by Mike Omer
“Did you see them?” O’Donnell asked.
“No, it was dark, and anyway, you don’ go looking for company in the middle of the night in the woods, you know what I’m saying?”
“And then what?”
“One of them kept talking to himself. It sounded like he was praying or something. And then later he said that it wasn’t good, that she was too dark.”
O’Donnell and Ellis exchanged glances.
“Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“Yeah, he kept saying, ‘She’s too dark. It’s no good; she’s too dark.’ And then after a while they left.”
“Can you describe their voices?”
“They were . . . I don’t know. Regular. Like I said, they mostly whispered.”
“Did you notice an accent? Anything at all?”
“No.”
“Do you think if you’ll hear one of them talking, you’ll be able to identify him?”
“I doubt it.”
O’Donnell sighed. “And what then?”
His eyes jumped around. “I don’ . . . listen, I don’ know. I was high. I’m sorry, I was high. I want to quit, I swear. Ellis knows. I’m gonna quit. Jus’ after this weekend. After selling this stuff, I’ll have enough for two rocks, but that’s it. I don’ want to be like this.” A tear slid down his cheek. “I jus’ need these two rocks because it was a really difficult week, and then I’ll clean my act. I have a cousin who can get me a job at garbage disposal, and he can find me a place to stay. I’ve been planning to talk to him for a while, I told Ellis about it, right?”
“Right,” Ellis said. “Your cousin at Pullman.”
“That’s right.”
“What happened then, Tony?” O’Donnell asked. “I promise you you’re not in trouble, okay?”
“I . . . I went over there. Just to see if they left something. And there was this woman. But she was dead, I’m sure she was dead. She had a knife stuck in her. Even if I called the police or got her to a hospital, they wouldn’t be able to help her, right? Right?” His tone got more and more desperate.
“She was already dead, Tony,” Ellis said. “There was nothing you could have done.”
“I thought so. And I wanted to call the cops. But first I needed to go somewhere, get my shit together, you know? So I went to this place where I sometimes crash. And I got really scared, because sometimes after I smoke . . . I started thinking those guys were probably looking for me. Because I heard them. So I hid. And later I heard the police found the body, so there was, like, nothing else I could do, right?”
“No,” Ellis said again. “There was nothing else you could do.”
CHAPTER 39
The thing Harry never admitted to anyone and vowed to keep a secret even on his deathbed was that he was proud of everything he wrote.
Even the trashiest pieces, and sometimes especially the trashiest pieces, about celebrity infidelity, or errant nipples peeking from plunging necklines, or that one ridiculous article about the Chicago Cubs’ coach stepping in dog shit. He wrote them knowing he did it better than any other reporter in America. Sure, Bob Woodward did an amazing job covering the Watergate scandal. But could Bob manage to write a five-hundred-word article about top model Tiffany Wu walking around an entire day with dry toothpaste on her chin? No, he could not.
But he was proudest of the articles he wrote about Zoe Bentley. Not because they were proper journalistic work, or because he wrote about something that mattered, or any of that rot.
It was because in a world of sordid stories about murderers and gory violence and heroic police work, he was the one reporter who understood that the real story was Zoe. And he made her shine.
His fingers were flying over the keyboard, pouring words onto the screen, an unlit cigarette sitting limply between his lips. He didn’t want to take a smoke break outside, so he tried in vain to suck the nicotine out of the cigarette as if sucking a lollipop. The filter was getting soggier by the minute.
“Harry Barry.”
For a moment he thought her imperious voice was just a figment of his imagination. After all, he’d spent the last few hours replaying in his mind their short conversation from the previous morning, milking it for what it was worth. But then he realized that no, Zoe was right behind him. He swiveled his chair, taking the wet cigarette out of his mouth.
“Dr. Bentley! What a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Her blazing eyes met his. “You wrote about a possible connection between the murder of Catherine Lamb and Henrietta Fishburne. I told you not to write this story before you talk to me. It was irresponsible and misleading, and furthermore—”
“We’ve been through this before,” Harry interjected. “Several times, in fact. You do not get to decide what I publish. My editor does. If you want a newspaper for which you can call the shots, why don’t you get the FBI to start one? Call it the Bureau Gazette. I’m sure it’ll be very popular. Federal agents are known for their creative flair.”
“There’s nothing that positively links those two cases, and—”
“Sure there is.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You’re linking those cases,” he said. “And if you’re involved in both of them, I can only assume they’re related.”
“I want to talk to your editor.”
Harry’s grin widened. “Please do. His door is over there. He’s named McGrath.”
Zoe looked at the door, hesitating.
“You should knock first. He gets grumpy when you just enter unannounced.”
She bit her lip, then glanced over his shoulder at the screen. “Is that another article about the murder?”
“That?” He turned around and minimized it. “No, that’s something else I’m working on.”
“The headline said, ‘McKinley Park Residents Outraged by Police Incompetence.’”
“Yup.”
“The police are not incompetent. They are doing their very best to solve this murder case.”
“Uh-huh. Sure they are. And what about the three other murders in the past five years? Only one was solved. And that weird drunk guy in the mall who keeps catcalling women? What about him? Why won’t the police do anything about him?”
