“After the press conference last night, the tip lines lit up. The sheriff assigned a bunch of personnel to answer phones and more deputies to the search for the bodies. The captain is having the watch commander coordinate the search, which is expanding beyond the department to volunteer groups.”

“We could make better use of some of those people who are answering phones,” Eve said. “I’d like to see them out on the street, visiting each home Coyle serviced as a plumber and seeing if we can match more of his souvenirs to his past clients. Getting some more hits on Coyle’s burglaries will help us use the geographic profile of his movements to narrow down the hot zones where the bodies might be buried.”

“You’re the task force leader,” Duncan said. “You can allocate the personnel any way you want.”

“Okay, then let’s do it. We still need to know a lot more about Coyle’s life. The answer to what he did with the bodies may lie in what he’s done in the past and what he likes to do when he isn’t unclogging toilets or chopping up families. You and me and Crockett and Tubbs should talk to his coworkers, his neighbors, any relatives he might have. Am I missing anything?”

Duncan smiled at her. “Nope.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“I like that you’re confident but not overconfident,” Duncan said. “Smart people are the ones who know how stupid they are.”

“I’m not sure that tracks, or that it’s a compliment, but I’ll take it.”

Garvey wheeled backward in his chair from his cubicle as he saw them approach. “How did it go with monkey boy?”

“It was a waste of time,” Eve said, scanning all the pictures of Garvey with film, music, and sports celebrities that lined the three walls of his cubicle. There was one taken in the Lost Hills lobby with an intoxicated A-list movie star after he was released without being charged, no doubt thanks to Garvey’s intervention.

Duncan flashed a sly grin. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Biddle shared a knowing look with Garvey, then looked back at Duncan. “Did you do your electric chair shtick?”

“Hell yes,” Duncan said and the three men laughed.

“Then it was time well spent,” Biddle said. “That might have been your last chance to do it before your retirement party.”

“He’ll do it at the party,” Garvey said. “You’ll see.”

Eve was impatient. She gestured to all the people on the phones. “Are we getting anything at all from the tip lines?”

“We’ve had over two hundred tips since last night’s episode of Deathfist and the Sheriff,” Garvey said. “One caller says he saw Coyle digging graves in Palmdale, another thinks he saw him in the desert near Palm Springs.”