Digging into the old case, Mason was amazed at how little information there was on the original women. Like the recent scene, the old photos showed women with long dark hair, wearing white dresses. The bodies were arranged in the same circle. The main difference was the women hadn’t been discovered for nearly a week. Back then, Forest Park hadn’t been the mecca of popular hiking trails it was now.

The three girls who had been claimed all had similar sketchy histories. They hadn’t gotten along with their parents and had run off, or they’d simply wanted a fresh start and left town for a new life. One had been arrested for prostitution in Seattle and Portland in the months before her death. Her arrest photos were in his growing file. Susan Wilbanks had been an attractive young woman from Idaho. Her dark brown eyes had stared blankly at him from the photo, her mouth downturned. She looked like a woman with a lot of regrets.

What had driven her to prostitution?

It bugged the hell out of Mason that no one had stepped forward, looking for the other three women. The detectives from the old case had been unable to draw any connections between the three women who were identified. Besides Susan from Idaho, one had been from Montana and the other from Pendleton in eastern Oregon. The women back then had been slightly older than last night’s teens. The original women had been in their early twenties, possibly late teens. He wondered if Dr. Peres had made headway on clues into the women’s history. Old bones could tell amazing stories through science and technology in ways they didn’t know about in 1968. And if anyone could find something new, Victoria Peres would be that person.

How much crap would they dig through to find the truth? The story was bringing the nuts out of the woodwork, claiming they had information on the old crime.

What were the chances the guy in the lobby was legit?

The desk sergeant had screened walk-ins with stories all morning. This was the first one he’d put through since the transient, Simon Parker. A preliminary search on Simon had turned up an honorable discharge from the military and a work history in construction until three years ago. Mason wondered if an injury had put a halt to the construction jobs. Or was it the recession? No priors, nothing suspicious at all. It confirmed Mason’s gut feeling that Simon wasn’t their man.

Mason stood up and pushed in his chair. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

Ray slipped on his sports jacket over his long-sleeved peach Polo shirt. Mason eyed his own wrinkled jacket on the back of his chair and decided to skip it. He followed Ray down the hallway and into the same interview room where they’d talked to Simon.

A man paced the small room as the detectives stepped inside. His hands were clamped behind his back, his shoulders stooped, and his face set with heavy lines that spoke of a life of stress. His hair was a pure white, but his eyebrows were thick and black. Old-man brows. Coarse and spiny. Mason made a mental note to check his own brows when the interview was over. Usually Ray was good about letting him know if he was looking straggly. Ray noticed things like that.

The man eyed them from under the thick brows. His dark gaze assessing. He stepped forward and held out a hand. “Lorenzo Cavallo.”

He pegged Lorenzo’s age at late seventies. His speech was thickly accented. The detectives both shook hands and introduced themselves. Mason gestured at the chairs and Lorenzo sat heavily, sighing. He had an old manila envelope that he set on the table before him. Mason eyed it as he and Ray sat.

“What can we do for you, Mr. Cavallo?” Ray asked.

“Lorenzo, please. I heard on the news this morning about those young women they found in the forest.” Lorenzo met Mason’s gaze.

Mason nodded but said nothing.

“The newscasters talked about women who’d been found the same way there a long time ago.” Lorenzo lay a gnarled hand on his envelope but didn’t open it. “They’re saying these young women had long black hair like the women did back then. And that no one had ever identified three of the women from before.”

Mason kept his mouth shut. If Lorenzo was fishing for information, he wasn’t going to get it from him.

The old man moved his gaze to his envelope, his finger toying with a ripped corner. Mason noticed the envelope was weathered and thin at the edges. It’d lived in someone’s storage for a long time.

“My family moved here when I was twenty. There were eight of us. My parents and my younger four sisters and brother. We didn’t speak English. Us children picked it up pretty quickly. My parents not so much. They eventually learned enough to get by, but either kept to themselves or socialized with other Italian-speaking families. There weren’t many of us in the city back then.”

“You lived in Portland?” Ray asked. “And you came from Italy?”

Lorenzo nodded but still kept his gaze and hand on the envelope. Mason noticed he wore a plain gold band on his left hand. He had working man’s hands, the nails short and stained. The stain looked permanent.

“My father opened a garage. He knew automobiles. Especially Italian ones, but there weren’t many of those here. He learned the American autos very quickly and gained a reputation as an honest man.”

Mason looked at Lorenzo’s nails again. Auto grease?

“My brother and I worked in his shop. We did well.”

Mason mentally patted himself on the back.

“One of my sisters did the books. The other girls were much younger and stayed home with my mother.” Lorenzo paused, his lips pressed tight as if they were reluctant to pass on the words. “My youngest sister, Lucia, was a disappointment to the family.”