I told him about Erik’s frequent disappearances to the restroom. Ray said he’d noticed the burst blood vessels in Erik’s face, had concluded that he was probably a drinker and that that contributed to his two different selves, the easygoing Erik and the manipulative one. This made sense to me. It all made sense, what Ray was saying. It should have felt satisfying, figuring out some things together, but I couldn’t get Brenae’s face out of my mind, or the chilling fact that someone—knowing she was dead—had erased the art she’d made.

“Killing her would make a spectacle,” I said softly. “But staging a suicide and cleaning up after—it could end her life and career without pointing the finger at anyone.”

“Very deliberate for someone like Erik,” said Ray. “And flawless in its execution.”

“Someone who wanted to protect him, then?”

“Maybe to protect him or LAAC.”

I thought of Hal. Of Layla. Of Pearson, the heavy, methodical swing of his mallet.

“Thirty pages of notes and labs from one of the best homicide units in the country,” I said. “They determine a suicide. What are they missing?”

I could see the doubt in Ray’s face. It turned the corners of his mouth down and tightened his eyes. “You sound like a reporter,” he reflected after a moment. His tone was not derisive, but there was a caution in it.

“So talk to me like a detective. What are they missing? You must have a theory.”

“I don’t have theories. Theories tend to obscure facts,” said Ray. “I have a client who wants to know exactly how Hal Giroux responded to a cry for help and a death at his school so that she can force him to resign and he can’t bounce and build a museum downtown. All I’ve ever really needed to find out is when Lesson in Red was shot, who erased the files, and why. Today brought me some steps closer, but it didn’t clinch anything.”

I thought about Janis, Ray’s “client,” wanting dirt so she could unseat Hal from his throne at LAAC and stop his plan downtown. It was an underhanded move, not her usual method. Janis had never been afraid to say anything to anyone’s face. Why wouldn’t she insist to the city that Hal find another location?

Almost as soon as I entertained this idea, I knew. The city wanted a big, shiny new museum, not the ragtag old Rocque, with its leaky, garage-like galleries, its bewildering and occasionally offensive art. Not with its recent murder. Janis couldn’t take down Hal in this culture war without extra ammunition. Yet still. At the heart of all this was a young woman in pain, not a negotiation over territory.

I asked Ray what he’d found. As I listened to his answer, I stared at the grease on my empty plate, its dingy swirls.