"Bradley, I'm not worried," she said. "I'll have you know I was Miss Chicago once."

Mike nodded. "Yeah, I could see it."

Mary smiled at him. "Thank you."

"Really, were you now?" Ian said. "I think I might recall Sean mentioning that to me."

She turned quickly towards Ian. "We really should discuss the case now," Mary interrupted. "Time's a wasting."

"Sean mentioned it to you?" Mike asked, suddenly more interested.

"Aye, let me see if I can remember exactly how he described it," Ian said with a grin. "But I recall the t.i.tle to be a wee bit different."

"No need to go into it," Mary said. "I'm actually embarra.s.sed that I brought it up. Please, let's just drop it and move on."

"Ah, now I have the memory of it," Ian said.

"Have a cookie, Ian," Mary said, standing up and reaching for a cookie from the plate in the middle of the table and shoving it at him, "something to keep your mouth busy."

"Come on, Mary," Mike said. "Out with it. It'll be better if you admit to it."

She plunked down on a chair and sighed. "Little Miss Irish Chicago," she said reluctantly. "I was three and I got to ride on a float in the St. Patrick's Day Parade."

"Aye, as charming and beautiful as a babe as you are now, obviously," Ian said.

"Yeah, what he said," Mike added. "Hot is as hot does."

"Well, wow, thank you so much," she said, smiling widely. "That is not the response I would have received from any of my brothers."

She turned to Bradley who hadn't said a word. "Well?" she asked.

He quickly shook his head. "What?" he replied, obviously distracted.

Sighing, Mary shrugged her shoulders. "Never mind."

"I'm sorry, Mary," he replied. "Once you mentioned that you were Miss Chicago, I pictured you in a bathing suit and I guess I kind forgot everything else."

She stood up, walked over and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Good answer," she replied. "Now let's get to work."

"Okay," Bradley said, still a little confused about what he missed during their conversation. "But before we get started I have to give you something."

He pulled out his wallet and handed both Mary and Ian a dollar bill.

"Did you owe me money I've forgotten?" Ian asked.

"What's this for?" Mary asked.

"You are now both paid consultants for the Freeport Police Department," he said. "So, in a court of law if you were asked, under oath, if you were paid consultants, you both can now say yes."

"Remind me never to be a paid consultant for that organization again," Ian said to Mary, looking at the single dollar bill. "b.l.o.o.d.y miserly if you ask me."

Mary laughed. "It's the most I've received from them so far," she said. "So, I'm not complaining."

"Okay," Bradley said, "now that you've made fun of my department, let's all compare notes. Mary, why don't you start with what you learned at Emil's home today?"

"Aye, before it went up in flames," Ian said.

She put the medical records and the shopping bag with the swim trunks in the middle of the table. She was saving the photo to give to Emil when he got out of prison.

"I spoke with Emil's mother. She told me that he had a condition called Kallmann Syndrome that basically prevented him from going into p.u.b.erty, in any way," she said. "There's a very good chance that physically he would have been unable to rape those boys and according to the research I've done this afternoon, even if he could physically he wouldn't have had the urge or drive to do it."

Ian picked up the records and flipped through them; while Mike looked over his shoulder and read along with him. "You know, I remember talking with the boys about how Emil seemed to be more like our friend than an adult," he said. "We used to wonder why he never had a beard."

"And so once his mother discovered the problem, she didn't start him on any hormone treatments?" Ian asked.

Mary shook her head. "No, she felt it was a blessing because Emil was a little mentally slow," she explained. "So, she wouldn't have to worry about that aspect of his life."

"Like dealing with a steer instead of a bull," Mike said. "Easier to control."

"Why wasn't this used in court?" Bradley asked. "This would have shut the case down, proved his innocence."

"From the little I read of the transcripts, once they had his confession, the overwhelming circ.u.mstantial evidence solidified his guilt and the defense was more concerned about keeping him from the death penalty than proving his innocence," Mary said. "But now we have Ronny."

Mike nodded. "Yeah, well, the MO was the same," he said. "Whatever b.a.s.t.a.r.d killed Timmy also killed Ronny. But Ronny's body was tossed in the lake, with a rock tied around his waist."

Mike took a deep breath. "From the positioning of his skeletal remains, I'd guess Ronny wasn't dead when he was tossed in. It looks like he spent a little time pulling on the rope to try and move the rock."

There was silence at the table for a few moments. Ian remembered the boy's innocent laugh and thought about the terror Ronny must have felt at the bottom on the lake. Rage filled his heart. He pushed his chair out and walked a few steps away from the table, turning away from the others. He knew he had to think about solving the case, concentrate on the how to help Ronny and the other boys.

"Hey, thanks for caring so much," Mike said softly, gliding over to stand next to Ian. "But try not to think about it too much. It was twenty years ago, and, take it from someone who knows. We move on."

Ian turned to Mike. "But that's the problem," he replied, "They haven't moved on. They've been stuck here, not understanding what happened to them. They've felt abandoned or frightened or lonely. Aye, it was twenty years ago, but to them, it was yesterday."

