"That also explains why no one saw any strange vehicles going in or out of The Meadows."
O'Malley leaned back in his chair. He looked troubled.
"You've got me believing this," he said. "But theories aren't proof. If it's Lake, how do we prove it with evidence that's admissible in court?"
Before anyone could answer, the door to O'Malley's office opened.
"Sorry to interrupt, Chief, but we just got a 911 that's connected to those women who disappeared. Do you have a suspect named Waters?"
"What's up?" Grimsbo asked.
"The caller said he talked with a guy named Henry Waters at the One Way Inn and Waters said he had a woman in his basement."
"Did the caller give a name?"
The officer shook his head. "Said he didn't want to get involved, but he kept thinking about the little kid who was murdered and his conscience wouldn't leave him alone."
"When did this conversation at the bar take place?" Nancy asked.
"A few days ago."
"Did Waters describe the woman or give any details?"
"Waters told him the woman had red hair."
"Patricia Cross," Turner said.
"This is Lake's doing," Nancy said. "It's too much of a coincidence."
"I'm with Nancy," Turner said. "Waters just doesn't figure."
"Can we take the chance?" Michaels asked. "With Lake, all we have is some deductive reasoning. We know Waters was around the Escalante residence near the time she disappeared and he has a sex offender record."
"I want you four out there pronto," O'Malley ordered. "I'd rather be wrong than sit here talking when we might be able to save one of those women."
Henry Waters lived in an older section of Hunter's Point.
Oak trees shaded the wide streets. High hedges gave the residents privacy. Most of the homes and lawns were well kept up, but Waters's house, a corner plot, was starting to come apart. The gutters were clogged. One of the steps leading up to the shaded front porch was broken. The lawn was overgrown and full of weeds.
The sun was starting to set when Nancy Gordon followed Wayne Turner and Frank Grimsbo along the slate walk toward Henry Waters's front door.
Michaels waited in the car in case he was needed to process a crime scene. Three uniformed officers were stationed behind the house in an alley that divided the large block. Two officers preceded the detectives up the walk and positioned themselves, guns drawn but concealed, on either side of the front door.
"We take it easy and we are polite," Turner cautioned. "I want his consent or the search and seizure issues could get sticky."
Everyone nodded. No one cracked a joke about Turner and law school, as they might have under other circumstances. Nancy looked back at the high grass in the front yard. The house was weather-beaten. The brown paint was chipping. A window screen was banging by one screw outside the front window. Nancy peeked through a crack between a drawn shade and the windowsill. No one was in the front room. They could hear a television playing somewhere toward the back of the house.
"He'll be less fearful if he sees a woman," Nancy said. Grimsbo nodded and Nancy pressed the doorbell.
She wore a jacket to conceal her holster. There had been some respite from the heat during the day, but it was still warm. She could feel a trickle of sweat work its way down her side.
Nancy rang the bell a second time and the volume of the TV lowered. She saw a vague shape moving down the hall through the semi-opaque curtain that covered the glassed upper half of the front door. When the door opened, Nancy pulled back the screen door and smiled.
The gangly, loose-limbed man did not smile back. He was dressed in jeans and a stained T-shirt. His long, greasy hair was unkempt. Waters's dull eyes fixed first on Nancy, then on the uniformed officers. His brow furrowed, as if he were working on a calculus problem. Nancy flashed her badge.
"Mr. Waters, I'm Nancy Gordon, a detective with the Hunter's Point P.D."
"I didn't do nothin'," Waters said defensively.
"I'm certain that's true," Nancy answered in a firm but friendly tone,
"but we received some information we'd like to check out. Would you mind if we came in?"
"Who is it?" a frail female voice called from the rear of the house.
"That's my mom," Waters explained. "She's sick."
"I'm sorry. We'll try not to disturb her."
"Why do you have to upset her? She's sick," Waters said, his anxiety growing.
"You misunderstood me, Mr. Waters. We are not going to bother your mother. We only want to look around.
May we do that? We won't be long."
"I ain't done nothin'," Waters repeated, his eyes shifting anxiously from Grimsbo to Turner, then to the uniformed officers. "Talk to Miss.
Cummings. She's my p.o. She'll tell you."
"We did talk to your probation officer and she gave you a very good report. She said you cooperated with her completely. We'd like your cooperation too. You don't want us to have to wait here while one of the officers gets a search warrant, do you?"
"Why do you have to search my house?" Waters asked angrily. The officers tensed. "Why the hell can't you leave me be? I ain't looked at that girl no more. I'm workin' steady. Miss. Cummings can tell you."
"There's no need to get upset," Nancy answered calmly. "The sooner we look around, the sooner we'll be out of your hair."
Waters thought this over. "What do you want to see?" he asked.
"The basement."
"There ain't nothin' in the basement," Waters said, seeming genuinely puzzled. '-Then we won't be here long," Nancy assured him.
Waters snorted. "The basement. You can see — all the basement you want.
Ain't nothin' but spiders in the basement."
Waters pointed down a dark hall that led past the stairs toward the rear of the house.
"Why don't you come with us, Mr. Waters. YOU Can show us around."
The hall was dark, but there was a light in the kitchen. Nancy saw a sink filled with dirty dishes and the remains of two TV dinners on a Formica-topped table.
The kitchen floor was stained and dirty. There was a solid wood door under the staircase next to the entrance to the kitchen. Waters opened it. Then his eyes widened and he stepped back. Nancy pushed past him.
The smell was so strong it knocked her back a step.
"Stay with Mr. Waters," Nancy told the officers. She took a deep breath and flicked the switch at the head of the stairs. There was nothing unusual at the bottom of the wooden steps. Nancy held her gun with one hand and the rickety railing with the other The smell of death grew stronger as she descended the stairs. Grimsbo and Turner followed. No one spoke.
Halfway down, Nancy crouched and scanned the basement. The only light came from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. She could see a furnace in one corner.
Odd pieces Of furniture, most with a broken look, were stashed against a wall surrounded by cartons of newspapers and old magazines. A back door opened into a concrete well at the back of the house near the alley.
Most of the corner near the door was in shadow, but Nancy could make out a human foot and a pool of blood.
"Fuck," she whispered, sucking air.
Grimsbo edged past her. Nancy followed close behind. She knew nothing in the basement could hurt her, but she was having trouble catching her breath. Turner aimed a flashlight at the corner and flicked it on.
"Jesus," he managed in a strangled voice.
The naked woman was sprawled on the cold concrete, swimming in blood and surrounded by an overpowering fecal smell. She had not been "killed" or murdered." She had been defiled and dehumanized.
Nancy could see patches of charred flesh where the skin was not stained with blood or feces. The woman's intestines had burst through a gaping hole in her abdomen.