“I know you or your people are out on that corner early,” I said. “That girl didn’t fall from the sky. She was dumped there. You help me with some information about it, I’m going to let you get back to your shoe shopping. Might even leave this bag where that poor soul left it.”

“With the piece in it?” Big Ice said hopefully.

“Nah, I’m going to have to turn this gun in to the lost and found,” I said.

He took a loud breath as he considered. He finally nodded.

“Okay. I could make some calls,” he said.

I tossed him one of his phones.

“What a guy,” I said.

WE STOOD AROUND as Big Ice made phone calls and left messages.

“Don’t worry,” he said, snapping his phone shut. “They know what’ll happen to ’em if they don’t call me back in less than ten minutes.”

On the wall above a rack of Avirex leather jackets was a flat-screen TV tuned to the BET channel. Big Ice stood up laboriously, found the remote under the cash register, and changed it to CNBC. He stared at the screen intently as a bald white man in suspenders talked about IPOs.

“Damn, you think I’m bad?” Big Ice said. “How ’bout you go after some of those private-equity joints. Those homies buy multinational companies with IOUs an’ shit. I should try that at Micky D’s. ‘Hey, how much is that Big Mac? Three bucks? Okay, I’ll take it, but instead of payin’ you right now, you can have the five Stacy be owin’ me whenever.’ They wouldn’t be lovin’ that shit, would they? But you times that scam by a couple of billion, you get a hospital named after you. Now how’s that work?”

Emily rolled her eyes at him.

“You in the market?” she said.

Big turned and stared at her.

“I look like someone who’s risk-averse to you, shorty? Course, I’m in. I be workin’ my S-an’-P portfolio all the time, re-up all those sweet dividends. You think them Knicks floor seats I got come cheap? You want, I could put you together with my broker,” he said with a wink.

“Would you?” Emily said sarcastically as one of Big’s phones rang.

“Listen good, Snap,” Big Ice said into it. “You out on the corner early this morning? Shut up and listen, fool. You didn’t see anybody over by the mosque real early, did you?”

Big listened, nodding.

“What’s up?” he said into his cell phone a few moments later. “What’s up is some white girl was found dead in the alley, chump, and I don’t want to get locked up.”

He closed his phone.

“Talk to us,” I said.

“Snap said around five-thirty he saw a white guy get out of a beat-ass yellow van. Reason why he noticed was business is slow that early, and he thought the guy must be a desperate customer. I like to stay out a little earlier and later than everyone else, customers be appreciatin’ that kind of extra service.”

“I’m sure they do,” I said impatiently. “Go on.”

“Well, Snap said this thin, mousy-looking dude with glasses and gray hair, wearing coveralls and wheeling a refrigerator, got out of the van. He figured it was a guy making an early delivery to the construction site or something. White guy came back with just the hand truck, got back in the van, made a U-turn, and took off.” I knew not to ask him if Mr. Snap had taken down a plate number.

It wasn’t much, but we had something finally.

“That help you?” Big Ice said, smiling as he rubbed his dinner plate-size palms together.

I dropped the plastic bag of drug money on the counter.

“Don’t invest it all in one index,” Emily called back as we left.

THE STREET CROWD seemed somewhat calmer when we arrived back at the mosque. Imam Yassin had come out on the sidewalk and was speaking to his flock in a soothing voice.

I called back to the task force and passed on the information we’d gotten. I said the tip was anonymous to avoid further inconveniencing the NYPD’s newest friends, Big Ice and Snap.

“Okay, I’ll type up the DD-five for you and get it to the appropriate people,” said Detective Kramer, the Major Case detective who’d been put in charge of the Intelligence Squad.

I was getting paperwork done for me? I thought as I hung up. I was starting to like this task force stuff.

I caught up to John Cleary, the Crime Scene Unit supervisor, who was walking toward the alley with a biohazard box.

“Turns out the suspect didn’t dump the body into the fridge, John,” I said. “This guy actually dumped the fridge with the body already in it.”

“No shit?” Cleary said, removing his cell phone from where it was clipped to the collar of his Tyvek suit. “In that case, instead of dislodging the body here,” he said, “we’ll put the whole fridge onto a flatbed and do it at the lab.”

Back in my unmarked car, I called Detective Ramirez, still at the Skinners’ house, and broke the bad news. He let out a deep breath.

“That sucks,” Ramirez said. “This poor woman. She doesn’t deserve this. I’ll let her know, Mike. I’d rather shoot myself in the kneecap, but I’ll tell her.”

Not wanting to hear the grieving that would soon follow, I hung up quickly.

“So, what do you think?” Parker said, getting back into the car.

“I think we should eat,” I said. “I know the perfect place. It’ll almost make you forget the past couple of hours.”

Ten minutes later, we walked through the door of Sylvia’s restaurant on Lenox Avenue a few blocks away.

“You’re in luck,” I said to Emily, pointing to the menu after we sat down in the cozy, incredible-smelling place. “Not only do they have grits, they have collard greens, too.”

“Collard greens? Well, lordy me,” Emily drawled, wafting an imaginary fan at herself. “I’ll never be hungry again, though I definitely wouldn’t have pegged you as a soul food aficionado, Mike.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Parker. I can put away a six-pack and potato with the best of me Irish brethren. It was my wife who introduced me to it. She was the foodie. Every Saturday, she’d con Seamus into watching the gang, and she’d take me to new places. We used to come to the jazz brunch they throw here on Saturday afternoons.”

Over a couple of racks of Sylvia’s fall-off-the-bone ribs, we went over the case.

“I think things are looking up a little,” Emily said between bites. “The witness was horrible, but by allowing there to be one, at least it means our guy is human, capable of making mistakes. I wasn’t sure there for a little while. But bringing the body in a fridge and then dumping the fridge? That’s… bizarre, wouldn’t you say? He’s going to an awful lot of trouble.”

“Yeah,” I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin. “It’s not just a job for this freak. It’s an adventure.”

“I keep asking myself why he’s doing it,” Emily continued. “Why bother pretending it’s a kidnapping at all? He hasn’t asked for any ransom. I mean, why even contact the families if you’re just going to kill the vics?”

“Attention,” I said. “Has to be. He’s making this as dramatic as he can. Why do most of these psychopaths do this? They’re inadequate in some fundamental way, yet have this grandiose ego. Look at Oswald. The Columbine fools. They can’t be famous in a regular way, so they get attention by killing.”

“But,” Emily said, raising a barbecue-sauce-coated finger across the table, “you’ve spoken to this guy, Mike. He seems educated and very articulate. He doesn’t strike me as inadequate.”

I shrugged.

“Then he must be deformed or something, because no way is that staging and Q-and-A stuff a setup. Our cultured friend is getting his rocks off.”

“You have a point there,” Emily said.

I was shocked when the waitress came back around and Emily ordered a Jack Daniel’s.

“What happened to the full-sugar Coke? You hear that rumbling sound? That’s the sound of J. Edgar rolling over in his grave.”

“What can I say, Mike? You’ve completely corrupted me,” Emily said with a wink. “They warned me about you New York cops. Stupid me. I should have listened.”