Gone, but not forgotten

Chapter Seven.

Something was definitely wrong with Gordon's story. It was like a book with a great plot and a flat ending. And there were inconsistencies. The way Gordon told it, she, Grimsbo and Turner were dedicated detectives.

If they were convinced Lake murdered six women and framed Waters, how could they simply let the case go? And why would Lake suddenly leave a thriving practice and disappear, if he thought he was in the clear? Had he ever followed up on his romantic interest in Gordon? She hadn't mentioned any contact after the night of Waters's arrest. Finally, there was the question Page had forgotten to ask. What about the women? Gordon had not told him what happened to the missing women.

While he waited for someone in the Hunter's Point Detective Bureau to pick up the phone, Page listed these points on a yellow legal pad.

Rolling black storm clouds were coming in from the west. Page was awfully tired of the rain. Maybe these clouds would give him a break and float across the city before dropping their load. Maybe they would leave a space for the sun to shine through when they left.

"Roy Lenzer."

Page laid his pen down on the pad.

"Detective Lenzer, I'm Alan Page, the Multnomah County district attorney. That's in Portland, Oregon."

"What can I do for you?" Lenzer asked cordially.

"Do you have a detective in your department named Nancy Gordon?"

"Sure, but she's on vacation. Won't be back for a week or so."

"Can you describe her?"

Lenzer's description matched the woman who had visited Page's apartment.

Is there something I can help you with?" he asked.

"Maybe. We have an odd situation here. Three women have disappeared. In each case, we found a note in the bedroom pinned down by a rose.

Detective Gordon told me she was involved with an identical case in Hunter's Point, approximately ten years ago."

"It seems to me I heard something about the case, but I've only been on the force for five years. Moved here from Indiana. So I wouldn't be much help."

"What about Frank Grimsbo or Wayne Turner? They were the other detectives."

"There's no Grimsbo or Turner in the department now."

Page heard a rumble of thunder and looked out the window. A flag on the building across the way was snapping back and forth. It looked like it might rip off the pole.

"I don't suppose there's any chance I can get a copy of the file. The guy who was eventually arrested was Henry Waters "W-A-T-E-R-S?"

"Right. He was shot resisting. I think there were six dead women. One of them was named Patricia Cross.

Then there was Melody Lake, a young girl, and Sandra Lake, her mother. I don't remember the names of the others."

"If this happened ten years ago, the file is in storage.

I'll get on it and let you know when I find it. What's your address and phone number?"

Page was telling them to Lenzer when Randy Highsmith, the chief criminal deputy, opened the door for William Tobias, the chief of police, and Ross Barrow, the detective in charge of the black rose case. Page motioned them into seats, then hung up.

"We may have a break in the case of the missing women, Page said. He started relating Gordon's version of the Hunter's Point case.

"Before the body was found at Waters's house, the chief suspect was Peter Lake, a husband of one of the victims," Page concluded. "There was enough circumstantial evidence to raise the possibility that Lake framed Waters. Shortly after the case was officially closed, Lake disappeared.

"Two days ago, Gordon received an anonymous note with the words' women in Portland, Oregon are "Gone, But Not Forgotten." The first letter in each word was capitalized, just the way our boy does it. Enclosed was a photograph of Martin Darius leaving a motel room. Martin Darius may be Peter Lake. Gordon thinks he's our killer."

"I know Martin Darius," Tobias said incredulously.

"Everyone knows Darius," Page said, "but how much do we know about him?"

Page pushed the photograph of Darius and the newspaper with lake's picture across the desk. Barrow, Tobias and Highsmith huddled over them.

"Boy," Highsmith said, shaking his head.

"I don't know, Al," Tobias said. "The news photo isn't that clear."

"Gordon left me Lake's prints for comparison. Can you run them, Ross?"

Barrow nodded and took the print card from Page.

"I'm having a hard time buying this," Tobias said.

"I'd like to talk to your detective."

"Let me call her in. I'd like you to hear her tell the story," Page said, not revealing his doubts, because he wanted them to have an open mind when they heard Gordon.

Page dialed the number for the Lakeview Motel. He asked to be connected with Gordon's room, then leaned back while the desk clerk rang it.

"She's not? Well, this is very important. Do you know when she left? I see. Okay, tell her to call Alan Page as soon as she gets back."

Page left his number and hung up. "She checked in last night around one, but she's not in now. It's possible she's having breakfast."

"What do you want to do, Al?" Highsmith asked.

