked like she had stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine.

"Claire Chesnutt," she said, extending a hand to each of us and palming her identification for us to examine. "This is my partner, Art Bandor."

Chesnutt explained that they were assigned to try to identify the man impersonating the late Harry Strait, and needed to interview me about him.

"I don't know very much."

"We understand that. If you don't mind, it would be important if we separate you two for this conversation. You saw him, too, didn't you?" she said to Chapman.

"Let's go into the conference room," I said to her. "Mike can use my phone while he's waiting his turn."

I walked Chesnutt and her silent partner back across the hall and told them everything I could remember about my conversation with Paige Vallis.

"Did she tell you how she met the man who called himself Strait?"

"No."

"Did he ever show her any ID?"

"I have no idea. Not that she mentioned to me."

"Why did she believe he was CIA?"

"I'm sorry," I said to Chesnutt. "I never had the opportunity to explore these questions with her."

What the agent wanted most was a physical description. I closed my eyes to try to re-create the visual of the man I had seen in the rear of the courtroom. I was giving a description of the generic white male of average height and build. "Again, I apologize. Somehow it's always so embarrassing to be on the reverse side of this process."

Chesnutt had a nice manner. "I know you didn't have much of an opportunity to make an observation. You don't need to explain."

"How much of a problem is this identify-theft stuff?"

"It's becoming a bigger and bigger issue for us, since the Internet has made it so much easier to do, but it's been around forever. Used to be, people checked cemetery headstones for birth and death information, then created documents to go with the name of someone who was dead and buried. Now we get guys hacking into files or accounts on-line, getting everything from social security numbers to credit card information. They don't even have to leave home to do it."

"Why Harry Strait?" I asked. "What kind of work did he do for the CIA?"

Chesnutt smiled at me. "Frankly, I don't know."

Even if she did, she certainly would not have told me.

"Has someone tried to impersonate him before this?"

"Unfortunately, Ms. Cooper, I'm here to ask questions. Not answer them."

I took her card, in case I remembered any other details, and switched places with Mike Chapman.

"Don't get comfortable," Laura said. "Battaglia wants you." Scooping up the phone messages from her desk, I kept on walking, into the executive wing. Rose Malone signaled me straight in to the Boss.

"Sit down," he said, removing the cigar from his mouth. "First thing I want to know is how you're handling this. The girl's death, I mean."