“I TOLD YOU. Detective McIlroy would check out stacks of cold cases at a time. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it, and you can stand here all morning while I pull files, and none of that’s going to change.”

Ellie looked at her watch. She didn’t have all day. She had a precinct to go to. But her first stop on Wednesday morning had been to the Central Records Division at One Police Plaza.

She had come in the hope that it would be easy to identify which cases Flann McIlroy had been reviewing along with Robbie Harrington’s. The task was anything but. Flann had a penchant for checking out old files and looking for patterns. It had been his imaginative theories-connecting seemingly unrelated cases-that had earned him both praise and ridicule from his peers in the department, along with the nickname McIlMulder.

“He had all of these cases checked out at the same time as the Roberta Harrington file?”

She had asked the clerk to pull up any case files McIlroy had checked out in the three months preceding his phone call to Bill Harrington. The resulting printout was pages long.

“Like I said, he didn’t have all of these at the same time. He had up to fifteen cases checked out at a time. And, as far as I can tell, in that three-month window, he pulled a total of a hundred and seven.”

Once again, Ellie scanned the list of files. Once again, total disbelief.

“That’s actually a little light,” the woman remarked. “I used to joke he had a ten-file-a-week habit.”

Ellie had already asked the clerk to pull a random sample of the different files, and, on a brief skim, she had been unable to figure out which cases had been linked in McIlroy’s mind to Robbie Harrington’s murder, and which had been of interest for any number of other, unknowable reasons.

“You want me to pull some more reports or not?”

Ellie looked at the two-foot-high stack the clerk already needed to reshelve because of her morning research project.

“Don’t feel bad. God knows McIlroy never did.”

It wasn’t that Ellie didn’t want the woman to work. She just didn’t want the work to be futile.

One hundred and seven files? Ellie had only known Flann for a week before his death. During that time, she’d become a staunch supporter, but now she was beginning to wonder if he really had been certifiably insane. Even when she narrowed the list to female victims under thirty-five years old, seventy cases were left taunting her.

“What day did Flann return the Harrington file to CRD?”

The clerk entered a few keystrokes on her computer and recited a date about nine months after Flann had reached out to Robbie’s father. He had let the theory grind around in his brain for nine months after that phone call, until he’d apparently given it up. She wondered what more she could possibly add.

“Can you figure out which of these other cases he turned in on the same day?” Ellie asked.

More keystrokes. “He turned in three files all together. Your Harrington case, plus two others: Lucy Feeney and Alice Butler.”

“And how old were the victims?”

“Feeney was twenty-one. Alice Butler was twenty-two. Feeney was killed two years before Harrington. Butler, almost two years after.”

“I’ll take those, please.”

ONE BY ONE, the men filed into the Thirteenth Precinct’s lineup room.

Watching from the other side of the viewing window, Ellie recognized number 1 as Jim Kemp, a desk clerk from downstairs. Number 2 was Toby Someone, who worked behind the counter at the bagel shop on Second Avenue. Number 3 was Jake Myers. She maintained a neutral expression, lest Myers’s attorney accuse them later of a biased process. Number 4 was another desk clerk, Steve Broderick. Number 5 was a kid they’d found playing guitar outside Gramercy Park.

All young, thin, and brunet. Decent looking. Similar heights and builds. She was just giving herself a silent congratulations on a well-built lineup when number 6 entered, provoking a skeptical laugh from Willie Wells, the defense attorney Jake Myers had retained after his arrest the previous night.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

Number 6 was the homicide squad’s very own civilian aide, Jack Chen. Young, thin, brunet, decent looking-and noticeably Asian.

“The kid we pulled from the holding room backed out,” Rogan explained. “A sudden worry he might be falsely accused.”

“So you found this guy?” Wells said, pointing at Chen. “What? Fat Albert wasn’t available? How about the Abominable Snowman? He’d probably fit in.”

“Is that your way of saying you’d rather proceed with five?” Rogan said.

“I’d rather have a good six.”

Max Donovan intervened. “And you know that any court would say the first five will do.”

“It’s not my job to help you sink my client. Do what you’re gonna do, and if you screw it up, you’ll hear about it at the Wade hearing.”

Donovan looked to Rogan, who pressed a speaker button next to the glass and excused number 6.

“We’re ready?” Ellie asked, once the lineup was down to Myers and the four suitable decoys. She wished she hadn’t noticed Donovan’s sleepy gray eyes. If he was at all embarrassed about asking her out to dinner the previous night, he wasn’t showing it.

He nodded, and Ellie opened the door to the hallway. Tahir Kadhim sat by himself on a metal folding chair outside the viewing room. Stefanie Hyder, Jordan McLaughlin, and Miriam Hart stood huddled together a few feet away, Paul pacing next to them.

Ellie called in Kadhim first. The taxi driver had not even made it to the glass before pointing to Jake Myers. “That’s the man,” he said. “He is the one I saw take the girl from my taxi.”

“You didn’t actually see anyone take Ms. Hart anywhere, did you?” Wells asked.

Donovan held up a hand. “We’re here for a lineup, Willie. If you want to have an investigator chat with Mr. Kadhim on your own time, that’s your call.”

“And by then you will have no doubt had your standard talk with him.”

“I am under no obligation to speak to you,” Kadhim said. “You can ask your questions of me at trial.”

“Ah, I see I’m too late,” Wells said.

Donovan smiled, and Ellie walked the taxi driver to the door. Next up was Stefanie Hyder.

Unlike Tahir Kadhim, Chelsea’s best friend took her time at the window, but it was not out of apprehension. Her eyes did not dart from person to person. Instead, they remained focused solidly on the middle of the lineup. As she stared at Jake Myers, her face became contorted with hatred.

Finally, after a full minute, she spoke. “It’s number three. No doubt.” She used the sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe a tear from her cheek, and Ellie placed an arm around her shoulder and walked her out of the room.

Paul and Miriam Hart were waiting in the hallway with expectant eyes.

“No question,” Stefanie said. “It was definitely him.”

Miriam and Jordan wrapped their arms around Stefanie, while Mr. Hart shook Ellie’s hand with both of his, thanking her for catching the man who had killed their daughter.

“I just want to go home,” Stefanie said, crying into Mrs. Hart’s shoulder.

“You can go back to Indiana whenever you’re ready,” Ellie said. “We needed you to identify Myers, and you’ve done a great job. The trial won’t be for at least a couple of months, and the district attorney’s office will stay in touch with you about any hearings that come up beforehand.”

Mrs. Hart wiped her eyes with a tissue. “The girls have something they want to do this afternoon to remember Chelsea-a way for them to close the door on all this, at least in New York. But we’re going to fly home tomorrow. It’s time for us to take Chelsea home.”

As they told her once again how grateful they were for her help, all Ellie could think of were the three cold case files in her blue backpack and the damage a lawyer like Willie Wells could do with them in front of a jury.