The streets leading into the 75th Police Precinct in the East section of Brooklyn look like paved jails. Doors, windows, even the driveways are secured with rod iron fences. It's not a safe place. Immediately it struck me how different it felt compared to the area where Imette St. Guillen grew up in Mission Hill.

The 75th is where detectives kept Darryl Littlejohn for questioning in her murder case. Once he stopped answering them, they took him to Rikers Island on a parole violation. It couldn't have been more obvious that police wanted to arrest him for much more. They were being very careful not to officially name him as their suspect, just in case. We had to remind ourselves repeatedly that Littlejohn may not be the one they finally arrest.

Then again Littlejohn appeared to be the obvious choice for a suspect. His lengthy criminal background; the fact that he's the last person witnesses saw with St. Guillen leaving a lower Manhattan bar; also his choice of clothing that resembled someone in the military or a federal agent. Don't forget that police are also working several unsolved rape cases that involved a muscular black suspect posing as a federal agent while driving a van.

We left the 75th for a street 15 minutes away in traffic. Detectives and crime scene technicians had flashlights shining on an abandoned minivan parked in front of some duplexes. They said it belonged to Littlejohn and quietly they assumed St. Guillen's DNA would be somewhere in the back of the van. The rear seat had been removed and investigators said there was enough room to transport a body.

I took a walk while we waited for them to tow the van. Littlejohn's house is about three and a half blocks away. I stood and stared at the yellow house for a while wondering if all the savage things that happened to St. Guillen took place inside. Police think they did.

I've never seen so much evidence pulled from a home in any case. Bag after bag. Night after night. How could they not have a link by now? We started thinking that either this guy covered his tracks extremely well or police have the wrong guy. They've been wrong before so we had to keep that in mind.

Littlejohn was escorted to the Queens County Courthouse Thursday morning under intense security. Officers carrying machine guns ran alongside the van. He stood in front of a judge so that he could be ordered to appear in a line-up for a separate rape case. Littlejohn isn't very tall but he is an imposing figure. He's spent a lot of time in prison in his 41 years and clearly weight lifting occupied most of his hours while incarcerated.

Picture this: four helicopters flying over us, roughly 40 still and video cameras, reporters and police everywhere trying to capture every move Littlejohn makes in handcuffs and shackles. Think about that. All of this for a man who had yet to be officially accused of anything but a parole violation. All of his followed him to the 112th precinct for the line-up. For whatever reason New York City police decided to protect his identity. They briefly covered his head while shuffling him inside. This seemed unusual since the leaks in this case have flowed like a running faucet.

Surprise! The victim in the rape case didn't pick Littlejohn. His attorney rushed outside and said Littlejohn is a scapegoat and nothing more. He joked that Ray Charles could have picked him out in a line-up but this victim did not. Again we had to wonder if police had the wrong guy in all of this. It still didn't seem likely.

"The Falls." That's the place St. Guillen was last seen the morning she disappeared. I had this image of sleazy bar before I got there. It's not that at all. In fact, "The Falls" is very nice inside. Maybe I should have expected that in the trendy SoHo section of Manhattan. Hardwood floors, plasma televisions, good food. Yes, I ate lunch there in a failed attempt to talk to some of the workers about what they saw and heard. Only two other people came inside during the 45 minutes I was in there. I had an easier time picturing St. Guillen at a place like this. It's like a lot of Boston bars except like most places in NYC it stays open until 4 a.m. Which reminds me, In NYC it's not unusual for young people to stay out until 4 a.m. since they often don't go out until after 11 o'clock. Workers in the bar were professionally cordial, but they weren't talking.

We headed back to Boston very late Friday night. Police had not discovered the blood on the plastic ties binding St. Guillen's hands. That happened Sunday. On my way home I drove past St. Guillen's street. Again it struck me how different her life was in Mission Hill compared to where she was during the final hours of her life. It's awful. Worse than descriptions have characterized. Here's a young woman studying in graduate school for a degree in forensic science. Sadly, her own case will be studied some day by students like her.

I thought about interviewing her mother a week earlier. She said she had not been reading the newspapers or watching TV news reports about everything that happened to Imette. I don't blame her. She should never have to know.