:,You saw her Friday?" Moss asked. "Jillian Bondurant?"

"Yeah. About three. I was here working on my garbage disposal.

The wife tried to run celery through it. What a mess. Little Miss College Graduate. You'd think she'd have more brains than to do that."

"Jillian Bondurant Moss prompted.

He narrowed his mismatched eyes again. "I was looking out the kitchen window. Saw her drive out."

"Alone?"

"Yep."

"And that was the last time you saw her?"

"Yeah." He turned back to Liska. "That nutcase burned her up, didn't he?

The Cremator. Jeer, that's sick," he said, though morbid fascination sparked bright in his expression. "What's this town coming to?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"I think it's the millennium. That's what I think," he ventured.

"World's just gonna get crazier and crazier. The thousand years is over and all that."

"Millennium," Moss muttered, squinting down at a terra-cotta pot of dead chrysanthemums on the deck of Jillian Bondurant's small front porch.

"Could be," Liska said. "G.o.d help us all, eh?"

"G.o.d help us," Moss echoed sarcastically.

"Too late for Miss Bondurant," Vanlees said soberly, turning the key in the bra.s.s lock. "You need any help here, Detective?"

"No, thanks, Gil. Regulations and all .. ." Liska turned to face him, blocking his entrance to the house. "Did you ever see Miss Bondurant with anyone in particular? Friends? A boyfriend?"

"I saw her dad here every once in a while. He actually owns the unit.

No boyfriend. A girlfriend every once in a while. A friend, I mean.

Not girltiiend-at least I don't think so."

"One particular girl? You know her name?"

"No. She wasn't too friendly either. Had a mean took to her. Almost like

a biker chick, but not. Anyway, I never had anything to do with her.

She-Miss Bondurant-was usually alone, never said much.

She didn't really fit in here. Not too many of the residents are

students, and then she dressed kind of strange. Army boots and black clothes and all."

"Did she ever seem out of it to you?"

"Like on drugs, you mean? No. Was she into drugs?"

"I'm just covering my bases, you know, or else my lieutenant She let thesuggestion hang, the impression being that Vanlees could empathize,blood brother that he was. She thanked him for his help and gave him herbusiness card with instructions to call if he thought of anything thatmight be helpful to the case. He backed away from the door, reluctant,craning his neck to see what Moss was doing deeper into the apartment.

Liska waved good-bye and closed the door.

"Eew, Christ, let me go take a shower," she whispered, shuddering as shecame into the living room.

"Jeer, you didn't like him, then, Margie?" Moss said with an exaggeratednorth country accent.

Liska made a face at her and at the odd combination of aromas that hungin the air-sweet air freshener over stale cigarette smoke.

"Hey, I got him talking, didn't IT' "You're shameless."

"In the line of duty."

"Makes me glad I'm menopausal."

Liska sobered, her gaze on the door. "Seriously, those cop wannabescreep me out. They always have an authority thing. A need for power andcontrol, and a deep-seated poor self-image. More often than not, they'vegot a thing against women. Hey!" She brightened again suddenly. "I'llhave to bring this theory to the attention of Special Agent QuiteGood-looking."

"Hussy."

"I prefer opportunist."

Jillian Bondurant's living room had a view of the river. The furnishingslooked new. Overstuffed nubby sofa and chairs the color of oatmeal.

Gla.s.s-topped rattan coffee table and end tables dirty with the fine sootof fingerprint dust left behind by the Bureau of Investigation team. Anentertainment center with a large television and a topline stereosystem.

In one corner a desk and matching bookshelves held textbooks, notebooks,everything pertaining to Jillian's studies at the U, all of itridiculously neat. Along another wall sat the latest in shiny blackelectronic pianos. The kitchen, easily seen from the living room, wasimmaculate.

"We'll need to find out if she had maid service."

"Not the digs of the average flat-broke college student," Liska said.

"But then, I gotta think nothing much about this kid was average. Shehad a pretty atypical childhood trotting all over Europe."

"And yet she came back here for college. What's with that? She couldhave gone anywhere-to the Sorbonne, to Oxford, to Harvard, to SouthernCal.

She could have gone somewhere warm and sunny.

She could have gone somewhere exotic. Why come here?"

"To be close to Daddy."

Moss walked the room, her gaze scanning for anything that might give aclue about their victim. "I guess that makes sense. But still .. .

My daughter Beth and I have a great relationship, but the second thatgirl graduated high school, she wanted out of the nest."

"Where'd she go?"

"University of Wisconsin at Madison. My husband isn't Peter Bondurant.

She had to fly somewhere with tuition reciprocity," Moss said, checkingthrough the magazines. Psychology Today and Rolling Stone.

"If my old man had a billion bucks and would spring for a place likethis, I'd want to spend time with him too. Maybe I can get Bondurant toadopt me."

Who was here yesterday?"

"They sent a couple of uniforms after the body was found withBondurant's DLJUST to make sure she wasn't here, alive and oblivious.Then Sam came over with Elwood to look around. They canva.s.sed theneighbors. n.o.body knew anything. He picked up her address book, creditcard receipts, phone bills, and a few other things, but he didn't comeup with any big prizes.

