“You’re saying the very last thing they did was smash the door? And then took off on a run? What would be the sense of that?”

“To make us think they didn’t have a key.”

“But you think they did.”

Lefkowitz nodded. “No other explanation computes. Clara had just filled a glass with water; she’d no sooner dropped it than they were on her. She probably started to scream, and that’s when they hit her. She went down on the shards of glass. None of that could have happened if they’d really done what they want us to think they did, which was to get into the house by battering their way through the door.”

“So you think this is an inside job?”

“That’s what I think. If it happened the way they want us to think it happened, wouldn’t Clara have taken off like a rabbit? Wouldn’t we have found her body somewhere else?”

Hector was unconvinced.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “They could have gone after her and brought her back here. Any other signs of forced entry?”

“None.” Lefkowitz was emphatic. “All the other doors were locked. So were the windows. The glass in all of them was intact.”

“Maybe they picked the lock.”

“Not that lock. It’s virtually pickproof.”

Hector put a finger to his lips and thought about it.

Lefkowitz regarded him in silence.

Finally, Hector said, “Let’s suppose it went down the way you suggest. Wouldn’t Clara have heard a click? Or heard them creeping up behind her?”

“Not if they were quick. Not if Clara was running water in the sink. The sink is stainless steel. Listen.”

Lefkowitz went to the sink and turned on the tap. Under the stream of water, the steel reverberated like a drum. He let it run for a few seconds to make his point.