medical examiner, was standing with his back to her in the middle of the entryway between a uniformed officer and one of his assistants.
'You finished?' Nancy asked.
The doctor nodded and stepped aside. The woman was facedown on the white shag carpet. She was wearing a white cotton dress. It looked well suited for the heat.
Her feet were bare. The woman's head was turned away.
Blood matted her long brown hair. Nancy guessed she had been brought down by a blow to the head, and Styles confirmed her suspicion.
'I figure she was running for the door and he got her from behind. She could have been partly conscious or completely out when he strangled her.'
Nancy walked around the body so she could see the woman's face. She was sorry she looked. If the woman had been attractive, there was no way to tell now. Nancy took a couple of deep breaths.
'What about the little girl?' she asked.
'Neck broken,' Styles answered. 'It would have been quick and painless.
'We think she was a witness to the mother's murder,' Turner said.
'Probably heard her screaming and came down the steps.'
'Where's the husband?' Nancy asked.
'Down the hall in the den,' Turner said.
'No sense putting it off.'
Peter Lake slumped in a chair. Someone had given him a glass of scotch, but the glass was still more than half full.
He looked up when Nancy entered the den and she could see he had been crying. Even so, he was a striking man, tall with a trim, athletic build. Lake's styled, gold-blond hair, his pale blue eyes and sharp, clean-shaven features were what won over the women on his juries.
'Mr. Lake, do you remember me?' Nancy asked.
Lake looked confused.
'I'm a homicide detective. My name is Nancy Gordon. You cross-examined me in the Daley-case.'
'Of course. I'm sorry. I don't handle many criminal cases anymore.
'How are you feeling?' Nancy asked, sitting across from Lake.
'I'm numb.'
'I know what. you're going through Nancy started, but lake's head jerked up.
'How could you-they're dead. My family is dead.'
Lake covered his eyes with his hand-to-and wept. His shoulders trembled.
'I do know how you feel,' Nancy said softly. 'A year ago my fiancee was murdered. The only good thing that came out of it was that I learned how victims really feel, and sometimes I can even help them get through the worst of it.'
Lake looked up. He wiped his eyes. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It's just so hard. They meant everything to me. And Melody… How could someone do that to a little girl?
She couldn't hurt anybody. She was just a little girl.'
'Mr. Lake, four women have disappeared in Hunter's Point in the past few months. A black rose and a note, identical to the ones you found, were left at each home. I know how much you're grieving, but we have to act fast. This is the first time we have actually found a victim. That could mean you surprised the killer before he had time to take your wife away.
Anything you can tell us would be deeply appreciated and may help us catch this man before he kills again.'
'I don't know anything. Believe me, I've thought about it. I was working late on a case. I called to let Sandy know. I didn't see anything unusual when I drove up. Then I… I'm really not too clear on what I did after I… I know I sat down on the bottom step.'
Lake paused. He breathed deeply, trying to keep from crying again. His lip trembled. He took a sip of his scotch.
'This is very hard for me, Detective. I want to help, but… Really, this is very hard.'
Nancy stood up and placed a hand on Lake's shoulder. He began to weep again.
'I'm going to leave my card. I want you to call me if I can do anything for you. Anything. If you remember something, no matter how insignificant you may believe it to be, call me. Please.'
'I will. I'll be better in the morning and I'll… It's just 'It's all right. Oh, one other thing. The media will be after you. They won't respect your privacy. Please don't talk- to them. There are many aspects of this case we are not going to release to the public. We keep back facts to help us eliminate phony confessions and to identify the real killer. It's very important that you keep what you know to yourself.'
'I won't talk to the press. I don't want to see any 'Okay,' Nancy said kindly. 'And you're going to be all right. Not one hundred percent, and not for a long time, but you'll deal with your grief. It won't be easy.
I'm still not healed, but I'm better, and you'll be better too.
Remember what I said about calling. Not the police business. You know, if you just want to talk.'
Lake nodded. When Nancy left the den, he was sprawled in the chair, his head back and his eyes closed.
Hunter's Point was a commuter suburb with a population of 110,000, a small downtown riddled with trendy boutiques and upscale restaurants, the branch of the State University, and a lot of' shopping centers.
There were no slums in Hunter's Point, there were clusters of Cape Cods and garden apartments on the fringe of the downtown area that housed students and families unable to afford the high-priced developments like The Meadows, where the commuting lawyers, doctors and businessmen lived.
Police headquarters was a dull, square building on the outskirts of town. It sat in the middle of a flat, blacktopped parking lot surrounded by a chain link fence. The lot was filled with police cars, unmarked vehicles and tow trucks.
The rose killer task force was housed in an old storage area in the back of the building. There were no windows, and the fluorescent lights were annoyingly bright.
A watercooler was squeezed between two chest-high filing cabinets. A low wood table stood on rickety legs against a cream-colored wall. On the table sat a coffee maker, four coffee mugs, a sugar bowl and a brown plastic cup filled with several packets of artificial creamer.
Four gunmetal-gray, government-issue desks were grouped in the center of the room. Bulletin boards with pictures of the victims and information about the crimes covered two walls.
Nancy Gordon hunched over her reports on the Lake murders. The flickering fluorescents were starting to give her a headache. She closed her eyes, leaned back and pinched her lids. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at the photographs of Samantha Reardon and Patricia Cross that Turner had tacked to the wall. The photos had been supplied by their husbands. Samantha on the deck of a sailboat. A tall woman, the wind blowing her flowing brown hair behind her, a smile of genuine happiness brightening her face. Pat in shorts and a halter top on a beach in Hawaii, very slender, too thin, actually.
Her friends said she was overly conscious of her figure.
Except for Reardon, who had been a nurse, none of the women had ever held a meaningful job, and Reardon stopped working soon after her marriage. They were happy housewives living in luxury, spending their time at golf and bridge. Their idea of contributing to the community was raising money for charity at country club functions. Where were these women now? Were they dead?
Had they died quickly, or slowly, in agony? How had they held up? How much of their dignity were they able to retain?
The phone rang. 'Gordon,' she answered.
'There's a Mr. Lake at the front desk,' the receptionist said. Nancy straightened up. Less than seventy-two hours had passed since her visit to the crime scene.
'I'll be right out,' Gordon said, dropping her pen on a stack of police reports.
Inside the front door of the police station was a small lobby furnished with cheap chairs upholstered in imitation leather and outfitted with chrome armrests. The lobby was separated from the rest of the building by a counter with a sliding glass window and a door with an electronic lock. Lake was seated in one of the chairs. He was dressed in a dark suit and solid maroon tie. His hair was carefully combed. The only evidence of his personal
