“Yeah. Well, I’ve only found two items, where some of these killers have dozens of entries.” She paused, considering. “In other words, if you happen to be one of the lucky few owning anything related to Harry Day, this week is a good week to be you. The value of your sales inventory just jumped thousands of percent, and given the serious dollars attached to some of these items . . .” She eyed Alex. “Assuming our killer has a treasure trove of Harry Day items, maybe he or she had financial motive to make Harry Day front-page news again. Could it be that simple? The external motivation we’ve been looking for is financial gain. Cash, pure and simple.”

Alex frowned. “But who would be in a position to have personal mementos from a serial killer dead and gone for the past four decades?”

“His surviving heirs. Shana and Adeline were just kids, though. The house probably sold at auction. Maybe money was put aside for their care or future college funds. Someone might have set personal items aside for them. Maybe a social worker or even the DA. I’ve seen it in other cases where a small child is the lone survivor.”

“Did the foster mom mention anything?”

“No, and I can’t see her hanging on to any of Shana’s personal belongings. Not after what happened. Adeline claims she’s kept far away from her father’s legacy. She’s mentioned a case file her adoptive father made for her but no family heirlooms.”

“So, again . . . ?”

“It’s not Shana and Adeline. Can’t be. But what if . . .”

D.D. turned to Alex. “What if Shana, the older daughter, once had a few of her father’s belongings? Items she’d dragged from foster home to foster home. She’s the one who apparently worshipped him.”

“Where’d they go?”

“She gave them away? A friend? A boyfriend? Or someone knew about them. She bragged or confided in another person in the neighborhood. Who, after the police took her away, snagged the items out of her room. Quick, let’s check the other websites.”

D.D. pulled up all four murderabilia sites, with their various disclosures. Second site didn’t even list items by Harry Day, but on the third site, they got lucky. Two letters, so-called love notes, written from Harry to his wife. Both items had gone from twenty bucks to more than a thousand in the course of the day.

“If you were trying to salvage something for a couple’s surviving daughters?” she murmured to Alex.

“That would be the kind of thing to stash away,” Alex agreed.

She clicked on the seller. Instead of a name, however, she got a list of random numbers attached to a Gmail account.

“Trying to cover his tracks,” Alex said. “If I was hawking things to people who were obsessed with serial killers, I’d do the same.”