He made no move to exit the car. I said, “A girl using poison makes sense. Poisoning doesn’t require physical confrontation, so a disproportionate number of poisoners are female. I don’t have to tell you psychopathic killers often start with animals, but they’re usually males who dig blood. For a girl that young to act out so violently would be a serious red flag. I’m wondering if Caroline’s been confined all these years. Maybe because of something a lot worse than killing a dog.”

“Or she died.”

“Find the death certificate.”

He knuckled his eyes, looked up at my house. “Poison’s sneaky. What was done to Janie was blatant—the way the body was dumped in an open spot. No way did a girl do that.”

“I’m not saying Caroline murdered Janie by herself, but she might’ve been part of it—might’ve served as a lure for whoever did the cutting. Plenty of killers have used young women as bait—Paul Bernardo, Charlie Manson, Gerald Gallegos, Christopher Wilding. Caroline would’ve been the perfect lure for Janie and Melinda—a girl their age, outwardly inoffensive. And rich. Caroline could’ve stood by and watched as some-one else did the wet work or participated the way the Manson girls did. Maybe it was a group thing, just like the Mansons, party scene gone bad. Females are affiliative—even female killers. Group settings lower their inhibitions.”

“Sugar and spice,” he said. “And the family found out, put the screws on with the department to hush up the case, locked Crazy Caroline away somewhere . . . the ghoul in the attic.”

“Big family money can furnish a really nice attic.”

He accompanied me inside, where I went through the mail and he got on the phone with County Records and Social Security. No death certificate on Caroline Cossack; nor had she received a social security number or a driver’s license.

Melinda Waters had received a card at age fifteen, but she’d never driven in California or worked or contributed payroll tax. Which made sense if she’d died young. But no certificate on her, either.

“Disappeared,” I said. “Melinda probably died the same night Janie did, and Caroline’s either very well hidden or she expired, too, and the family hushed it up.”

“Hidden as in hospitalized?”

“Or just watched carefully. Rich kid like that, she’d have a trust fund, could be living in some Mediterranean villa with twenty-four-hour supervision.”

He began pacing. “Little Miss Nowhere . . . but at some point, when she was a kid, she had to have an identity. Be interesting to pinpoint when exactly she lost it.”