Killer Look by Linda Fairstein

with me.”
    I texted that message back to her, along with Mike’s cell number.
    â€œIt’s you I need to talk to,” Lily responded, and I repeated it aloud. “And I need the name of a good lawyer.”
    Mike threw the car into park and asked me for Lily’s number. “Ms. Savitsky? Mike Chapman here. It’s my case now, do you understand that?”
    He paused and waited for an answer.
    â€œAlex Cooper is off-limits. Understand that? She’s not allowed to recommend lawyers for you and she’s not authorized to take information about this investigation if that’s what you’ve got. She’s not anchoring your swim team any longer, okay?” Mike said. “You call her or text her again and I’ll consider that to be harassment.”
    â€œThanks for dealing with her for me,” I said. “You think she’s looking for a lawyer on the estate issue, about Wolf’s will? Or a criminal lawyer?”
    â€œThat’s one of your not-so-good questions, Coop, in case Dr. Parker is interested. There’s no angle of Lily Savitsky’s life that should be of interest to you now, okay?”
    I couldn’t help thinking about Lily—how she had reconnected with me though there was only the slimmest thread that linked our lives twenty years back, that she had come to get to know her father, or think she had, only recently, and that now she was tangled in the unhappiness of how he came to die.
    It was a short drive across Thirty-Fourth Street, then north to get to Thirty-Ninth Street, halfway down the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. We parked across from the Silver Needle Hotel. The small shops that lined the sidewalk were closing for the evening.
    Even though the manufacturing of fine garments had been driven offshore, all the businesses on these blocks still reflected the long history of a neighborhood that was centered on that trade. These were the storefronts where all the trimmings and notions, buttons and zippers, lace veils and ribbons that gave each outfit a unique look were concentrated and sold.
    â€œWindow-shopping?” Mike asked as I waited for him in front of one of the stores while he reported in to the lieutenant about our conversation at the ME’s Office.
    â€œI can’t count the number of times I used to come into the city with my grandmother,” I said, “taking the train to Grand Central Terminal from the suburbs, to walk over here to the Garment District so she could get the special things she needed to make my clothes.”
    â€œGive me a break,” Mike said. “You and homemade dresses?”
    My mother was the child of Finnish immigrants who had come to America in the early part of the twentieth century and settled on a farm in New England, which mimicked the landscape of their Scandinavian home. I remembered everything about it from visits—the two-seater outhouse wallpapered in old
LIFE
magazine covers, the rich aromas of the wood-burning fireplace, the sauna that was heated up on Saturday nights only—and ended with a running jump into the frigid waters of Billy Ward Pond.
    â€œYou know the story, Mike. Long before my father became successful, my maternal grandmother moved in with us when she was widowed. She brought a lifetime of her practices with her,” I said, pointing at the colorful spools of thread that lined the shelves inside the front door, “and making clothes for my mother and for me was one of them. She’d get her silver needles and thread from a shop like this, then grosgrain ribbon down the street to trim my holiday outfits, and lace from around the corner to make collars for my party dresses.”
    â€œSweet thought,” Mike said, turning around to cross the street. “You should take up a craft like that. Calm your nerves.”
    The young man at the front desk of the Silver Needle called the manager, who was expecting Mike. They had met the night