Spencer swiped through the pictures on his phone until he found the image that he had taken of Rawlings’s face at the crime scene. The entry wound was indeed on his right temple.

He knitted his fingers behind his head as he stared at the image of Rawlings’s face.

Back to the security tapes, he fast-forwarded to the last two hours of the day. The stream of customers peaked around 6:00 p.m., but after that, the traffic ebbed with each quarter hour until minutes before 7:00 p.m., when the cashier flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED, removed his smock, and left through the back entrance. Five minutes after closing, Mr. Rawlings was straightening stock on the shelves when someone approached the front door.

The person was male, midsize, and wore a dark hoodie that obscured his face from the camera. He knocked on the door. Rawlings opened it. Many would have sent the late customer away, but Rawlings seemed to recognize the individual.

The man nodded his thanks as Rawlings pointed toward the back of the store. Rawlings nodded and motioned to aisle three. The stranger vanished.

Minutes passed, and there was no sign of the newcomer. Rawlings traced the man’s steps into the store. Seconds later, the lights went out, and there was no other sign of Rawlings or the stranger.

“Rawlings, you didn’t kill yourself, did you?” Spencer said.

As he watched the tape, Spencer reached for his phone and dialed Jordan Poe’s number. Even if she was asleep, she needed to hear this.

The phone rang once. The call went directly to voicemail. “Jordan, this is Spencer. You were right. Rawlings did not kill himself. Call me.”

He hung up and stared at his phone, expecting her to return the call in seconds. He imagined she had put the phone down and was searching for it.

Spencer shifted to security footage from an ATM located south of Rawlings’s store. As he watched people pass, he waited for a man in a dark hoodie. The man may have kept his face covered at the store, but a block away, it was possible he had let his guard down. No figure matching the man’s description passed, so Spencer shifted to a restaurant camera that was positioned a block north of the store. He spotted a man without a hoodie who walked down the block and then quickly crossed the street toward a woman standing on the street corner. He paused to speak to her. She shifted her stance, looked down, and nodded. She followed him to a late-model navy-blue four-door.

The man kept his face tucked, clearly aware of the camera. Spencer called dispatch. When the operator answered, he identified himself. “I need plates run ASAP.”

“Yes, sir.”