"I'd like a twenty-four-hour surveillance on Darius, in case Gordon is right."

"I can do that," Barrow said.

"Make sure you use good people, Ross. I don't want Darius to suspect we're watching him.

"Randy, run a background check on Darius. I want his life story as quickly as you can get it."

Highsmith nodded.

"As soon as Gordon calls, I'll get back to you."

Highsmith led Tobias and Barrow out of the office and closed the door.

Page thought of dialing the Lakeview again, but it was too soon after the first call. He swiveled toward the window. It was pouring.

Why hadn't he spotted the flaws in Gordon's story last night? Was it Gordon? She seemed barely in control, on edge, as if electrical charges were coursing through her. He could not take his eyes off her when she talked.

It was not a physical attraction. Something else drew him to her. Her passion, her desperation. Now that she was out of sight, he could think more clearly. When she was near him, she created a disturbance in the field, like the lightning flashing over the river.

Betsy scanned the restaurant for single women as she followed the hostess between a row of tables. She noticed a tall, athletic woman wearing a bright yellow blouse and a navy blue suit seated in a booth against the wall, As Betsy drew near, the woman stood up.

"You must be Nora Sloane," Betsy said as they shook hands. Sloane's complexion was pale. So were her blue eyes. She wore her chestnut-colored hair short. Betsy noticed a few gray streaks, but she guessed they were about the same age.

"Thank you for meeting me, Mrs. Tannenbaum."

"It's Betsy and you're a good saleswoman. When you called this morning and mentioned a free lunch, you hooked me."

Sloane laughed. "I'm glad you're this easy, because a free lunch is about all you're going to get out of me. I'm writing this article on spec. I got the idea when I covered your suit against the anti-abortion protestors for the Arizona Republic.

"You're from Phoenix?"

"New York, originally. My husband got a job in Phoenix. We separated a year after we moved. I was never crazy about Arizona, especially with my ex living there, and I fell in love with Portland while I was covering your case. So, a month ago I quit my job and moved.

I'm living on savings and looking for a job and I decided now was as good a time as any to write this article. I ran the idea by Gloria Douglas, an editor at Pacific West magazine, and she's definitely interested. But she wants to see a draft of the article before she commits."

"What exactly will the article cover?"

"Women litigators. And I want to use you and your cases as the centerpiece."

"I hope you're not going to make too much of me."

"Hey, don't get bashful on me," Sloane said with a laugh. "Until recently, women attorneys were relegated to the probate department or handled divorces. Stuff that was acceptable as 'woman's work." My whole point is that you're at the vanguard of a new generation of women who are trying murder cases and getting million-dollar verdicts in civil cases. Areas that have traditionally been m-ale-dominated."

"It sounds interesting."

"I'm glad you think so, because people want to read about you. You're really the hook for the article.

"What will I have to do?"

"Not much. Mostly, it will be talking to me about Hammermill and your other cases. On occasion, I may want to tag -along when you go to court."

"That sounds okay. I think talking through my cases might help me put them in perspective. I was so close to what was happening when they were going on."

The waiter arrived. Sloane ordered a Caesar salad and a glass of white wine. Betsy ordered yellowfin tuna on pasta, but passed on the wine.

"What did you want to do today?" Betsy asked, as soon as the waiter left.

"I thought we'd go over some background material. I read the piece in the Times, but I felt it was superficial. It didn't tell me what made you the way you are today. For instance, were you a leader in high school?"

Betsy laughed. "God, no. I was so shy. A real gawk."

Sloane smiled. "I can understand that. You were tall, right? I had the same problem."

"I towered over everyone. In elementary school, I walked around with my eyes down and my shoulders hunched, wishing I could disappear. In junior high, it got worse, because I had these Coke-bottle glasses and braces.

I looked like Frankenstein."

"when did you start to feel self-confident?"

"I don't know if I ever feel that way. I mean, I know I do a good job, but I always worry I'm not doing enough.

But I guess it was my senior year in high school that I started believing in myself I was near the top of my class, the braces were gone, my folks got me contacts and boys started noticing me. By the time I graduated Berkeley I was much more outgoing."

"You met your husband in law school, didn't you?"

Betsy nodded. "We're separated, now."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Betsy shrugged. "I really don't want to talk about my personal life.

Will that be necessary?"

"Not if you don't want to. I'm not writing this for the Enquirer.

"Okay, because I don't want to discuss Rick."

