“We’ll need to collect hair samples from them, in the event hairs were recovered from Miss Vickers. A stray hair from an unknown source could open the investigation in a different direction. Maybe the perpetrator owns a dog or a cat. One stray hair could make a connection. It only takes one loose thread to unravel a cheap sweater.”

“The science is that sophisticated?” he asked.

“You can’t imagine the things they’re doing at the FBI lab in Washington, the advances in analyzing trace evidence, DNA evidence. One day soon there’ll be a national DNA databank with the DNA codes of every convicted criminal in the country.”

“That’s a little Orwellian, don’t you think?”

“Big Brother is sure as hell going to be watching the criminal population,” Vince said. He shrugged. “It’s nothing to worry about if you haven’t done anything wrong.”

He sat back and squared his left ankle over his right knee, settling in as if watching evidence collection at a crime scene was all part of a normal, relaxing Saturday morning.

“Good thing you were here so early today,” he said.

“Jane and I had scheduled a meeting. We were supposed to be having a press conference this morning.”

“Another five, ten minutes, that girl probably would have been dead. Now there’s a shot she can tell us who abducted her.”

“I read the man glued Lisa’s eyes closed,” Morgan said. “So she couldn’t see him. Did he do that to Karly?”

“I don’t think that’s why he did it,” Vince said, watching him carefully. “I think it has to do with his fantasy. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. I think the women become objects to him—pretty to look at, but no trouble. A lot of guys would say when a woman opens her mouth it spoils everything.”

Morgan tipped his head in acknowledgment.

“How’s your family, Steve?” he asked, surprising the man a little. “Your daughter—how’s she holding up after what she saw?”

“Wendy is very resilient.”

“How about yourself? Now you know exactly what it was like for her, stumbling on that body in the woods.”

“I certainly wish that hadn’t happened to her.”

“Yeah.”

Mendez wandered over from the gravesite, scribbling in his notebook. “They found a couple of good shoe prints in the arroyo.”

“In the what?” Vince asked. “I’m from Chicago here. Don’t go throwing language at me.”

“The arroyo. Down the hill in the trees. There’s a stream. The ground is just damp enough to hold a good impression.”

“Great.”

“Mr. Morgan,” Mendez said. “I have to ask you where you were last night.”

“In bed like any sane person. Jane thinks she might have heard the guy back here—or that the dogs did—sometime after three.”

“And you arrived . . . ?”

“Just before seven.”

“Hell of a deal, huh?” Mendez said. “Finding that girl alive.”