Prewitt led them across the courtyard, dotted with patches of dirt where there used to be flower gardens. Pieces of trash were scattered about the property. The motel’s stucco walls were blistered and chipped; beer cans bobbed in the deep end of the pool’s greenish water.

“This is where dreams come to die,” Reddick said to Cruz.

“Be nice, Joe.” Cruz was monitoring her phone for updates.

They came to unit 45, where the door, like those for most of the other units, was fractured from previously being kicked in.

“Place hasn’t been cleaned,” Prewitt said. “The tenant is on the weekly plan, so it won’t get service for two more days.”

“Kill the cleaning service. We’re going to have other people joining us shortly. We own this room until we release it,” Reddick said as he and Cruz slipped on shoe covers and snapped on latex gloves. “Got that, Lex?”

“Got it.” Prewitt slid the key into the lock.

The air in the darkened room was a mix of body odor and bug spray. Cruz hit the light switch. It was a standard motel room of substandard quality. The floor had peeling laminate. The unmade bed revealed a mattress with yellowing sheets. The walls were stained with something. The air conditioner rattled as if it were about to quit. A plastic bucket had been positioned under it to catch dripping water. The tub in the bathroom was chipped, stained and ringed with mold.

“Looks like heaven, don’t it?” Reddick said.

Detailed street maps of Miami and surrounding cities, with handwritten notations, were pinned to one wall.

“We’ll need these for sure,” Cruz said.

Clothes were strewn about. The furniture was cracked. An array of empty take-out food containers and a stained paper bag of rotting fruit covered a table. The desk near it held a selection of cell phones and a laptop.

“Let’s get to it,” Cruz said.

They began by taking photos and making a video recording, then searching everything and everywhere—the trash, the clothes—collecting what they needed for further processing like the maps, phones and laptop. They found worn work boots, gloves, an assortment of tools and supplies, utility knives, a roll of cord, screwdrivers, a bevel, a measuring tape, a bubble level. One of the cell phones, a prepaid, throwaway version, was not locked. They swiped through photos, mostly of the beach, then of a middle-aged woman walking with a young boy, taken at a Boca Raton strip mall.

“Could be a stolen phone?” Reddick showed Cruz.

Working in Loften’s room, Reddick and Cruz took care logging and describing everything they seized on the inventory sheet.

Across the city, Loften’s Ram pickup had already been impounded and was being processed by crime-scene techs. They’d already collected his knife and tools to be analyzed for prints and trace. Soon, a team would arrive at Loften’s motel room to start work.