For a Homicide cop, murder often started the day. For the mixed-race female sloppily wrapped in a tarp and stuffed in a construction site dumpster, it had surely ended hers

Lt. Eve Dallas hasn't even arrived at work when her first call of the day comes in. Alva Quirk - forty-six years old, sidewalk sleeper - was beaten to death with a crowbar. Known to the local cops for handing out origami flowers to anyone who gives her change, Alva was well-liked but with no fixed address, no job and no family, there's noone to remember her.

Eve has barely had time to examine the crime scene when her second victim of the morning is discovered just a block away. Make that second and third. Jane Doe - a well-dressed young mother and her baby shot and buried over 40 years ago.