But could this man, who had lunged at me so ineptly with a candlestick, break into an apartment and slash the throat of a woman before she could mount a struggle? And what of the fact that the killer had not struck before or since that night in August 1939—at least not in a sufficiently similar manner as to arouse Rivlin's suspicion? Manny Orrin, as his photo albums attested, had been obsessed with many women. If he had killed one, would he have been able to resist killing another for ten long years?

There was also the fact that I believed him. It was a belief not based on evidence but on instinct. Another investigator would have hauled him from his chair, slammed him against a wall, and third-degreed him for as long as it took to squeeze a confession out of him. It wouldn't have taken long. A little pressure would have broken him. That would have been enough for a police detective with few scruples. He would have downplayed or ignored the discrepancies between Orrin's confession and the crime scene. Just enough to get a conviction. Cops sometimes do that, especially when they're desperate or when their gut tells them they've got the right man, or when they find someone who deserves to be punished for something, even if he did not commit the specific crime they're investigating.

And Orrin did deserve to be punished for photographing women without their consent. But I did not think he had killed Esther and Willie. He was sick, but not that kind of sick.

Or was I reading him wrong? Was I being arrogant in believing my instincts would not mislead me? Was the killer sitting right here before me?

"I cried when I heard what happened," he said, sitting shrunken in his mother's chair. "I mourned."

There was a metallic taste in my mouth and my muscles were tense. A part of me wanted to hit him. Another part pitied him. He was a lost man. But he didn't feel like a killer to me.

I took a deep breath. "All right. I believe you. Let me ask you something: When you followed Esther to take your pictures, did you see her with anyone? A man?"

"No. But I didn't follow her all the time, just a little."

Just a little, I thought, looking at the five dozen pictures spread over the thick blanket.

"Where are the negatives?" I asked.

They were stored in the final two albums on the top shelf, all neatly labeled. I removed the ones holding Esther's image and put them in my pocket.

"I'm taking these too," I said, gathering the pictures on the bed.

"What? No. Please, don't."

I gave him a stare that made him wilt in his seat.

His voice was beseeching. "Can't you leave me with one? Just one?"

"You had no right to take them. They're not yours." And this, I realized, was how I would punish him, by taking away all his favorite photos.