Free On the Street Where you Live by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

was, in Lillian Madden’s opinion, the perfect person to work in a psychologist’s office. Breezy, matter-of-fact, unflappable, and naturally sympathetic, she had the gift of putting people at ease.
    â€œWhat about them am I not going to like?” Lillian Madden asked mildly as she reached for the notes on Joan’s somewhat cluttered desk.
    â€œThe prosecutor held a news conference, and in this past hour you’ve gotten calls about it from three of the most sensational tabloids in the country. Let me tell you why.”
    Lillian listened in startled silence as her secretary described the discovery of the ringed finger of another woman in Martha Lawrence’s skeletal hand, and the fact that Madeline Shapley, like Martha, had disappeared on September 7th.
    â€œSurely they don’t think that Martha was Madeline reincarnated and destined for the same terrible death?” Lillian demanded. “That would be absurd.”
    â€œThey didn’t ask that,” Joan Hodges said grimly. “They want to know if you think Madeline’s killer is the one who’s been reincarnated.” She looked up at Madden. “Come to think of it, Doctor, you can’t blame them for wondering that, can you?”

fifteen ________________
    A T TWO O’CLOCK, Tommy Duggan got back to his office, trailed by Pete Walsh. After the press conference ended, a team from the prosecutor’s office had begun poring over the Martha Lawrence file. Every detail, from the first phone call four and a half years ago reporting Martha missing, to the finding of her body, was being scrutinized and analyzed to see if anything had been overlooked.
    Osborne had put Tommy in charge of the investigation and made Pete Walsh his assistant. Walsh had been a police officer in Spring Lake for eight years before joining the prosecutor’s office two months ago.
    He also had been a member of the research team that had spent the night at the Hall of Records in the courthouse going through the dusty bins, searchingfor material relating to the disappearance of Madeline Shapley in 1891.
    It was Walsh who had suggested looking to see if there were any other reports of women missing around that time, and he had come up with the names of Letitia Gregg and Ellen Swain.
    Now Tom Duggan looked at Walsh with sympathy. “If I haven’t mentioned it before, you look like a chimney sweep,” he told him.
    Despite his efforts to clean up, dust and grime from the nightlong search were ground into Pete’s skin and clothes. His eyes were bloodshot and though he had the build of a linebacker, his shoulders were drooping with fatigue. At thirty, even with a hairline that was already receding, he looked to Tom like a tired kid.
    â€œWhy don’t you just go home, Pete?” he asked. “You’re asleep on your feet.”
    â€œI’m fine. You talked about phone calls you wanted to make. I’ll split them with you.”
    Tom shrugged. “Have it your way. The morgue will release Martha’s remains to the family later today. They’ve arranged for a funeral director to pick them up and take them to the crematorium. The immediate family will be there and will escort the urn with her ashes to the family mausoleum in St. Catherine’s cemetery. Just so you know, that information is not to be leaked to the public. The family wants it to be absolutely private.”
    Pete nodded.
    â€œBy now a spokesman for the family will have announced to the press that a memorial Mass willbe held for Martha on Saturday at St. Catherine’s.”
    Tommy was sure that most if not all of the people who had been at the party the night before Martha vanished would be in attendance at the Mass. He had already told Pete that he wanted to get them under the same roof somewhere and then question them individually. Inconsistencies in their recollections could be straightened out much faster if they were together—or perhaps