“Souvenirs,” Tanner said. “We need to go back and ask if their friendly neighborhood burglar did any laundry for them. Did you get prints at any of your scenes?”

“Nope,” Mendez said. “Nada. He’s been doing this too long to be careless. Did you get anything at any of yours?”

“Nothing that panned out.”

They compared each case, each detail, each meager scrap of evidence. They looked at the households that had been victimized, the sex and ages of the family members. In all cases, at least one girl living in the home had been between the ages of fourteen and nineteen.

“If we can go back and interview them,” Tanner said, “and we find these girls were athletes . . . Ballencoa might have photographed them . . . There’s our first connection.”

Or he might have connected with them through some other means, as he had with Denise Garland—through his art, Mendez thought.

“If this nurse, Denise Garland, is an example, he doesn’t pick his victims at random,” Mendez said. “He knows who lives in those houses. He does his homework. He establishes a connection.”

“We need to go to the girls who live in these houses and find out if they know him, if they’ve seen him,” Hicks said. “But even if the answer is yes, what do we have? Coincidence.” He looked to Tanner. “Did you establish a connection between Ballencoa and the Lawton girl?”

“He had photographed her,” Tanner said. “She had actually purchased photos from him—herself and her tennis partner in a tournament.”

“So you had that connection and he’s still walking around free.”

“He didn’t make any mistakes with Leslie Lawton,” she said. “If he’s made a mistake, it’s somewhere else, with someone else.”

“It only takes a crack to break a dam,” Mendez pointed out. “He’s got to have a flaw somewhere. He’s only human . . . I hope. Vince Leone is contacting ViCAP today, looking for open abduction cases in the San Diego area while Ballencoa lived there. He’s convinced this guy is too slick to be a first-timer with the Lawton girl.”

“There’s a comforting thought,” Tanner said.

The door opened and Detective Hamilton stuck his head inside. “Your guy Ballencoa is here.”

“For what?” Mendez asked, his heart picking up an extra beat. Had Ballencoa made them as they sat parked down the block, watching him stalk Denise Garland? Was he there to file another complaint? Bastard, he thought, stalking women, then having the gall to complain about getting caught at it.

“He’s claiming he’s being stalked.”

“Again?” Tanner said. “We should all be as popular as Roland. He gets more action than a Hollywood starlet.”

“What the fuck?” Mendez grumbled. “Where is he?”

“Interview one with Dixon. The boss told me to put you in the break room to have a look.”