“What weird drunk guy?” Zoe asked, incredulous.
“If you lived in McKinley Park, you’d know. And the woman who almost got her baby snatched? And the graffiti epidemic? And the school break-in? The residents of McKinley Park feel unsafe.”
“Where are you getting all that?”
“Mostly from comments on my other articles.”
“And you’re writing a news article about . . . reader comments on a different article?”
“I don’t tell you how to do your job; don’t tell me how to do mine.”
Zoe shook her head in disbelief. “Whatever, I don’t care. About your article linking the murders—”
“Tell me,” Harry said. “Why are you even worried about this article?”
“Serial killers are often obsessed with news articles about themselves. Those articles make them accelerate their pace and sometimes change their pattern. Especially when those articles are cheap and loud.”
“You flatter me. And in your opinion, is this killer the sort of killer affected by the press? I’m asking because the police are the ones who circulated Glover’s photo with the media.”
“Those pieces also taint jury pools. You spread hysteria—”
“Zoe, don’t you get it?” Harry said, losing his patience. “You need me to run these articles.”
She frowned, saying nothing.
“Do you want that picture of Rod Glover to keep circulating, or don’t you?” Harry asked.
“I do,” Zoe admitted after a second.
“Then you need to keep this story on the front page. People are losing interest in the Catherine Lamb murder. If I tie it to the Henrietta Fishburne story, it’ll get more eyes. More people actively looking around for Glover to show hi
s face. None of the other papers are giving the Lamb story even half the coverage that we are. But by tomorrow, after I run my next piece, half of Chicago will know what Glover looks like. We’re going to use his photo again, as well as Catherine and Henrietta’s photographs.”
She paused, then said, “Okay. But I need you to use different pictures than the ones you’ve used so far.”
Harry shrugged. “Give me whatever you want, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Zoe rummaged in her bag and took out a flash drive.
“There are pictures of Glover and Catherine Lamb here,” she said. “Can you use those instead?”
Harry stuck the flash drive in his USB port. A folder opened containing two images. She’d come prepared. He briefly wondered if this had been her real intention all along. He double-clicked the first image. It was a close-up of Rod Glover talking to someone, smiling. The photo had caught him in a bad moment, his smile turned into a sneer, morphing his face into something sinister and cruel.
“This picture isn’t as good as the other one,” he said. “I think he’s less recognizable here.”
“Perhaps, but he’s perceived differently.”
It was true. In the previous image he was smiling at the camera cheerfully, looking like everyone’s favorite uncle.
He checked the second image, of Catherine. “Oh, we’re not going to use that.”
“Why not?”
“Because we have a much better photo of her. Didn’t you see it? Looking so happy, with the sun shining on her hair, that gorgeous view in the background. It’s the perfect victim picture. A beautiful life snagged too soon and all that.”
“But this one is haunting,” Zoe insisted.
“Readers don’t want the victims to be haunting.”
“I don’t care. I do.”
Harry studied the image more carefully. Catherine was sitting outside in a garden, the shadow of a tree on her face. She was smiling slightly, but it was a sad smile, full of pain. And she looked at the camera in a cryptic way that seemed mysterious. Knowing.
“Why do you want the photo to be haunting?”
Zoe said nothing.
“I won’t use it if you don’t tell me.”
“If I tell you, you’ll quote me.”
“I won’t. It’s off the record.”
Zoe hesitated, then said, “There are indications that the murderer who killed Catherine cared about her. He felt guilty. I want him to see this picture.”
Harry snorted. “You think he’ll feel so guilty he’ll confess?”
“Yes, or that he’ll make a mistake,” Zoe said. “It happens more often than you’d think. Murderers feel guilt. Not all of them, but some.”
“And you think Glover feels guilty?”
She shrugged.
“I’ll use this image,” Harry said. He began to like the idea. “I’ll use both of them.”
CHAPTER 40
Rhea Deleon yawned in her patient’s face for the third time. A wide, impolite yawn, a real-life imitation of Munch’s The Scream.
“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” she said, stifling yet another yawn.
Her patient, a pug puppy named Syrup, tilted his head, his brown bulging eyes seemingly fascinated. Syrup had been dropped off this morning by his owner, a woman who complained the “dog looked drunk all the time.” She seemed more mortified than worried, as if her friends and family would shun her for having an alcoholic dog.
“You don’t look drunk at all, do you?” Rhea asked Syrup affectionately as she scratched his neck.
He wagged his tail, tongue lolling. That was the issue—his tongue protruded slightly from his mouth, even when he shut it, giving him an adorable if mildly dumb look. It was called hanging tongue syndrome. Rhea wanted to make sure it wasn’t due to a neurological problem.
“Well, maybe you look a bit drunk,” Rhea conceded. “But a nice drunk.”
Syrup wagged his spiraling tail.
She examined him slowly, everything feeling difficult. Being tired was the norm lately. She woke up tired, and it got worse throughout the day. Coffee hardly seemed to help. It’d been going on for a while, but it had taken her months until she’d finally gathered the courage to see a doctor.
