“My brother was brilliant, but he didn’t have a lot of sense,” he said. “A couple of months before he died, he took his last bit of Yates stipend and went to London to interview people who’d known James Compton. He came back excited. He claimed he had ‘a whole new angle’ on Compton, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. He said I’d be ‘too much of a cop’ about it.”

Soon after, Ray said, Calvin had traveled to L.A. to present part of his thesis on James Compton at a conference.

“He called his son the first night, as promised,” said Ray. “The second night, he didn’t.”

The third day Calvin was found dead in a hotel bathroom. “The forensics team couldn’t make much progress because of all the water. Whoever killed him took his laptop, a pair of pants, a pair of shoes, and a pillowcase.” Ray cleared his throat. “We think the pants and shoes were for the suspect to change into. The pillowcase to carry the killer’s bloodied clothes out. That meant we were looking for someone Cal’s size or smaller. He was five eleven, size ten in shoes. Narrows it down to over half of L.A.

“Cal disdained owning a cell phone, so no calls or texts,” Ray continued. “He picked up his conference badge, did his panel, disappeared, and then died. You’re probably the only one outside Yates who read his thesis, other than me and Alicia.” He took another bite of the pastry. “Not sure that opened up any new lines of inquiry anyway. But it is pure Cal.”

I told him I was impressed by Calvin’s enthusiasm for the British art scene and James Compton’s role in it.

“He was trying to turn it into a book,” Ray said. “He could have done it. But he was also a dreamer, a dad who never made enough scratch for his kid. And he was still an addict.” Cal had kept clean in North Carolina, but in L.A. he’d hoped to score again. “He tried to connect with a few dealers while he was out here. There are records in his webmail. As I said, Cal had no sense. And when he backslid, he slid hard. But LAPD followed up on all the dealers, and not one checked out. The only other clue in his hotel room was a little L.A. snow globe from a tourist shop, and the name ‘Genevieve’ written on a piece of paper.” Ray had painstakingly traced the snow globe to a shop in Venice Beach, but the owner had no recollection of Calvin.

Ray still couldn’t figure out who Genevieve was.