“It hadn’t worked out so well when I’d called Robin,” Quentin said. “I thought if I went in and saw him, and explained everything, it wouldn’t be as easy to turn me away.”

“And you wanted to talk to him for a true crime podcast.”

“That’s right,” he said. “About the Inland Empire murders. My aunt was a victim.”

“And Dr. Bloom is an expert in criminal psychiatry,” he said. “That’s why you wanted to talk to him.”

The detective said it like a statement, not a question. Quentin decided it was best to agree.

“You didn’t speak to Dr. Bloom after that one conversation in his office?”

“Detective Morasco,” Quentin said. “Has . . . has something happened?”

He didn’t answer right away. Quentin leaned into the silence, his heart pounding. “Detective?”

“He’s dead, Mr. Garrison.”

Quentin felt numb. “Oh . . . Oh my God.”

“Do you think you may be able to come by the station? Or we can meet you in the city, if it’s easier.”

“What about Mrs. Bloom? Is she all right?”

“I’d prefer to talk more about this in person.”

“I can come by the station,” Quentin heard himself say. “I have a rental car.”

“That would be great. It won’t take long.”

Quentin said good-bye and hung up, both hands trembling. The phone started pulsing like a beating heart and he looked at the screen. An app he’d downloaded on the plane: news alerts for Westchester County. He clicked on one of them. Read the article all the way through. Noted psychiatrist Dr. Mitchell Bloom and his wife, Renee, had been shot in what was thought to have been a home invasion. Renee Bloom was in critical condition. Mitchell Bloom was dead.

MITCHELL BLOOM, MD. Gold letters on clouded glass. Dr. Bloom had no receptionist, just a small waiting room and he’d stepped out into it—a big man, a few inches taller than Quentin and with a kind, owlish face. A double take, once he saw the stranger in his waiting room. I thought you were my four o’clock, Dr. Bloom had said. And then Quentin had told him why he was there.

They’d talked for around half an hour, with no tape recorder running, Dr. Bloom playing psychiatrist. Quentin trying to play interviewer.

Closure. That’s an interesting name.

It was my coproducer’s idea.

Do you think closure is possible for you, Mr. Garrison?

Huh?

For all intents and purposes, you’re the survivor of a murder that happened nearly twenty years before you were born. Don’t you believe it might be wishful thinking for you to think that type of pain can be fixed?

As I said. My coproducer thought of the name.

Your coproducer?

Actually, my coproducer and my husband. They thought of the name together.