“Oh, my God,” Kira said. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“What?” Molly looked at Coyle. “It doesn’t make any difference now, does it?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you were going to say?”

“Lisa told me one time she made it with a guy for the first time when she was twelve. I don’t know if I believed her, but it was, like, a huge deal for her. When she was out with guys, that was the first thing she thought about. She wore a lot of micros and fishnets. Slutty stuff. Maybe it was part of her bipolar thing, I don’t know.”

“Her bipolar thing?”

“She was, I don’t know what you call it…uneven. Way, way up and then way, way down. I know she had medication, but she didn’t always take it.”

“When she was up, she was fidgety and talking all the time,” Kira said. “When she was down, she wouldn’t say anything for, like, two days. Sometimes I felt sorry for her, but it was weird.”

“Did she have any girlfriends?” Coyle asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“She was sort of close to Jessica, the woman who lived here before us,” Molly said. “I can give you her cell number.” She picked up her phone, scrolled through a list, and then held up the phone to Coyle.

Coyle jotted down the number and asked Kira to show them Elise’s bedroom. It was the first of three on the apartment’s central hallway.

Bailey went into the room alone and shot a dozen photos from different angles. When she was finished, she handed Coyle a pair of latex gloves and shoe coverings. “Boy,” she said quietly, “when I’m murdered and my body’s dumped in a park, I hope someone nicer than those two girls is around to remember me.”

Coyle pulled on the gloves and coverings. “Give me a hundred bucks, and when you’re murdered and your body’s dumped in a park, I’ll say I always knew you were the smart one.”

“That’s sweet, Marty, but meaningless coming from a loose detective.” Bailey walked across the room to a chest-high dresser and opened the top drawer.

Coyle looked at the room’s cluttered messiness, with clothing piled on the bed and scattered on the floor. He thought of its finality for the victim. Had she known she would never return, would she have left it differently?