worked with them in the past, but I did nothing, ever, illegal,” he went on. “My brother’s in law enforcement, all my family is in law enforcement, I’ve never done nothing wrong.”

The agents quickly piled up circumstantial evidence alongside Stillwell’s admissions. At Samia’s house, they found a camera that contained surveillance photos of Catherine Lee’s workplace, along with itineraries from the Philippines trip, and a keychain holding what appeared to be a key to a Toyota Innova van. On a camera of Stillwell’s, they found photographs dated February 12, 2012— the day that Catherine Lee was murdered. According to court fil- ings, the photos “appeared to depict, among other things, a white van similar to the one in which (according to witness accounts) Lee was murdered, and a wounded human head.” And on a small notebook found in Samia’s bedroom, they noticed that he’d writ- ten down “Mr. Le Roux, Paul Calder.”

“The Fat Man, that’s what we called him,” Lachlan McConnell said. He was sitting across from me in December 2015 at a Star- bucks outside of a mall in Makati City, Manila. A few days earlier, when I’d finally gotten ahold of him, he’d selected this spot for our meeting.

I’d been surprised that I ever heard back from McConnell, hav- ing tried without luck to contact him several times before arriving in the country. His name turned up on the website for a security contractor in Manila that listed him on its staff. I had started to assume that the listing was dated—it seemed farfetched that McConnell would be operating out in the open in the Philippines while a fugitive from an indictment in the United States. But one afternoon I decided to drop by the company’s office anyway. I left my business card with the receptionist. Later that day, my phone rang. “I’m reluctant to talk on the phone,” McConnell said. “There’s certain things going on right now, which directly relate to my wel- fare.” He was doing contract work on another Philippine island, but we could meet when he returned. “Literally, there is nothing