A onetime public defender long considered hostile to cops, Cleveland had morphed into a law-and-order stalwart following the chief’s endorsement of her reelection and some well-placed fund-raisers arranged by the chief’s retired-anchorwoman wife.

Cleveland and her labor-lawyer husband had only lived in the Cheviot house for seven months before putting it up for sale. Both had accepted jobs in D.C., she as an assistant attorney general, he as chief counsel for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Cleveland’s first assignment would be heading a task force on financial shenanigans in the banking arena and the real estate website wondered if she could be objective, given a drop in the value of her investment due to the recession. An economic slump brought on, in part, by Wall Street’s addiction to junk mortgages.

I said, “Toss in two DBs a short hop away and it won’t be much of a broker’s carousel.”

“Idiots,” he growled. “Okay, go home, no sense sitting and watching me type.”

I moved out of the way and he bellied up to his keyboard. Entering his password, he logged onto NCIC. The screen froze. He cursed.

I said, “What about the jogger—Heather Goldfeder?”

“What about her? My resident geniuses said she didn’t know the victim.”

“She didn’t know the victim but the way the bones and the body were dumped suggests a bad guy familiar with the park. She runs there regularly so it’s possible she’s seen something or someone she doesn’t realize is relevant. A man casing the area or loitering near the jogging path.”

He loosened his tie, yanked it off. “I was going to get to her once I finished with missing persons.”

His phone rang again. Kelly LeMasters sounding excited about “touching base.”

Instead of picking up, he sat there and listened as LeMasters emphasized her interest in the old bones, offered an additional cell number, and hung up.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s do it.”

“Do what?”

“Check out little Heather.”

“You changed your mind.”

“I hate typing.”

He phoned the Goldfeder home. Heather’s father picked up, Milo introduced himself then listened for a while.

“Yes, I know that had to be difficult, Mr. Goldfeder … Doctor Goldfeder, sorry … yes, I’m sure it was. Which is one reason I’m calling you. We happen to have an expert psychologist and he’s available to offer some crisis …”

He hung up shaking his head.

I said, “No-go?”

“Quite the contrary, definite yes-go. ‘About time you people considered the human factor.’ ”

“Thanks for calling me an expert.”

“Onward.”

CHAPTER
14

I pulled up in front of the Goldfeder home at ten the following morning. Going it alone because Milo felt “the pure psych angle would work best.”