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have a better idea.’
    â€˜Well, there is one thing. If you want, I’m pretty sure I can arrange a meeting with an INS Agent named Dominick Capra. You’ll have to spring for lunch and put up with his anti-immigrant rants, but Capra’s been around for a long time. If you run into a wall, he could point you in the right direction.’
    A good detective will take help from anyone. And then there was the matter of Adele’s continuing involvement in the case. To which I had absolutely no objection. ‘Why don’t you give him a call, see if he’s willing? If the victim’s prints aren’t on file and I don’t have any luck in Greenpoint, lunch is on me.’
    â€˜Done.’
    At that point, I turned the conversation to Adele’s sister and parents. I was hoping she’d tell me how uncomfortable she felt in their presence, but her tone became wistful, as though she were describing some distant memory.
    Adele told me that her mother had lost weight, that she’d be visiting a gastroenterologist on the following afternoon, that the fear – unspoken in Leya Bentibi’s presence – was stomach cancer. A lifelong smoker, Leya still consumed two packs a day.
    There was nothing I could say to any of this. A sick mother cannot be challenged. Nor could I challenge Adele’s obligation to comfort her sister. Jovianna had always been close to her mother. She, too, was frightened.
    â€˜What are your mother’s symptoms?’
    â€˜Pain, acid reflux, gas. And there are traces of blood in her stool.’
    â€˜But she hasn’t been diagnosed, right?’
    â€˜Corbin, what can I say? I’m dealing with the realities at hand.’
    At eight thirty, after a long drive in heavy traffic, I knocked on the door of Jolanta Klaipeda’s Westchester Avenue apartment. She opened a moment later, then led me to a cracked leather couch draped with a red and green Christmas blanket. The couch was occupied by two elderly men, brothers by the look of them. When Jolanta addressed them in what I assumed to be Lithuanian, they struggled to their feet and shuffled toward one of the bedrooms. Only after the door closed behind their backs did Jolanta turn to face me. Her eyes met mine for a moment, then darted away, then returned. I could see the fear in those eyes, fear dancing in the amber motes flecking her brown irises, and fear in her raised and reddened lids, in the tight line of her mouth, in the flare of her nostrils. On the phone, I’d attempted to reassure the woman. My visit, I’d explained, was routine. I had no reason to believe that the photo I intended to show her was of her daughter. But that strategy backfired when Jolanta, in halting English, told me that she’d provided a photo of Nina to the officers who’d interviewed her five weeks before. Clearly, she didn’t believe me when I explained that Nina’s photo had somehow been misplaced. Clearly, she thought I was coming to the Bronx only to confirm what I already knew, that her daughter was dead.
    I reached into my pocket for the computer-enhanced photo I intended to show her, but Jolanta stopped me. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘for a moment.’ Then she followed the two men into the bedroom, leaving me to my own devices.
    I can’t say for sure how many people lived in the Klaipeda household, but there were two single beds and a cradle in the living room. Half hidden by an upright piano, cradle and beds were lined up against the wall opposite the windows. A young girl, maybe ten years old, sat at the piano. She was playing scales, her touch light and delicate, even in the lower registers. An older man sat on a kitchen chair beside her, nodding from time to time, while a metronome ticked away a few inches from her face.
    Jolanta returned a moment later with a child in tow, a boy wearing the blue, polyester pants and white shirt of a Catholic school student. Eight or nine