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been this guy as biological father.”
    â€œNo … no she went to a clinic in New York. She wanted a choice of donors. And then she got pregnant.”
    â€œCan you be sure it was the artificial insemination that did it? And not another contact.”
    â€œWell … that’s what she said. I believed her.”
    â€œShe wasn’t seeing someone?”
    â€œNo. No, she told me she was done with the whole dating scene. She’d been using some kind of dating service and she said she only met duds.”
    â€œThe name of the dating service?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know. She was disgusted with it and never said the name.”
    â€œThen straight to artificial insemination? So the goal was a baby all along?”
    â€œYes. She really wanted a baby. She was thirty-eight or thirty-nine. She knew a woman who had had luck with the clinic in New York. See, Maggie lived there for quite a while before moving here, so she—”
    â€œShe went the whole way there for the treatments?”
    â€œShe … made that decision.” Sasha rubbed at her forehead as if that would help make sense of today. “I argued that with her. Pittsburgh is way up there medically. But she traveled to New York a couple of times and when she did get pregnant, she was ecstatic. It was what she wanted. She told me she’d made the right decision.”
    â€œBut she didn’t give you any details? Who she chose, why?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNothing?”
    â€œOnly that she felt she had always loved men with dark hair and dark eyes. She chose dark hair and eyes, she said, on the guy’s profile, but she never saw a picture. She said he was probably very smart too because of his college degrees.”
    â€œWhich degrees?”
    â€œHe was starting on a master’s.”
    â€œIn what?”
    â€œI don’t know. She didn’t say.”
    â€œWhat was the name of the clinic?”
    â€œShe never told me. She was very private.” Sasha’s eyes drifted, as if for the first time she had allowed herself to feel insulted by this withholding of information. She shook her head. “She always said the kid was enough for her.”
    â€œTell me about men she worked with.”
    â€œShe didn’t date them. Jason is married. Ben is gay. Look. I don’t like this—digging in her past when she’s dead. We’re just sitting here talking about her and, and criticizing her life.”
    â€œI’m not criticizing. I’m trying to find her killer. Please keep thinking. She’s got to have leaked something.”
    Sasha swallowed hard and bit her lip.
    â€œTell me about the man who bothered her and Matt a couple months ago.”
    â€œShe was freaked that he thought there was something between them. She said she only went out with him twice a long time ago.”
    â€œNo name?”
    â€œNo.”
    Christie pressed. “Did she say what he did, where he lived?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid she call him a joker?”
    â€œNo, she said he was sad, mixed up.”
    â€œDid she give you the location of the clinic in New York?”
    â€œIn the Village, I think, but I’m not sure.”
    â€œAnd she didn’t think the guy was the father.”
    â€œShe told me the father was a number in a book. Why don’t you believe me? She was my best friend.”
    He had to stop. Sasha was getting shaky. Finally she said, “She was a good person. I just want you to know that. She cared about people. She loved her son.”
    â€œI sense that. I’m trying to figure out what it meant when she held back, didn’t tell you things.”
    â€œShe got embarrassed. She thought she made a mess of relationships.” Sasha began to cry.
    â€œI understand. You didn’t probe because you could sense she was sensitive.”
    â€œYes. Thank you.”
    â€œYou spoke daily?”
    â€œPretty much.”
    â€œPhone