"Why would you care what happens to me?" Angie asked quietly.

"Because no one else does," Kate said simply.

Tears rose in the girl's dark blue eyes. The truth of what Kate had saidwas right there. No one had ever cared a d.a.m.n about Angie Dimarco, andshe didn't dare trust that someone would start now.

"All I have to gain is a congratulatory pat on the a.s.s from Ted Sabin,"Kate said, pulling a sc.r.a.p of humor up through the thicker emotions.

"Believe me, that's not my motivation."

Angie stared at her for another moment, weighing options, the weight ofthose options pressing down hard on her. A single tear rolled down her cheek. She drew a shallow, shaky breath.

"I don't like doing it," she whispered in a child's voice, her lower liptrembling.

Slowly and carefully, Kate put an arm around Angie's shoulders and drewthe girl to her, the need to give comfort so strong, it frightened her.

Someone had brought this child into the world, not wanting her for anyreason other than to punish her for their mistakes. The injustice burnedin Kate's chest. This is why I don't do kids, she thought. They make mefeel too much.

The girl's body shuddered as she let go a fraction more of the emotionthat was threatening to crush her. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I'm so sorry."

"I know, kiddo," Kate murmured thickly as she patted Angie's back. "I'msorry too. Let's go sit down and talk about it. These d.a.m.n heels. Myfeet are killing me."

CHAPTER 14.

"YOU CAN'T BELIEVE some of the stuff coming in over the hotline," GaryYurek said, carrying a thick file and a pad of paper to the table in theLoving Touch of Death war room. "They actually had a woman call in tosay she thinks her neighbor is the Cremator because her dog doesn't likehim!"

"What kind of dog?" Tippen called.

"American sc.u.mbag spaniel," Elwood said, pulling out a chair. "A hearty,cheerful breed known for digging up corpses and cavorting merrily withcadaver parts."

"Sounds like you, Elwood." Liska punched him in the arm as she pa.s.sed.

"Hey, my hobbies are my own business."

"Any more sightings of Jillian Bondurant?" Hamill asked.

Yurek looked disgusted. "Yeah, a Jiffy Lube mechanic in Brooklyn Parkwhose every third word was reward."

Quinn took a seat at the table, his head throbbing, his mind trying togo in too many directions at once. Kate, Kate's witness. Bondurant.

The profile he was struggling with. The Atlanta case. The Blacksburgcase. The calls backing up on his voice mail about a dozen others.

Kate. Kate .. .

His brain wanted a cup of coffee, but his stomach was saying no instrong and painful language. He fished a Tagamet out of his pocket andwashed it down with diet c.o.ke. Mary Moss handed him a packet ofphotographs.

"Lila White's parents gave them to me. I don't see how they'll help, but.i.t was important to them. The pictures were taken just a few days before her murder."

"Progress reports!" Kovac called, shrugging out of his topcoat andjuggling three files as he came to the head of the table. "Anything onthe parks employees?"

"Found a convicted child-molester who lied about his record on his application," Tippen said. "Other than that, no red flags on thepermanent staff. However, the parks department also gets work crews ofmisdemeanor offenders doing community service time. We're getting alist."

"Jillian's phone records don't show anything out of the ordinary,"Elwood said. "Calls to her father, to her shrink, to this friend Tinkswent to see. Nothing unusual in the last couple of weeks. I've requestedthe records from her cell phone service, but their computers werescrewed up, so I don't have that yet."

"We've got a list of employees fired from Paragon in the last eighteenmonths," Adler said. "None of them stood out as being particularlyvindictive toward Peter Bondurant. We ran their names through the systemand came up with petty s.h.i.t."

"One guy convicted of soliciting a prost.i.tute," Hamill said. "But thatwas a one-time, bachelor-party situation. He's married now.

Spent last weekend at his in-laws'."

"That could drive me to murder," Tippen quipped.

"One guy with a third-degree-a.s.sault charge. He attacked his managerwhen he got the news Paragon was giving him the ax," Adler said.

"That was nine months ago. He's moved out of town. Lives in Cannon Fallsnow and works in Rochester."

"How far is that?" Quinn asked.

"Cannon Falls? Half an hour, forty-five minutes."

"An easy drive. He's not off the hook."

"Our Rochester field agent is checking him out," Hamill said.

"In general," Adler went on, "no one who works for Bondurant seemsparticularly fond of him, but no one had anything bad to say about himeither-with one notable exception. Bondurant started Paragon back in thelate seventies with a partner-Donald Thorton. He bought Thorton out in'eighty-six."

"About the time of his divorce," Kovac said.

"Exactly the time of the divorce. He paid Thorton top dollarmore than,according to some. Thorton developed serious problems with booze andgambling, and ran his Caddie into Lake Minnetonka in 'eighty-nine. Lakepatrol fished him out before he drowned, but not before he sustainedserious brain damage and a spinal cord injury. His wife blamesBondurant."

"How so?"

"She wouldn't say over the phone. She wants a face-to-face."

"I'll take it," Kovac said. "Anyone has something bad to say about Mr.Billionaire can be my friend."

Walsh raised one hand, covering his mouth with the other while he triedto cough up part of a lung. When he finally drew breath to speak, hisface was purple. "I've been on the phone with the legal attache's officein Paris," he said in a thin, strained voice. "They're checking out thestepfather-Serge Leblanc-with Interpol and with the French authorities.

But I'd say he's a dead end. Come all the way over here to off twohookers and then his stepdaughter? I don't think so."

"He could have hired it done," Tippen offered.

"No," Quinn said. "This is cla.s.sic s.a.d.i.s.tic s.e.xual homicide. The killerhad his own agenda. He doesn't do it for money. He does it because hegets off on it."

