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“You’re hearing it from us,” George hissed. “He was home. He’s been home since he was released. You have another murder?” He cocked his head toward his son. “He’s not your guy.”
Foster scooted forward on the sofa, cleared her throat. “There’s the matter of blood. There was a spot found on Keith’s jacket. It turned out not to be Peggy Birch’s or his.”
“Which is why you can’t connect him to any crime,” Carole said, anger building. “So why are you here?”
Foster waited a second to see if Lonergan weighed in. He did not. “There was a similar spot of blood on our second victim. It hints at a connection. If Keith remembers a little more about Sunday, maybe he can help us figure out where the blood came from.” Her eyes locked onto Carole Ainsley’s. Foster could see the fear in the woman’s eyes. She was fighting for her kid’s life. The outrage was just the part the world saw.
Foster sat quietly as the three Ainsleys conferred, their heads close together, their voices reduced to gruff whispers. Two murders ramped things up. The unanswered question of the unidentified blood on Keith’s jacket, its similarity to the blood found on Rea’s thigh, kept him in the frame. Though inwardly she felt for Keith and could see the toll all of this had taken on him, she had two killings to contend with. If there was even a possibility that he held the key to understanding it all, she needed him to tell her.
The conferring stopped. The Ainsleys’ heads separated, and all three glared at Foster and Lonergan. A united front. Keith flicked a look at his parents and got dual nods back. Foster’s heart raced.
“I can’t tell you anything else about Sunday,” Keith said. “But for the other time you’re talking about, I was playing Mortal Kombat.”
Lonergan laughed. “You what? By yourself? All night?”
“Online with a friend. Jean-Pierre. He’s in Paris. Maybe we played a few hours, not all night. But I never left my house.”
Foster let a beat go. Mortal Kombat. Reggie used to play it. “Did you record your game?” she asked. He nodded. “Show us?”
Keith checked with his parents, then got up and left the room, and the temperature, already frigid, dropped another thousand degrees, the contemptuous looks from the Ainsleys as corrosive as acid tossed on a marshmallow. Foster was sure they got Lonergan. He wasn’t a deep well. Foster was the one they looked at as though she’d ratted them out to slave catchers. But she didn’t wither under their stares. She hadn’t a single ax to grind. On the contrary, she was making sure Keith got the same benefit of the doubt everybody else got.
“You know, we didn’t come lookin’ for your son just for kicks,” Lonergan said. “He was there. We’re just supposed to ignore that?”
George Ainsley sat as cold as death itself. “This is probably the first place you came when you found the second woman, isn’t it? Keith’s name was the one and only that popped into your head, despite the fact you’ve got nothing on him.”
“We’re pursuin’ all avenues,” Lonergan said. “You explain the blood.”
“You know what’s at stake,” Carole said, and she said it directly to Foster.
Foster didn’t answer because she didn’t have to. Carole Ainsley hadn’t asked a question; she’d made a statement. And she knew full well Foster knew exactly what the stakes were.
Keith returned moments later carrying a laptop with a caduceus on the lid. Seated between his parents again, he cued up the recording, let it play, and then swiveled the laptop around so Foster and Lonergan could see it. Foster leaned closer. The game was a noisy clash of chains and crossbows, swords, and weirdly dressed alien-like characters hurling fireballs and jumping all over the place, the action fast and loud and incomprehensible to the average adult. She asked Keith to run it through to the end so that she could see how long he’d played, then pause it there so she could note the elapsed time. She didn’t know how the whole thing worked, but she could clearly see that Keith had been playing the game with someone.
“And your opponent in this is Jean-Pierre?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Keith said.
She underlined the time the game ended. Twelve thirty-nine a.m. Local. It didn’t matter what that translated to in Paris. Jean-Pierre wasn’t her concern, but to be thorough, she asked, “Last name?”
“Bernard. We started about nine thirty last night and played for about three hours. JP’s got insomnia. I haven’t been sleeping that much either lately.”
“Would you mind running it again?” Foster asked.
