“Two cops stationed there. Small common garden for the tenants. Back doors from both the first floor and Barr’s basement apartment, but no one has moved since they’ve been on-site.”

“What do you know about the girl?”

“Not much. Nobody seems to,” Mercer said. He turned to the man standing with the sergeant, whom I guessed to be about forty, several years older than Mike and I. “This is Mike Chapman, Billy. He’s assigned to Night Watch.”

Mike worked in Manhattan North Homicide, which helped staff the Night Watch unit, an elite squad of detectives on call between midnight and eight a.m., when precinct squads were most understaffed, to respond all over Manhattan to murders and situations, like this one, that the department referred to-with gross understatement-as “unusuals.”

“Billy lives on the first floor,” Mercer said. “He’s the guy who called 911.”

“Good to meet you,” Mike said. He turned to me. “What’s her name?”

“Tina Barr.”

“She your friend?” he said to Billy.

“We chat at the mailboxes occasionally. She’s a quiet girl. Keeps to herself. Spent a lot of time gardening on weekends in the summer, so I ran into her out back every now and then, but I haven’t seen her much since.”

“Lived here long?”

“Me? Eighteen years?”

“Her.”

“Tina sublets. A year, maybe more.”

Mike ran his fingers through his thick black hair, looking from Billy to me. “You sure she’s in there?”

“I could hear a woman crying when I first got here,” I said. Whimpering was a more accurate word.

“Tina was sobbing when I knocked on her door,” Billy said.

“But she wouldn’t open up for you?”

Billy Schultz adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose while Mike scrutinized him. “No, sir.”

“Why were you knocking? What made you call 911?”

“Mercer gave us all this, Mike. Let me get back inside.”