It was the stupidest thing ever. A vet, literally a doctor, afraid of going to the doctor. If she’d had a tail, it would have been wedged between her legs as she stepped into her doctor’s office.
“But people-doctors really are scary,” she told Syrup. “They are impatient and angry, and they never give me a snack when they do a checkup. They don’t even scratch behind my ear.”
Syrup sneezed twice and turned around, trying to leave. As far as he was concerned, the examination was done. Rhea gently pulled him back.
It was probably just anxiety. Her clinic was on the verge of bankruptcy. Lately she found herself juggling the bills, trying to figure out which of them she could stretch a couple of weeks more. The week before, she’d burst into tears when she got the electricity bill. She spent hours every day calculating the ins and outs of her business, trying to figure out a way to do the impossible. Make more with less. She increased her online advertising, and maybe it worked, but it was really hard to tell. And she struggled with the yawning horror caused by constantly pouring money into the internet abyss like some sort of primitive sacrifice to a volatile god.
“You know what I need?” she said. “I need a rich cat lady. Someone with forty cats and a fat bank account. Maybe you know someone?”
Syrup sighed.
“You don’t, huh?” She picked up her flashlight. “Let’s look at those eyes.”
For some reason, the flashlight made Syrup lose his shit, and he squirmed away from her hands and bolted underneath the desk, yelping.
Rhea was about to go after him when the clinic’s phone rang. She picked it up. “Happy Paws Clinic, how can I help you?”
“This is Dr. Brooks. Is Rhea Deleon there?”
“Hi, that’s me.” She could already feel the stab of fear. What was it with her and doctors?
“I have your blood test results.” Dr. Brooks sounded stern and displeased. “You have serious iron deficiency anemia.”
“Oh. Okay.” That wasn’t so bad.
“I want you to come over as soon as possible, and we’ll discuss treatment. Should we make an appointment now?”
“Now isn’t a good time . . . can I call you back?” She already knew she wouldn’t. She’d take some iron supplements and hope the problem would go away.
The doctor stressed that this problem couldn’t be ignored, as if she could read Rhea’s mind through the phone. Then they ended the call.
Rhea got a dog snack and lured Syrup from under the desk. As he munched on the snack happily, she yawned again and scratched his back.
“I’d settle for two cat ladies, with twenty cats each,” she told the pug. “Get the word out.”
CHAPTER 41
As time went by, the task force’s status room underwent changes Tatum had seen happen in similar situations. The whiteboards filled up and then were erased and redrawn to accommodate new information, leaving leftovers of previous notes in the corners. The long table filled up with crumpled pieces of paper, empty cups, the occasional sandwich wrapper. The smell of the room changed as well, becoming a mixture of body odor, coffee, and the scent of whiteboard markers.
“What’s your poison?” Sykes asked Tatum. “Chinese or pizza?”
Tatum raised his eyes from his laptop screen, the question making no sense whatsoever. “What?”
“Food,” Sykes clarified. “I’m ordering us some food. What do you prefer?”
“Uh, Chinese, I guess.”
“Noodles? Rice? Vegetarian? Are you allergic to peanuts?”
“Sykes, just order whatever you feel like. I don’t care,” Tatum said impatiently, then turned to Zoe, who was writing furiously in her notebook. “Zoe, Valentine just sent us the DNA report.”
She glanced at him. “And?”
&nb
sp; “There’s a match between the DNA found underneath Fishburne’s fingernails and Glover’s DNA.” They had Glover’s DNA for comparison from his attack the previous month on Andrea, but Tatum didn’t point that out.
Zoe exhaled slowly. “So that’s it. Direct evidence.”
“Yup.”
“What about the sample from the bite?”
“No match to anything in the database, but it matches the DNA sample taken from Catherine’s body.”
“Zoe, do you want Chinese or pizza?” Sykes asked.
Zoe didn’t miss a beat. “I want spring rolls, if they have any with meat, and chop suey, but I want that fried with noodles, not rice, and tell them to go easy on the coriander—that’s important.”
Sykes gave Tatum a look and ambled away.
“Does anyone have Valentine’s personal phone?” O’Donnell called from the other side of the room. “I can’t reach him on the office.”
Tatum found the number and handed her his phone. On his way back, he noticed Koch was sifting between multiple images of pentagrams.
“What are you looking at there?” Tatum asked Koch.
“Well . . . I’m trying to figure out the reason for the pentagram. Originally we thought it might be a satanic ritual, right?” He shifted a few images and picked one up. It was an illustration of a man in some sort of clerical garb standing over a naked woman. The man was holding a carving knife. “This is an illustration from, uh . . . Le Satanisme et la magie. It’s the Black Mass.”
“No pentagram there,” Tatum pointed out.
“No, but the pentagram crops up in different references. But there’s another explanation.” Koch spread some of the images on the table. They were photos of graffiti depicting various symbols. Each had a pentagram. “Those are gang tags. The five-pointed star is used by the People Nation alliance and particularly by the Latin Kings.”
“So . . . you’re thinking the murders are gang related?” Tatum asked, his voice strained.