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infectious smile. Upon further examination, however, his hair, which was dark and trimmed short on the sides and top, was beginning to gray around his ears and his eyebrows. His cheeks and nose were ruddy, and his forehead was lined. Bulger had been “on the job” for twenty-six years. He had been a detective for seven years, and before that a patrolman, both in uniform and then plainclothes, investigating a variety of vice violations focused primarily on gambling and prostitution. He prided himself on being a first-grade detective, the highest grade a detective can attain. And, like most other New Yorkers, he, too, was shocked when he read about the Wylie-Hoffert killings in the newspapers. And, as luck would have it, because of the magnitude of the case, Chief of Detectives Lawrence J. McKearney established a five-borough, citywide task force to search for the “Career Girls” murderer. In early October 1963, five weeks after the crime, he was told to report to the Twenty-third Detective Squad in Manhattan to begin an indefinite tour of duty as part of the team of men working on the double homicide. It had now been many months since he completed his special assignment with his brethren working out of the Twenty-third Precinct. Yet, with the case still unsolved, Bulger found it difficult, if not impossible, to erase it from his mind.
    Rolling a toothpick around in his mouth, he glanced up and saw a fellow colleague, Detective Vic Arena. Bulger said, “This is a sissy book. It’s written for eleven-year-old girls. What gives?”
    Arena shrugged his shoulders and began examining the articles on the table, one of which was George Whitmore’s wallet. In doing so, he came across a photo of a white girl sitting in a Pontiac convertible. He passed the image to Bulger.
    â€œWhatcha got there?” Bulger asked, scanning the photograph.
    The images that Bulger found himself studying were, in fact, a snapshot of two young women seated—one was a blonde, with shoulder-length, wavy hair, most prominently displayed in the foreground. She was seated in the backseat atop the open canvas convertible, where it folded at the passenger area nearest the car’s trunk. A brunette, with the side of her face depicted, was seated in the front-passenger side of the car. Bulger immediately closed the book and walked over to the squad table, where he studied the images more intently under a lamp. He flipped the photo over and found a handwritten inscription, To George From Louise. He turned back to the image itself and studied the blond woman closely, under the light. He was awestruck. Only six months ago, he had been pulled away from Brooklyn to join forces with the Twenty-third Precinct in upper Manhattan. He was one of a lucky few detectives out of Brooklyn who were grouped together with Manhattan detectives to help solve the famous case of Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert. And yet, following three months of tireless investigation, Bulger was sent back to Brooklyn, against his wishes, with the case no closer to an arrest than it had been the day of the murders.
    Now he stood outside the squad room where George Whitmore Jr. had just confessed to one homicide and one attempted rape; and here, in his hand, he held an image that he was utterly convinced was of Janice Wylie. That Janice Wylie. Bulger scrutinized the photo: her hair, her delicate features, her figure. This was her. It really was, he thought, working himself up. It just had to be .
    He paced the linoleum repetitively, circling the area outside the squad room. The steady tap of his shoes echoed through the corridor. He could barely wait for the door to open. Beads of sweat doused his brow as he anxiously anticipated his confrontation with Whitmore. He fantasized that the fierce “urgency of now” would inexorably lead to yet another Whitmore confession that day resulting in closing out the most celebrated brutal double murder on the books in