As the game replayed, Foster focused on the time in the right-hand corner, watching as the digital numbers advanced seconds at a time. The game had lasted two hours and forty-seven minutes precisely, followed by a two-minute sign-off, taking place at the very time Mallory Rea was thought to have been killed.
“Nothing says that laptop was in this house,” Lonergan said.
George Ainsley stood. “Keith never left the house; neither did that laptop. You have his statement. You have your proof. You need anything more, we’ll do it officially and by the numbers. You come back again, you’d better have a warrant for his arrest and a lot more than you have now.”
The door slamming behind them was as definitive as a rough toss-out could be, but there was no time to feel any way about it. “It’s not him,” Foster said, sliding into the passenger seat of their unmarked car. She braced for the argument.
Lonergan started the car. “I agree. That nerd video thing . . . hard to play that and kill a person at the same time.”
He pulled away from the curb. Foster clicked her seat belt and settled back. “And finally, there is light.”
CHAPTER 30
Rimmer was on the run, and every cop in the city was on the lookout for him. Foster didn’t think he was smart enough to evade them for long, though. It was only a matter of time. She wasn’t sure he was a killer, but he was definitely a liar. That was what they needed to talk about.
Meanwhile, they finally had the footage of the Riverwalk from Sunday night. The camera dump from Lower Wacker where Rea had been thrown away would take a bit more time, though less than it would have normally, given that they now had two deaths to solve. Nothing got city wheels turning faster than the threat of bad press and the possibility that someone would sue the city for allowing a murderer to run free. The boss’s office was busier than usual with brass racing in and out looking for assurances that CPD was making progress. The visits, the jumpiness, no doubt prompted by threatening calls from the fifth floor of city hall. What she and the team didn’t need was for the trickle-down heat, the hot potato, to get passed off to them, though she knew full well it would.
Lonergan had disappeared again.
“He left you to do the hard work again, I see?”
Foster looked up to find Li standing there. “At this point, I’m thankful for the alone time.”
Li glanced at the screen. “That’s from the Riverwalk?” She slid over the empty chair from the next desk over.
“Yes, I’m running through it looking for . . . anything,” Foster said. “These murders. They’re out of the norm and obviously linked. Ainsley’s accounted for. He’s clear. Rimmer’s still a question mark, but if the breakup with Birch was his motive, how’s that explain Mallory Rea? Did he break up with her too? The color of both women’s hair might be something. Rimmer was hung up on Peggy’s, according to Cooke. But Rea’s hair was fake.”
Li scooted her chair closer to the desk and Foster’s screen. “So we’re looking for someone else. Roll it. Let’s see. Or would you rather wait for Lonergan?”
She slid Li a look. “Like that would ever be a thing.”
Foster started the playback. Two hours went by. Slowly, they advanced through the frames, freezing the image when a person strolled into camera view. Though the footage was black and white and bathed in shadows, they could clearly see that none matched Birch. There was also no sign of Rimmer or Ainsley. Foster kept tabs on the elapsed time in the lower right corner as Sunday night crept closer to Monday morning. At 11:00 p.m. she found herself leaning in closer to the screen. Li did the same. “Here we go,” Foster said.
Frame by frame, one fuzzy image after another. Until there it was, at three minutes after 11:00 p.m., a weaving figure entered from the left. Male. Dark. Unsteady on his feet, as if drunk. “From the direction of the marina,” Foster muttered. “Where he said he was. Same clothes. The jacket.”
“That’s Ainsley, all right,” Li said.
They watched as the figure they presumed to be Keith Ainsley flumped down at the base of the bridge. After a few seconds, his head fell to his chest and stayed there. “He’s out,” Foster said.
“Keep it rolling,” Li said.
Foster kept her eyes on Ainsley, on the stairs, on the path, on the time as it ticked off on the counter. At four minutes after midnight, two dark figures descended the stairs from Michigan Avenue onto the Riverwalk, one with a backpack and long hair, one dressed in dark clothing, a large duffel slung over their shoulder.
Li pointed at the screen. “There’s Birch.”