"I understand you one hundred percent. I went through the same thing in Phoenix. I know bow difficult it can be. So, let's move on to something else."

The waiter arrived with their food and Sloane asked Betsy some more questions about her childhood while they ate.

"You didn't go into private practice right out of law school, did you?"

Sloane asked after the waiter cleared their plates.

"No."

"Why not? You've done so well at it."

"That's been all luck," Betsy answered, blushing slightly. "I never thought of going out on my own, back then. My law school grades were all right, but not good enough for a big firm. I worked for the attorney general doing environmental law for four years. I liked the job, but I quit when I became pregnant with Kathy."

"How old is she?"

"Six.

"How did you get back into law?"

"I was bored sitting home when Kathy started preschool. Rick and I talked it over and we decided I would practice out of our home, so I would be there for Kathy.

Margaret McKinnon, a friend of mine from law school, let me use her conference room to meet clients. I didn't have much of a caseload. A few court-appointed misdemeanors, some simple divorces. just enough to keep me busy.

"Then Margaret offered me a windowless office about the size of a broom closet, rent free, in exchange for twenty hours of free legal work each month. I agonized over that, but Rick said it was okay. He thought it would be good for me to get out of the house, as long as I kept my caseload low enough to pick up Kathy at day care and stay home with her if she got sick. You know, still be a mom. Anyway, it worked out fine and I started picking up some felonies and a few contested divorces that paid better."

"The Peterson case was your big break, right?"

"Yeah. One day I was sitting around without much to do and the clerk who assigns court-appointed cases asked me if I'd represent Grace Peterson.

I didn't know much about the battered woman's syndrome, but I remembered seeing Dr. Lenore Walker on a TV talk show. She's the expert in this area. The court authorized the money and Lenore came out from Denver and evaluated Grace. It was pretty horrible, what her husband did. I'd led a sheltered life, I guess. No one where I grew up did things like that."

"No one you knew about."

Betsy nodded sadly. "No one I knew about. Anyway, the case attracted a lot of publicity. We had the support of some women's groups and the press was behind us. After the acquittal, my business really picked up.

Then Andrea hired me because of the verdict in Grace's case."

The waiter arrived with their coffee. Sloane looked at her watch. "You said you had a one-thirty appointment, didn't you?"

Betsy glanced at her own watch. "Is it one-ten already? I really got wrapped up in this."

"Good. I was hoping you'd be as excited about the project as I am."

"I am. Why don't you call me and we can talk again soon.

"Great. I'll do that. And thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it."

Randy Highsmith shook the rain off his umbrella and laid it on the floor under the dashboard as Alan Page drove out of the parking garage. The umbrella hadn't helped much in the gusting rain and Highsmith was cold and wet.

Highsmith was slightly overweight, studious-looking, a staunch conservative and the best prosecutor in the office, Page included. While earning a law degree from Georgetown he'd fallen in love with Patty Archer, a congressional aide. He then fell in love with Portland when he traveled there to meet Patty's family. When her congressman decided not to run for reelection, the newlyweds moved west, where Patty opened a political consulting firm and Randy was snapped up by the office of the Multnomah County district attorney.

"Tell me about Darius," Page said as they got on the freeway.

"He moved to Portland eight years ago. He had money to start with and borrowed on his assets. Darius made his name, and increased his fortune, by gambling on the revitalization of downtown Portland. His first big success was the Couch Street Boutique. He bought a block of dilapidated buildings for a song, converted them to an indoor mall, then changed the area surrounding the boutique into the trendiest section in Portland by leasing renovated buildings to upscale shops and restaurants at low rents. As business increased, so did the rents. The upper floors of a lot of the buildings were converted to condos. That's been his pattern.

Buy up all the buildings in a slum area, set up a core attraction, then build around it. Recently he's branched out into suburban malls, apartment complexes, and so on.

"Two years ago, Darius married Lisa Ryder, the daughter of Oregon Supreme Court justice Victor Ryder.

Ryder's old firm, Parish, Marquette and Reeves, handles his legal work.

I talked to a few friends over there in confidence. Darius is brilliant and unscrupulous. Half the firm's energy is spent keeping him honest.

The other half is spent defending lawsuits when they fail."

"What's 'unscrupulous' mean? Law violations, ethics, what?"

