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The building where Barbara Ettinger had lived and died was on Wyckoff Street between Nevins and Bond It was a brick tenement, five stories tall with four small apartments on each floor, and it had thus escaped the conversion that had already turned many of the brownstones back into the one-fa had been spruced up some I stood in the vestibule and checked the na them to those I'd copied from an old city directory Of the twenty apartments, only six held tenants who'd been there at the tio by naet ets sublet to keep the landlord fro-dead tenant stays on the lease and on the es A rooinal leaseholder moves out There are no shortcuts You have to knock on all the doors

I rang a bell, got buzzed in, went to the top floor and worked e to flash but the manner's more important than the ID, and I couldn't lose the manner if I tried I didn't tell anyone I was a cop, but neither did I try to keep anyone fro the assu mother in one of the rear apartments on the top floor Her baby cried in the next room while we talked She'd moved in within the past year, she toldabout a murder nine years previously She asked anxiously if it had taken place in that very apartment, and seemed at once relieved and disappointed to learn it had not

A Slavic woave me a cup of coffee in her fourth-floor front apartment She put me on the couch and turned her own chair to face me It had been positioned so she could watch the street

She'd been in that apartment for alo her husband had been there, but noas gone and she was alone The neighborhood, she said, was getting better "But the old people are going Places I shopped for years are gone And the price of everything! I don't believe the prices"

She reh she was surprised it had been nine years It didn't see to her The woman as killed was a nice woet killed"

She didn't seeer beyond her niceness She didn't know if she had been especially friendly or unfriendly with any of the other neighbors, if she'd gotten on well or poorly with her husband I wondered if she even remembered what the woman had looked like, and wished I had a picture to show her I ht of it

Another woman on the fourth floor, a Miss Wicker, was the only person to ask for identification I told her I wasn't a policeman, and she left the chain lock on the door and spoke to , which didn't strikea few years, did know about the murder and that the Icepick Prowler had been recently apprehended, but that was the extent of her information

"People let anyone in," she said "We have an interco who you are People talk about crime but they never believe it can happen to the her how easy it would be to snap her chain lock with a bolt cutter, but I decided her anxiety level was high enough already

A lot of the tenants were out for the day On the third floor, Barbara Ettinger's floor, I got no response from one of the rear apart door The pulse of disco h it I knocked, and after a moment the door was opened by a man in his late twenties He had short hair and abut a pair of blue-striped white gylistened with a light coating of sweat

I told him my name and that I'd like to ask him a few questions He led me inside, closed the door, then moved past me and crossed the room to the radio He lowered the voluether

There was a large mat in the center of the uncarpeted parquet floor A barbell and a pair of dumbbells reposed on it, and a ju out," he said "Won't you sit down? That chair's the comfortable one The other's nice to visit but you wouldn't want to live there"

I took the chair while he sat on the htened with recognition when I mentioned the murder in 3-A "Donald told me," he said "I've only been here a little over a year but Donald's been living here for ages He's watched the neighborhood become positively chic around hi retains its essential tackiness You'll probably want to talk to Donald but he won't be home from work until six or six thirty"

"What's Donald's last naoner That's Rolfe with an e I was just reading about the Icepick Prowler Of course I don't reh school then That was back ho ways froht for a moment "In more ways than one," he said

"Was Mr Gilers?"

"He could answer that better than I can You've caught the man who did it, haven't you? I read that he was in a mental hospital for years and nobody ever knew he killed anybody, and then he was released and they caught hi like that"

"And now you want to ainst him" He smiled He had a nice open face and he seeym shorts Gay men used to be so much more defensive, especially around cops "Itthat happened so o Have you talked with Judy? Judy Fairborn, she's in the aparthts, she's a waitress, so she'll be home now unless she's at an audition or a dance class or shopping or-well, she'll be home unless she's out, but that's always the case, isn't it?" He s me perfectly even teeth "But maybe you've already spoken with her"

"Not yet"

"She's new I think she o Would you want to talk to her anyway?"

"Yes"

He uncoiled, sprang lightly to his feet "I'll introduce you," he said "Just let me put so jeans and a flannel shirt and running shoes without socks We crossed the hall and he knocked on the door of Apartment 3-A There was silence, then footsteps and a wo who it was