Chron.com | Don't I Know You? by Karen Shepard:
As the first section unfolds, the reader, like Steven, doesn't know whom to trust: his mother's boyfriend, Phil; the seemingly kind detective; Manuel, the apartment super; the father he hasn't seen in years?
Mother's other boyfriends incl Kurt who never appears, college boy (Matthew Cullen), Nikolai (~son of Russian woman and Louise Carpanetti's husband Elias). Louise Carpanetti lives upstairs with grown son Michael. Lily Chin lives nearby and has a relationship with Matthew Cullen and then Nikolai.
main suspect in each of three sections: Phil. Nikolai. Michael.
background (father) and finally Matthew "whadja get me?" Cullen wearing the bracelet she was found holding and the green & white shoes (that Phil also has). presented in such a way (because it's the end of the book, because the bracelet and the shoes and the whadja-get-me and the days-aren't-days all tie him to other moments - with Lily but also Louise sees him with the college girls who now live in Gina's apt) that it seems meant as suggestive of his guilt. or maybe just that there is this other person that no one was paying much attention to (assumed unrelated to the central story). that: there are always (or just usually or just often) relations among everyone.
By the time we reach the novel's short final section, in which most of the characters, including Gina and Steven, attend a neighborhood picnic four years before the murder, we are left wondering at the mysteries of human character and motive, even as the central mystery of the murder seems to be solved. 'Seems' is the proper word here, because we are still left to put the puzzle together for ourselves in the end.
it's not even really a puzzle, it doesn't come together as a whole picture. and there's no clue about motive. ~ maybe a suggestion that he's ~ ~ what is it when you say "days aren't days without you, beautiful you" 10 years later to a girl living in the same apt? ie when you say it to lots of girls..