“What it tells me is whoever he is, he doesn’t know you personally. I retract what I said earlier about my worrying he knows you, knows Marino. He knows about you, about your office, but he doesn’t know you,” Benton says, as if there can be no doubt about it. “He’s getting it wrong. He’s making mistakes. Maybe you could text Bryce to let them know we’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

It’s almost three p.m., and we’re going to be late for a meeting Benton scheduled in my TelePresence conference room, and I’m not happy that Douglas Burke has been included. I thought Benton made it perfectly clear that they couldn’t work together anymore.

“He stages his crimes in a premeditated and precise way, he’s obsessed with games that include framing people, and then is careless about fingerprints and blood?” I worry again that something might have gone on with Benton and Burke.

“He has reason to believe such evidence isn’t incriminating to him,” he says, as we go back to the CFC the way we came, following the river, and the water is dusky, the sky a pale blue haze. “For one thing, he probably assumed it wouldn’t be found. He didn’t think you’d look. That’s the important part, Kay. He didn’t assume you’d bother with anything you’ve bothered with. He doesn’t know you, not in the least,” he says that again.

Douglas Burke will be waiting in my conference room, and I’m not sure what I’ll do when I see her.

“There’s ridge detail all over the bottle,” I reply. “I didn’t even need dusting powder or an ALS to see that there’s enough minutiae for an identification.”

“But we don’t know whose identification.” Benton glances at his phone in his lap, at whatever’s just landed. “Could be Roth’s prints on there. Most likely he bought the malt liquor and drank it.”

“The important point is the killer didn’t even bother wiping off the bottle, which is really careless,” I repeat. “The smartest thing would have been to take it with him and toss it somewhere it would never be found.”

“Disposing of the weapon in a bag full of bottles and cans that Roth collected shows the killer’s complete disregard for his victim, his utter indifference.” Benton glances down at his phone again. “Roth was nothing to him, nothing more than an inconvenience, and the killer assumes everybody would feel that way because he doesn’t know how to feel any other way. He can’t project values onto you or anyone that he doesn’t have.”

“Onto me specifically?”

“Yes, onto you, Kay. He doesn’t know you.” Benton drums that in. “He can’t imagine what you’ll do or how you feel because he’s incapable of empathy. Therefore, he reads people wrong.”