The two of them worked the Tally Man’s picture. They got it, along with a photo of Zo?, out to every media channel. Every law-enforcement agency in California, Oregon, and Nevada was on the lookout. Cops from more than a dozen Bay Area cities were combing every vacant building as a possible nest for the Tally Man. Everyone was looking, but no one knew where to look. Greening remembered Ogawa’s remark about cases turning ugly. This investigation couldn’t have gotten any uglier. He’d never felt so impotent as a police officer.
While they’d done everything possible to get the Tally Man’s face out to the world, the lateness of the hour had worked against them. By the time press releases had gone out to the media outlets, it was three in the morning, when the viewer pool was at its lowest, reduced to night workers and truckers. They were forced to wait for the West Coast to wake up and catch their morning news over breakfast or on their commute into work.
“We’ve lost her,” Greening conceded. “That fucker finally gets to close accounts on number four.”
“Hey, you don’t know that,” Ogawa said.
“I don’t, but the odds say it’s so. The bastard likes to kill close to home. He did it with Laurie Hernandez here, he did it with Holli in Bishop, and he probably did wherever he rubbed out victims one, two, and five.”
“She isn’t dead until we find her.”
“What the fuck is that—the Schr?dinger’s-cat defense?”
“No,” he barked. “It’s called being a professional. That woman is out there, in trouble, fearing for her life, and we treat her like she’s alive until it’s proven otherwise. Now grow up and be a cop.”
They glowered at each other, but Greening couldn’t maintain his anger. Ogawa was right. Zo? needed him on point, but he couldn’t ignore his faltering sense of hope. The Tally Man now had a six-hour head start. He could be hundreds of miles away and hard at work, flogging the life out of Zo?. It was hard to be optimistic when he thought about their chances of finding her alive.
“I warned you that if this was a serial case, it would get ugly,” Ogawa said without rancor.
“I know, but I screwed up. I didn’t do enough. We knew this guy was gunning for her, and what did I do? Let her shrink protect her. I should have been there or had a cop there at all times.”
“And if that shrink were here now, he’d be all over you.”
“What?”
“Listen to yourself. ‘I didn’t do enough.’ ‘I should have been there.’ Those are all pretty big statements beginning with I. You don’t work for an I organization. You work for a collective body. We did what we could within the limits of our role. We as a body will do everything we can to find Zo?. We will take any and all blame should anything go wrong. Got it?”
It was easy to put it in those terms if they tracked down Zo? in time, but he wasn’t so sure how it would hold up if they didn’t. He couldn’t have her death on his conscience. For the first time, he truly understood how Zo? felt about leaving her friend to die. The past few hours were killing him. He couldn’t imagine suffering through fifteen months of this.
“I’ll take it under advisement. I’m going to dunk my head in a sink and change this shirt. It’s starting to crawl.”
“No, it is crawling. You’ve been curling the blinds with your stench for some time.”
Greening smiled and grabbed a spare shirt, which he kept for situations like this, from his desk. He walked into the men’s room and stripped off his soiled garment and tie, tossing them on the counter next to the sinks. Since there were no stoppers, he plugged one with paper towels, filled it with cold water, and dunked his face. He let the chill seep into flesh and spread through him. He felt his body temperature drop and his equilibrium return. He was running on empty, physically and emotionally. The chill helped restore him. He was a cop again. As a cop, he could help Zo?. He raised his head and dried it with a fistful of paper towels.
He drained the sink and refilled it with hot water. With soap from the hand dispenser, he washed his face, chest, and under his arms. He felt human again. He was astounded that the simple act of bathing could do so much for his well-being. He dried himself off, pulled on his clean shirt, and retied his tie. He checked himself out in the mirror. Yeah, he was a cop again, a tired one, but a cop.
“Hang in there, Zo?. We’re coming.”
As he carried his dirty shirt into the Investigations Unit, Ogawa tossed him his jacket.
“We’ve got an ID. Someone just phoned it in. His name is Marshall Beck.”
Minutes later, Greening was holding on to the handle of the passenger door as Ogawa sliced through traffic, lights and sirens blaring. Ogawa blew through a red light and stopped their Crown Vic in front of the Urban Paws Animal Rescue Center in a no-parking zone. A slim, middle-aged woman who’d been standing outside the entrance to the shelter rushed toward them.
“Kristi Thomas?” Ogawa asked.
“Yes. Call me Kristi.”
“I’m Inspector Ogawa, and this is Inspector Greening. Now, you’re sure the person we’re looking for is your employee?”
“Yes, I can show you.”
Kristi pushed the door open. Greening and Ogawa followed her in. She stopped in the lobby and pointed at a wall that held nearly two dozen individually framed photos.