“Father owns the hotel, son makes use of the premises,” I said. “And son was a pal of the Cossacks. Meaning he might very well have been at that party. Which turns the prism a whole new way. What if it went down this way: Janie separated from Melinda and tagged along with Burns and Caroline. Burns gave her some dope, introduced her to some of his rich-kid pals. All of a sudden, Janie finds herself face-to-face with Vance Coury, the Prince Charming who tied her up and raped her and dumped her in an alley like garbage. She freaks out, there’s an altercation, and Coury, maybe with a little help from his friends, spirits Janie away before she can cause a scene. They subdue her and bring her somewhere secluded, and Coury thinks, hmm, why not take advantage of the situation? We know he’s into bondage, and what would be more arousing than helplessness? He does his thing, and this time the others join in. It gets out of hand, goes really bad. Now they need to dump the body. Because of his father’s properties, Coury’s familiar with downtown, and he picks a spot he knows is quiet and relatively deserted late at night: the Beaudry on-ramp. He takes a buddy or two along, which would explain taking the risk of leaving Janie out in the open. With one person as lookout and to help with the body, the danger would’ve been minimized.”

Milo stared at the tax roster and placed his finger on Coury’s name. “Boys being boys. The Cossack brothers themselves, not just Caroline.”

“Them, Coury, Brad Larner, maybe the other members of the King’s Men—I think their names were Chapman and Hansen.”

“A high school club.”

“A party club,” I said. “Noted for liquid refreshment, high jinks and other good fun. Janie’s murder took place a few years after graduation, but that doesn’t mean the fun stopped.”

“So where do Caroline and Burns fit into a gang-bang killing?”

“Both had reason to dislike Janie. So they could’ve participated. The fact that Caroline was stashed at Achievement House indicates her involvement. So does Burns’s disappearance. A gang-bang killing also meshes with the absence of a sequel. It took the right combination to turn things bad: dope, a defiant victim, and the ultimate adolescent drug—group conformity.”

“Adolescent?” he said. “All the males were in their twenties.”

“Arrested development.”

“Funny you should say that. When I saw the Cossacks’ current house, that’s exactly what went through my mind.”

He described the eyesore mansion, the cars, the history of neighbor complaints.

“It also matches something else you said early on,” he added. “Women tend to be affiliative. Caroline wouldn’t have had the drive or the strength to slice Janie up by herself, but once Janie was incapacitated, a few cuts and burns would’ve been easy enough.”