Four Walls

y'know? Then I had four classes, then I came here.' She sniffled. 'I should've stayed.'

'What happened at eleven?'

'I actually left at a quarter of. I was just so messed up, y'know?' She palmed a tear off her cheek. 'Maria said not to worry about it, she'd take care of it.'

'What's the usual closing procedure?'

Wolfowitz took a deep breath, then started counting off on her fingers. 'We wipe down all the tables and straighten the chairs. We sweep and mop the floors-that's usually done about an hour before closing, actually. We take all the money out of the register and put it in the safe. We turn off the cappuccino maker and the coffeemaker. We turn out all the lights, and in the summer, we turn off the AC. And then we close and lock the front door.'

From what O'Malley and Wayne had said, Campagna had done everything except for the last two-and possibly even that, as Rodriguez and Rosengaus could've turned the lights and AC on when they came in before they found the body. She'd check on that when she talked to them.

'Did anybody come in after you left?'

'One guy, yeah, he came in just as I was walking out. I don't remember his name, but he's a regular.' She gave a quick smile. 'He's sweet, he tips well, and he's always flirting with us. But especially with Maria.'

'Do you remember what he looks like?'

'Oh, sure. He's got long brown hair-he had it tied back in a ponytail. And a beard. And glasses. He had on a black sweatshirt and jeans, and he was carrying a gym bag-like usual, really. He goes to the karate school around the corner, and he usually comes in on his way home from class to get a bottle of water.'

'So it wasn't unusual to see him?'

'God, no, he's always here.'

Angell asked a few more questions, then asked Rodriguez to come down. Again, she asked about the closing-down procedure, and Rodriguez's description matched the one Wolfowitz gave, though Rodriguez felt the need to number the steps as she described them.

'When you got here this morning, was anything else unusual besides the unlocked door?'

Rodriguez shook her head. 'The lights and AC were off, the tables were all neat, and the chairs were tidy. She must've just been ready to close up when-' Her voice caught.

'It's okay.'

'Oh, one other thing I noticed-I didn't really see it until the two officers got here? But Maria wasn't wearing her necklace.'

'She usually wore a necklace?'

Nodding, Rodriguez said, 'Yeah, her boyfriend gave it to her. She wore it all the time. It was eighteen-karat gold, too.'

Angell noted that down, as it constituted motive, although she'd learned quickly in this part of the job that motive was the least important thing in a murder investigation. For one thing, motives were usually mundane and common: jealousy, greed, or some other deadly sin. For another, learning the motive almost never actually led to an arrest. It was always a combination of the detective asking the right questions and the crime lab folks finding the right evidence.

'What's the boyfriend's name?'

'Bobby-Bobby DelVecchio.'

'Don't suppose you know where he lives?'

Rodriguez shook her head again. 'He came in a few times to see Maria.'

She made a few more notes, including a reminder to find DelVecchio. That also added to the list of condolence calls she was going to have to make. It was her least favorite part of the job. According to Belluso, Maria's father had died a year earlier, and she lived with her mother. Historically, the two people who reacted worst to death notices were mothers and boyfriends, so of course that was what she had with this one.

Putting it in the back of her mind for now, she said, 'Ms. Wolfowitz said that she saw someone come in with long hair, a beard, glasses, and a gym bag-goes to the karate school?'

'Jack,' Rodriguez said without hesitating. 'Dunno his last name, but he's in here all the time with his laptop. Always drinks iced coffee in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter, and usually gets a cannoli or two. He's a great guy. He really liked Maria, too.'

'Did anybody else really like Maria?'

'Well, sure, lotsa people. I mean, Jack talked to her a lot, and there's this one lady who knows her mother who comes in a lot-oh, and there's Marty. He's a tech from Feldstein's, the vet across the street. He's always hitting on her, too.'

She asked Rodriguez more questions, mostly relating to what happened that morning, then called Rosengaus down. She told much the same story as Rodriguez did. What she said was different enough to show that they hadn't rehearsed it, but similar enough to indicate that it was probably the truth.

'Did you notice whether or not Ms. Campagna was wearing her necklace when you found the body?'

'I do not remember,' Rosengaus said in her heavily accented voice. 'I just saw the dead body and I remember nothing else. I am sorry. I do remember it was very nice necklace.'

'It's okay.' Angell made a few notes, then asked, 'Do you know a regular customer here named Jack?'

'Yes. He is sweet. Sometimes he compliments me. It is nice. He likes all the girls.'

'Did you notice that he liked Maria more than the others?'

'Not that I noticed, no. Besides, Maria has boyfriend.'

'Bobby DelVecchio? The one who gave her the necklace?'

'Yes. I think he came into store a few times.'

'You think?'

Rosengaus shrugged. 'She never introduced me. We were not very close.'

'What about a man named Marty?'

'I know Marty, yes. He works in the vet across the street.'

Once she was done with Rosengaus, she turned to see Bonasera and Monroe come out from behind the counter. Monroe looked a bit disheveled, but Bonasera still looked bright and shiny after poking around behind a bakery counter for an hour. It was a skill Angell envied. After just being at a crime scene, Angell wanted nothing more than to shower for a week, but Bonasera-who dug much deeper into a crime scene than she did-always stayed pristine.

Plus, she had that fifty-megawatt smile. Angell had never been able to make her smiles seem like anything but smirks-which was handy when she was being hit on by the less civilized members of humanity, a number that included most of her suspects and her coworkers.

As the two crime scene techs came over, Angell got up and said, 'Let's step outside.' She didn't particularly want to go out into the heat and humidity, but she also didn't want the foursome upstairs to hear their conversation about the crime scene.

They quickly filled each other in. Palming sweat from her forehead, Angell said, 'Last person to see our vic was a guy named Jack something.'

Monroe's eyes widened. 'Do we know what he was wearing?'

Angell double-checked her notes. 'Black sweatshirt and jeans. Why?'

'We found a black fiber on the vic's neck,' Bonasera said. 'We need to find this guy.'

'Need a last name first. Also, apparently our vic had an eighteen-karat necklace that was missing.'

'We found a small abrasion that's consistent with a necklace,' Monroe said, 'but the necklace is gone. We checked all around the body-plenty of garbage and crumbs and hairs, but no jewelry.'

'There's one possible motive,' Bonasera said.

Nodding, Angell said, 'We also only have Wolfowitz's word for the fact that she left early-and, for that matter, that this Jack guy came in at all.'

Bonasera folded her arms. 'We'll get reference samples from everyone upstairs. And we should get ones from everyone else who works here. This way if any of the hairs we found don't match someone who's supposed to be there, we've got a lead.'

'Want me to do it?' Monroe asked.

Shaking her head, Bonasera said, 'Nah, you should get our big pile of trace back to the lab. It'll take ages to