Gotta think if she had a drug habit, the B of I guys would have foundsomething."

"Maybe she carried everything with her in her purse."

"And risk losing her stash to a purse s.n.a.t.c.her? I don't think so.

Besides, this place is way too clean for a druggie."

Two bedrooms with two full baths on the second level. In her small house in St. Paul, Liska had the cozy pleasure of sharing one small crummybathroom with her sons, ages eleven and nine. She made good pay as adetective, but things like hockey league and orthodontists cost bucks,and the child support her ex had been directed by the courts to pay waslaughable. She often thought she should have had sense enough to getknocked up by a rich guy instead of by a guy named Rich.

Jillian's bedroom was as eerily tidy as the rest of the house. Thequeen-size bed had been stripped bare by the B of I team, the sheetstaken to the lab to be tested for any sign of blood or seminal fluid.

There was no discarded clothing draped over chairs or trailing on thefloor, no half-open dresser drawers spilling lingerie, no pile ofabandoned shoes-nothing like Liska's own crowded room she never had thetime or desire to clean. Who the h.e.l.l ever saw it but herself and the boys? Who ever saw Jillian Bondurant's room?

No snapshots of a boyfriend tucked into the mirror above the Oakdresser.

No photos of family members. She pulled open the drawers in thenightstands that flanked the bed. No condoms, no diaphragm. A cleanashtray and a tiny box of matches from D'Cup Coffee House.

Nothing about the room gave away any personal information about itsoccupant-which suggested to Liska two possibilities: that JillianBondurant was the princess of repression, or that someone had comethrough the house after her disappearance and sanitized the place.

Matches and the smell of cigarettes, but every ashtray in the place wasclean.

Vanlees had a key. Who else could they add to that list? PeterBondurant. Jillian's mean-looking girlfriend? The killer. The killer nowhad Jillian's keys, her address, her car, her credit cards. Kovac hadimmediately put a trace on the cards to catch any activity following thegirl's disappearance Friday night. So far, nothing. Every cop in thegreater metro area had the description and tag numbers on Bondurant'sred Saab. Nothing yet.

The master bath was clean. Mauve and jade green with decorative soaps noone was supposed to actually use. The shampoo in the bathtub rack wasPaul Mitch.e.l.l with a sticker from a salon in the d.i.n.kydale shoppingcenter. A possible source of information if Jillian had been the kind toconfess all to her hairdresser. There was nothing of interest in themedicine cabinet or beneath the sink.

The second bedroom was smaller, the bed also stripped. Summer clotheshung in the closet, pushed out of the master bedroom by the rapidapproach of another brutal Minnesota winter. Odds and ends Occupied thedresser drawers-a few pair of underpants: black, silky, size five; ablack lace bra from Frederick's of Hollywood: skimpy, wash-worn, 34B; apair of cheap black leggings with a hole in one knee, size S. Theclothes were not folded, and Liska. had the feeling they did not belongto Bondurant.

The friend? There wasn't enough stuff to indicate a full-time roommate.

The fact that this second bedroom was being used discounted the idea ofa lover. She went back into the master suite and checked the dresser drawers again.

"You coming up with anything?" Moss asked, stepping into the bedroomdoorway, careful not to lean against the jamb, grimy with fingerprintpowder.

"The w.i.l.l.i.e.s. Either this chick was incredibly a.n.a.l or a phantom housefairy got here before anyone else. She went missing Friday.

That gave the killer a good two days with her keys."

"But there've been no reports of anyone unknown or suspicious comingaround."

"So maybe the killer wasn't unknown or suspicious. I wonder if we couldget a surveillance team to watch the place for a couple days," Liskamused.

"Maybe the guy'll show up."

"Better chance he's already been here and gone. He'd be taking a bigrisk coming back after the body had been found."

"He took a pretty big risk lighting up that body in the park."

Liska pulled her cell phone out of a coat pocket and dialed Kovac'snumber, then listened impatiently while it rang unanswered. Finally shegave up and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. "Sam must have lefthis coat in the car again. He oughta wear that phone on a chain like atrucker's wallet. Well, you're probably right anyway. If Smokey Joewanted to come back here, he'd do it after he'd killed her but beforeher body had been discovered. And if he's been here already, maybe hisprints are being run even as we speak."

"We should get that lucky."

Liska sighed. "I found some clothes that probably belong to a girlfriendin the second bedroom, found the name of Jillian's hair salon and a bookof matches for a coffeehouse."

"D'Cup?" Moss said. "I found one too. Should we try it on for size?"

Liska smirked. "A D cup? In my ex-husband's dreams. You know what Ifound in his sock drawer once?" she said as they walked down into theliving room together. "One of those dirty magazines full of women withbig, huge, giant, gargantuan t.i.ts. I'm talking hooters, that would hangto your knees. Page after page of this. t.i.ts, t.i.ts, t.i.ts the size of theHindenburg. And men think we're bad because we want six inches to meansix inches."

Moss made a sound between a groan and a giggle. "Nikki, after a day withyou, I'm going to have to go to confession."

"Well, while you're there, ask the priest what it is about boys andb.o.o.bs."