"So," he asked D.D., "does this mean I can go to Switzerland?"

THE EMERGENCY TASK-force meeting started late, given the overrun of the Eola interview. The majority of the detectives, however, had arrived as scheduled, meaning that by the time Bobby, D.D., and Sinkus appeared, the pizza boxes were empty, the soda consumed, and not even a breadstick remained.

Bobby eyed the lone survivor-a plastic cup of red pepper flakes. He thought better of it.

"All right, all right," D.D. was saying briskly "Gather 'round, listen up. For a change, we have developments to discuss, so let's get cracking."

Detective Rock yawned, then tried to cover the motion by fanning his piles of paper. "Heard we got a note," he said. "Real deal or wannabe wacko?"

"Uncertain. We announced Annabelle Granger's name in the beginning, but never released details on the locket or the other personal items. So our anonymous author either has inside information or is the real deal."

That perked them up. D.D.'s next announcement, however, elicited collective groans. "I have copies of the note to distribute. But not yet. First things first: our nightly debrief. Let's figure out what we know now, then we'll consider how this little community outreach"-D.D. waved the stack of photocopies-"fits into the puzzle. Sinkus, you go first."

Sinkus didn't mind. As the go-to guy for Christopher Eola, he was humming with excitement. He recapped the interview with Eola's parents, what they now knew of Eola's sexual activities and how his former nanny matched a general description of Annabelle Granger, one of the known targeted victims. Even more interesting, Eola had access to vast financial resources. Between his Swiss bank account and multimillion-dollar trust fund, it was highly probable that he could maintain a lifestyle on the run, below the radar, etc., etc. In fact, just about anything was possible, so they'd have to open up their way of thinking.

Next steps: Put in a call to the State Department to track Eola's passport; outreach to Interpol in case they either had Eola in their sights or a case involving an UNSUB of similar MO; and finally, determine due process for tracing funds transferred out of a Swiss bank account or, better yet, freeze the assets altogether.

"Declare Eola a terrorist," McGahagin stated.

At his comment a few guys laughed.

"I'm not kidding," the sergeant insisted. "Homicide means nothing to the Swiss government-or anyone else, for that matter. On the other hand, write up a report that you have reason to believe Eola buried radioactive material in the middle of a major metro area, and you'll have his assets frozen lickety-split. Aren't bodies radioactive? Who in this room remembers anything from science class?"

They looked at one another blankly. Apparently, none of them watched The Discovery Channel.

"Well," McGahagin said stubbornly, "I think it's true. And I'm telling you, it will work."

Sinkus shrugged, made a note. It wouldn't be the first time they'd finessed a square peg into a round hole. That's why laws were written; so enterprising homicide detectives could figure out a way around them.

Sinkus was also in charge of tracking down Adam Schmidt, the AN from Boston State Mental who'd been fired for sleeping with a patient. He covered Schmidt next.

"Have finally located Jill Cochran, former head nurse," Sinkus reported. "I'm told she has most of the records, etc., from the closed institute. She's cataloging them, archiving them, I don't know. Doing whatever it is you do to insane-asylum paperwork. I'm meeting with her in the morning to follow up on Mr. Schmidt."

"Basic background check on Schmidt?" D.D. inquired.

"Nothing came up. So either Adam's been a very good boy since his Boston State Mental days, or he's been much smarter about not getting caught. My spidey sense is not tingly, however. I like Eola better."

D.D. merely gave him a look.

Sinkus threw up his hands in defense. "I know, I know, a good investigator leaves no stone unturned. I'm turning, I'm turning, I'm turning."

Sinkus, apparently, was a little punchy from lack of sleep. He sat down. Detective Tony Rock took over the hot seat, reporting on the latest activity on the Crime Stoppers hotline.

"What can I tell you?" the gravelly voiced detective rumbled, looking exhausted, sounding exhausted, and no doubt feeling as good as he looked and sounded. "We're averaging thirty-five calls an hour, most of which fall into three basic categories: a little bit crazy, a lot crazy, and too sad for words. The a little and a lot crazy categories are about what you'd expect-aliens did it; men in white suits; if you really want to be safe in this world, you need to wear tin foil on your head.

"The too sad for words, well, they're too sad for words. Parents. Grandparents. Siblings. All with missing family members. We got a woman yesterday who's seventy-five. Her younger sister has been missing since 1942. She heard the remains were skeletal, thought she might get lucky. When I told her we didn't believe the remains were that old, she started to cry. She's spent sixty-five years waiting for her baby sister to come home. Tells me she can't stop now; she made her parents a promise. Life is just plain shitty sometimes."

Rock squeezed the bridge of his nose, blinked, forged on. "So, I got a list of seventeen missing females, all of whom vanished between 1970 and 1990. Some of these girls are local. One's as far away as California. I got as much information from the families as possible for identification purposes. Including jewelry, clothing, dental work, bone fractures, and/or favorite toys-you know, in case we can match anything against the 'personal tokens' attached to each of the remains. I'm passing the info along to Christie Callahan. Otherwise, that's it for me."

He took a seat, the air seeming to leave his body until he collapsed, more than sat, in the folding metal chair. The man did not look good, and they lost a moment, staring at him and wondering who would be the first to say something.

"What?" he barked.

"You sure-" D.D. began.

"Can't fix my mom," Rock shot back. "Might as well find the fucker who murdered six girls."

There wasn't much anyone could add to that, so they moved on.

"All right," D.D. declared briskly, "we got one prime suspect of above-average intelligence and financial resources, one still-worth-looking-at suspect who was a former employee, and a list of seventeen missing girls from the Crime Stoppers hotline. Plus, there may be a link to an abduction two years before any of these six girls disappeared. Who else wants to join the show? Jerry?"

Sergeant McGahagin had been in charge of culling unsolved BPD missing-persons cases involving female minors for the past thirty years. His team had developed a list of twenty-six cases from Massachusetts. They had now started on the broader New England area.

He was skimming the copy of Tony Rock's report from Crime Stoppers, identifying five overlapping names between the two lists.

"What I need next," McGahagin stated heavily, "is a victimology report. If Callahan can give me a physical description of the remains, there's a chance I can make a match with an unsolved case. Then we could go to work on making a positive ID, which in turn would give us a time line for the mass grave. Bada bing, bada boom."

McGahagin stared at D.D. expectantly

She returned his look levelly "What the hell do you want me to do, Jerry? Pull six victimology reports out of my ass?"

"Come on, it's been four fucking days, D.D. How can we still know nothing about the six remains?"

"It's called wet mummification," D.D. shot back hotly. "And nobody's ever dealt with it in New England before."