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she loved him. But there just isn’t another reasonable theory of the crime.”
    â€œ I’ll let you know when we find one.”
    I ended the call without asking him about the picture. I pulled a notebook from my tote and tucked the photo inside the pages. It was nothing. There were children there, for Heaven’s sake.
    I would keep right on telling myself that for as long as I could.

FOUR
    Â Â 
    Our meeting with Fraser was brief. Nate and I were exhausted, but up to speed. We had no questions for Fraser at that juncture and weren’t ready to share any observations. Fraser was thankfully due in court. He called Clint Gerhardt and asked if I could come by. From Fraser’s end of the conversation, Clint was unenthusiastic. But he agreed and asked that I get it over with.
    I kissed Nate goodbye, and he set out for One80Place. Because the Gerhardt home was only a five-minute walk from Rutledge and Radcliffe, I left my car parked on Broad and headed towards the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon. Across East Bay, the massive yellow stone building seemed to stand guard over the foot of Broad Street. It was hard to walk past it without recalling that the Declaration of Independence had been presented to citizens from the steps. Walking through Charleston was like stepping back in time, if you ignored all the cars.
    I turned right on East Bay, enjoying the bright blue sky and the Cooper River peeking at me between buildings on my left. As soon as I crossed Elliott, a horse-drawn carriage full of tourists pulled to a stop at the curb, the guide explaining the history of Rainbow Row. This cheerful line of historic houses painted Caribbean pink, yellow, blue, and green with their wrought iron balconies and window boxes spilling over with flowers always made me smile.
    I crossed Tradd, then turned right and walked up its left-hand sidewalk, against traffic. Most of Tradd Street, including this end, was a one-way street by car. It was a narrow lane crowded with street parking on my right. Several times I had to thread myself between window boxes and crepe myrtle trees planted in sidewalk cutouts. On both sides of the street, I caught glimpses over courtyards and through garden gates.
    I slowed my pace as I approached the Gerhardt home. You could always get a better perspective on things by foot, especially walking in a direction you couldn’t drive. It was a three-story brick townhouse, flush with the stucco house to the right—the Izard home. A short brick driveway on the left ended just past the side entrance where the house, which at first appeared rectangular, bumped out into an L-shape. A wrought iron gate allowed access to a pathway, but the gnarled branches of a live oak obscured anything beyond. The courtyard must’ve been behind the house.
    The neighbors’ house to the left sat back from the street, with a courtyard out front. The Venning driveway ran adjacent to the Gerhardt driveway, leaving space between the houses. Many of the homes on Tradd Street dated to the late 1700s. Like quite a few of the others, the Gerhardt home was so close to the street the front door was virtually on the sidewalk.
    I rang the bell and waited in front of the recessed, glossy black door with a fanlight above. A runner approached from my right. Dressed in high-end running shoes and togs, electric blue Oakley sunglasses with what looked like wings on the frames, a fitness watch, and an arm band for his smartphone, he could’ve been taping a commercial for one of several advertisers in Running World or some such publication.
    He stopped next door, nodded at me, and slipped a key into the lock. Mr. Izard, I presumed.
    The door in front of me opened and I got my first glimpse of Clint Gerhardt. Tall and solid, he had close-cropped reddish brown hair, agitated blue eyes, and enough facial scruff that I couldn’t be sure if he’d forgotten to shave for a few days or if this was his look. His jeans and