Another door led to a garage that opened onto the alleyway running along the backs of the row houses. Skeeter could come and go without mama’s knowing.

On the nightstand by the bed, a Uniden radio scanner and a large white telephone with a bank of speed-dial buttons and a row of LEDs.

“Secure phone,” Jose said.

Frank jotted down the number. The nightstand also held several magazines, Ironman, Basketball Digest, Sports Illustrated.

Jose had finished his side of the room and was standing on the other side of the bed. He pointed to the Ironman cover, where an improbably muscled man and woman were showing nearly everything while rollerblading on a Venice, California, beach sidewalk. “Those two probably got muscles in their shit,” he said.

Marcus spoke for the first time. “You two finished?”

Frank and Jose exchanged glances.

“Take us back to Ms. Lipton, please,” Frank said.

Lipton hadn’t moved from her wicker chair.

“You find what you wanted to find?”

“Thank you for your help, Ms. Lipton,” Jose said.

“Didn’t leave anything behind, did you?” she asked, eyelids heavy.

Frank ignored her.

“Do you have any notion who killed my boy?”

“No,” Jose answered softly. “No, ma’am, we don’t.” He let the silence ripen, then asked, “Do you?”

Lipton sat back in her chair. Her face suddenly seemed to wilt. She shook her head. “Would it do me any good to tell you?”

“I don’t know, ma’am,” Jose said very deliberately, in a low voice. “I don’t know if it would do you any good or not.”

“How do you mean that… you don’t know if it would do me any good or not?”

Jose lowered his voice even more. “Nobody can tell you that except yourself.”

Lipton stared at Jose a long time, things going on behind her dark eyes. “How many times my boy hit?”