CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Before Riley could tell anyone what she’d just realized, the door flew open, and in came Chief Buchanan and the FBI field chief, Proctor Dillard.

Dillard said to Riley and the others, “You’re not going to believe this.”

Riley thought …

Yeah, I’m pretty sure I will believe it.

Dillard continued, “We tried to contact the registered owner of the car, Timothy Pollitt. We found out that he’s an English professor at Fargate College in Chicago. And here’s his picture on the college website.”

Dillard held up his cell phone so Riley could see the picture.

The man in the picture was smiling, clean, and respectable-looking.

But even so, the resemblance was unmistakable, just as she’d expected.

Riley looked at the hobo and said …

“You are Timothy Pollitt.”

The man stared back at her and said nothing.

“There’s more,” Dillard said. “He’s been married and divorced twice, and both of his ex-wives filed domestic violence complaints against him. They both said he made them fear for their lives.”

The door opened again, and another man hurried into the room and slammed his briefcase on the table.

He said, “I’m Doug Lehman, and I’ve been assigned to serve as this man’s attorney. I don’t know what’s been going on in this room, but my client is not going to say another word until we’ve conferred privately.”

Pollitt opened his mouth to speak, and Lehman waved his finger at him.

“Not one word, I said! I want everybody else out of here, right now.”

Riley and the others reluctantly filed out of the interrogation room and into the hall.

Bill and Jenn looked thoroughly surprised.

“What the hell?” Jenn said. “I mean, this guy isn’t a real hobo?”

“Yeah, I know,” Bill said. “This changes everything.”

But Riley wondered …

Does it?

Just then she noticed a man sitting on a bench in the hall.

It was Mason Eggers, studying a clipboard with a map draped across it.

She remembered what he’d said about his theory …

“I haven’t really worked it out yet.”

Riley wondered if maybe he’d worked it out by now. She was beginning to feel sure that they were going to need a new theory.

Riley said to Bill and Jenn, “You guys talk to Dillard. Find out whatever else he knows about Timothy Pollitt. Then get online and see what else you can find. I’ll join up with you shortly.”

As Jenn and Bill headed away to talk to Dillard, Riley walked over to the bench and sat down beside older man, who looked up from his notes at her.

“Is the hobo a suspect?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Riley said. “I know this is going to sound crazy …”

The man let out a short laugh.

“Don’t tell me. He’s got another life—aside from being a hobo, I mean.”

Riley stared at Eggers.

“He’s a college professor in Chicago,” she said. “He wasn’t trying to steal the Mercedes, it’s really his. How did you know?”

Eggers said, “Oh, I picked up on that the minute I laid eyes on him. I was a railroad cop for a lot of years, remember. I know the type. ‘Scenery bums,’ they’re called—or ‘oogles,’ in hobo parlance. They’re often successful people with good careers who go freight-hopping as a kind of a hobby—a pretty dangerous hobby, I might add. I hear there are more and more of them these days.”

Eggers thought for a moment, then said, “A college professor, you said?”

“At Fargate College in Chicago,” Riley said.

“Well, he probably has the summer off. My guess is that he does this every summer. People close to him might know about it. Or maybe not. He might keep it a secret, even from his friends and family.”

Riley said, “He didn’t have a shred of identification on him.”

Eggers tilted his head with interest.

“That’s pretty extreme. He must really like to stay off the grid. Scenery bums usually carry plenty of ID, and also credit cards, just in case they get in a jam. This guy must be a serious thrill seeker who likes to live dangerously. I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody else knows about this other life of his.”

Eggers squinted thoughtfully, then added, “I don’t think he’s your killer, though. Scenery bums aren’t typically violent—unlike your hardcore hobos, who’ve often done a good bit of prison time.”

Riley said, “He’s got a history of domestic violence.”

Eggers shrugged and said, “Well, maybe I’m wrong. That wouldn’t be a first.”

He sounded to Riley as though he doubted his own words.

For some reason, Riley doubted it as well.

Eggers pointed to Riley’s hand. She was still holding ice on it.

“Speaking of violence, it looks like you mixed it up with somebody.”

Riley lifted the ice and saw that the swelling was going down. It still hurt a lot, though.

Riley said, “Yeah, I had a little disagreement with one of his hobo pals.”

“I hope the other guy got the worst of it.”

Riley remembered the sound and sensation of Dutch’s teeth breaking.

“I’d like to think so,” she said with a half-smile.

Then she pointed at Eggers’s map and clipboard and said, “Show me what you’ve been working on.”

He pointed to locations that he’d marked with his pencil.

“Back at the crime scene, we talked about the alphabetical order of the towns—Allardt, Barnwell, Caruthers. The trouble was, we didn’t know if that meant anything. And if it did, how could we figure out what letter D town the killer might choose next? How could we narrow it down? All we knew was that he seemed to be moving westward. But look here …”

He took a drawing compass out of his pocket. Riley was struck by how low-tech he seemed to be—with a folding paper map, pencil and paper, and now an old-fashioned instrument for drawing circles. So far she hadn’t seen him use any kind of electronic device.

