“It’s his pattern.”

“He must have pocketed the knife—we never found it—and shoved the stroller down the path. The murderer had blood on his hands. There was blood on the handle of the stroller.”

“Why would he do that? Attempted kidnapping?”

“No idea. Maybe he didn’t want the body discovered right away. Maybe the stroller was in his way, or the baby was crying... Hell if I know. We had no fingerprints—he wore gloves—and only one blood type, the victim’s.”

“Daytime, and no one saw a man with blood on his clothes walking out of the park?”

“I thought the same thing, Costa. It’s bothered me. We had a dozen guys go through that park with a fine-tooth comb. I think I know what he did, but I can’t prove it.”

“Tell me. I’m willing to listen to any theory, no matter how wild.”

“It was raining. Not heavy, just Portland drizzle. I think he wore a slicker, probably a poncho, something that wouldn’t stand out. Dark, to hide the blood. Black, brown, navy. He puts his hands under the poncho and voilà! No one sees anything weird. He jogs from the scene to blend in and when no one is around, he pulls off the poncho, stuffs it in a backpack. Or, he has a car nearby. We scoured the scene and found trace amounts of blood on the trail in the direction he pushed the stroller, then they disappeared. We combed the area in a half-mile radius in search of the weapon, including every garbage can on public and private property. He could have disappeared on public transportation—which we thoroughly investigated—or had his own car nearby. I lean toward car.

“The body was found quickly,” Jacoby continued. “She was dead, but the witnesses missed the killer by no more than seven minutes, based on our canvass of the scene and everyone who was in the park that morning. But in seven minutes he could have been to any of four streets that surround the park and driven off. There were no street cams, not in that neighborhood. It’s busy, mostly young families and artsy types. Safe, low crime.”

“It sounds like you did everything humanly possible,” Matt said.

“I wish I weren’t so human,” Jacoby said. “Three kids are orphans because some bastard killed Anne Banks. I’ll talk to her husband again. You have my number—keep me informed, Costa, okay? I have to know you get the guy—and that it’s the right guy. I’ll call you if I learn anything new.”

Twenty minutes later, while Matt was putting together a large whiteboard of the seven victims and every common trait between them, Jacoby called him back.

“I don’t know if this means anything,” Jacoby said, “but Anne Banks, maiden name Goodman, was a nurse at Spokane General for seven years before moving to Portland to get married. That’s where they’d met—her husband was speaking at a tech symposium at the college there and got food poisoning. She was on duty in the emergency room.”