“She might have been foreperson of that jury, but she only had one vote. And why doesn’t this maniac go after the prosecutors and judges? They’re part of the system, too. Some of them are the system.”

“When we catch him,” Nell said, “we’ll ask him, but we probably won’t be satisfied with the answer.”

Selig’s expression hardened. Everything about him shouted that he’d been born rich and enjoyed all of life’s advantages, Ivy League education, connections, soft safety net.

But soft wasn’t the word for this guy. There was a surprising steeliness to him as he looked at Nell. “I’d like to be alone with him and ask him some questions before I wring his neck.”

Nell smiled faintly. “I can’t promise you that, but we’re doing everything possible to put you in the same room with him—a courtroom.”

Selig sighed. His hands were clenched tightly into fists.

Nell hated to ask him to relive the night of his wife’s death, but she had no choice.

Selig didn’t seem to mind. “I came home from the office at eight twenty, after working late, and called out Iris’s name when I couldn’t find her. When I looked into various rooms and got to the bathroom off the hall…” he swallowed hard; Nell could hear it “…I found her. She was lying on the floor in a pool of blood…so much blood. I could see the bullet hole in her chest, between her breasts. It was so small…It didn’t look necessarily fatal, but later, when I saw photographs of the exit wound…” He bowed his head. “A large area of her back was missing. Her spine…” Selig stood up. “You mind if I have a drink myself?”

“Not at all,” Nell said.

He started across the blue carpet, then he paused and turned back to her. “You sure you—”

“Nothing for me,” Nell told him.

“Working girl.”

“Working cop.”

He looked at her closely then managed a thin smile. “I’m sorry.”

“I won’t tell the politically correct police.” She waited, staring out at the galaxy of the city, until he returned carrying a glass of what looked like water with ice cubes.

“It’s surprising to me how that night’s coming back.” He settled down again on the white sofa, on the leg of the L, seated at a slight angle so they were facing each other. He seemed calmer now, even relaxed. Nell had to admire the drape of his gray slacks as he crossed his legs.

She said, “After you found your wife’s body…”

Selig took a sip of water. “I phoned the police, of course.”

“911?”

“No. It didn’t occur to me. But the police notified somebody, and an ambulance and paramedics arrived the same time they did.”

“When you found Iris’s body, did you notice the red letter J scrawled with lipstick on the bathroom mirror?”

“No. The police asked me about it later. I told them I knew nothing about it, but I—we—thought at the time that maybe Iris had been trying to write something to me, beginning to spell out Jack when she died. Later, they told me that wouldn’t have been possible. She’d died instantly. There were no fingerprints on the lipstick tube. The killer had either wiped them off or worn gloves. The police said he wouldn’t have bothered if he hadn’t touched the lipstick, so they figured he was the one who wrote on the mirror.”

Nell glanced around at all the opulence. “How did he get in here? I mean, you need to have the doorman use his key to get the elevator to go all the way to the penthouse. I’m assuming his key and yours are the same.”

“As was Iris’s key.”

“According to the file, the killer might have come up here with Iris.” Nell moderated her tone so Selig wouldn’t get the wrong—or the obvious—idea. Had Iris brought home a lover?

“The doorman remembers her coming up alone,” he said.

“Eddie?”

“A different doorman.” Selig chewed the inside of his cheek for a few seconds, thinking, then said, “I do remember there’d been a series of burglaries in the building that same year. Some without signs of forced entry. The police checked all the keys, everyone’s in the building. There weren’t a lot of spare keys floating around after that. I’m sure there still aren’t. It’s still a mystery as to how the killer got in here.”

“Have you changed the locks?”

“Of course.”

“You were a suspect for a while,” Nell said, not liking it but knowing she should push here.

No sign of guilt or uneasiness on Selig’s face. “I know. That’s natural, since I was the victim’s husband. But my alibi, my presence at the office, was well established.”

“They considered the possibility you might have hired someone to kill your wife, and provided him with a key.”

“It’s still a possibility,” Selig said calmly. “But I didn’t do that. I loved my wife. I wish she were still alive. I had no motive. Iris had money when I married her, and I made plenty of money in New York real estate. We had no children. Either of us could have walked away from the marriage clean. Neither of us dreamed of doing so.”

Nell believed him. Not only that, she felt sorry for him. Not very professional. Her eyes threatened to tear up, so she pretended to concentrate on the notepad in her lap until she gained control. Working girl. Not me!

“The past two years have been lonely ones,” Selig said. “I’d give every penny I have if there were some way to get Iris back.” His chest heaved beneath the neatly pressed white shirt. “Impossible, and masochistic to keep thinking about it. And of course,” he added, “I don’t think about it all the time. Two years ago isn’t yesterday.”

Nell didn’t know quite how to phrase this next question. “Is there anyone in your life now?”

“Another woman? No. There’ve been a few minor attachments, that’s all.” A shadow of sadness passed over his features, this handsome, mature man who looked as if he should be carefree on the bridge of his yacht, who for all Nell knew might very well own a yacht. “I’ve made my fortune. Fortune enough, anyway. Now I manage my investments out of my home office, take most meals alone, and travel by myself.”

Minor attachments, Nell thought. Maybe for him, but she bet not for the women. This guy was quite a catch for an older woman. In fact…

“Have I been of any help?”

Nell refocused her attention. “I’m sorry?”

“I thought you were finished with the interview. You were quiet, and you closed your notepad.”

Nell glanced down again at her lap. She had absently closed the notepad. It didn’t matter, as she hadn’t taken any notes. What Selig had told her coincided precisely with what was in the two-year-old murder file.

“I was thinking,” she said. “The doorman at the time of Iris’s death, do you know where he might be found?”

“He was struck and killed by a bus a year ago,” Selig said. “I sent flowers to his family where he was buried, somewhere in Louisiana.”

Alexandria. Nell had already known the answer to her question. Selig had answered accurately again, volunteering information, not seeming in any way guilty of anything. Seeming, in fact, to be just as he described himself—rich and lonely. That could be a dangerous combination for a man. It would be terrible if some fortune-hunting bitch glommed onto this guy.

Of course, there were women other than fortune hunters who might be interested in him. Wealthy widows who frequented the same yacht club.

Nell stood up.

“Will there be more questions later?”

“I’m sure there will be,” Nell said, though she could find no reason for more questions.

“Good,” Selig said, smiling as he ushered her back to the elevator. He watched over her as if the thing might explode before it began its descent.

“Good,” she heard him say again, as she dropped.

When Nell was gone, Selig went to his desk in the penthouse’s den that had been converted to his office. He opened a drawer and withdrew several framed photographs and laid them out on the desk.