“Could be,” Joe says. “Maybe our guy was thinking about this for a while. He was prepared for when the opportunity arose.”

“Dr. Bradley,” Chase says, “was researching serial killers. His grandfather worked the Strangler case. He definitely had an interest. Maybe he wanted a firsthand experience.”

Joe sips his coffee. “Maybe after Mrs. Pearson spoke to him at midnight and then went back up to bed, the doctor left. Got in his car and went out looking for a victim.”

“Might’ve happened that way,” I say. But I’m not so sure. It doesn’t feel right, and I think we’re missing something, but I’m damned if I know what.

Chase rubs his hand over his mouth. “You think he had a murder kit ready to go?”

“Maybe.” I drop my pencil on my notebook.

Joe checks his watch. “The Westmores coming in soon?”

“Yeah. Let’s wrap this up.” But it bugs me. If Dr. Bradley killed Annalise, who then came along and killed him months after she was murdered in his basement?

* * *

Elise Westmore, like everyone else we’ve interviewed lately, looks as though she could use a week on a beach somewhere. Her hair and clothes are perfect, but her eyes are puffy, and her makeup doesn’t cover the circles beneath them.

Joe and I sit across from her as she runs through the same scenario as the others, adding that she and her husband went to bed at around eleven-thirty. The same time as the Ferrises. Their bedroom was on the first floor on the side of the house where the perpetrator probably walked with an unconscious Ms. Robb—if he didn’t bring her through the house. But she says she heard nothing. Slept straight through.

“What about Dr. Bradley?” I ask. “What time did he go to bed?”

“I don’t know. After we did. He said he was going to work on his book for a while. Jay didn’t sleep much.”

“Why was that?” Joe asks.

She shrugs. “That was just him. Some people don’t.”

“Was he troubled, Doctor?” I ask. Time to do a little probing of Dr. Bradley’s psyche, at least from a close friend’s perspective.

Her eyes meet mine. “What do you mean?”

“Well, both you and Mrs. Bradley said he was ‘quiet, preoccupied’ the week before his death, but maybe he was troubled long before that.”

She shakes her head. “No. Jay and I talked about a lot of things. He worried some about his wife. He never told me the details of her ordeal, just that she had a traumatic event in her childhood. But I understand you know all about that.”

I nod. “But what about him? He have any demons?” I watch her face carefully, the worry in her eyes, the tilt of her head. She cared about this guy, and his memory is precious to her.