Mahler had had enough. He stepped between Eden and Coyle. “Detective Somers, tell the techs I want an initial crime-scene report by ten thirty.” He heard his own voice, as if it were outside of him, talking too loudly. “And we need to find out who this woman is. Call Kathy Byers. Now. Tell her to put out a press release. No photos—physical description and clothing. Email it to the press, and put it on the public website. Have Kathy get tech support to set up an independent phone line for the public to call in.”

He swung around to Coyle. “Where’re Rivas and Frames?”

“With Gang Crimes, picking up Peña. They’ll be back in a couple hours.”

“Text them. Say they’re on this. We’re all on round-the-clock.”

Coyle nodded. “You okay, Eddie?” When Mahler didn’t reply, Coyle started typing on his phone. “The other thing is, the earlier victims weren’t wrapped in a blanket like this one.”

Mahler looked up the hill to the spectators behind the yellow caution tape, who were holding up phones. “You know what else is different from two years ago? We didn’t have as much social media crap as we do now. By the time we get back to our cars, the photos from those phones are going to be on Instagram and Snapchat.”

He turned back to the crime-scene crew, kneeling beside the body on the bench. “Once people see the pictures of this crime scene, all they’ll care about is we found a dead woman in the park, and it could happen again in the next seventy-two hours.”

Chapter Two

(TUESDAY, 8:05 A.M.)

“Numbers don’t lie. I looked it up. Eighty-eight percent of Hispanic pitchers in the majors are right-handed.” Frames talked fast, as he always did with a new theory—this time fueled with an espresso shot and two Red Bulls. “With Anglos, that number’s only, like, seventy. I mean, your culture has that Catholic thing, which—let’s be honest—is all about conformity. Who knows how many naturally left-handed kids your religion turns into righties? Then you’ve got the younger players coming up from the Caribbean and all that voodoo about left-handedness being bad luck. The Spanish word for ‘left’ is sinistra, isn’t it, like sinister?”

“The Spanish for ‘left’ is izquierdo.” Rivas pronounced the last word carefully, aware the correction would piss off Frames. But he also knew from experience facts were no match for one of Frames’s theories. “‘Left-handed’ is zurdo. Sinistra is Italian.”