“Or hearing about the first bones jelled things for him,” I said. “Maybe he’d been holding on to them, trying to achieve mastery by transforming them. That didn’t work. Or it did. Either way, he had no further use for them.”

“I still can’t get past a father doing that to his own kid.”

“We could be dealing with a stepfather or a boyfriend. Maybe even someone who thought the baby was his until he learned differently and grew enraged. Infanticide’s not that rare among primates and that includes us. One of the most frequent motives is eliminating another male’s offspring. Our offender may have believed that getting rid of the baby would solve his problems, he’d be able to forgive her, move on. That didn’t happen so he got rid of her, too. Flaunted both victims as a final flourish: Now I’m the master of my own destiny. And by leaving the bodies in proximity he made sure they were connected: This is what she did, this is why she died.”

“So why not leave her right next to the bones?”

“Don’t know,” I said.

“Guess.”

“By placing his kills at opposite ends of the park he could’ve been symbolically laying claim to the entire area. Or I’m over-interpreting and it was a simple matter of expediency: He got distracted or alarmed by someone.”

“You guess pretty fast.”

“Used to get into trouble in school for that.”

“Thought you were Mr. Straight A.”

“That annoyed the teachers even more.”

This time he produced a complete laugh. “A stepdad, yeah, I like that. But holding on to the bones and fooling with them, you see Mommy going along with that?”

“Who says Mommy knew?”

“She has a baby one day, next day it’s gone?”

“What if he forced her to give it up for adoption? As a condition of staying together. Told her he’d handle it and took care of business in a horrible way. Even if she suspected, she could’ve been too passive or guilty or frightened to do anything about it. Back when I worked at the hospital I can’t tell you how many cases I saw where mothers stood by as stepfathers and boyfriends did terrible things to their children, including torture and murder. Any word on the DNA?”

“Maria Thomas emailed an hour ago, wanting me to know she got it prioritized. Like I’m supposed to feel grateful for her allowing me to do my job. Looks like under a week for basic analyses but fancy stuff will take longer.”

He took out a cold cigar, propped it between his index fingers. “You ever feel you’ve had enough of the garbage I send your way?”

“Nah, keeps life interesting.”

“Does it?”

“Why the question?”