“You did me a favor, honey. Distracted me from thinking about two dead babies.” Ungloving, she took out her phone, walked a few feet to the side.

Milo said, “Moe, soon as the techies and the crypters get here, you and I are heading back to the office to run a search on missing infants. Meanwhile, call Sean. I’ll be wanting him to canvass the neighborhood.”

Moe left a message for Binchy.

Liz returned. “Just spoke to one of my old profs. He’s never seen a specimen without wires and he’s not aware of any lacquer that’s commonly used. But no one knows everything so I’ll stay on it. One bright spot: If these are relatively fresh, DNA’s likely. Speaking of which, what’s the status with the first set? DOJ hasn’t instructed me to send them yet.”

“Start the paperwork, kid.”

Reed’s phone rang. He said, “Hey, Ess-man, whusup? What?”

As he listened, his hand tapped the butt of his service gun. When he clicked off, his face was tight. “You’re not going to believe this, they just found another.”

Liz said, “Another baby?” Her voice caught. All pretense of scientific detachment ripped away like a dangling scab.

Reed said, “Another DB, adult female, gunshot wound, right here in the park, the southern edge.”

Milo’s face was as animated as a frozen chuck roast. He waved a uniform over.

“Keep this area tight, Officer. No one but the techies and the C.I. gets in.”

“Yessir. That mean you’re finished here?”

“Not even close.”

CHAPTER
12

The woman was late twenties to early thirties, dark-haired, medium height, slightly heavy at arms, hips, and ankles. She lay on her right side, the front part of her body shaded by shrubbery. Her dress, short-sleeved and knee-length, was patterned in a pale green mini-paisley with old-fashioned cap sleeves.

One leg rested atop the other, a position that almost resembled peaceful sleep. No disruption of clothing, no obvious sexual posing, but Milo pointed out faint pink rings around her wrists that were probably the residuals of being bound.

A rubber-soled brown loafer encased her right foot. Its mate lay a couple of feet away to the north. Her hair was trimmed short enough to expose the nape of her neck. The bullet hole was a red-black mini-crater at the junction of cranium and spine.

A single shot, fired at close enough range to leave light stippling, entering the medulla oblongata and cutting off the respiratory functions marshaled by the lower brain.

What the papers like to call execution-style, but there are all sorts of ways to execute someone and what this wound and the wrist marks said was a killer in total control leaving nothing to chance.

The two uniforms guarding the scene said she’d been spotted by a jogger. Her bare foot, clean and white amid the greenery, had been the attention-getter.