“I think he may be in Chicago.”
“Did you see him?” Andrea asked, her voice sharp. She was now wide awake.
“No, but . . . I have reason to suspect it.”
“Is he killing again?”
“I think so.”
Silence. Finally, Andrea asked, “Did you tell the cops?”
“I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Okay. Do you want me to fly over?”
“To Chicago?” Zoe asked in surprise. “No, there’s no need.”
“Could be a nice vacation,” Andrea said.
“No . . . it’s okay. But thanks.”
“All right. Be careful, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks for talking to me.”
“Good night, Zoe.”
“Night, Ray-Ray.” She hung up, staring at the ceiling. She hoped she would fall asleep soon.
CHAPTER 50
Chicago, Illinois, Friday, July 22, 2016
“You want to grab some breakfast before going to the station?” Tatum asked. They were on their way from the motel to the police department. Zoe gazed outside the passenger’s side window. She’d been acting subdued all morning. Tatum wasn’t entirely surprised. He wasn’t sure when she had gone to sleep the night before, but it had looked like she’d been planning a late night. She probably hadn’t slept much.
He had to hand it to her: she worked harder than most agents he had partnered with. And she got results too. The link to Veronika Murray’s murder was a big win for the investigation, and it had earned both of them a measure of respect. Martinez was now actively involving them both in the investigation, his suspicions of the FBI’s nefarious plans laid to rest.
“Hey,” he said. “Did you hear what I said?”
They were sitting at a traffic light on Thirty-Seventh Street. Traffic was thick, rows and rows of people on their way to work, participating in mankind’s dumbest dance—rush hour. More than a hundred years before, the German engineer Rudolf Diesel had invented something amazing called the combustion engine—a manmade engine that could propel a wheeled vehicle down a paved road at an incredible speed. And right now, millions of such vehicles were crowding the streets of Chicago, driving at a speed that would embarrass a kid with a tricycle. Poor Rudolf must be turning in his grave. Whatever the German word for grave was. Probably graven, spoken in an angry, curt tone.
He shook his head, derailing his moronic train of thought. “Zoe,” he said aloud for the third time. “Breakfast, please?”
She jolted and stared at him in confusion. He was getting worried.
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “Sure.”
“Excellent.” He smiled. There was a diner just past the next traffic light, a place called Wilma’s. It had a badly drawn imitation of Wilma Flintstone for a sign. Tatum parked the car, got out, and entered the restaurant. Zoe followed a step behind him, silent and withdrawn.
The Flintstones theme pretty much ended with the sign outside. The decor inside was pink walls, a black-and-white checkered floor, and peach-colored seats. Tatum hoped the food would be better than the owner’s skill at interior design.
They sat down, and a waitress approached them with a cheery smile.
“Hi,” she squawked. “What can I get you?”
Tatum winced at the high-pitched tone. It really was too early for this helium-inhaling bubble of cheerfulness.
“Do you have cheese omelets?”
“Of course. It’s one of the best—”
“That’s great,” he said hurriedly. “Get me that and some strong coffee.”
“And what will you be having?” the waitress asked, her supersonic voice aimed at Zoe.
Zoe gazed at the wall. It almost looked as if she didn’t hear the waitress, but that wasn’t humanly possible.
“Excuse me? Miss? What will you have? We have pancakes, banana bread, waffles . . .”
She was about to recite the entire menu. Tatum’s cranium would not be able to withstand it. “She’ll have bacon and eggs,” he said. “Make the bacon extra crispy and the eggs sunny-side up. And strong coffee for her as well.”
“Okay.” The waitress turned around. Tatum would not have been surprised if she’d hopped to the kitchen to deliver the order. But she just walked. Like a normal person with a normal voice.
“She’s like an extreme version of Alvin and the Chipmunks,” he said in a low voice.
Zoe looked at him, though she seemed to be actually looking through him. And through the wall behind him.
“What’s going on, Zoe?” he asked.
“I’m just . . . preoccupied,” she said.
“I can see that,” he said dryly. “Preoccupied with what?”
“This case,” she said. She bit her lip again. By now he knew she bit her lip when thinking, when she wasn’t sure of something. He decided to give her some time to organize her thoughts.
The waitress came over with two mugs of coffee and put them on the table, emitting a batlike, high-pitched “Here you go.” Tatum drank from his cup, the coffee banishing the tiredness from his brain and the droopiness from his eyes. Blessed coffee. He had been told by several people that he drank too much coffee, that it wasn’t good for him. As far as he was concerned, those people were just jealous and cranky because they didn’t drink enough coffee.
Wilma’s apparently had some pretty fast cooks in the kitchen, because their orders were on the table just five minutes later. Tatum took a bite from his cheese omelet, happy to find it was good. Zoe ate as well, slicing large pieces of egg and shoving them into her mouth distractedly.
“Okay, something’s wrong,” he said, feeling concerned.
“What?” Zoe asked.
“The way you eat—usually you treat your food like it’s a miracle sent by God to your plate. Right now, you’re swallowing it like it’s some sort of chore. Talk to me.”
“There were two murders in 2008 here in Chicago,” she said.
“Okay, go on, but lower your voice, please.”
“Both murdered women were found submerged in water, strangled. The murderer was never caught.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think it’s the same guy.”
Tatum frowned. “Why?”
“The locations were public and had large bodies of water involved.”
“That’s far from enough.”
“There was . . . I think . . .”
He leaned forward to hear her better.
“When I was a . . . young girl, there was a serial killer in my hometown. In Massachusetts.”
“Okay.”
“No one was ever convicted. They caught someone, he hanged himself in his cell, and the killings stopped. The Maynard serial killer—that’s what they called him—also had a thing with leaving bodies next to bodies of water.”
“So you think the same need propelled those killers?”
“No,” Zoe said. “I think it was the same guy.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Zoe,” Tatum said. “This sounds . . .” He searched for the right word.
“No, listen. The thing is, I had this neighbor who—”
“It sounds tenuous,” he said. “You’re looking for connections in places that aren’t there.”
He knew what would come next. She’d explode. She’d yell at him or storm out or become cold and furious.
To his surprise, her shoulders drooped. “Okay,” she said, her voice small. “Forget it.”
“Hang on,” he said. “Let’s talk about this. Maybe I don’t see the whole picture. Or maybe you’ve got something there, and we need to talk it out.”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
It doesn’t matter?
“Zoe—”
“Let’s pay and go,” she said. Her plate was half-full. “It’s getting late.”