All the best vantage points were in the press box. One thing she’d learned a long time ago: act like you belong, and most people will assume you belong.
So Rachel simply ducked underneath the tape to the press pen and stood there, arms crossed so nobody could see she wasn’t wearing an ID. The reporters and camera crews were too busy setting up and primping to notice. She checked her phone. It was nearly 3:00 p.m. No word from Steve Ruggiero. With any luck he’d never know she’d been gone.
Finally, Lt. Daryl George came out of Bauman Hall flanked by Detectives Serrano and Tally. Their faces were grim. Serrano looked uncomfortable, hands clasped in front of him, shifting weight from foot to foot. She’d met cops before. Too many. Most didn’t like being on television or in the news. They preferred to stay anonymous, unless they had political aspirations or delusions of grandeur. Serrano and Tally didn’t strike Rachel as that type.
Lieutenant George offered some kind words about Constance Wright, then ceded the podium to Serrano and Tally.
Rachel listened intently. They deflected most questions and remained vague on specifics. That was unsurprising. But Rachel wasn’t there for their answers.
The real reason she was there was the crowd itself. Given Wright’s fame and notoriety, Rachel knew the Wright presser would draw a crowd. And it had. There were at least a thousand people, in addition to several hundred in the press pen, hanging on every word and fighting for a better view.
Rachel had a gut feeling that somewhere among the crowd was a person who knew intimate details about Constance Wright’s death.
As Detective Tally spoke, Rachel watched Serrano. He wasn’t a bad-looking man. Seemed a little burned out, and he could lose ten pounds, but for some reason she was drawn to him. He had shaved his neck, made the beard stubble look a bit neater, but Rachel could make out an angry red line where he’d nicked himself just above the Adam’s apple. A slight belly protruded over his belt—nothing a few months at the gym couldn’t fix—and a strong, set jaw. Serrano had kind eyes, but something behind them looked haunted. Rachel wondered what it was. Eventually the detective put his sunglasses on, and Rachel listened.
Then Serrano looked up, and before Rachel could think to look away, he mouthed three words quite clearly: What the hell?
Rachel smiled and waved because, well, what else could she do?
Serrano looked away from her, clearly perturbed.
Rachel turned around, scanned the crowd. Looked from face to face to face, studying each set of eyes, waiting for a twitch, someone a little too happy to be there, some sort of giveaway. She studied each pair of lips, looking for the wrong kind of smile.
And then she saw something that made her stop scanning.
A man stood alone in the snow, about twenty feet behind the last row of spectators. He was gaunt, midtwenties, with dark hollows under his bloodshot eyes, a head of patchy black hair, and sallow skin that, to Rachel, suggested narcotics had sped up the aging process. He was nibbling on his right thumbnail like a squirrel on a nut.
The man was staring at Leslie Tally as she spoke. He looked concerned. Very concerned.
She had seen that man before.
Rachel took out her cell phone and found the email she’d sent herself containing the screen grabs from the original news report from the Albertson Bridge, before they’d identified the body as that of Constance Wright. She scrolled through the photos. The crime scene. The body. Detective Serrano. Charles Willemore. The crowd of onlookers gathered at the bank of the Ashby River.
And there he was. The same man she was looking at now. He was at the river the night of Constance Wright’s death, standing among the crowd of onlookers. And now he was here at the press conference for her death.
Who the hell was this guy?
Rachel took out her cell phone, opened the Camera app, and zoomed in as far as it would go. Then she moved slowly to her left until she was hidden behind a portly reporter with apple-red cheeks and body odor like stinky cheese left to bake in the desert sun. She centered the camera on the man and took several pictures, both still and live shots.
When the presser ended, the man immediately began walking away. Fast.
Rachel hesitated, but only for a moment. She could easily send photos of the man to Serrano and Tally. Let them investigate. But a determination and anger burned inside her. Years ago, Rachel had watched one murderer walk free. She wasn’t about to take a chance of that happening again. She needed to find out who this man was.
The man exited Tellyfair Green and headed north toward Dalkey Avenue. Rachel cursed herself for not changing into flats. He wore sneakers, which gave him little traction on the icy sidewalk. He slipped and fell twice, which allowed Rachel to keep pace.
He stopped at the M-38 bus station just across the street from the Kwik Park on Dalkey, where Rachel’s car was parked. Rachel had already prepaid for two hours. She checked her phone. No word from Steve at the office. She had to follow this man.
An M-38 bus idled two blocks down on Dalkey. Rachel had maybe sixty to ninety seconds before the bus arrived. And if that happened, she’d lose him.
Rachel ran-stumbled to the Kwik Park—stupid heels—and started her car without taking her eyes off the man. She waited for the bus to pass the lot entrance, then pulled out so she was directly behind it. She angled the car to the right of the bus so she could still see the bus stop itself. Keep an eye on who got on and off. When she saw the man get on the M-38, Rachel followed it east on Dalkey.
She drove slowly, close enough to the bus to prevent other cars from sliding in front of her. The M-38 stopped every two blocks. Rachel waited at every stop, heart pounding, to see if the man got off. She knew the M-38 followed Dalkey Avenue all the way out to the suburbs in east Ashby. The longer he stayed on, the easier he’d be to follow. Less traffic, more residential. But if he got off in the middle of the city and started on foot or went into the subway, she’d be screwed. No way she’d be able to find a place to park fast enough to keep pace.
Stop after stop, he stayed on the bus. She could see him through the rear window, wearing a pair of wireless headphones. His head was bopping along to whatever he was listening to. She watched his movements. He didn’t appear to be preparing to get off anytime soon, but he looked both unreliable and impetuous, so she stayed prepared.
The bus continued east until it crossed Lansdale Road, large office and public works buildings giving way to compact condos, which city ordinance prevented from being built over three stories high. Eventually they reached the suburbs. Split-level homes, kids pulling their siblings and pets on sleds down icy sidewalks, barren tree branches glistening with icicles.
The thin man was still grooving to his music. He hadn’t picked up on the fact that the same car had been trailing the bus for miles.
Twenty minutes and six stops later, Rachel saw the thin man jerk up and look around. For a moment she panicked. Could he have missed his stop? If he doubled back, got on a bus going in the opposite direction, she could lose him.
He stood up and pressed the yellow tape to request a stop. Rachel would have to play the next few seconds carefully. On foot, the man would be more aware of his surroundings. Traffic was light, every vehicle more noticeable.
He got off the bus at the next stop, shivered, and waited on the sidewalk for a moment, as though getting his bearings. Then he put his headphones in his coat pocket and headed north up Van Brickle Way.