Now Eve knew that she actually saw a beast on the hill: it was Coyle in this costume. This proved it, but only to her, because she didn’t tell anybody else what she saw up there. That was a mistake. Because she’d been afraid of being mocked, now the suit was simply a bizarre discovery rather than a key piece of evidence.

Why did he come back for his sleeping bag in an ape suit? Was he wearing it when he was watching the house? Was he wearing it during the murders?

“That’s bizarre,” Nan said.

Eve turned to see Nan standing behind her, all suited up in Tyvek and carrying a camera and an evidence collection case.

“Have you ever come across someone obsessed with apes before?” Eve asked, stepping aside to give Nan a better look at it.

“Nope, but I’m willing to bet my salary that there’s traces of semen in that suit.”

“Yuck,” Eve said.

“But that’s only hypothetical because I can’t test it. An ape costume is not among the items listed in your warrant.”

“Did you find any unidentified fibers at the crime scene that might have come from this costume?”

Although the ape suit wasn’t explicitly covered in the warrant, the collection of fibers from the suspect’s home that might match fibers collected at the crime scene was within the broad scope of the search.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Nan said. “But we’ll collect a fiber from it just in case.”

Eve squatted beside the pair of hiking boots, picked up one of them, and showed Nan the tread. “Does this look familiar to you?”

“Yes, it does. These are definitely the same shoes the killer wore in Tanya’s house, but that doesn’t mean it’s the shoes. We won’t know until we examine them for any fluids or carpet fibers unique to the crime scene.”

Eve set the shoe back down where she found it, stood up, and moved to the bureau, where she began opening drawers while Nan photographed the closet. The warrant gave them the authority to look for anything that might tie Coyle to the crime scene, from something as large and obvious as the murder weapon and bloody shoes to anything that might have belonged to the victims or come from the home, including blood, hair, fibers, and other material.

The top drawers were filled with underwear and socks. The bottom drawer was filled with small knickknacks and souvenirs of all kinds, including a Golden Gate Bridge key chain, a SpongeBob pencil eraser, a clamshell, a pearl earring, ceramic chopsticks, a pocket watch, a miniature Chinese teacup, a dream catcher earring, a Space Needle spoon, a gold tie clip, a hula girl shot glass, a mood ring, and a souvenir chip from the Berlin Wall.

“I’ve seen that earring before,” Nan said, looking over Eve’s shoulder.

“Which one?”