"Nothing illegal. But he has his own set of rules and a total disregard for the feelings of others. For instance, earlier this year he bought up a street of historically significant houses over in the Northwest, so he could tear them down and build town houses. There were several citizen groups up in arms. They got a temporary injunction and were trying to get the houses landmark status. A smart young lawyer at Parish, Marquette convinced the judge to drop the injunction. Darius moved bulldozers in at night and leveled the block before anyone knew what was going on.

"A guy like that must have done something illegal."

"The closest I've got is a rumor that he's friendly with Manuel Ochoa, a Mexican businessman who the D.E.A. thinks is laundering money for a South American drug cartel. Ochoa may be lending Darius money for a big project downstate that was risky enough to scare off some of the banks."

"What about his past?" Page asked as they drove the parking lot of the Lakeview Motel. into "Doesn't have one, which makes sense if he's Lake."

"Did you check newspaper stories, profiles?"

"I did better than that. I spoke to the Oregonian's top business reporter. Darius does not give interviews about his private life. For all anyone knows, he was born eight years ago."

Page pulled into a parking spot in front of the motel office. The dashboard clock read five twenty-six.

"Stay here. I'll see if Gordon's back."

"Okay. But there's one other thing you should know." Page waited with the car door half-open. "We've got a link between our missing women and Darius."

Page closed the door. Highsmith smiled.

"I saved the best for last. Tom Reiser, the husband of Wendy Reiser, works for Parish, Marquette. He's the lawyer who convinced the judge to drop the injunction. Last Christmas, the Reisers attended a party at the Darius estate. This summer, they were invited to a bash to celebrate the opening of a mall, two weeks before the disappearances started. Reiser has had numerous business dealings with Darius.

"Larry Farrar's accounting firm has Darius Construction for a client. He and Laura Farrar were at the party for the mall opening too. He's done a lot of work for Darius.

"Finally, there's Victoria Miller. Her husband, Russell, works for Brand, Gates and Valcroft. That's the advertising firm. that represents Darius Construction.

Russell was just put in charge of the account. They've been on Darius's yacht and to his house. They were also at the mall opening party."

"That's unbelievable. Look, I want a list of the women at that party.

We've got to alert Bill Tobias and Barrow."

"I already have. They're putting a second team on Darius."

"Good work. Gordon could be the key to wrapping this up."

Highsmith watched Page duck into the manager's office. A chubby man in a plaid shirt was standing behind the counter. Page showed the manager his i.d. and asked him a question. Highsmith saw the manager shake his head.

Page said something else. The manager disappeared into a back room and reappeared in a raincoat. He grabbed a key from a book on the wall.

Page followed the manager outside and gestured to Highsmith.

Highsmith slammed the car door and raced under the protection afforded by the second-floor landing.

Gordon's room was around the side of the motel on the ground floor. He arrived just as the manager knocked on the door and called out Gordon's name. There was no answer. A window faced into the parking lot. The green drapes were closed. There was a "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging from the doorknob.

"Miss. Gordon," the manager called again. They waited a minute and he shrugged. "She hasn't been in all day, as far as I know."

"Okay," Page said, 'let us in."

The manager opened the door with his key and stood aside. The room was dark, but someone had left the bathroom light on and it cast a pale glow over the empty room. Page flipped the light switch and looked around the room. The bed was undisturbed. Gordon's tan valise lay open on a baggage stand next to the dresser.

Page walked into the bathroom. A toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and makeup were set out on the bathroom counter. Page pulled back the shower curtain. A bottle of shampoo rested on a ledge. Page stepped out of the bathroom.

"She unpacked in here. There's a shampoo bottle in the bathtub. It's not a motel sample. Looks like she was planning to take a shower."

"Someone interrupted her," Highsmith said, pointing at a half-opened dresser drawer. Some of Gordon's clothes lay in it, while others remained in the valise.

"she had a briefcase with her when we talked at my place. Do you see it?"

The two men searched the room, but they did not find the briefcase.

"Look at this," Highsmith said. He was standing next to the night table.

Page looked at a notepad with the motel logo that was next to the phone.

"Looks like directions. An address."

"Let's not touch it. I want a lab tech to dust the room. Treat it as a crime scene, until we know better."

"There's no sign of a struggle."

"There wasn't any at the homes of the missing women, either."

Highsmith nodded. "I'll call from the manager's office, in case there are prints on the phone."

"Do you have any idea where this is?" Page asked, as he reread the notes on the' pad.

Highsmith's brow furrowed for a moment, then he frowned. "As a matter of fact, I do. Remember I told you about the houses Darius bulldozed?

