Part 27 (2/2)
The fifteen or so uniformed and plainclothes cops in the room stared at her without expression. This did not mean they were not listening-she had spent enough time around cops to know that-only that they could not appear impressed by anything except themselves. But she felt good about them. Even the ones who didn't look old enough to drive seemed bright, fit, and a h.e.l.l of a lot more awake than she was. This killer would be caught tonight, webbed in by his own obsessions.
Angela said: ”And don't forget about the trains, even the rapid transit. He might use them to arrive or escape. It's unlikely since he needs to bring an abducted male with him. Whether the victim's conscious or unconscious, it would be difficult.”
Frank added, ”We expect a lot of rubberneckers and reporters. Anyone who's been reading the papers could reach the same conclusions Theresa has and come out to watch the action, so there may be people in the valley tonight who wear dark clothing and don't stop when you shout at them. Go for your Taser first. Picture the headline 'Cop Shoots Innocent Teen in Botched Police Operation' splashed across tomorrow's Plain Dealer.”
Angela muttered, ”I bet Brandon Jablonski shows up, rain or s.h.i.+ne.”
”Who?” one cop asked.
Frank explained about the Web-news reporter and his interest in the case.
”So if he does come around, just escort him out of the area?”
”No,” Frank said. ”Let's consider him a suspect for now.”
Theresa bit her lip before remembering that Jablonski made an ideal suspect. If anyone knew where to leave all the bodies, he did.
The officers all filtered out to their a.s.signed places to make themselves inconspicuous.
She pointed out a spot on the map to Frank. ”We should wait here, between what used to be the Nickel Plate Railroad and is now Norfolk Southern, and the RTA rapid tracks, which used to be the New York Central Railroad.”
”If he's reading the same books as you, and if he doesn't decide to call it off because he's smart enough to know we're going to be here, or because it's raining out and he likes the idea of us running around like wet idiots. And when did you become such a railroad historian?”
”Since I met Edward Corliss. Come on, we'd better get out there before it gets completely dark.”
”What do you mean we? You're going to stay right here.”
”Why?”
”Because you have neither a gun nor an S on your chest and I'm not going to have you running around a dark valley with a bunch of trigger-happy cops, not that I don't feel a little itchy-fingered myself.”
”But-”
”Besides,” he continued, ”if you find one more body I'm going to have to bring you in for questioning.”
”But-”
”There are no coincidences, isn't that what you're always telling me? Cheer up, cuz. At least you'll stay dry and close to the coffeemaker.”
And then she was left alone on the white linoleum of the RTA conference room. Theresa exhaled sharply enough to fluff up her bangs, got a fresh cup of coffee, and turned out all the lights in the room so that she could watch the activity outside.
The room at the east end of the building gave her a wide view of the tracks on both sides and the station platform. The south side of the tracks turned into a steep hill of dense brush, unlit and apparently empty. To the north of her position, at least ten people milled about on the station platform, waiting for either the 8:41 or the 8:42, depending on whether they wanted to head downtown or toward the eastern suburbs. Overhead lights clearly outlined their body language. A girl stood between two pillars, facing Theresa with either a bag or a pile of books clutched tightly in both arms. She did not turn to look at the three young men twenty feet away no matter how much fun they seemed to be having, no matter how boisterous their horseplay seemed to get. A weary soul leaned forward on the bench, feet splayed. Two other men of similar height and weight s.h.i.+fted around, hands in their pockets. They did not speak to anyone and moved slowly but constantly. Everyone else on the platform shrank from them, ever so slightly, whenever they approached. They would be the cops.
The 8:41 arrived. The three young men boarded. The girl remained, but her shoulders relaxed.
Theresa could not see the area to the west of the building, the patch of gra.s.s between the two sets of tracks and just east of the Fifty-fifth Street bridge. This irritated her.
Her shoes squeaked across the floor as she paced from window to window, and she wondered who else remained in the building. The rapids ran more or less all night, pausing only for a short period in the wee hours of the morning. Surely there would be some manager on hand to deal with emergencies, mechanical breakdowns, or a bunch of armed police officers running around his territory.
Theresa had a.s.sumed that the killer would hop a train with his victim, kill him, and then throw the body and head out as the train rumbled through the area. But now other scenarios began to present themselves. What if he dropped the two body parts from the Fifty-fifth bridge? Inelegant, yes, and the head might unroll from the pants during the fall, but perhaps he did not value ritual as much as she a.s.sumed. Did Frank have men on the bridge?
So much depended upon the killer's concern for historical accuracy.
Two older ladies and two teenagers joined the people on the platform. None of the four seemed to be traveling together.
The 8:42 arrived. The girl did not board, but the weary person from the bench got up and shuffled into the car.
Otherwise the killer had to carry a body to the patch of gra.s.s between two wide sets of train tracks. He could drive to the spot, but only through the RTA building lots and past a handful of waiting police officers. It would take nerves of steel. The head, on the other hand, should be left on the outside of the tracks, at the base of the south slope at the far east end of Kingsbury Run. He could wind through that small forest from Bower and Butler avenues and have at least, she estimated from her window, thirteen hundred feet of lush foliage for cover. Frank and the cops had one or two officers watching that stretch of ground. If the killer was so inclined, he could rewrite history a bit and drop the head from the bridge like a macabre depth charge, wait until the cops found it and cl.u.s.tered around, then putter quietly to the end of Berwick and dump the body in the dark and tree-covered spot, instead of putting the body by the bridge and the head on the slope. Then the killer would drive away and leave the cops to explain this failure to the citizenry, already tempted to riot from fear.
The 8:57 arrived, and when it left it took the girl and three others. The girl had simply not wanted to get on the same train as the three young men, though traveling in the same direction. Theresa could remember being that young and that attractive.
And what about the pool of blood? The Tattooed Man had been one of the few victims killed at the scene. How could he possibly take the time to murder his victim on-site without attracting the attention of one of the officers?
Unless the victim was one of the cops.
The victim only had to be a man. There was nothing to say that that man couldn't be in uniform.
What a challenge it would present. Depositing Peggy Hall's body had been only a little risky. He had some leeway there when it came to location, since the original manufacturing plant had ceased to exist, and the cops were not yet convinced that he would stick to his one-a-day schedule. But now he had to know the cops would surround the tracks. How much more delicious it would be to come up behind one of the men who were trying to catch him, slip a loop of razor-sharp wire over his head, and pull on both handles with all his might- Theresa burst from the conference room and through the lobby, out the lobby door, and into the night.
And ran straight into Councilman Greer.
CHAPTER 36.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.
PRESENT DAY.
Kingsbury Run had never been a populous place, in any era. So aside from the RTA riders and employees cl.u.s.tered at the station, the surrounding cops didn't have much activity to keep an eye on.
The officer stationed at the northeast corner of the area had parked his car in the lot behind some kind of old trucking terminal, long fingers of falling-down red brick that could warehouse a host of dead bodies, had he any desire to look through them. He didn't, content to pace along the patch of gra.s.s between Kinsman Road and the railroad tracks and experiment with a pair of night-vision binoculars he'd bought off eBay with his own money. Designed for use in the middle of the woods, they weren't much use in a city where the dark got interrupted at too many points by a bright streetlight or security light, nearly blinding him and overpowering the dimly lit areas he wanted to see. He crossed the weeds to stow them in his car. If any piece of equipment was going to get broken while he tackled a suspect tonight it wasn't going to be something for which he'd sh.e.l.led out his own funds.
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