“Well, I hope we can become friends,” he said. “But at the same time, you understand I gotta do my job on the board, right?”

“That’s why you’re here,” I said. “Just like I’m here to investigate crimes. New ones . . . old ones.”

He stared at me then, and I wondered if he was thinking what I was. That he was involved somehow with the Golden Oaks robbery. And that I knew it.

“Good.” He checked his watch. “So let’s start by making sure you don’t miss another therapy session.”

He got up. Walked closer, his face inches from mine.

And suddenly I was staring into the black waters of the Tullumy River at night. A gurgling sound. Water filling up a 2012 Jeep.

“’Cause, you know,” he said, his face serious, “you miss another appointment, and you’ll be put in front of the police board. And I run the board now. So who knows what could happen to you.”

14

I crossed through the farm of cubes from Hartley’s office over to where Remy sat, my mind spinning from back-to-back conversations with Senza and Hartley.

“I gotta take a walk,” I said to my partner. “Did Carlos get the Chevy Caprice yet?”

“Yeah.” She looked up. “But it’s only been an hour, P.T. I’m not sure he’s even had a chance to—”

I grabbed the murder book from Remy’s desk and headed toward the stairwell to the lobby.

“Everything okay?” Remy asked, following me.

I nodded, but didn’t speak. Flipped open the book as I walked, taking out a printout of a photo Remy had shot at the roadside.

Breathe, Purvis said.

“So this was a planned meet, right?” I said, once I realized Remy was following me. I held up a wide shot of the Caprice parked along 914.

In the photo, there were marks in the gravel that indicated a car had parked in front of the Caprice, where the two dead men were found.

“Our pro shooter pulls over in front of them,” I said, theorizing. “Gets out. Walks back toward their car?”

We got to the lobby, and my partner pulled out her phone. She showed me other pictures she’d shot at the side of the road. There were skid marks kicking up gravel, like a car had left fast. But the marks could be days old. Or weeks.

“You’re thinking someone Vinorama and Dilmendes knew pulled over in front of them,” Remy said. “They welcome him into their car. Maybe they thought it was just for a quick second. Hence the driver never undoing his seat belt.”

“Exactly,” I said.

I moved through the lobby and onto the sidewalk. Outside, the sky was steel-colored, and the clouds looked like a series of white blankets that had been rolled military-tight and placed beside each other, in rows.

“I was thinking about that errant bullet through the back of the seat,” I said, walking the long way around the hall of justice. “You think Dilmendes turned? From where he was sitting in the front passenger seat?”