This sounds like the address."

"What's there now?"

"A block-wide empty lot. As soon as the neighbors saw what Darius did, they went nuts. There have been protests, lawsuits. Darius went -ahead with construction anyway and had three units built, but someone torched them. Construction's been halted ever since."

"I don't like this. How would anyone know where Where Gordon was? I'm the one who suggested the Lakeview "She could have phoned someone."

"No. I asked the manager. There weren't any outgoing calls. Besides, she doesn't know anyone in Portland.

That's why she came to my place. She 'assumed the person who sent her the anonymous letter would meet her at the airport, but no one showed. A clipping about me and my address were in with the note. If she knew anyone else, she would have spent the night with them."

"Then someone must have followed her from the airport to your place and from your place here."

"That's possible."

"What if that person waited until she was in the room, then phoned Gordon and asked her to come to the construction site."

"Or came here and talked Gordon into going with him or took her by force."

"Gordon's a detective," Highsmith said. "I mean, you'd think she would have enough sense to be careful."

Page thought about Gordon. Her edge, the tension in her body.

"she's driven, Randy. Gordon told me she stayed a cop so she could track down Lake. She's been on this case for ten years and she dreams about it. Gordon's smart, but she might not be smart where this case is concerned.

The building site was larger than Page imagined. The houses Darius had destroyed were built along a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. The land included a steep wooded hill that angled down toward the water. A high, chain link fence surrounded the property. A "Darius Construction-Absolutely No Trespassing" sign was fastened to the fence.

Page and Highsmith huddled under their umbrellas, the collars of their raincoats turned up around their cheeks, and studied the padlock on the gate.

The moon was full, but storm clouds scudded across it with great frequency. The heavy rain made the night as dark as it would have been with no moon.

"What do you think?" Highsmith asked.

"Let's walk along the fence to see if there's another entrance. There's no sign she came in here."

"These are new shoes," Highsmith complained.

Page started off along the periphery without answering. The ground had been stripped bare of grass during construction. Page felt the mud oozing around his shoes.

He peered through the fence as he walked, occasionally shining his flashlight inside the site. Most of the land was empty and flat where the bulldozers had done their work.

"Al, bring your- light here," Highsmith shouted.

He was pointing at a section of fence that had been cut and folded back.

Page ran over. He turned away for a second and clutched his collar closer to his neck.

"Look at this," Page said. He was standing under an ancient oak tree pointing the flashlight beam toward the ground. Tire tracks had gouged out the ground where they were standing. The canopy formed by the leaves covered the tracks. Page and Highsmith followed them away from the fence.

"Someone drove off the road across the field in this mud," Page said.

"Not necessarily tonight, though."

The tracks stopped at the street and disappeared.

The rain would have washed away the mud from the asphalt.

"I think the driver backed up to the fence, Al.

There's no sign that he turned around."

"Why back up? Why drive over to the fence at all and risk getting stuck in the mud?"

"What's in the back of a car?"

Page nodded, imagining Nancy Gordon folded in the confined space of a car trunk.

"Let's go," he said, heading back toward the hole in the fence. In his heart, Page knew she was down there, buried in the soft earth.

Highsmith followed him through. As he ducked, he snagged his coat on a jagged piece of wire. By the time he freed himself, Page was well ahead, obscured by the darkness, only the wavering beam of the flashlight showing his location.

"Do you see any tracks?" Highsmith asked when he caught up.

"Look out!" Page cried, grabbing Highsmith by his coat. Highsmith pulled up. Page shone his light down.

They were on the edge of a deep pit that had been gouged out of the earth for a foundation. Muddy walls sloped down toward the bottom, which was lost in darkness. Suddenly the moon appeared, bathing the bottom of the pit in a pale glow. The uneven surface cast shadows over rocks and mounds of dirt.

"I'm going down," Page said, as he went over the rim. He edged along the wall of the pit sideways, leaning into the slope and digging in with the sides of his shoes.

Halfway down, he slipped to one knee and slid along the smooth mud, stopping his descent by grabbing a protruding root. The root had been severed by a bulldozer blade.

The end came free of the mud, but Page slowed enough to dig in and stop his slide.

"You okay?" Highsmith called into the wind.

"yeah. Randy, get down here. Someone's been digging recently."

Highsmith swore, then started edging down the slope. When he reached the bottom, Page was wandering slowly over the muddy ground, studying everything that entered the beam of his flashlight. The ground looked as if it had been turned over recently. He examined it as closely as he could in the dark.

