Jacoby continued. “In those rapes, no one had been killed, though two of the victims had been cut. The rapist was caught a month after the Banks homicide, identified by two of his victims. We looked at him, but he had an airtight alibi the morning of Banks’s murder. We also looked long and hard at the husband—I’ve been a cop for twenty years, I’m pretty jaded—but no one could fake that kind of pain. And she was killed in front of her baby—it’s extremely rare that a father would do that. Plus he had no motive. No mistress, for example. Then we looked at her husband’s associates—he was a wealthy entrepreneur who made a lot of people upset when he sold his first company. Some people didn’t fare as well as he did and he’d received threats. But nothing of this magnitude, and nothing directed at his wife or family. It’s been a black spot on my record, I have to say, Agent Costa. That little boy is almost seven years old now and never got to know his mother. The girls are twelve and eleven. Dad never remarried—I don’t think he really got over what happened.”

“Would you be open to speaking with Mr. Banks again?”

“If I can give him something. Three years ago the FBI came talking to him, and it didn’t go well. I was angry that they didn’t come to me first.”

“I understand your frustration, and I need your help. Tell him we believe his wife’s murder is connected to something that may have happened before they were married—I specifically need to know if she was a nurse at any point in her life, and if so, where she worked. This is a thin lead, but the only connection between the victims appears to be their occupation and the only outlier is Anne Banks—but if she was a nurse at one time, she would no longer be an outlier. It would also mean the killer might have some personal connection to her.”

“I can tell you for certain that Mrs. Banks was a nurse when she met her husband—it’s how they met. But that was...jeez, four or five years before they got married. He talked a lot at the beginning, rambled really. I don’t know where she worked, I assumed Portland, but that makes me an idiot—I should have followed up.”

“Not an idiot, Jacoby. Our profiler is thinking that the killer felt injured or slighted by one or more of his victims, but is killing others randomly who have the same occupation in some sort of sick substitution. But Anne wasn’t a practicing nurse at the time, correct?”

“No—according to my notes, she hadn’t worked during her marriage.”

Matt continued. “Plus she was the first victim. If you can talk to the husband, find out anything that stands out as unusual given what we know now, even if he hasn’t thought about his wife’s nursing career in years. See if he remembers all the places she worked, how long, what area of nursing. I know I’m fishing—but it’s a line that’s still in the water and I might get a bite.”