But not before she borrowed an unattended laptop in the copy room, one she noticed had been there since the day before. She closed the office door and opened the laptop on Agent Solomon’s desk, sitting in his long-unused chair. She searched for the murder case and found multiple articles relating to a shocking killing in Little Brook, a Long Island hamlet east of Massapequa. A town supervisor, the top elected local official, went “postal” half an hour before office hours ended in Little Brook Town Hall, attacking people with a long-bladed cabinet screwdriver, killing three. The fifty-three-year-old man was shot and killed by a marine patrol safety officer who happened to be there checking permits.

A rampage killing. The assailant had no prior criminal record. Was said to be a pillar of the community. “He just snapped.” There were mentions of health concerns, financial pressures. Conditions that affect a great number of middle-aged men. A news item she would normally have skimmed and then clicked away from suddenly had resonance for her.

Then she accessed the FBI directory—nothing requiring a security passcode—for information about Agent Earl Solomon. With the hundreds of archived tape recordings from his house in mind, she searched for case records. No hits. She was tempted to search deeper, but this wasn’t her laptop, and she didn’t want to get herself, or any other agent, in further trouble. But the impression she got was that an invisible hand had all but erased Earl Solomon from existence within the FBI database.

Never mind the cost, Odessa couldn’t stand the thought of Ubering out to Long Island, sitting in the backseat of a car like a child. She looked up Zipcar and downloaded an updated app, entered her email and an old password, and voilà, the car sharing account she had started in Boston still worked.

She drove a silver Honda CR-V east from Queens, her phone copiloting from the passenger seat, taking her along the Southern State Parkway to 27, past Amityville, arriving in Little Brook. She operated with a sense of purpose and also dread, knowing she shouldn’t be doing this, feeling she was going to be caught…and at the same time unable to turn back.

The Little Brook Town Hall Annex was an old stone building shouldered by retail shops and a CVS. New York State Police cars ringed the street entrance but no flashing lights, no taped cordon. A female officer in a reflective vest worked the traffic detail, waving cars past. Odessa rolled down her window and badged her way to the curb next to a white van she recognized as an “aftermath” biorecovery service vehicle, or a crime scene cleaner.