“Sure, sure,” Bianco said, stalling for time. He’d believed what Speiser had told him, he still believed it, but he knew the man sitting across from him wouldn’t. Not because he was foolish or unimaginative, but because he wasn’t ready to hear such things. Bianco had been ready to hear anything from that scared Nazi in the red room in Nuremberg. They’d been surrounded by a bombed-out city and starving children, and he’d seen the camps; it was the right setting for Speiser’s story. But this was a neat office in Exurbia surrounded by overstuffed super­markets, swimming pools, neat lawns. No one would believe it here. He got the rest of the bitter coffee down and stood up.

“I’m sorry. I think I was making connections that weren’t there.”

“Look, we’re stymied, anything you can tell us . . .”

Bianco shook his head. “It’s something from the war, and I was there, and I think I let my imagination run away with me. . . .”

“You’re the second person who talked about the war.”

Bianco sat down again. “Who was the first?”

The chief told him, then he said, “This story must be a beaut because the inspector looked as strung out as you do. Maybe you’ll talk to him.”

They got to Craig Harbor by seven that night and drove through town toward the Sound. They passed Bianco Bros. Notions and Variety. It was closed, but Rachel knew from the front of the place that inside she’d find old-­fashioned wooden counters and bins full of razor blades, tennis shoes, flannel nightgowns, kitty litter, plastic souvenirs.

They were halfway up Bianco’s driveway when the front door opened and he came out to greet them. He shook Hawkins’s hand, glanced at his ID, then looked at Rachel.

“Who’s she?”

“Jacob Levy’s daughter-­in-­law,” Hawkins answered.

Levy. The sweet-­faced man who’d started all the crying; the one Speiser called the little bastard. He’d be a grandfather by now, like Bianco.

“Can we come in?” Hawkins asked.

“Of course, of course,” he said and hustled them inside.

He was impatient, but he made himself light the fire and give them brandy. Hawkins told him about Brooklyn, Laurel, and Relkin. Then Hawkins said, “And that’s all we’ve got. No facts, no evidence, just an asshole story almost forty years old.”

He sounded bitter and angry and Bianco knew he wasn’t going to believe the story either. Then Bianco looked at Rachel. She could have been Italian, he thought, and she was pretty, but too thin. She was nervous, too. Her feet dug into the beige carpet and she’d already finished the brandy. Her eyes were dark, but not soft; they were hard and bright, with clear whites, like his daughter’s.

“I know who,” Hawkins was saying. “Known that for two years.”

“But not how,” Bianco said.

“No,” Hawkins answered.