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Castine, he probably also had a list of people—family and others—who knew and interacted with him.
    Because that was the primary goal right now. In a vague imitation of the old TV show
This Is Your Life,
the strategy was to dredge up as many players who knew Wayne Castine as possible, and to grill them about every detail they could recall—not just about the star of the hour, but about each other, as well.
    He made one last find, mundane in itself but unusual in this context: he came across a large box of rubber bands balanced on top of the TV set, which—not surprisingly in his experience, especially in such surroundings—was a high-end plasma unit.
    He picked up the box and examined it carefully, wondering if it camouflaged some more telling contents. But it simply contained the rubber bands pictured on the lid. Nowhere else did he find any stationery supplies, apart from a few scraps of paper and a couple of pens. He made a mental note of the discovery and moved on. The garbage he left for someone else down the line. This was a preliminary search—not the end-all, be-all. Ron’s people would be following up.
    Over an hour later, soaked through with sweat, Joe retrieved his jacket from the doorknob and reemerged into the hallway. As before, Gary Nelson was standing alone, looking forlorn.
    He gave Joe an appraising glance as the latter locked the door. “Wow. You got trashed.”
    Joe stood holding his jacket away from him, sparing it from getting wet.
    “That’s one word for it.”
    “Find anything?”
    “I got a start on a few things. How ’bout you?”
    Nelson’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, right.” He quickly extracted a notebook from his rear pocket and consulted it as he spoke. “I found two people on this floor. There was no answer at the third apartment. You want their names?”
    “Just give me the
Reader’s Digest
version. I gotta get back to the scene.”
    “Right—neither one of them knew him personally, but they met him once or twice, in the corridor or on the stairs. They both said he made their skin crawl, and one of them added that she wouldn’t have wanted to be ‘that guy’s niece.’ When I asked her what that meant, she said she’d bumped into Castine in the stairwell about a month ago with a young girl—maybe twelve or so—who he introduced as his niece.”
    “Coming up or going down?” Joe asked.
    “Up,” Nelson answered, looking grim.
    “Any names?”
    “No. I mean, there was a name, but the woman couldn’t remember it.”
    Joe let out a sigh. “I guess I better talk to her.”
    Nelson shook his head. “I told her you’d want to, but she said she had to go grocery shopping before she went to work—that you could talk to her later.”
    He ripped out the page he’d been consulting and handed it over. Joe was impressed by the man’s careful handwriting.
    “That’s a copy of what I got on both of them,” he explained, adding, “The second witness didn’t have much to say.”
    “What was the body language of the twelve-year-old?” Joe asked.
    The young cop’s face was animated, apparently grateful to have an answer. “I asked,” he said. “The lady said the kid just stood there. The two of them were holding hands—or Castine was holding the girl’s, I guess—but there was no emotion, not a word, nothing. She stood there—period.”
    Joe waved the notepad sheet in the air. “Either one of them ever hear anything from the apartment? Crying, screaming, loud music to cover up noises?”
    Nelson shook his head again. “Nope. And Castine kept to himself. That’s what they meant by his making their skin crawl: he never said anything when he was greeted, never made eye contact, always seemed bummed out when anyone caught him in the open—like a rat in the sun.”
    Joe stared at him. “One of them said that?”
    Nelson flushed slightly. “Not exactly. That part’s mine. Sorry.”
    Joe kept after him. “He never said anything, and yet he introduced his