* * * *
With Persichetti driving the unmarked police car, the two detectives headed for the 800 block of Columbiana Avenue. It was a neighborhood that had been built on what was the edge of Colby in the years just after World War II. The small ranch-style houses had been constructed quickly and cheaply for returning veterans and their families. Now, sixty years later, the area was bedraggled. Some houses had single-car garages, some had carports, and others had neither. Despite the rain, which continued to fall softly, the lawns looked scraggly, as if they’d never been fertilized, never had a dose of weed killer. Big Wheels, plastic wagons, balls, and Frisbees littered many of the lawns. The only attractive thing about the area was that trees which had been planted in the late 1940s and e
