Bowman stands up. She goes over to a built-in cabinet beneath the projection screen. She opens a drawer, removes something, and comes back to the table. It’s a map of Gatewood, and she unfolds it on the table between us. Her long index finger with a nail painted light pink lands on the dog park and then slides up a fraction of an inch.

“This street? On the north side of the park?”

I study the map in the bright light. “Yes. That’s it. Cherokee Street. They’re all named after Native American tribes, right?”

“Yes. Whoever built the neighborhood wasn’t very woke. So you started on Cherokee. . . .”

“And we’d turn right on the next block.” I point to the map. “Iroquois.”

“And how long would you stay on Iroquois?”

“For a while. Three or four blocks. It dead-ends at that point. See? It dead-ends into Creek.”

“So you’re on Iroquois from the four hundred to the eight hundred block,” Bowman says. “Let’s stick to that. Sophia Greenfield lived at Five-oh-seven Iroquois. And you didn’t know her? Could she have been a student of yours? She didn’t get a degree from Commonwealth, but she took some classes there toward a master’s. She never finished it.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I can’t promise you I remember every student after all these years. But I don’t think so. I saw her picture online today. After you came to the house, I briefly read about her murder. I’m going to be honest with you, Detective, she looked a little familiar to me, but I haven’t been able to place her in my mind. Did she spend time in the dog park? Maybe I saw her there.”

“And you wrote a book with a freakishly detailed account of her murder.” Bowman leans back in her chair and rubs her eyes. She tosses the pen onto the table. “Here’s the problem I have, Connor. You spent time in her neighborhood. You wrote about her murder, although you claim it was a coincidence. She kind of looks familiar to you, but you don’t remember from where. And a student of yours disappeared two years ago, and you were the last person to see her alive.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. And it’s as if the room has turned upside down, done a loop de loop with me strapped into my chair and no way to get off the ride. “You can’t start laying all that on me. You talked to me back then.”

But Bowman is up and over at her magic drawer again. And I realize that she doesn’t normally just keep stuff in there. She’s planted these objects. She’s planned this whole discussion. With props.