Definitely old-school, Riley thought.

It hardly seemed surprising that he seemed so out of place among the younger railroad cops. He was like a relic from another time.

He planted the sharp steel point of the compass squarely in the center of Chicago. He opened the instrument so that the pencil reached the town of Allardt. Then he swung the compass westward, drawing an arc as he went.

The arc neatly intersected with both of the other towns—Barnwell and Caruthers.

Riley almost gasped aloud.

“A semicircle,” she said.

“That’s right. The distances between the towns aren’t the same, and they don’t seem to have anything in common except that trains from Chicago run through them. But all three are almost exactly the same distance from Chicago.”

Riley’s pulse started to quicken. This certainly seemed like more than coincidence.

“Show me where the arc goes from there,” she said.

Eggers kept tracing—and sure enough, the pencil came to a town with a D at the beginning of its name.

Eggers pointed at the spot and said, “This is Dermott, Wisconsin. I know the place from my days on the job. Like the other towns, it’s got a railroad running through it—with trains from Chicago.”

Riley’s interest was mounting by the second.

It was definitely an interesting theory—or at least the beginning of one.

Eggers shrugged sadly.

“Maybe this is nothing,” he said. “This old brain of mine isn’t what it used to be. It’s terrible how the body slows down—but it’s worse that I just can’t think things through as fast as I used to. And now …”

His voice faded off, but Riley knew what he was leaving unsaid.

Another woman has been killed.

Eggers said, “Maybe everyone’s right about me. Maybe I should take up fishing or something.”

Don’t even think about it, Riley wanted to say.

Instead she said, “Come on, let’s share this theory with the team.”

Just as Riley and Eggers got up from the bench, the FBI field chief Proctor Dillard came walking down the hall, accompanied by Jenn and Bill and a couple of Dillard’s agents.

“Where are all of you headed off to?” Riley asked.

“Home,” Dillard said. “Or at least to a motel. Cullen says we’ve cracked the case and we’ve got our guy, and he’s got no need of FBI help now. So we’re through here—all of us. You too, I guess.”

Riley started to protest, but then fell silent. The local FBI was clearly in no mood to consider other possibilities, and she didn’t feel that she had enough information to block their exit.

She just watched as Dillard and his agents strode past her and headed out of the building.

Riley turned and hurried over to Jenn and Bill.

“We’re not through yet,” she announced.

They both regarded her with surprise.

“This man has a theory,” she told them, indicating Eggers. “And I think it’s a good one.”

Jenn and Bill looked amazed.

Jenn said, “What are you talking about? Pollitt seems as suspicious as hell to me.”

Riley didn’t reply. She silently herded her colleagues and Eggers over to the interrogation room. Cullen was standing outside and looking into the room through a one-way mirror. The lawyer was still sitting in there talking to Pollitt.

Riley said sharply to Cullen, “I want a word with you.”

Cullen looked at her with surprise.

Riley said, “Mr. Eggers here has got a theory.”

Cullen smirked and looked at Eggers.

“Have you now, Grandpa? Well, congratulations. But you’re a little late. We’ve got our guy.”

Cullen looked at Riley again and said, “I was talking with your guys and Dillard just now, and from what they told me, this is an open-and-shut case. Not only does Timothy Pollitt have a record for wife beating, he complete disappears every summer. No one has any idea where he goes. The lawyer hasn’t let us talk to him yet, but he will soon, and you can be sure that this creep hasn’t got any credible alibis for any of the murders.”

He chuckled a little and said, “Add to that the fact that he ran away from Agent Paige here and refused to identify himself—well, could he possibly act more guilty? That’s because he is guilty. It’s just a matter of tying up loose ends.”

He looked through the window again.

“I’ve given the bastard enough time with the lawyer. I’m going in there right now and tell him he’s under arrest. And I expect the three of you to head back to Quantico ASAP. I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure, but the truth is …”

He darted a nasty look at Jenn.

“All three of you have been a pain in the ass.”

Without another word, Cullen opened the door and walked into the interrogation room.

Riley stood staring into the room as Cullen confronted Pollitt and the lawyer.

She was shocked at how brazenly Cullen was displaying his resentment over the bloody nose he’d gotten from Jenn. But what could Riley do about that now?

Orders are orders, she told herself.

After all, she and her colleagues came from Quantico at Cullen’s request. And the head railway cop was no longer the least bit pleased with Riley or her team. Of course, she wasn’t pleased with him either. And this was now an official FBI case too.

But Riley’s brain was crowded with thoughts and ideas. For the first time since she’d started working on this case, she was getting a really powerful gut feeling.

We can’t quit now, she thought. This monster is still out there and he isn’t finished yet.

Her hand wasn’t throbbing as badly now—and anyway, she didn’t give a damn about the pain anymore. She tossed the bag of ice into a nearby trash bin.

Then she said to Bill, Jenn, and Eggers, “Come on. Let’s go find a place where we can sit down and talk.”