And the figures for deaths in custody and "disappearances", though still grim, have come down sharply since 1995.
The girls' parents have been interviewed extensively, which is routine in cases of missing children, but nothing suggests they are suspected in the disappearances, though both girls' fathers have been in jail.
The photo's disappearance, though, raised fresh questions about the continuing efforts of the N.B.A. and other professional leagues to control their images.
The murals' disappearance, though, was strangely appropriate.
The detective assigned to it, Daniel D'Alessandro of the Police Department's cold-case squad, said last week that the instructor, Darshanand Persaud, was "one of the suspects" in the disappearance, though "the case can go in many directions".
Since the publication of her first novel, "Cry, the Peacock," nearly 50 years ago, she has often offered portraits of a certain kind of Anglicized urban bourgeoisie or rural landed gentry struggling for meaning against illusions, and "The Artist of Disappearance," though barely 150 pages, fits neatly into that distinguished body of work.
He has faked any number of artworks, quite apart from inventing the artists themselves, beginning with the teenage prodigy Naomi V Jelish (spot the anagram), whose words and images were bought wholesale by Charles Saatchi after her strange disappearance – though that may be a fiction in itself.
Apple hasn't made any official announcement about the app's disappearance, though we've reached out on the off-chance the company is offering a statement or explanation.
After Etan's disappearance, though, Patz said she noticed a change in the man prosecutors said owned the bodega.
She's referring to a specific missing-persons case, but there's a not-so-covert reference there to another mystery: why relatively little coverage is devoted to the disappearances of blacks, even though they make up a disproportionate number of the missing people in this country.
Mr. O'Brien has long been suspected of a role in the disappearance even though Mr. Hoffa had taken him into his home and helped raise him after Mr. O'Brien's father, a fervent Hoffa backer and union activist, died when Mr. O'Brien was 6.