Mike shook his head. "You really shouldn't be in this type of business," he said. "You're way too soft and you care too much."

"Aye, and who's the one giving me advice?' Ian asked and then added fiercely. "I really want to get this guy, Mike."

"We will, Ian, because you're too soft and you care too much."

Chuckling, Ian nodded and turned back to the table. "So, who's on the new list of suspects?"

Chapter Thirty-six.

"This is what we know about the suspect," Mary said. "He's a male, anywhere from forty to eighty years in age. He's most likely a local because he was able to set Emil up. Although he denies it to his victims, he gets a thrill out of the murder as well as the s.e.xual abuse. He's probably a pedophile, because as far as we know all of his victims were children."

"If we look at the psychological profiling of a pedophile, especially a preferential s.a.d.i.s.tic child molester, we need to remember to look at these three factors; selection, abduction process and victimization ritual," Ian added.

"So, what does that mean?" Mike asked. "I mean there was no selection process, he found the kids and then he murdered them."

Ian nodded. "So, that means it was a random selection process. Not a well-planned, stalking situation, but someone who looks for opportunity."

"Wait, before we make any a.s.sumptions," Bradley interrupted, "we need to be sure there wasn't a pattern. Other than Ronny, who we believe was the first victim; do the other five boys have anything in common?"

"Well, I knew all of them, except for the kid from Freeport," Mike said.

"And did they know each other?" Mary asked.

After jotting down some notes, Bradley took all of the victim profiles and laid them on the table in front of Mike. Mike picked them up and studied them.

"Timmy and I went to school together," he said. "Robbie was a year older than us, but he rode the bus home with me, so he didn't know Timmy. Drew lived in Lena but went to a private school in Freeport, but I knew him from my Scout Troop. And Nick was on my Little League team."

"So, you knew all of the boys from Lena, but they didn't have connections with one another," Mary confirmed.

Slowly shaking his head, Mike looked at the profiles again. "I never realized that," he said.

"Well, of course you didn't," Ian said. "You were ten years old."

Bradley picked up the final profile and handed it to Mike. "This is the boy from Freeport," he said. "Maybe you forgot you knew him."

Mike reached out his hand for the paper, but shook his head. "The kid's name was Jeremiah; you'd think I'd remember that."

He looked down at the paper and froze. "JD?" he said slowly. "His name's not Jeremiah, it's JD and he was from my FFA group. He lived in Freeport, but we did some projects together."

"FFA?" Ian asked.

"Future Farmers of America," Mike explained, "all the farm kids went to it."

He shook his head. "I'm the connection," he said. "What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"Well, maybe nothing," Bradley said quickly. "But it gives us a focus."

"What else connects them?" Ian asked. "How about the times or the dates of their deaths?"

"They all happened during a school vacation," Mike said. "That's why it was so easy to convict Emil because he had all of those days off."

"You were supposed to be with Timmy on the day he was killed," Ian said, and then he added, "no guilt here, just trying to set up a situation."

Mike nodded.

"Okay," Ian continued, "how about those other boys. These dates mean anything special to you?"

"d.a.m.n, Ian, it was twenty years ago, and I'm dead," he complained. "I had a bad enough memory when I was alive."

Ian chuckled. "Come on, you still have some brains somewhere in there," he said. "Let's try it this way."

Ian picked up one of the pieces of paper. "April 1992," he said. "Spring break. You were ten years old. What was the weather like?"

"It was gorgeous outside," Mike growled. "The nicest spring on record. Flowers blooming, birds singing."

"How can you remember that?" Mary asked.

"Because I got chicken pox that year over spring break," he said. "Instead of going to Little League practice, I had to stay in bed for the whole week."

"Who walked with you to Little League, when you went?" Ian asked.

"Nick," he said. "We'd meet..."

His eyes went wide. "Nick disappeared during the time I had chicken pox."

"And Timmy disappeared when you stayed home and cleaned the chicken coop," Bradley said.

Mike grabbed the sheets again. "Drew...I went out of town with my mom, instead of going to the campout with the Scout Troop. Drew and I always stayed in the same tent, we always hiked together."

He picked up JD's paper. "County fair," he said. "The FFA was always in the same building, but there were tornado warnings, so Mom took me home. JD lived closer to the fairgrounds, so he got to stay."

"And I'll bet if we look back, we'll find a similar connection between you and Robbie," Bradley said.

"Selection process," Mike said, shaking his head. "I was part of his d.a.m.n selection process. Was I attracting him to the other boys?"

"But you were never there," Mary said. "You were always out of the picture. Never in harm's way."

"I was being protected," he said slowly. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was protecting me and going after my friends."

"Yeah," Ian said. "And now we only have to figure out who and why."

Chapter Thirty-seven.

Mary danced around the punching bag and threw a combination of upper cuts and jabs into its middle. She bounced back on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet and then moved forward again, taking her frustrations out on the leather bag.

"Hey, sister, slow down," Ernie said. "You need to work on technique, not just beating it to death."

Mary stepped back and took a deep breath. "Sorry, Ernie, but it felt good."