I looked away, feeling numb and distant, as if the pictures and I weren't really in the booth, so I could pretend I wasn't seeing them.

Lindo showed me each of the remaining victims, and then a photograph of a clunky black device with knobs and sensors like you'd see in a dated science fiction movie.

Okay, the second way we put him with the murders is by the camera. These cameras, they push the picture out through a little slot when you snap the exposure. The rollers leave discrete impressions on the edges of the picture It was easier to look at the picture of the camera.

Like the rifling in a gun barrel marks a bullet?

Yeah. This is a discontinued model. All seven pictures were taken with this camera, which we recovered in Byrd's house. The only prints on the camera belong to Lionel Byrd. Ditto the film packs we found in the camera.

He showed me a picture of two film packs, one labeled with the letter A, the other with B.

Partials belonging to a different individual were found on the unopened film, but we believe they belong to the cashier or salesclerk where he bought the film. The lot numbers gave a point of sale in Hollywood, not far from Laurel Canyon. You see how it's adding up?

Lindo went through his facts with the mechanical precision of a carpenter driving nails.

Byrd bought the film. Byrd put the film in the camera. Byrd, using the camera, took seven photographs that could only have been taken by someone present at the time of the murders. Byrd was at one time charged in the murder of one of the women whose death shot a photograph taken within moments of her death has now been found in his possession. Having taken the pictures, Byrd then placed them with his own hands in this sick fucking book. Byrd then picked up a gun with his own hands, as evidenced by fingerprints found on the gun, cartridge casings, and ammunition box recovered in his home, and blew out his own fucking brains. What we have here is called a chain of reason, Cole. I know you were hoping we wouldn't have squat, but there it is, and it is good.

I suddenly wanted to see Yvonne Bennett again, and flipped to the fifth picture. Yvonne Bennett stared up at me with mannequin eyes. Brain matter and pink shards of bone were visible, along with a bright ball that had apparently been placed in the wound. I didn't remember seeing the ball in the wound when Levy showed me the coroner's picture.

What's this round thing?

It's a bubble. The M.E. says air was probably forced into an artery when he beat her, then floated out when she died. It made a blood bubble.

I wanted to look away, but didn't. I stared at the bubble. It had not been present in the coroner's picture. At some point between when the two pictures were taken, it had popped. I took a deep breath and finally looked away.