t seven thirty p.m., Milo, Robin, and I arrived at the Shenandoah Street apartment of artist-turned-cop Alexander Shimoff.

Shimoff’s flat was on the ground floor. He stood outside his door wearing gray sweats and drinking from a half-gallon bottle of ginger ale. Thirtyish, with a prematurely gray Caesar cut, he was built like a tennis player, had facial bones just a bit too large for the pale skin that cased them.

Milo made the introductions.

Shimoff smiled and shook with a slightly limp hand. No real accent to his speech but a slight stretching of syllables suggested birth in another country.

Standing in the living room were a young, rosy-cheeked platinum-blond wife and two little girls around four and six. The kids were curious but compliant as their mother hustled them to their room, talking in Russian. Shimoff’s easel, drawing table, and weathered oak flat file took up half of the meager space. Most of the rest was given over to games and toys. A big-screen Mac sat atop the file, along with brushes in pots and an array of pencils and pens. A nearly completed painting—dead-on replica of Picasso’s Blue Guitarist—occupied the easel.

Milo whistled appreciatively. “You could get into serious trouble for that.”

Shimoff’s grin was lopsided. “Only if I put it on eBay for ten bucks.” He turned to Robin. “I looked up your website. Beautiful instruments. Someone who can do that, my guess is they can draw pretty good.”

“Not good enough,” she said.

“Show me what you’ve produced.”

Robin handed him the sketches of Princess and Black Suit.

Shimoff studied them for several moments. “If the proportions are okay, this gives me plenty to work with. Describe them like you would to a stranger. Start with the guy because he’s the easy one; once we’re in the groove, we’ll work our way to her.”

Milo said, “Why’s he easier?”

“Because women are complex.” Shimoff climbed onto his stool, faced a blank piece of white Bristol board, flexed his neck as if preparing for a wrestling match. To Robin: “Even though we’re just doing the face, tell me how tall he is.”

Robin said, “Six one or two. Heavily built, but not fat.”

“Football, not sumo,” said Shimoff.

“Not a tackle. Maybe a halfback. Thirty to thirty-five years old, he could be of Nordic or Germanic extraction—”

“Could be or probably?”

She thought. “There could be some Celtic in there—Scottish or Irish. Or maybe Dutch. But if I had to bet, I’d say Nordic. Definitely nothing Mediterranean and that includes northern Italian.”

“You drew the hair light. We talking blond?”

“It was at night. What I saw was pale.”

Shimoff touched his own steely coif. “Plenty of good-looking silver dudes. But you’d bet on blond, right?”

“Right.”

“Eye color?”

“Couldn’t tell.”