Woodhouse shrugged. “No, but ultimately it wasn’t our decision. It was the DA’s call. Guy named Michael Nugent. At the end of his term. The year before, a case went south on him. So, for this thing, he told us he needed more evidence. Told us to go out and get something else. Of course, at the time, we didn’t know the second killing would happen. Afterward, Nugent and the chief at that time, Frank Stone, hinted to their contacts in the press that the investigative team opposed holding Partridge after the first homicide. Unidentified source dropped Eddie’s name. Said he choked.”

“And in the second case, you had the shoe print on the victim’s leg?”

“I thought it was worth something. The lawyers thought it was weak. It was partial and not a clear match to Partridge’s boots.”

Eden heard resignation in Woodhouse’s voice. “Did you notice in the Foss and Hart murders, the cord was wrapped around their necks three and a half times?”

“Yeah. It’s an odd pattern. Not a coincidence, I’d guess. You have any ideas about it?”

“I’m still working on it. You saw the cut on Susan Hart’s lower back, the signature?”

“I did, although I don’t think I ever knew what it meant. Didn’t matter anyway. By then it was panic time. Nugent had us chasing our tails. We looked at Susan Hart’s boyfriend, then a boy who lived on the street with the Foss girl. Next, it was a couple of locals with sexual assault charges. Then we had a gang shooting on the west side with a child victim. So that was the new big headline. Two years went by. Everyone forgot the girls in the park. Sometimes it happens like that.”

“If we can tie Partridge to any of the signature killings,” Eden said, “we might be able to link him to the others.”

“What do we know about killers who use signatures?” Woodhouse seemed enlivened again.

“Extremely rare,” Eden said. “One or two percent of all homicides.”

“What else?”

“In their study of serial killings, the researchers Hawthorne and Weeks at the University of Chicago believe many signatures are—”

Woodhouse held up his hand and smiled. “Let’s put aside the academics for one minute. I was raised a Roman Catholic. Served as an altar boy at Saint Anne’s, down in the city. My church believes the killing of another human being is a sin. The malice of the sin is its violation of the supreme ownership of God over the lives of his creatures. Some killers, especially the deliberate ones, believe themselves to be God, and the ones who leave signatures believe it more than others. They sign their work like it was a creative act.”

“It’s an act of arrogance,” Eden said.