He unlocked the front door, disarmed the alarm, picked up the mail that had fallen through the slot and tossed it on a table without breaking stride. The kitchen often lures him in his own digs, too, but this time he walked through it into the service porch nook that serves as his office: a cramped, dim space, sandwiched between the washer-dryer and the freezer and smelling of detergent. He’d set it up with a hideous metal desk painted school-bus yellow, a folding chair, and a painted wooden shark-face lamp from Bali. The blue book sat in an oversize Ziploc bag, on the top shelf of a miniature bookcase bolted above the desk.

He gloved up, unbagged the book, flipped to Janie Ingalls’s photo, and studied the death shot. “Any sudden insights?”

“Let’s see what follows.”

Only three more pages after Janie. A trio of crime-scene photos, all of the victims, young men. One black youth, two Hispanics, each sprawled on blood-splotched pavement. White lights on the corpses and dark periphery said nighttime death. A shiny revolver lay near the right hand of the final victim.

The first photo was labeled “Gang drive-by, Brooks St., Venice. One dead, two wounded.”

Next: “Gang drive-by, Commonwealth and Fifth, Rampart.”

Finally: “Gang drive-by, Central Ave.”

“Three of a kind,” I said. “That’s kind of interesting.”

“Why?”

“Until now there was variety.”

Milo said, “Gang stuff . . . business as usual. Maybe Schwinn ran out of interesting pictures—if these took place after Janie, when he was already out of the department, he coulda had trouble getting hold of crime-scene shots. God only knows how he managed to get these.” He closed the book. “You see any way drive-bys could be connected to Janie? I sure don’t.”

“Mind if I take another look?”

“Take as many looks as you want.” He produced another pair of gloves from a desk drawer, and I slipped them on. As I turned to the first photo, he stepped around the washer-dryer and into the kitchen. I heard the fridge door creak open.

“Want something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

Heavy footsteps. A cabinet opened. Glass touched tile. “I’m gonna go check the mail.”

I took my time with the crime-scene shots. Thinking about Schwinn, addicted to speed and divesting himself of worldly goods even as he held on to his purloined photos. Moving on to a life of serenity but assembling this leather-bound monstrosity in secrecy. As I turned pages—now-familiar pages—and images began to blur, I tore myself away from speculation and tried to focus on each brutal death.

The first go-round, I came up with nothing, but on the second circuit something made me pause.

The two photos that preceded Janie’s death shot.