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“He trolls the craft shops.” Again, Eve crossed the park, her focus on the castle. “Why does a guy like that troll the craft shops?”

“He could have spotted them somewhere else, followed them there.”

“No. Two women, their only known connection a hobby. One dead, one missing and presumed. I guarantee you when we finish with Nadine and go talk to Breen Merriweather’s baby-sitter, we’re going to find she did crafts. We’re going to find she bought supplies, at one time or another, from Total Crafts, or one of the other locations either Maplewood or Kates used. He sees them there, they fit his requirements. He stalks them, studies them.”

She tucked her thumbs in her pockets. “Then he lays in wait and takes them. If he did Kates, he almost certainly had to have his own transpo. There’s nowhere between the restaurant and the apartment where he could have raped, murdered, mutilated her, then hid the body. He had to do a snatch and grab, then take her somewhere.”

“If we’re right about Kates, then he changed his method for Maplewood.”

Eve shook her head. “Not changed. Perfected. Kates was one of his trial runs. Might have been more before her. Sidewalk sleepers, runaways, junkies, whatever. Someone who wouldn’t get reported missing, or was reported months before the grab. He had it down to a science when he killed Elisa Maplewood. He might have been working up to that for years.”

“Happy thought.”

“They represent somebody: mother, sister, lover, a woman who rejected him, refused him, abused him. Dominant female figure.”

Why, she wondered, did the twisted tree of a murderer so often go back to the mother root? Did the gestation and birthing process come with the power to nurture or destroy?

“When we get him,” Eve continued, “it’s going to come out that she—this symbol—knocked him around or boo-hoo broke his heart or made him feel weak and helpless. So his defense lawyers will come along saying: Oh, he was damaged, poor sick son of a bitch. He’s not responsible. And that’s a pile of shit, that’s a big, smelly pile of bullshit. Because nobody’s responsible for choking the life out of Elisa Maplewood but him. Nobody.”

Peabody let the rant run, waited until she was sure it was over. “Preaching to the choir.”

Eve drew it back in. “Yeah. Where the hell is Nadine? She doesn’t show in five, we cancel. We need to follow up on Merriweather.”

“We’re a couple minutes early.”

“I guess we are.” Eve sat on the grass, drew her knees up, and studied the castle. “You ever skip around parks when you were a kid?”

“Sure.” Glad the storm had passed, Peabody sat beside her. “Free-Agers, you know. I was a regular nature girl. You?”

“No. Couple of stints in what you could call summer camp.” Run by state-hired Nazis, Eve thought, who regulated every breath. “This one’s not so bad. You know it’s still in the city, so it’s okay.”

“Not looking to make nature girl?”

“Nature’ll kill you, just for the hell of it.”

Eve glanced over and watched Nadine and her camera operator crossing to them. “Why would she wear those skinny heels when she knew she’d be hiking over grass?”

“Because they’re jazzed, and make her legs look mag.”

Eve supposed everything about Nadine looked mag, from her sweep of streaky blonde hair to the toes of her jazzed shoes. She had a foxy, angular face, observant green eyes, and a slim body that curved appropriately in her on-camera suit of power red.

She was smart, she was sneaky, she was cynical.

And for reasons Eve imagined neither of them fully understood, they’d become friends.

“Dallas. Peabody. Don’t you two look relaxed and pastoral. Why don’t you set up there?” She gestured to the camera. “I want the castle in the background. You got any real juice,” she said to Eve, “I can take this live.”

“No. And we’re keeping it short. We could even say pithy.”

“Pithy it is.” Nadine took out a small compact to check her face, lifted a paper-thin sponge and dabbed her nose. “Who’s leading off?”

“She is.” Eve jerked a thumb at Peabody.

“I am?”

“Let’s get to it.” Nadine nodded to the camera, angled her body. Gave