and lets you live a modest-sized life. You bring down the bad guys. Tell me that doesn’t tickle your ego just a little.”
“Is this an interview?”
“How else are we going to pass the time? The guy’s always late.”
A warning bell sounded in Tom’s head. “He is?”
“Man, you’re the ones who had all that surveillance on me. Don’t you people talk to each other?”
“How late is he usually?”
“Like forty-five minutes. Really pisses me off, but what can you do, right? Rule number one—don’t alienate your scumbag informant. Anyway, that’s why God invented menthols…”
Lilly said a few more things, but Tom was no longer listening. His mind whirred. Forty-five minutes late? Galileo was a control freak. If he was late, it was by choice. If he was late, it was because…
It was because he used the time to scope the vicinity.
But from where?
Every building in a two-mile radius had been quietly emptied of all personnel, including custodial staff. Every rooftop was occupied by at least one police officer, and everyone had checked in.
Damn it.
They’d spooked him. He’d gone to wherever he usually went, and had either seen the evacuation or a uniform on a roof. He wasn’t going to show.
So where was he going to go? The Rangers had set up roadblocks at all points in and out of the city. He may not have been trapped in the parking garage, but he was still trapped in Amarillo. Where was he going to go?
And why had he killed Darcy Parr? The two men posted outside the hospital room were much better witnesses than she. They’d actually seen him, in his faux beard, with his cell phone. If he was concerned about identification, he would have gone after them. But hewent after her. Yes, their encounter at Walmart was a coincidence, but wasn’t it a tremendous risk for a control freak like him to kill in such an uncontrolled environment? Couldn’t he have at least waited until the parking lot?
No, he couldn’t have waited. Esme had said it herself. He was a man on a crusade. And the task force stood in his warpath. That’s why he’d positioned Lilly to be his mole. He wanted to know about them, so he could take them out. But the task force was all here downtown, augmented by the Amarillo P.D. To try something here would be suicide.
Wait.
No.
Tom realized, and his face blanched bone-white. The entire task force wasn’t here. One of them was still at city hall, unarmed and unawares.
Oh, God.
Esme.
After concluding that all Atlanta, GA, and Amarillo, TX had in common were their vowels, Esme reviewed the shoe boxes and rewatched the video. It didn’t take much critical analysis to see that this guy had a serious beef with religion. Both Atlanta and Amarillo were Bible Belt cities. Was that the link? If so, why target the police and firemen rather than the ministers and preachers?
She then reviewed the photographs of the crime scenes themselves. Was there a connection in the street addresses or in the architecture? No, but it was tooearly in the investigation to rule anything out, no matter how obscure or arcane.
However, it was never too early for David Bowie. She dialed up Aladdin Sane and let her little gray cells kick into high gear. Deductive reasoning could be taught, and was, but her ability to think outside the box was a gift. The problems arose whenever Esme had to force herself to think inside the box. But she had been conditioning herself for years now to direct the train of her thoughts along more logical rails. She had dulled her edges. She had made herself less special.
What if her normalizing efforts were permanent? What if she couldn’t do this anymore? What if her gift, like an ignored dog, had just gone away for good? Was Rafe correct? Did she even belong here? As the bombast of Bowie’s “Drive-In Saturday” flooded her ears, she gazed at all the evidence arrayed before her in the conference room, and nothing happened. No ah-ha. No lightbulb. No oblique realization.
“Is this an interview?”
“How else are we going to pass the time? The guy’s always late.”
A warning bell sounded in Tom’s head. “He is?”
“Man, you’re the ones who had all that surveillance on me. Don’t you people talk to each other?”
“How late is he usually?”
“Like forty-five minutes. Really pisses me off, but what can you do, right? Rule number one—don’t alienate your scumbag informant. Anyway, that’s why God invented menthols…”
Lilly said a few more things, but Tom was no longer listening. His mind whirred. Forty-five minutes late? Galileo was a control freak. If he was late, it was by choice. If he was late, it was because…
It was because he used the time to scope the vicinity.
But from where?
Every building in a two-mile radius had been quietly emptied of all personnel, including custodial staff. Every rooftop was occupied by at least one police officer, and everyone had checked in.
Damn it.
They’d spooked him. He’d gone to wherever he usually went, and had either seen the evacuation or a uniform on a roof. He wasn’t going to show.
So where was he going to go? The Rangers had set up roadblocks at all points in and out of the city. He may not have been trapped in the parking garage, but he was still trapped in Amarillo. Where was he going to go?
And why had he killed Darcy Parr? The two men posted outside the hospital room were much better witnesses than she. They’d actually seen him, in his faux beard, with his cell phone. If he was concerned about identification, he would have gone after them. But hewent after her. Yes, their encounter at Walmart was a coincidence, but wasn’t it a tremendous risk for a control freak like him to kill in such an uncontrolled environment? Couldn’t he have at least waited until the parking lot?
No, he couldn’t have waited. Esme had said it herself. He was a man on a crusade. And the task force stood in his warpath. That’s why he’d positioned Lilly to be his mole. He wanted to know about them, so he could take them out. But the task force was all here downtown, augmented by the Amarillo P.D. To try something here would be suicide.
Wait.
No.
Tom realized, and his face blanched bone-white. The entire task force wasn’t here. One of them was still at city hall, unarmed and unawares.
Oh, God.
Esme.
After concluding that all Atlanta, GA, and Amarillo, TX had in common were their vowels, Esme reviewed the shoe boxes and rewatched the video. It didn’t take much critical analysis to see that this guy had a serious beef with religion. Both Atlanta and Amarillo were Bible Belt cities. Was that the link? If so, why target the police and firemen rather than the ministers and preachers?
She then reviewed the photographs of the crime scenes themselves. Was there a connection in the street addresses or in the architecture? No, but it was tooearly in the investigation to rule anything out, no matter how obscure or arcane.
However, it was never too early for David Bowie. She dialed up Aladdin Sane and let her little gray cells kick into high gear. Deductive reasoning could be taught, and was, but her ability to think outside the box was a gift. The problems arose whenever Esme had to force herself to think inside the box. But she had been conditioning herself for years now to direct the train of her thoughts along more logical rails. She had dulled her edges. She had made herself less special.
What if her normalizing efforts were permanent? What if she couldn’t do this anymore? What if her gift, like an ignored dog, had just gone away for good? Was Rafe correct? Did she even belong here? As the bombast of Bowie’s “Drive-In Saturday” flooded her ears, she gazed at all the evidence arrayed before her in the conference room, and nothing happened. No ah-ha. No lightbulb. No oblique realization.
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