"You don't?"

She smiled her tiny, short-lived smile again. "No. Not a chance."

"Did Moria like him?"

"No, she didn't."

"Oh?" I said, thinking of the gun. "Why not?"

"She didn't appreciate his skills as a doctor."

"Was she as diplomatic as you when it came to criticizing doctors?"

It took her a second before she remembered what I was referring to. Another fleeting smile. "Much more so. Moria was better at keeping her thoughts to herself."

A woman of secrets, I thought.

"What did you think of Dr. Shapira?"

"That he was an arrogant fool. But that's nothing special. Many doctors are."

Now it was my turn to smile. "What did Dr. Shapira look like?"

"What does it matter?"

"A neighbor saw Moria's lover exit her building. I'm wondering if Dr. Shapira fits her description."

Naomi Hecht frowned. "Wouldn't it be easier to show her a picture of him? There's one in the hospital, I think."

I explained that the neighbor had seen the lover from the back, in the dark, so all I had were an approximate height and build and hair color.

"Ah, I understand," Naomi Hecht said. "Well, that's easy enough. Dr. Shapira was thin and about five eleven, six feet tall. He had black hair. Does that fit?"

"Pretty closely. You still don't think there was anything between him and Moria?"

She shook her head. "They were just two people who worked together. Nothing more."

Which was similar to what Paula had said, though Naomi Hecht had exhibited no outrage at the suggestion of romance between Moria and Dr. Shapira but found the notion amusing.

Perhaps both women were right. Maybe I was trying to force a connection where none existed.

Time for a change of subject.

"Did Moria know any unsavory people?" I asked.

"Unsavory? What does that mean?"

I searched for the right word, failed to find it, and finally settled on, "Suspicious."

Naomi Hecht narrowed her eyes, two faint lines etched between her eyebrows. "What are you getting at, Mr. Lapid?"

The gun. I was trying to understand the presence of the gun. It didn't fit. But I didn't want to ask about it directly.

"It's the note," I said. "Did you read it?"

Her face darkened. "Yes, I read it."

"What do you make of it?"

Her lower lip began trembling. It was odd to see, unexpected, far removed from her customary controlled firmness. When she spoke, her voice was husky with emotion, more than any she'd shown thus far. "That Moria was in a great deal of distress, that she was suffering terribly."

"Do you know what she was referring to, or whom?"

She shook her head, spreading both hands, palms up, in a show of resigned frustration. "I've thought about it over and over, probably a million times or more. I simply don't know. I feel that I should, but I don't."

Guilt, I thought, that insidious beast. I knew it well, my unwanted companion in the seven years that had passed since the end of the war in Europe.

"Tell me about that day," I said.

She took a deep breath, looked at her hands, then back up at me. "What do you want me to tell you?"

"Let's start by why you went to Moria's apartment."

"She didn't show up for her shift. That was unlike her. I don't think she missed a shift in two years. So I went to check on her."

"You had a key?"

"Yes."

"How come?"

"Moria gave it to me, in case she lost hers."

"You live close by?"

"A few minutes' walk. On the corner of Malachi and Zeharia."

"Okay. You unlocked the door, went inside, and then?"

"She hadn't been dead long. There was hardly any smell. I went into the living room and saw the note right away. It was—"

"Wait! The note was in the living room? Not in the bedroom?"

"In the living room. On the floor under the table. It was odd because everything else was so neat."

"The police report said the note was found on the bed."

"That's because of me. I read the note, understood what it was, and rushed into the bedroom with it in my hand. I saw the pill bottles. I saw Moria. I could tell she was dead at a glance."