The Dalys gave it their best shot, but no hundred-watt bulbs lit up, presumably because Fingerprint Fifi is a high-school algebra teacher from Nebraska whose photo I pulled off the internet. Wherever I go, Fifi goes. Her picture has a nice wide white border so you won’t feel the need to hold it delicately by the edges, and since she may be the most nondescript human being on the planet, it’ll take you a close look—probably involving both thumbs and index fingers—to be sure that you don’t know her. I owe my girl Fifi many a subtle ID. Today, she was going to help me find out whether the Dalys had left prints on that suitcase.

What had my antennae wiggling at this lot was the mind-bending off chance that Rosie had been heading to meet me, after all. If she was sticking to our plan, if she didn’t need to dodge me, she would have taken the same route I had: out the door of the flat, down the stairs, straight into the Place. But I had had a perfect view of every inch of the road, the whole night through, and that front door had never opened.

Back then, the Dalys had the middle floor of Number 3. On the top floor were the Harrison sisters, three ancient, easily overexcited spinsters who gave you bread and sugar if you did their messages for them; the basement was sad, sick little Veronica Crotty, who said her husband was a traveling salesman, and her sad, sick little kid. In other words, if someone had intercepted Rosie on her way to our rendezvous, that someone was sitting across the coffee table from me and Kevin.

All three of the Dalys looked genuinely shocked and upset, but that can swing so many ways. Nora had been a big kid at a difficult age, Mrs. Daly was somewhere on the crazy spectrum, and Mr. Daly had a five-star temper, a five-star problem with me, and muscles. Rosie was no lightweight; her da might not be Arnie after all, but he had been the only one in that house strong enough to dispose of her body.

Mrs. Daly asked, peering anxiously over the photo, “Who’s she, now? I’ve never seen her about. Do you think she might have hurt our Rosie? She looks awful small for that, does she not? Rosie was a strong girl, she wouldn’t—”

“I’d say she has nothing to do with it,” I told her truthfully, retrieving the photo envelopes and slipping them back into my pocket, in order. “I’m just exploring every possibility.”

Nora said, “But you think someone hurt her.”

“It’s too early to assume that,” I said. “I’ll set some inquiries in motion and keep you posted. I think I’ve got enough to start with. Thanks for your time.” Kevin leaped out of his seat like he was on springs.