When the forces of law and order are arrayed before your door pre-dawn, a certain trepidation is in order.

He tried to comb his hair with his fingers as he unchained, unlocked, and through wide his door.

Detective Golczewski was staring at him. He hadn't seen her in months, but they had parted company on cordial terms; she had even given him her card.

But her large dark eyes were fixed on him.

“Detective Golczewski! Vonda! How are you?”

Her hair was pulled back as always. She had on her hunter green winter coat over a cocoa brown dress that almost matched her skin. It was shot with pine green lightning bolts; the dress, not her skin.

“When they told me the address, I was hoping maybe you'd moved.”

“Sorry? Why would I move. I like it here, and I'm beloved by the tenants and Mr. Boghossian. Remember him? Short, gray, Armenian? With black, bushy eyebrows?”

She shook her head; the uniformed officers behind her gnashed their teeth and balled their massive hands in fists.

Vonda pushed past him into the apartment. “Where were you last night?”

He was not awake; he hadn't had his coffee. “What? Wait. I was here. Yeah, I was here all night. Definitely.”

Vonda had resisted telling him why he was being interrogated, but it had to be something to do with Mr. Boghossian's new tenant, Eve Smith.

She was petite and fortyish, and had spent the halcyon days of her tenancy smiling, flirting, and asking lots of questions. Which had soon led to a pall being cast over the apartment building. It wasn't hard to discover that all the tenants were afraid of smiling Eve and wanted her gone.

Of course, Gabriel Bergeron wasn't intimidated, but he had no idea what Eve's game was?