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said.
           Shannon placed the bus schedules in an evidence bag. He helped DiGrazia move the sofa. Underneath it they found more hardcore magazines, this collection even more sordid than the ones Shannon had already found.
           In the back of the closet they found a shirt splattered with blood droplets. A sick, weary feeling hit Shannon as he looked at it. He could see DiGrazia’s jaw muscles tightening. They put the shirt in a separate evidence bag.
           Wendy Soretti protested. “You got no right taking my brother’s possessions,” she croaked as if her voice was squeezed out of her.
           “Read the warrant.” DiGrazia said.
    * * * * *
           When they were done, they left the apartment and stood by the curb. Shannon could see Roper’s sister peering at them from the window. He lit a cigarette and offered his partner one. The cold air felt good against his face, the cigarette smoke helped erase the stale smell of urine that lingered from Roper’s apartment.
           “Any reason we shouldn’t settle on this freak?” DiGrazia asked.
           “I don’t see any,” Shannon said. He took a long drag on his cigarette and held it in for a good ten-count. He studied the smoke as he let it out. “Let’s say he took the five-twenty bus to Somerville, he would’ve gotten to the Indian restaurant about the time Janice Rowley did. And if he’d been scouting for empty buildings in Cambridge he’d know where to dump her. Later, he takes a bus home. It seems to fit.”
           “What do we do now, sweat him some more?”
           “Let’s talk with Brady.”
           DiGrazia laughed sourly. “A lot of good that’s going to do us. It’s nine o’clock. Our boss has long been home with the wife and kiddies.”
    * * * * *
           They ended up catching Brady in the police parking lot. Brady, his soft features bleary with fatigue, complained that the abduction story given to the press had forced him to work well into the night. Shannon and DiGrazia listened sympathetically and then filled him in on what they had found.
           “You’ll test the blood on the shirt.”
           Shannon nodded.
           “He’s an auto mechanic,” Brady added. “He’s going to cut himself on the job. The blood could easily be his.”
           “It’s possible. What do you want us to do?”
           Brady let loose a tired sigh. “Try and get him to talk. If the blood type matches the victim’s, then arrest him.”
           “What about a door-to-door search?”
           “It’s nine-twenty. I’m not going to wake up half the city now. Check the blood type, talk to Roper. If we still haven’t located the victim by morning, we can talk more about a door-to-door search.”
           Brady gave his officers a curt nod and wished them luck.
    * * * * *
           John Roper looked uneasily at the porn mags that had been dumped on the table in front of him. “They’re not mine,” he said.
           “What were they doing in your room?”
           “I don’t know.”
           “Your brother-in-law storing them down there, is that it, John?”
           “I don’t know. Maybe.”
           “What is it, John, yes or no?”
           “I don’t know. There’s no law against having them, is there?”
           DiGrazia smiled thinly. “No, there isn’t. But I thought you were being chemically castrated. What the fuck use do you have for these magazines?”
           “They’re not mine.”
           “You’re lying, John. You think we’re fucking idiots?”
           Roper didn’t say anything.
           “You still like hurting women, don’t you, John?”
           “No.”
           “You at least like looking at pictures of them being hurt.”
           “I told you those aren’t mine—”
           “John,” Shannon asked,