What if it was anything but casual?

Schwinn had fought his way out of drug addiction, and perhaps he’d done so on his own. But that kind of progress would’ve been helped along by treatment, and Bert Harrison had trained in addiction treatment at the Federal hospital in Lexington.

Schwinn as Bert’s patient.

Psychotherapy. Where all kinds of secrets tumbled out.

If any of that was true, Bert had lied to me. And that could explain all those apologies he’d tendered. His contrition—so puzzling at the time that I’d wondered about Bert’s deteriorating mental state.

Bert had encouraged my suspicions: “One regresses. Loses one’s sense of propriety. Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive—“

I remembered how he’d wiped away tears.

“Is everything okay, Bert?”

“Everything is as it should be.”

Seeking forgiveness because he knew he had to lie to me? Protecting Schwinn because of patient confidentiality?

But Schwinn had been buried seven months ago and any privilege had died along with his body. Perhaps Bert held himself to higher standards.

Or maybe he was protecting a living patient.

In drug treatment—the kind of intensive treatment Bert would’ve prescribed for a long-term addict like Schwinn—family members were included. And Marge was all the family Schwinn had had left.

Bert shielding Marge. It made sense. I strained to recall anything in our conversation that pointed to that and came up with one quickly: Bert had deflected any suggestion Marge could’ve mailed the murder book.

Protecting her, or had Bert been the messenger? A doctor honoring his patient’s last wishes.

What if Janie’s murder had eaten at Schwinn—corroded his late-in-life serenity—to the point where he felt impelled to stir up the ashes? Because even though the department had booted him out, and outwardly he’d made major life changes, Pierce Schwinn had held on to a detective’s bulldog sensibilities.

Janie wasn’t only a cold case, she’d been Schwinn’s last case. One massive overdose of unfinished business. Perhaps Schwinn had connected the unsolved murder with his breakdown.

Bert would have wanted to help him with that.

The more I thought about it, the better it fit. Schwinn came to trust Bert, showed Bert the murder book, eventually bequeathed the album to his psychiatrist. Knowing Bert would do the right thing.

Bert’s involvement would also explain why the blue-bound horror had been mailed to me. He’d met Milo a couple of times, but he knew me much better and was well aware of my relationship with Milo. For Bert, my handing over the book to Milo would have been a certainty.

Fingerprints wiped clean. I could see the old man doing that.