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the piano.”
    “I didn’t give it up. It gave me up. I play a little jazz to relax but Carnegie Hall was never within my reach. So? I’ve known Raymond about three years. Go ahead. Grill me.”
    Cody laughed and scratched his chin with his thumb. “I’m out of breath listening to you. And I just want to ask you some questions. We do the grilling down at the station.”
    “I’m sorry about that. I just got started and… I guess I wanted to get my mind off of, uh, Raymond. I do talk a lot, I know that, people tell me that all the time.” She took another sip of coffee and asked plaintively, “What happened to him?”
    “Somebody killed him.”
    “Is that all you can tell me?”
    “I don’t really know much more. Even if I did it’s a homicide investigation. We don’t tell, we ask. How well did you know him?”
    “Socially? Not at all. I gave him a massage twice a week. Lately, because he was under a lot of stress, three times. Look, my clients come in all flavors. Some talk, some take a nap, some don’t say a word, some even hum. I have a fellow who writes lyrics for big Broadway shows. He hums the tune and then he’ll talk some lyric and write it down, then hum some more. I have an opera singer who gargles with champagne before we start. Sometimes when the spirit moves her she hits a high note and scares me to death but it seems to loosen her up so what the hell. I once had an old fellow who was ticklish and giggled a lot. Thing is, I want this clear right off the bat…”
    “Ms. Cluett,” Cody interrupted, smiling. “We’re way past ‘right off the bat’.”
    “Please call me Amelie.”
    “Okay.”
    “What do I call you?”
    “Captain Cody.”
    “Oh, that’s typical. I’m Amelie, you’re Captain Cody. I find that a bit sexist. Oh, which is what I was going to say. I’m a licensed masseuse. No funny business. Anybody gets out of line, I’m out of there. It’s happened once or twice and it’s over. I just wanted you to know that.”
    There was some muffled movement in the hallway and it alarmed her. She spun toward the door like a startled bird.
    “That would be my team arriving,” Cody said. “There’s going to be a lot of action in and out over there. Ignore it. And stay away from that peephole. It’ll arouse suspicion.”
    “Am I a suspect?”
    He scratched his chin again.
    “Well, you were about…” he looked over his shoulder at her bedroom door, “about fifteen, twenty yards from him when he got it.”
    She sat upright, her eyes widening. “I didn’t think about that. Oh my God, it just didn’t occur to me!”
    “I didn’t mean to alarm you. But we do have to cover all the bases. Let’s stick with Raymond Handley, okay?”
    She rolled her head around, loosening her neck, and blew a little burst of air from her lips.
    “Sure, okay. Well, I treated him on Friday mornings, to loosen him up for the weekend. I mean the stock market is a zoo. Did I tell you he works for the stock market?”
    “Wilma mentioned it.”
    “Anyway, he’d be tight as a tick. Then Monday he’d come over and I’d loosen him up after the weekend. He worked hard and he played hard. He’s their only client I did here because he would jog over to the Machine and work out and jog back and Wilma would be over there so I’d set up the portable table and work him out while she was making him breakfast. Anyway, Raymond is a talker.”
    She stopped and started to tear up. She took a couple of swallows of the Colombian java.
    “Was he a switch hitter?” Cody asked.
    “No. No.” She shook her head. “It was always about girls. And not all the time. I mean, maybe once a month he’d go off on one of his tantrums.”
    “It’s tangent. Go off on a tangent.”
    “Come on, Captain, I know the difference between a tangent and a tantrum. These were tantrums. He was really upset. It was a strange thing. Like…it was like he was talking in his sleep.”
    He stopped and they took a breather.
    “Want