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intelligence, and love of life being suppressed for thirty years, I want to cry. Thirty years in that old dark house. Jesus. And when I think of how she endured those years without letting it make her bitter, I want to hug her and tell her what an incredible woman she is, what a strong and courageous and incredible woman.”
    Einstein was silent, unmoving.
    A vivid memory flashed back to Travis: the clean shampoo smell of Nora’s hair when he had leaned close to her in front of a gallery window in Solvang. He breathed deep and could actually smell it again, and the scent accelerated his heartbeat.
    “Damn,” he said. “I’ve only known her a few days, but damn if I don’t think I’m falling in love.”
    Einstein lifted his head and woofed once, as if to say it was about time that Travis realized what was happening, and as if to say that he had brought them together and was pleased to take credit for their future happiness, and as if to say that it was all part of some grand design and that Travis was to stop fretting about it and just go with the flow.
    For another hour, Travis talked about Nora, about the way she looked and moved, about the melodic quality of her soft voice, about her unique perspective on life and her way of thinking, and Einstein listened with the attentiveness and genuine interest that was the mark of a true, concerned friend. It was an exhilarating hour. Travis had never thought he would love anyone again. Not anyone, not at all, and certainly not this intensely. Less than a week ago, his abiding loneliness had seemed unconquerable.
    Later, thoroughly exhausted both physically and emotionally, Travis slept.
    Later still, in the hollow heart of night, he came half awake and was dimly aware that Einstein was at the window. The retriever’s forepaws were on the windowsill, his snout against the glass. He was staring out at the darkness, alert.
    Travis sensed that the dog was troubled.
    But in his dream, he had been holding Nora’s hand under a harvest moon, and he did not want to come fully awake for fear he would not be able to regain that pleasant fantasy.
     
     
7
    On Monday morning, May 24, Lemuel Johnson and Cliff Soames were at the small zoo—mostly a petting zoo for children—in sprawling Irvine Park, on the eastern edge of Orange County. The sky was cloudless, the sun bright and hot. The immense oaks did not stir a leaf in the motionless air, but birds swooped from branch to branch, peeping and trilling.
    Twelve animals were dead. They lay in bloody heaps.
    During the night, someone or something had climbed the fences into the pens and had slaughtered three young goats, a white-tailed deer and her recently born fawn, two peacocks, a lop-eared rabbit, a ewe and two lambs.
    A pony was dead, though it had not been savaged. Apparently, it had died of fright while throwing itself repeatedly against the fence in an attempt to escape whatever had attacked the other animals. It lay on its side, neck twisted in an improbable angle.
    The wild boars had been left unharmed. They snorted and sniffed continuously at the dusty earth around the feeding trough in their separate enclosure, looking for bits of food that might have spilled yesterday and been missed until now.
    Other surviving animals, unlike the boars, were skittish.
    Park employees—also skittish—were gathered near an orange truck that belonged to the county, talking with two Animal Control officers and with a young, bearded biologist from the California Department of Wildlife.
    Crouching beside the delicate and pathetic fawn, Lem studied the wounds in its neck until he could no longer tolerate the stench. Not all of the foul odors were caused by the dead animals. There was evidence that the killer had deposited feces and sprayed urine on its victims, just as it had done at Dalberg’s place.
    Pressing a handkerchief against his nose to filter the reeking air, he moved to a dead peacock. Its head had been torn off, as had one leg. Both of its clipped wings were broken, and its iridescent feathers were dulled and pasted together with blood.
    “Sir,” Cliff Soames called from the adjoining pen.
    Lem left the peacock, found a service gate that opened into the next enclosure, and joined Cliff at the carcass of the ewe.
    Flies swarmed around them, buzzing hungrily, settling upon the ewe, then darting off as the men fanned them away.
    Cliff’s face was bloodless, but he did not look as shocked or as nauseated as he had been last