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whether you left the house or not on those nights.”
    “I didn’t leave the house,” he insisted. “I slept in my office.”
    Following a glance from Stride, Maggie slipped three photographs out of a large manila envelope. She pushed them across the table to Malville, who winced as he saw them.
    “You probably saw these photographs of the victims in the newspaper or on television,” she said. “The killer sent them to the media electronically.”
    “Did you trace the e-mails?” Malville asked.
    “We’re working on that,” Stride said.
    “My people may be able to help you. My engineers deal with those kinds of issues all the time.”
    “So I suppose people working at your company would know how to defeat those traces, too?” Stride asked.
    Malville frowned. “I suppose.”
    “Does that include you?”
    “Yes,” he admitted.
    Maggie leaned across the table. “Do you recognize the clothes that the women are wearing in these photographs, Mr. Malville?”
    His head cocked in surprise. “The clothes? No, of course not.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “How could I recognize the clothes? These women were strangers to me.”
    “That’s not an answer,” Maggie said.
    Malville sighed and pulled the photographs of the dead faces closer with his hand, touching only the edges of the paper. He studied the fringe of the blouses that were visible on their necks.
    “No,” he said.
    “You’re sure?”
    He rubbed his hands over his face. “Look, I don’t know, Alison may have some tops that are similar. I’m a man. I don’t pay attention. Is that what this is about? These women are redheads with a similar taste in clothes to my wife? If that’s all it is, then I don’t appreciate your exploiting my wife’s fragile mental condition. She’s seeing things that aren’t there.”
    Maggie looked at Stride, who nodded. “Your wife says these are her clothes,” she said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Her blouses. Taken from her closet.”
    “That’s ridiculous. She probably misplaced them. Or they’re at the dry cleaner. I can’t find my favorite pair of jeans, but that doesn’t mean a killer stole them.”
    “Each of the victims was also dabbed with perfume. It’s your wife’s perfume. I recognized it when I met her.”
    “I’m sure lots of women wear her fragrance.”
    “Did you know that a knife is missing from your kitchen?” Stride asked. “A large carving knife?”
    “No.”
    “Your wife says she noticed it missing around the time of the first murder.”
    “She never mentioned it.”
    “You see the problem we’re having, don’t you, Mr. Malville?” Stride asked. “We’re searching your car right now. Soon we’ll search your house and your office. Are we going to find that knife?”
    Malville was silent.
    “Speaking of your car,” Stride added, “your wife checked the mileage on your odometer before she went to bed the night before last. That was the night that Sherry Morton was killed.”
    “So?”
    “So she checked the car in the morning, and it had been driven thirty miles overnight.”
    “What?”
    “Thirty miles happens to be almost the exact round trip distance between your house and Sherry Morton’s apartment.”
    “You’re lying. I don’t believe it. Alison didn’t say anything like that.”
    Stride and Maggie stared at him, letting the truth sink into his mind.
    “Look at the evidence, Mr. Malville,” Stride went on. “Your wife’s clothes go missing and wind up on the bodies of three dead women. A knife goes missing from inside your house. Your car is driven thirty miles on the night of one of the murders. Can you think of any explanation for what we’ve found? Anything that doesn’t point to you as the man who killed these women?”
    Malville grimaced. “I can think of one possibility, but I must be wrong.”
    “What is it?” Stride asked.
    “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there’s no other explanation that makes sense. Alison must have killed those women