Vince nodded. To Janet Crane he said, “Edmund Kemper endured so many years of domination by his mother, he ended up murdering college coeds and cutting their heads off to relieve his psychological pressure.”

“My husband is NOT a MURDERER!” she screamed.

“You’re that sure?” Vince asked quietly. “He was the last person to see Karly Vickers the day she disappeared. He knew Lisa Warwick from the Thomas Center. And it turns out he was arrested in Oxnard for soliciting Julie Paulson for sex. Those women are all dead or missing.”

Janet Crane slammed the receiver down on the phone and stood absolutely rigid beside the desk. “You’re lying. My husband is a pillar of this community. He is well respected. He is admired. He is the perfect husband and father.”

“Is he?” Vince said. “Because down in Ventura County he’s just another john that comes to Oxnard to fuck hookers.”

“That’s outrageous! How dare you say that!”

“And if I opened one of his desk drawers here and showed you newspaper clippings from all three of these cases, what would you say then, Mrs. Crane?”

“Get out of my house,” she said. “Get out of my house or I’m calling our attorney.”

Vince exchanged a look with Mendez.

“You’d better be on good terms with that attorney,” Vince said. “You never know how soon you might need his services.”

He let the silence between them hang for a moment. She was breathing hard, starting to hyperventilate. Even clenched into fists at her side, her hands were shaking. Good.

“Think about that, Mrs. Crane,” he said quietly. “Every time he’s out of your sight. Every time he doesn’t answer that cellular telephone. Every minute he doesn’t have to listen to you harping and harping and harping. Where is he? Every time he brings you a little gift of jewelry, where did he get it? Every time he goes out to be a part of the search for Karly Vickers or man the phones on the hotline. Why is he really doing that?”

She said nothing, just continued to stare at him, glassy-eyed and trembling with rage.

“One more thing,” Vince said, taking a step toward her, and then another. He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “If I hear you’re trying to take your son out of Anne Navarre’s class, or that you’re going to sue her, or that you accosted her on the street, you’ll answer to me, Mrs. Crane.

“All I have to do is make one hint to a reporter that you know something you shouldn’t about that murder victim in the park, or that your husband has a predilection for prostitutes, and all that status you prize so highly comes tumbling down,” he said.

“You’re threatening me?”