Foster’s eyes were glued to the screen. Keith hadn’t moved. “That could be Rimmer. This person has a slim build. Five eight, five nine?” Foster stopped the footage to get a good look at the bag. “The bag worries me.”
“You know who walks around with a duffel at midnight?” Li said.
“Killers,” Foster answered glumly. “Could be his kit.”
Li looked up. “She doesn’t look like she’s being forced.”
“Killers can be disarming.” Foster started the tape again, but the pair was out of view. She quickly cued up the footage from a different camera mounted farther east, clicking through, not finding Birch and the stranger. “We lose them somewhere between the first camera and this one,” she said.
“In-between’s where she was found,” Li said.
Foster advanced the tape slowly until the dark figure showed up again forty minutes later with the duffel, heading toward Keith Ainsley. Alone.
Li shot up from her chair. “Holy shit!”
The talk and bustle of the squad stopped, and cops gathered around them, including, she noted, Griffin. Foster rewound the footage, started back at the critical moment, and narrated for everyone, her heart beating so loudly she would swear cops in the next room could hear it.
“Ainsley, first,” Foster said, “then Birch with someone else. This camera picks him up at a little after eleven. There.” She stopped the image, pointed at the time, then played it again. “From the marina.” She started again. “And there. He weaves by. Stops. Watch his head fall.”
“No knife visible,” Li noted. “That’s a good shot of him under the lights.” Everyone drew in closer. “He’s unsteady on his feet.”
“Now wait.” Foster started the footage again, and everyone watched as it picked up the two dark figures, one with a backpack, one with the duffel, as they moved into the frame. “They walk toward the marina. Nothing changes for a time. Then forty minutes later, one figure walks back, not Birch, and stops at Ainsley. He squats down, and—” Foster freezes the footage at the point it captures the figure’s arm outstretched toward Keith. “He touches his jacket.” She turned to the team. “And what’d we find on Ainsley’s jacket? Blood.”
“We don’t see a knife, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t have one,” Kelley said. “He’s got pockets.”
“They tested his jacket six ways from Sunday,” Foster said. “No blood trace in the pockets. Only that one spot.” She turned back to the screen. “Put there by that guy.”
“Aww man,” Symansky said. “The scumbag framed the kid?”
“If it was supposed to be a frame,” Foster said, “it would’ve been Peggy’s blood. Something else is going on. But this proves Ainsley was in no condition to kill Birch. Someone unknown made direct contact with him, presumably Birch’s killer.”
“Then what the hell?” Kelley said. “Whose blood are we looking at?”
Li slumped down in her chair. “Honestly, I’m almost afraid to find out.”
“This could be Rimmer,” Foster said. “Birch wouldn’t have been afraid to walk with him along the Riverwalk in the middle of the night, I don’t think.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
The team turned to find Lonergan standing at the fringes of the huddle.
“Where’ve you been?” Griffin asked, none too gently.
Lonergan had the good sense to squirm a little under Griffin’s glare. “Tryin’ to track down Rimmer. What’s all this?”
Griffin wasn’t letting it go. The team stood holding its collective breath as the boss stared into Lonergan’s eyes and gave him time to absorb the heat. “I didn’t get a heads-up you were going out solo. Neither did your partner, I suspect. You do know we’re up against it here? That we’ve got two dead women?”
“I figured divide and conquer. Foster’s on the tape. I thought I’d try and get a line on him.”
“And did you?” Griffin’s eyes held his. “Get a line.”
“One of the coffee shop kids had a name of one of Rimmer’s bandmates. I tracked him down. He didn’t know where Rimmer was, but he did tell me the band cut ties with him the day we talked to him. He was too much of a showboat, apparently. Hogging all the limelight. I got a name of a pal he might be crashing with to keep off our radar. Foster and I can run it down.”
“Nuh-uh,” Griffin cut him off. She turned to Foster and Li, pointed at the screen. “Have you two gotten through all that?”
“Not yet,” Foster said. “We’ve just made it a bit past midnight. I think if we roll it back a couple hours before and a couple hours after we—”
Griffin interrupted her. “Finish it. But first, Foster, my office. Li, keep looking.” She turned and walked away on angry heels.