The wind died suddenly and Page thought he heard a sound. Something slithering in the shadows just out of his line of sight. He tensed, trying to hear above the wind, peering helplessly into the darkness.

When he convinced himself he was the victim of his imagination, he turned around and shone the light near the base of a steel girder. Page straightened suddenly and took a step back, catching his heel on a timber half-concealed in the mud.

He stumbled and the flashlight fell, its I)earn fanning out over the rain-soaked earth, catching something white in the light. A rock or a paper cup. Page knelt quickly and recovered the flashlight. He walked over to the object and squatted next to it. His breath caught in his chest.

Protruding from the earth was a human hand.

The sun was just coming up when they dug the last body out of the ground. The horizon took on a scarlet tinge as two officers lifted the corpse onto a stretcher. Around them, other officers walked slowly over the muddy floor of the construction site in search of more graves, but the area had been scoured so thoroughly that no one expected to find one.

A prowl car perched on the edge of the pit. The door on the driver's side was open. Alan Page sat in the front seat with one foot on the ground, holding a paper cup filled with scalding, black coffee, trying not to think about Nancy Gordon and thinking of nothing else.

Page rested his head against the back of the seat. As the darkness retreated, the river began taking on dimension. Page watched the flat black ribbon turn liquid and turbulent in the red dawn. He believed Nancy Gordon was in the pit, buried under layers of mud. He wondered if there was something he could have done to save her.

He imagined Gordon's frustration and rage when she died at the hands of the man she had sworn to stop.

The rain had ended shortly after the first police car arrived. Ross Barrow took charge of the crime scene, after consulting with the lab techs about the best way to handle the evidence. Floodlights shone down on the workers from the rim of the pit. Designated search areas were fenced off with yellow tape. Sawhorses had been erected as barriers against the curious. As soon as Page was certain Barrow could get along without him, he and Highsmith had grabbed a quick dinner at a local restaurant. By the time they returned, Barrow had positively identified Wendy Reiser's body and an officer had located a second grave.

Through the windshield, Page watched Randy Highsmith trudge toward the car. He had been in the pit observing while Page took a break.

"That's the last one," Highsmith said.

"What have we got?"

"Four bodies and positive ids on Laura Farrar, Wendy Reiser and Victoria Miller."

"Were they killed like Patricia Cross?"

"I didn't look that closely, Al. To tell the truth, I almost lost it.

Dr. Gregg is down there. She can give you the straight scoop when she comes up."

Page nodded. He was used to dealing with the dead, but that didn't mean he liked looking at a corpse any more than Highsmith.

"What about the fourth woman?" Page asked hesitantly. "Does she match my description of Nancy Gordon?"

"It's not a woman, Al."

"what!"

"It's an adult male, also naked, and his face and fingertips were burned away with acid. We'll be lucky to identify him."

Page saw Ross Barrow slogging through the mud and got out of the car.

"You're not stopping, Ross'?" '-There's nothing more down there. You can look if you want."

"I was sure that Gordon… It doesn't make sense.

She wrote the address."

"Maybe she met someone here and left with them," Barrow suggested,

"We didn't find any footprints," Highsmith reminded him. "She may not have found a way in."

"Did you find anything down there that'll help us figure out who did this?"

"Not a thing, Al. I'm guessing all four were killed elsewhere and transported here."

"Why's that?"

"Some of the bodies are missing organs. We haven't found them or any pieces of bone or excess flesh. No one could clean the area that thoroughly."

"Do you think we have enough to arrest Darius?

Page asked Highsmith.

"Not without Gordon or some solid evidence from Hunter's Point."

"What if we don't find her?" Page asked anxiously.

"In a pinch, you could swear to what she told you.

We might get a warrant out of a judge with that. She's a cop. She'd be reliable. But, I don't know. With something like this, we shouldn't rush."

"And we don't really have a solid connection between Darius and the victims," Barrow added. "Finding them at a site owned by Darius Construction doesn't Mean a thing. Especially when it's deserted and anyone could have gotten in."

"Do we know if Darius is Lake?" Page asked Barrow.

"Yeah. The prints match."

"Well, that's something," Highsmith said. "If we can get a match between those tire tracks and one of Darius's cars…"

"And if we can find Nancy Gordon," Page said, staring into the pit. He desperately wanted Gordon to be alive, but he had been in the business of violent death and lost hopes too long to grasp at straws.