The bathroom was just as devoid of clues. On the countertops were acne creams, pills for seasonal allergies, a prescription dandruff shampoo. He searched through the towel cabinet, the sundry cabinet, the medicine cabinet. He opened old bottles and smelled them. Shook out a bottle of talcum powder, sniffed it, put it to the tip of his tongue and grimaced. It was talcum powder. Ernesto had no telltale colored pills, no hidden hypodermics, no contraband that Decker could detect. The most controversial item on the shelf was a box of condoms.

He moved on to the walk-in closet.

It had been stuffed with shirts—polo shirts, casual shirts, Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts (lots and lots of T-shirts), muscle shirts, and tank tops. He had slacks in every color, he had jeans in every style, he had khakis, he had twills, he had corduroys, he had woolens, he had cottons, he had suits and a half-dozen sports jackets, including two preppy blue blazers. Ernesto owned racks of shoes.

Decker sighed and refrained from rubbing his forehead because his hands were gloved.

He began to open the built-in drawers.

More T-shirts. Dress shirts, too, laundered and folded. Shorts and bathing trunks. Underwear consisted of both jockeys and boxers—all of it very ordinary, except for the quantity, and very depressing.

Two separate sock drawers—one for athletic white crew socks, the other for colored dress socks that smelled slightly herbal.

Decker began unraveling balls of socks. He found a stash, not more than a few ounces of marijuana. That was it for drugs. But he did notice something unusual about the athletic sock drawer. When it was pulled out to its maximum, it was shorter than the other drawer by at least six inches.

Decker tried to remove the drawer from the gliders so he could look behind them, but it remained firmly affixed. Resisting the urge to yank it off by brute force, he applied reason instead of frustration. There had to be some kind of release button. He removed all the socks and pored over the empty drawer. Seeing nothing, he felt with his fingertips, and discovered a small depression not much bigger than a pen nub in the back left-hand corner. He took out a pen and punched the depression. Immediately, the drawer loosened from the brackets. Decker took it out and peeked inside the dead space.

Behind it was a tiny lock box, shut tight by a combination lock. He took out the box and hefted it. It was surprisingly light. The dilemma now was whether to bother the parents for the sequence of numbers or just to pick it.

He opted to bother the parents, specifically Carter, who wasn’t aware of the combination because he hadn’t even been aware of the box. He was defensive, but it was born out of protectiveness of his son’s memory.

“What do you expect to find?” Golding said.

“I don’t know. Maybe drugs.”