The studio, large and spacious for an old Manhattan walk-up, was a pigsty. The floor didn’t look as if it’d been swept in… months. Dirt, dust, hairballs, and crumbs littered every conceivable inch. An old couch pushed against one wall was sagging in the middle, and most of the fabric covering the armrests had been torn away to reveal the padding underneath. It looked as if Ricky had methodically plucked at the yellowed foam and then threw it every which way like confetti. Partially eaten frozen dinners, dozens of them, were stacked on the coffee table and floor. The bed was unmade, a tangle of blankets kicked to the foot and a sheet stained from lots of sweat and no washing. The kitchen counter was absolutely covered in dirty plates, cups, bowls, pans, and a small mountain of silver Coors Light cans. The studio had a heavy funk of body odor, microwaved lasagna and meatloaf, stale beer, and cheap pot. Piled all around this… shit were newspapers and magazines. Stacks of them. Towers, even. Newsprint going back years. Maybe decades.

Bosman swore from where he stood in the doorway. “It’s amazing this building isn’t completely infested with roaches.”

Doyle turned to Larkin and asked quietly, “Is Ricky a hoarder?”

Larkin swallowed, took a deep breath, then regretted it as the stink of the apartment left an aftertaste in his mouth. “Certainly seems to be the case.” He put on a pair of mental blinders, forced himself to not study the studio as a whole but in sections, and then one particular area of filth within that to analyze. Because if he raised his head, saw the walls closing in, and automatically began cataloguing every single object in the home of a disturbed man—not because of the junk, but the violence perpetrated—Larkin was going to snap.

He moved to a stack of yellowed newspapers beside an ancient and blocky RCA television that probably weighed half as much as him. Larkin picked up the paper on top, pages so old, the corners crumbled like dust. He checked the headlines of the next paper, then the next. “David Berkowitz.”

“What about him?” Doyle asked before the sound of a cupboard opening followed.

“These newspapers. They’re from the ’70s. It’s the entire timeline of the manhunt for Son of Sam. Ricky has the papers with the police composite sketch of Berkowitz too.”

“Thanks for the nightmare fuel.”

Larkin moved to a smaller pile, the papers looking a touch more recent, if the coloring and curling of the edges was anything to judge by. “Joel Rifkin.”

Doyle opened the fridge, made a sound of disgust, then slammed the door shut. “Rifkin… the guy who murdered sex workers in the ’80s and ’90s?”

“Yes.” After some more digging through headlines, Larkin sighed and said, “LISK.”