I led Prema to the living room sofa, sat down next to her. Milo settled in a facing chair. His suit was one I’d seen for years, a baggy green-brown hopsack worn over a white shirt and a muddy blue tie that Prozac couldn’t fix.

One thing was different: He’d slicked down his hair. Two-hundred-forty-pound kid waiting for communion.

Prema said, “You look just like a cop should.”

Milo said, “You look just like a movie star should.”

“I meant that as a compliment, Lieutenant. I find it reassuring.”

“So taken.” His expression was unreadable. “What can I do for you, Ms. Moon?”

She turned to me.

I said, “Just go for it.”

She inhaled. “Okay … all right … Donny Rader smokes meerschaum pipes.”

“Does he.”

“Do you know what meerschaum is?”

“Some kind of carved stone.”

“It’s a mineral, Lieutenant. It washes up on the beach and people carve it into smoking pipes. Donny Rader has lots of carved meerschaum smoking pipes, I don’t know how many. He smokes weed in them, not tobacco. He’s a compulsive collector, loves things. To my mind, it’s just greed. Like cars: He’s got a dozen, maybe more, even though he hardly ever drives them. He has more clothing than I do.” One hand kneaded the other. “He collects women. But we don’t need to go there.”

“Sounds like your husband leads a busy life, Ms. Moon.”

She flinched.

I said, “There’s another collection.”

“Yes,” she said. “There is. He has a closet full of guns. When we were living together I made him lock them up in a big safe. That I paid for. For the children’s safety.”

“Where are the guns now, Ms. Moon?”

“At his place.”

“You don’t live together?”

“He lives in the adjoining property. I bought all of it years ago but I only use part of it.”

“You know about his gun closet because—”

“I saw it. Not recently, we don’t have much … I stay at my place, he’s at his.”

“When did you see the gun closet?”

Her chest heaved. “Maybe half a year, I really can’t be sure.”

“You went to visit—”

“Not a visit, an obligation. He needed to sign a tax form from our accountant. Our life is complicated, you can delegate a lot of things but at some point you still need to sign your name to papers. All the financial forms come to me because he’d neglect them.”

“So around six months ago—”