Foster walked into Griffin’s office on a high. They were making progress, finally. So why was she in Griffin’s office losing momentum? “Boss?”
Griffin sat down at her messy desk. “I’m teaming you with Li. I want you working full force, and Lonergan’s a burr under my saddle.”
“What? Boss, I can deal with Lonergan,” Foster said. “We’re not children.”
Griffin looked up at her through narrowed eyes. “As a team, you’re inefficient. I can’t have inefficient right now with brass breathing down my neck. That’s all.”
The elation Foster had felt just seconds ago was gone, popped like a balloon at a three-year-old’s birthday party. She turned for the door, her feet not wanting to get there.
“Li isn’t Thompson, Foster,” Griffin said to her back as she opened the door. “Send Lonergan in.”
How quickly lows followed highs, Foster thought as she made her way back to her desk. A step forward, one back. A climb to a steep summit, only to have someone knock you off it. Two partners in less than a week. The start of another climb. A new record for her, one she hoped she wouldn’t have to break. Li was still at it. “Anything?”
“Not yet,” Li said, not bothering to look up.
Foster looked over at Lonergan, glowering at his desk. “Boss wants to see you.”
He bristled, stood, adjusted his belt. “Goin’ to the woodshed.”
When he walked away, Foster watched him go, feeling oddly sympathetic.
“So it’s you and me,” Li said, sliding Foster a look and a sly grin. She held out a hand for Foster to shake. “Formally. Detective Vera Li.” To Foster’s confused look, she added, “Griffin might have hinted a shuffle was coming. Back at the hot dog. I was testing the waters.” Li jabbed a thumb toward Griffin’s door. “She sees all, knows all. We good?”
Lonergan stormed out of Griffin’s office in a cloud of invisible steam and glared at Foster from across the room. “Kelley, it’s you and me,” he shouted. “We got Rimmer’s buddy. A lead I dug up.” Kelley’s face fell as he grabbed his jacket. “Meet you in the car,” Lonergan barked. “I’m drivin’.”
Foster turned back to Li. “We finish the footage. Grant’s expediting the Rea autopsy, so we have that in the morning. Hopefully we find something there. That work for you?”
Li was already sitting. “Way ahead of you, partner.”
But after more than an hour, there was nothing else of significance on the footage. Whoever had walked with Peggy carrying that duffel bag had been smart and careful and cunning. That didn’t sound like Joe Rimmer, but he couldn’t be counted out yet.
Foster flipped through her notebook. “I found a family address for Rimmer in Indiana. His parents and a younger brother are there. Maybe he—”
Symansky yelled from across the office. “Foster. Li. Your lucky day. Unis found Rimmer. They’re bringing him in now. I should call Lonergan back in . . . but I’m not gonna. Let him work up a sweat for once.”
Foster looked over at Li, who was smiling from ear to ear. “What?”
“You don’t know this yet,” Li said, “but I’m a bit of a good-luck charm. You’re welcome.”
“Anything else I should know about you?”
“Absolutely, but I’d rather surprise you.”
CHAPTER 31
Rimmer sat nervously across the table from them, his clownish attempts to conceal his identity laughable. The man bun was gone, his greasy hair cut short and dyed white, and he’d shaved his face as smooth as a baby’s bottom. He looked about twelve. But his eyes were still glassy. He obviously hadn’t given up his affinity for herbals.
“Headed to Minneapolis. By train. That’s a new one on us,” Li said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm. “Spur-of-the-moment decision, was it?”
“I have a gig up there, okay?”
“Where exactly?” Foster asked.
“A bar. Small space. But it’s a hot spot. Some cool bands play there.”
Foster picked up her pen, held it over her notebook. “Which bar?”
“And which band?” Li asked. “Because your old one cut you loose.”
“So I go solo. I don’t need those guys. They’re small time, anyway. The point I need to make here is that I did nothing to hurt Peg in any way, all right? I don’t get why I’m here.”