Walsh pulled a nasty-looking handkerchief out of his pocket and staredinto it, contemplating a sneeze. "Leblanc is plenty p.i.s.sed off about theinquiries, and not being too cooperative. He says he'll releaseJillian's dental records-which will do us no good. He'll release any Xrays she's ever had taken, but that's it. He won't let the whole filego."

Kovac's face lit up. "Why is that? What's he trying to hide?"

"Maybe the fact that he had s.e.x with her, drove her to a suicideattempt, then had her committed," Liska offered, looking pleased to havescooped the boys. She filled them in on what she had learned fromMichele Fine.

"I also asked Fine to stop in and get fingerprinted so we can eliminateher prints from the ones found in Jillian's apartment. And, by the way,somebody definitely cleaned the place up over the weekend. Fine saysJillian was a slob. The place is way too clean and the friend says therewas no maid service."

"Maybe the killer was in her house that night," Adler speculated.

"Didn't want to leave any trace."

"I can see he'd wipe the place for prints," Elwood said. "But tidy up?

That doesn't make sense."

Quinn shook his head. "No. If he was there, he wouldn't have cleaned up.If anything, he would have made it worse as a sign of disrespect to hisvictim. He would have trashed the place, maybe urinated or defecatedsomewhere obvious."

"So, we got us another mystery," Kovac said. He turned to Liska again.

"You ran Fine through the system?"

"No wants, no warrants, no record. No boyfriend, she says, and I'dbelieve that. She says she and Jillian weren't lovers. There's a dope connection there somewhere. Small-time, I'd say."

"But it might be worth digging on," Moss said. "Lila White hadconnections too. One of them beat the snot out of her last fall."

"w.i.l.l.y Parrish," Kovac said. "He was a guest of the county at the timeof White's murder. Had no connection to Fawn Pierce."

"I also checked the guy White's parents blame for hooking her on drugsin the first place," Moss said. "A Glencoe local named Allan Ostertag.No convictions. Strictly small-time. Works as a salesman at his father'scar dealership. He can be accounted for all this last weekend."

"Jillian and Fine wrote music together," Quinn said, jotting himself anote. "What kind of music?"

"Folky alternative stuff," Liska said. "Man-hating female angstbulls.h.i.t, I'd guess from my impression of Fine. She's a real trip.Alanis Morissette with PMS."

"So where's the music?" Quinn asked. "I'd like to see it."

"Super G-man and talent scout on the side," Tippen remarked snidely.

Quinn cut him a look. "Music is personal, intimate. It reveals a lotabout the person who wrote it."

Liska's brow knitted as she thought. "I saw sheet music, like you'd buyin a store. I didn't see anything handwritten."

"See if the friend has copies," Kovac suggested.

"I will, but I think Vanlees is the direction we should be sniffing.

The guy's got a screw loose, and he fits John's preliminary profilepretty well."

"Criminal background?" Quinn asked.

"Nothing serious. A slew of parking tickets and a couple of misdemeanorsthree or four years ago. Trespa.s.s charges and a DUI-all spread out overa period of eighteen months or so."

"Trespa.s.s?" The word raised a flag in Quinn's mind. "Was that theoriginal charge or did he plead down from something else?"

"Final outcome."

"Dig deeper. A lot of Peeping Toms bargain down their first couple ofoffenses. They seem too pathetic to be worth charging out on a lowends.e.x crime. Check out the tickets too. Check the locations the tickets were issued in relation to the address of the trespa.s.s charges."

Tippen leaned toward Adler. "Yeah, we might have a serial weenie waggeron our hands."

"They all start somewhere, Tippen," Quinn said. "The Boston Stranglerstarted out looking in windows, jerking off, and some a.s.shole copshrugged that off too."

The detective started to come up out of his chair, "Hey, fu-"

"Put 'em back in your pants, guys," Kovac ordered. "We got no time toget out the yardstick. Tinks, find out if this mutt did his communityservice in the parks."

"And find out what kind of car he's driving," Quinn added.

"Will do. I made a point of telling him about the meeting tonight.

I'm betting he shows."

"Speaking of," Kovac said. "I want everyone there by seven-thirty.

We'll have surveillance units from the BCA and from narcotics pullingplate numbers off the cars in the parking lot. Yurek will be our masterof ceremonies. I want the rest of you in the crowd, and for G.o.d's sake,try not to look like cops."

"Except the cover boy," Tippen said, holding up a copy of the day's StarThbune with the headline FBIS Top Profiler on the Case. "You might gettwo headlines in a row, Slick."

Quinn frowned, reining in his temper, fighting the urge to put his fistin Tippen's mouth. Christ, he knew better than to let jerks like Tippenyank his chain. He'd dealt with a hundred of them in the last yearalone.

"I don't want a headline. I'll say a few words, but I'll keep it briefand I'll keep it vague."

"Just like you have with us?"

"What do you want me to tell you, Tippen? That the killer will bewearing one red shoe?"

"It'd be something. What the h.e.l.l have you given us so far for our taxdollars? An age range, the possible description of two vehicles the guymay or may not drive. That he slept with his mother and jacked off withp.o.r.no magazines? Big deal."

"It will be if you get a suspect. And I don't believe I ever saidanything about him sleeping with his mother."

"Tip reliving his childhood."

"f.u.c.k you, Chunk."

"Maybe," Quinn said, watching the homely sheriffs detective just to seehim twitch. "The UNSUB, that is. It's likely there was inappropriates.e.xual behavior both in the home in general and toward this manspecifically when he was a child. His mother was probably promiscuous,possibly a prost.i.tute. His father was a weak or absent figure.

Discipline was inconsistent, swinging from nonexistent to extreme.