The sports venture fizzled as had the movie game, and for a couple years, the Cossacks were out of print. Then Garvey Cossack resurfaced with plans for a federally funded community redevelopment project in the San Fernando Valley, and Bobo garnered attention for attempting to demolish a Hollywood bowling alley that the locals wanted preserved as a landmark in order to put up a giant strip mall.

Their mother’s obituary was dated three years ago. Ilse Cossack had died “. . . after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease . . . private services, in lieu of flowers, donations to . . .”

Still no mention of Sister Caroline.

I began scanning the Web and the periodicals files for accounts of sexual homicides taking place within five years of Janie Ingalls’s murder, found nothing dramatically similar. Interesting, because sexual sadists don’t quit voluntarily, so maybe Janie’s murderer was dead or imprisoned. If so, would Milo ever get the answers he wanted?

I went downstairs to the Public Affairs Room, got my hands on every back issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Journal I could find, along with stacks of forensic magazines and crime periodicals. Because the savagery of what had been done to Janie was notable and perhaps the wound pattern—scalping in particular—had repeated itself.

But if it had, I couldn’t find the evidence. The FBI magazine had veered away from VICAP alerts and detailed crime studies to bland cop-speak articles geared for public relations, and the only case report involving removal of cranial skin cropped up in a wire service piece on crime in Brazil: A German-born doctor, son of a Nazi immigrant, had murdered several prostitutes and kept their scalps as trophies. The man was in his late twenties—a toddler at the time of the Ingalls case. Everyone starts off as a cute little baby.

Maybe Janie’s murderer had continued to pursue his grisly interests without leaving any bodies behind.

But that didn’t make sense. He’d flaunted Janie’s corpse twenty years ago and was likely to get more, not less, brazen.

When I got home, my message machine registered zero calls. I phoned Milo’s house and Rick Silverman answered, sounding sleepy. He’s an ER surgeon. No matter when I call, I seem to be waking him up.

“Alex. How’s it going?” He sounded casual. So Milo hadn’t told him about Robin.

“Fine, and with you?”

“I’m working, they’re paying me, I’m not complaining.”

“You’re the only doctor who isn’t.”

He laughed. “Actually, I’m bitching plenty, but too much of that, and you get bored with yourself. I keep telling myself it’s a good thing I’m salaried, don’t have to deal with the HMOs directly. Maybe one day Milo’ll pay all the bills.”

“That’ll be the year he heads to Paris for the big couture shows.”