Detectives Brown and Carella answer a call to a double homicide. One guy broke in and another defended himself and now they both are dead. The case seems open and shut. Except for one piece of evidence: a torn picture in one of the dead men's hands. When insurance investigator Irving Krutch turns up at the squadroom with another piece of the photograph, Brown and Carella realize their tidy little case isn't so tidy after all. In fact it leads back to a six-year-old bank robbery that left the four robbers dead and $750,000 missing. Now they must search for the next missing piece of the picture...