“Not much. Woman found dead in her home. Possible OD. That’s it. They aren’t even mentioning the tub. They know we need to keep a lid on these deaths until we know what’s going on.”

“Sounds like everything is under control,” she said evenly. “What’s left for me to do?”

“I’d like you to spend your time working this case in a way that the police and our agents can’t.”

Her eyes drifted over to her wall of yellow Post-its, but she knew that that wasn’t what Garcia was talking about. Unlike her previous bosses, Garcia was blunt about asking for her sight, and she found that validating. Creed didn’t approve of her ability, however, and she didn’t want him to overhear. She swiveled her chair around so her back was to her office mate. “I need the scarf, unless there’s something else we think the killer touched. Did he leave anything behind with this victim? Was there anything he obviously touched, something portable you can grab?”

“I don’t know. Crime scene is still inside. I’m calling from my car.”

She wondered if Garcia was embarrassed to have someone overhear his end of the conversation with her, and then told herself to stop being paranoid. “I’d like to join the mob. While I’m there, maybe I’ll see something I can use.”

He gave her the address. The apartment was on the west bank of the campus, while the previous victim’s home had been on the east. “Make it quick,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff here, and they’re going to town with the bagging.”

“What do you mean, a lot of stuff?”

“You’ll see.”

OPENED CAT FOOD cans and pop cans. Empty Kleenex boxes surrounded by wads of tissue. Half-spent rolls of toilet paper and paper towels. Empty cigarette packs. A coffee mug filled to overflowing with cigarette butts. Spilled bags of potato chips. Banana peels and orange peels. A bowl of shriveled grapes. Cans of whipped cream. A massive collection of Chinese takeout cartons. Unopened mail and rolled-up newspapers with the rubber bands still wrapped around them.

The odors—the strongest came from the cat waste and the rotten fruit—made Bernadette nauseous. Keeping her hand over her nose and mouth, she walked deeper inside. Even in the middle of the day, the drapes were drawn. With the lights out, it would have been as dark as a cave. As dark as Klein’s mood, she imagined.

“Hi,” she said to one of the crime scene crew.

“Want a mask?” one of them asked through his mask.

She shook her head and continued gawking at the mess. She was well aware that people with emotional and mental problems let their housekeeping go to hell, but this was stunning.

Weaving around the men and the garbage they were picking through, she went into the kitchen. Dirty dishes were mounded in both sinks and it stank like sour milk. Each of the stove’s four burners was topped with a saucepan; she didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to check what was inside them. The dishwasher was open and the bottom rack was pulled out. A lone plate covered in tomato sauce sat in wait. Was it a feeble attempt at starting the cleanup, or was it the last housekeeping chore the young woman managed before falling into some sort of emotional abyss?

When she went back into the living room, something brushed up against her shin. Looking down, she saw the furry source of the feline odors. “Cats,” she grumbled, and pushed the animal away with the side of her shoe. It detoured over to the Chinese takeout cartons sitting under the coffee table and stuck its head inside one of the boxes.

“Want to take him home with you?” one of the crime scene guys asked.

“No, thanks,” she said, snapping on her gloves. “Where’s the body?”

He pointed across the room to a closed hallway door. “Help yourself. We got what we needed out of there. Bedroom is all clear, too.”

“Anybody come up with any DNA goodies?” she asked through her hand.

“Nothing under her nails or anything easy like that.” He sat back on his heels and sighed. “Maybe we can come up with some people hair buried in all this stinking cat hair.”

She nodded and walked into the hallway. The instant she pushed the bathroom door open, a kitten scurried out. She was surprised to find the bathroom uncluttered and relatively clean, save for the smelly litter box tucked into a corner. Klein had allowed herself one tidy space. A refuge of sorts.

While pulling the gloves tight over her fingers, Bernadette ran her eyes around the compact bathroom. No signs of a struggle, but the floor was a lake. The guy in the apartment below must have gotten quite a shower. She went over to the side of the tub, a white rectangle that was built into the wall. It was short but deep. Deep enough to drown someone.

Klein wasn’t quite as emaciated as the first girl, but she was close. Instead of long red hair, she had a cap of short black hair. Bruises on her body. Feces in the water. No rose petals this time, but something floral scented the water. Again, her evening had started out as something pleasant and morphed into murder.

Down the short hall to the bedroom. The twelve-by-twelve space smelled like the inside of a wet tennis shoe. Clothes littered the floor and the mattress. The dresser and nightstands were covered with more dirty laundry, as well as tampon boxes, tampon wrappers, cans of body spray, cotton balls smeared with makeup, and a pizza carton containing crusts. Every drawer was pulled open and had bras or panties or nylons hanging out, as if underwear thieves had rifled through the place.

“God Almighty,” she said to the squalor. It was hard to believe someone actually slept in the room. Did homework there, too, apparently. A tower of texts and a shorter stack of notebooks sat on the nightstand next to the bed.

Bernadette went over to the books and examined the titles on the bindings. A volume on Dorothy Parker. An astronomy text. European history. Economics. Her eyes traveled to the notebook pile. Was there a personal journal buried in there? Carefully, she lifted one after the other. The notebook at the very bottom set off an alarm. On the cover, in black marker, a handwritten title: SUICIDE.

Garcia came up behind her, pulling on gloves. “Find something?”

“Maybe.” Holding it by the edges, she lifted it so that Garcia could see it.

“Shit. What was that about?”

“It can’t be a class.” She opened it and a set of stapled papers fell out.

Garcia bent over and picked up the packet by the edges. “Syllabus.”

“It is a class.” Reading over Garcia’s shoulder, she saw the full name of the course at the top: The Poetry of Suicide. Below the title was the name of the instructor. Professor Finlay Wakefielder. It was an unusual first name and she remembered seeing it before. “Hmmm.”

Garcia looked over his shoulder at her. “Yeah?”

“It was a different class, but he was the instructor. I didn’t think anything of the course title when I first saw it, but now …”

“What’re you talking about?”

“One of the other victims took a class from this Professor Wakefielder. I think it was the June victim. Alice Bergerman.”

Garcia lowered his arms, the syllabus still in his hand. “Coincidence? I mean, if you teach two hundred kids at a time in a big lecture hall, chances are …”

“Biology 101 is held in a big lecture hall, Tony. This sounds like a small lit seminar.”

He raised the syllabus again and stared at it. “What was the other course called?”

“Madness in American Literature,” she said.

“This guy has issues,” Garcia said.

She turned the notebook over and noticed a sticker with a phone number for a suicide hotline. The girl had definitely been interested in the topic. She set the notebook down the way she’d found it. “I’ll check him out tomorrow,” she said. “Tonight I want to go a round with the scarf.”

“You’re pretty sure the killer planted it on the bridge?”