Jess had half a cigarette left, but she crushed it under her boot. “Yeah, Herb and his crew were all over me about Newman from the get-go. They put me in touch with other women who’d been involved with him. Guy was a nightmare. Abuse, assault, stalking, harassment. He always skated thanks to his parents. But the stories these women told me? Wow. One girl stood him up on a date because her boss made her work late. She came home and found all of her tropical fish pinned to her bedroom wall with a nail gun. Nice, huh? I mean, we’re talking about a guy with zero soul. There’s nothing inside.”

“And yet he keeps hooking up with new girlfriends. I met one of them last night. She knows all about his past, but she doesn’t care.”

“What can I tell you, Frost? Biology’s a bitch. I get it. I spent hours with Newman, and I knew what kind of a psycho he was. Doesn’t mean I was immune to his sex appeal.”

Frost knew she was right, but he didn’t pretend to understand.

“What about the Somers murder?” he asked.

“That case really got to me,” Jess said, shaking her head. “Here’s this pretty young black girl from Reno. Religious. Choir singer. Engaged to her high school sweetheart. Smart as a whip, already lining up jobs after college. Every kid should be like her, you know? And then some bastard rapes her and kills her in her apartment. That shit makes me crazy.”

“I know.”

“Herb’s right,” Jess told him. “Newman did it. I know he did it. And you know what? I don’t think Merrilyn was his first.”

“There were others?”

“Yeah, I did some digging. When Newman was eighteen years old, living near Green Bay, a college girl was found stabbed in a local park. Case was never solved. Three years later, there was a murder in Boulder, while Newman was going to school there. The dead girl had a class with Newman the previous semester, but he was never on their radar. A local sex offender got drunk and hung himself, and the police found the girl’s panties in his house. That was as good as a confession, but if you ask me, Newman was already figuring out how to cover his tracks. He likes using fall guys.”

“And then came Merrilyn?” Frost asked.

“Yeah, he was all over Merrilyn from the day she moved in. She told him she was engaged, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.”

“Except the DNA pointed to somebody else.”

“Yeah, DNA don’t lie, right? But this time it did.”

“How?”