“Did the box have a return address?”

“I don't know. I didn't open it. It came to Eddie.”

Griffin glanced at Fitz. “No,” the detective told him. “It was just an old cardboard box with a mailing label on it. Frankly, it looked to us like he'd used the box for storage of the materials. When we found it, it was shoved in the back of a coat closet.”

“'Cause it wasn't his stuff!” Tawnya cried again. “Eddie didn't know why it had come in the mail!”

“Have you ever heard the name David Price?” Griffin asked Tawnya.

“Who?”

“Did Eddie ever mention the name David Price?”

“Who the fuck's David Price?”

“Have you ever heard of the Candy Man?”

“The pervert who hurt all those little kids,” she said immediately. “Now there's a dude who deserves to have his little weenie whacked off-or the electric chair!”

Griffin studied her again. Her brown eyes were clear, earnest. If she was lying, she was very, very good.

“Tawnya, did Eddie have another girlfriend?”

She instantly erupted again. “Eddie loved me! Why is that so hard to believe? Eddie loved me and I loved Eddie, and we were gonna be all right. He had a good job, you know, and after Eddie, Jr., was born I was gonna go to beauty school. And then, and then… Ah, fuck you all!”

Her shoulders sagged, the first tear slid down her cheek and she immediately turned away. Crocodile tears? Or the saddest display Griffin had ever seen? He'd been lied to so much lately, it was getting hard to tell. But he had the suspicion he was getting a lesson in irony here. In this case, the victims and their families had lied-with the best of intentions, of course-while the prime suspect and his family may have been telling the truth.

“Tawnya,” Griffin said quietly, “we're running out of time here. I need you to tell me the truth, I need to hear it now.”

“I told the truth!”

“Tawnya, did you give someone a… sample, from Eddie? Maybe it seemed like you were supposed to, or it was a favor for a friend.”

She stared at him in bewilderment. “A sample? You mean a sample? Are you fucking nuts? Who gives out a thing like that?”

“Tawnya, Eddie's semen ended up in a murder victim the day after he died. You tell me, how could that have happened?”

And all of a sudden, she must have figured it out, because her eyes went wide. “Oh no,” she said. “Oh no, oh no, oh no…”

“What, Tawnya? What is oh no? What did you and Eddie do?”

Her face crumpled, her voice grew hollow. “We needed the money,” she whispered. “I was pregnant, and Eddie wanted to get me something special, you know. Plus, we had to start saving more…”

Ah no. Griffin glanced at Fitz and saw from his face that he'd finally gotten it, too. It made so much sense, but who would've thought to ask the question? Who asks a question like that?

“Eddie was in good health,” Tawnya was saying. “Gave blood every eight weeks so you know he didn't have any diseases. And he's nice-looking. They like guys who are nice-looking, you know.”

“Who likes guys who are nice-looking?” Griffin prodded. She had to say it. And then she did.

“The sperm bank. Eddie donated at the Pawtucket sperm bank. A couple of times. Right after I found out I was pregnant. They pay cash, you know.” Tawnya looked at them helplessly. “They pay cash.”

Fitz and Griffin were out of the house and walking fast. Twelve forty-five P.M., starting to make progress but still running out of time.

“We need a couple of uniforms,” Griffin said.

“Someone to keep her under lock and key until we can verify her story,” Fitz agreed. They piled into Griffin's car and he picked up the radio for the request.

“Ever get the impression we're dumb as skunks?” Fitz muttered.

“I don't know, how dumb are skunks?”

Fitz finally unleashed a little, and whacked the dash with his hand. “Goddammit! Sergeant Napoleon nailed it this morning. ‘Sperm banks do it all the time.' Why don't we just get the full frontal lobotomy and be done with it!”

“And miss having all this fun? Come on, clock's ticking. Let's talk it through.”

“Eddie makes a donation at a sperm bank,” Fitz said as Griffin pulled away from the curb.

“In theory, donors are anonymous.”

“To the recipients. The sperm bank knows who they are, the sperm bank's gotta clear them first. I don't know, how much vetting do you do before you hand a guy a plastic cup and send him into a porn-filled room? Lucky bastard.”

“Someone inside,” Griffin prodded.

“Someone who would have access to the frozen samples.”

“And Eddie's name.”

“David Price said the guy had met Eddie. Eddie probably didn't remember him at all, but the guy had met him.”

Griffin rolled out his neck, shrugged his shoulders. He hated to give weight to anything David Price had said, but they had to start somewhere. “Maybe he's a technician, then. Someone who worked one of the days Eddie donated, made small talk with him. Maybe he noticed that Eddie was roughly his same size and build, and had that same Cranston accent. He decided here was a good candidate.”

“So he was already in the market for a patsy,” Fitz said.

“Meaning he had already met David Price.”

“Meaning he'd probably been to prison. At least held in Intake on some kind of charge.”

“He's already in the system,” Griffin said slowly. “Isn't that the key issue? He's a sex offender, he knows he's a sex offender, and even if he didn't get found guilty, he at least got caught. So now he knows his prints and DNA are in the system, just as he knows he won't stop, because sex offenders never stop. They just get more creative with their attacks.”

“He knows when he gets out, if he gets out, it's still only a matter of time.”

“So he befriends David Price.”

“Who must've thought that was funny as hell.”

“Except then Price realizes maybe he can get something out of this, too. Someone on the outside, working for him. Someone he can someday cash in for a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“And then a partnership is born.”

“So who do we have?” Griffin demanded. “Someone who's at least been charged with a sex crime. Someone who's been held at Intake during the same time Price was there, so that's what, November through March. He's gotten out and gotten a job at a sperm bank.”

“Unlimited access to porn,” Fitz muttered. “Where else would a sex offender go?”

“Can't be a technician, though,” Griffin countered. “They'd investigate someone like that, find out about his criminal past and get nervous.”

“Someone lower level then, but with unlimited access. Has keys to the rooms with the freezers and doesn't look suspicious moving about at strange hours.”

They got it at the same time. “Janitor!” Fitz shouted.

“Or cleaning crew,” Griffin said grimly. “Something like that.”

He flipped open his phone and got Waters on the line.

“Sorry, Griff-” Waters started.

“We know who it is,” Griffin cut him off. “I mean, we know how it was done. We just need a name. Meet me at the Pawtucket sperm bank in ten minutes.”

“Where?”

“The sperm bank. Where the College Hill Rapist works.”

“All right,” Waters said, but he didn't sound as excited as Griffin thought he would. And then he finally heard the sounds coming from behind Waters in the busy bar. A woman's voice talking. Maureen Haverill, introducing David Price to the general viewing public on the bar's big- screen TV. One P.M. Griffin and Fitz had just run out of time.