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Jeremy’s doorway.
    No one had a kind word or remorseful feeling for Gracie Pomerantz, except the old ‘I wouldn’t wish that kind of death on anyone.’ Few of them had ever been charmed by her. There were no sweet stories of this or that nice thing she did that one time, because that one time had never happened. Gracie was famous for philanthropy—an expert ribbon-cutter at school playgrounds and inner-city hospital wings. On a slow week, she even responded to the occasional hard-luck story, using her relationship with the mayor—they both went to Cornell—to stand up for the poor and downtrodden, acquiring enormous prominence for herself, eating her fame like soft cookies still warm from the oven.
    But she cared for no one within arm’s reach.
    No one entertained the thought that Jeremy had strangled her with a silk zebra-print header. He was a jerk, impatient, and an absurd perfectionist, but he was not a murderer. On that, they agreed. He would most certainly be in tomorrow, first thing, breaking everyone’s ass over the lost half-Sunday of work.
    When the news vans pulled up outside at 11:30, lipstick was applied, and the room cleared. It was interview time.
    Laura was alone in the office once again and wondering about getting some pepper spray herself. The walls were closing in on her, and she feared putting her headphones on because she might not hear the murdering bastard creep up behind her. Every noise was magnified tenfold, every snap of paper, every click of scissors, every scratch of a pencil. She draped a muslin for the Emily skirt, pinned the fabric, turned it, and snipped around the waistline until it fell across the mannequin’s thighs in big, looping flares. When the side-seams matched, she unpinned it. The squeaking of the mannequin echoed against the walls of the empty office. When she laid out the fabric to trace the shape for her pattern, she clicked her pencil—out of lead. She took that as a sign that her day was over. She couldn’t score another line. The drape was done, but the pattern would have to wait.
    Laura waited for the elevator, tracing the steps the killer might have taken. Jeremy St. James was on the fourth floor, on the border between guilt for taking the elevator instead of getting an ass-kicking workout. Typically, Laura chose guilt over the workout. She wondered if the murderer had done the same. And how did Gracie Pomerantz get upstairs? And why?
    While waiting, she looked down the hallway. It was an old building. The brass and glass mail tubes still ran between floors. There were sconces and old paint. The other side of the hall had glass doors with Jeremy’s name painted on them, and wooden opaque doors behind led to a non-functioning back entrance with the hum of the sample floor behind it.
    The elevator dinged, and Laura got in. She stood alone in one of two elevator cars. Remembering what Tiffany had said about cameras, she looked for one on the ceiling and was greeted by a glass orb smeared with marker and another substance she was at pains to name. She hoped the police weren’t depending on the elevator cameras to find the killer.
    The lobby wasn’t much to speak of, except for the marble floors with a compass rose in the center. She had no idea what the compass was supposed to achieve. Everyone knew Seventh Avenue ran south. Once you were out the door and saw which way the cars drove, a short spate of deductive reasoning made the compass rose redundant.
    There was a more modern counter for the doorman, who didn’t work on Sundays. Closed circuit monitors flashed at his desk, even in his absence. Laura did a quick scan of the lobby and found the camera. Thankfully, it was in better shape than the one in the elevator. That would get Jeremy off the hook and expose the killer before tomorrow, for sure.
    Encouraged, she stopped by her apartment, then went to her mother’s for a laundry run. She’d forget the whole thing before the spin cycle started.

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