Schwinn hadn’t recited any physical stats on Ingalls—hadn’t said anything at all by way of preparation. To Milo, Ingalls appeared in his midforties, with thick, wavy coarse black hair worn past his shoulders—too long and luxuriant for a guy his age—and five days of gray stubble that did nothing to mask his weak features. Where his eyes weren’t pink they were jaundiced and unfocused. Deep brown irises, just like those of the dead girl.

Ingalls studied their badges. The guy’s timing was off, like a clock with damaged works. He flinched, then grinned, said, “Whus up?” The words wheezed out on a cloud of hops and malt that mixed with the odors already saturated into the building’s walls: mold and kerosene, the incongruous blessing of savory home cooking.

“Can we come in?” said Schwinn.

Ingalls had opened the door halfway. Behind him was dirt-colored furniture, heaps of rumpled clothes, takeout Chinese cartons, Bud empties.

Lots of empties, some crushed, some intact. Even at a good clip, the number of cans added up to more than one day of serious drinking.

A multiday bender. Unless the guy had company. Even with company, a focused juice-a-thon.

Guy’s daughter goes missing for four days, he doesn’t report it, holes up instead, sucking suds. Milo found himself entertaining the worst-case scenario: Daddy did it. Began scanning Ingalls’s sallow face for anxiety, guilt, scratches, maybe that explained the delays . . .

But all he saw was confusion. Ingalls stood there, caught up in a booze-flummox.

“Sir,” said Schwinn, using the word as an insult, the way only cops can, “can we come in?”

“Uh—yeah, sure—whu for?”

“Whu for your daughter.”

Ingalls’s eyes drooped. Not anxiety. Resignation. As in, here we go again. Preparing himself for a lecture on child-rearing.

“Whu, she cut school again? They call in the cops for that now?”

Schwinn smiled and moved to enter the apartment and Ingalls stepped aside, nearly stumbling. When the three of them were on the other side of the door, Schwinn closed it. He and Milo began the instinctive visual scan.

Off-white walls, brown deepening to black in the cracks and the corners. The entire front space was maybe fifteen feet square, a living room–dining area–kitchen combo, the kitchen counters crowded with more take-out boxes, used paper plates, empty soup cans. Two miserly windows on the facing wall were shuttered by yellow plastic blinds. A scabrous brown-gray sofa and a red plastic chair were both heaped with unwashed clothes and crumpled paper. Next to the chair, a stack of records tilted precariously. The Mothers of Invention’s Freak Out on top, a fifteen-year-old LP. Nearby was a cheap phonograph half-covered by a snot green bathrobe. An open doorway led to a dead-end wall.

A full-view of the front room revealed even more beer cans.

“Where does Janie go to school, sir?” said Schwinn.