“No identifying characteristics?” I say. “Police sketch?”

“Unfortunately he was wearing a ski mask.”

“Shucky darn.”

“But Schermer said he was able to strike him in the head a few times. Say, your ear looks a little red. What did you do to it?”

Self-preservation advises that I say something respectful, or at least plausible, but instead I say, “New aftershave. Girls can’t resist.”

Nunes looks off into the distance, giving me a break from that stare, and I realize that I have been holding my breath.

“What about the evidence? I thought that they had a dispute or something and after the shots were fired the Rat Burglar—assailant—fled the scene and left behind some kind of evidence on the”—I nearly say K’plua—“evidence.”

“Evidence on the evidence?”

“You know what I mean. Isn’t there some pretty solid evidence?”

“Oh yes.”

“Great. What is it?”

“Latents.”

“What does that mean?”

“Latent prints, Starks. At the scene. And on an item stolen by the Rat Burglar.”

“Prints on a stolen artwork? Isn’t that fairly conclusive proof of guilt?”

“It sure is.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Two things. One, the latents don’t implicate Schermer.”

Suddenly the pride I’ve been feeling about my discovery in Schermer’s apartment is replaced by consternation: those are my prints on the K’plua. I picked it up; I didn’t think twice about it. Why would I? I don’t think like a criminal because I’m not a criminal.

Except I am.

And now I start sweating like a criminal. I sweat additionally when I realize that my prints are on file at Janus. It’s not a governmental agency—she can’t access the prints instantaneously—but I know Po-Mo has already shown her some of my file. Would he give her these? Would he require a warrant? And what about the Department of Defense gig I worked that time? Did I send them copies of my prints or not? Are my prints already on AFIS because of that job?

When I realize I can’t remember—and consequently don’t know if I should continue to bluff or to come totally clean— my sympathetic nervous system redlines. I sweat, my pupils dilate, my throat starts to constrict.

“Hunh,” I say with a pubescent squeak. “Not Schermer’s prints. Weird.”

“Not really.”

“What’s the other problem?”

“The item discovered at the scene is made of wood and raffia.”

She is looking at me closely, as if trying to ascertain if the surprise I register is genuine.

“Oh. The K’plua? Well, Janus will be so relieved. Owners, too.”

Nunes exhales a plume of dirty smoke. The air is so heavy with moisture and sickness—it is soupy, an oxygen-and-carbon-monoxide chowder—that the smoke doesn’t rise. It just idles there at altitude next to Nunes’s head like a polluted thought-bubble, communicating the worst, until the dead river wind pushes it sideways.