CHAPTER THIRTY

Riley switched on a light and sat up in bed. She was wide awake now.

She could hear no sounds of activity in the motel. Could she be the only one not sleeping? The urgency of the nightmare was still with her, and she knew she would probably have to wake up the other members of her team.

First, she needed to check out certain information.

She picked up her cell phone, went online, and searched for the coming day’s passenger train schedules between Chicago and Dermott, Wisconsin. She found only one inbound train from Chicago. It was scheduled to arrive in Dermott at 12:30 in the afternoon. It was scheduled to depart again at 1 o’clock.

Less than ten hours from now, Riley realized. That train would arrive in a different town in a different state. Was the next victim going to be on it?

She heard an echo from the dream in her mind. “It’s cheating! Time is cheating!”

She couldn’t stop time. She needed to get ahead of it.

Riley knew that she needed more details. She needed help.

She called the motel desk and asked to be connected to Mason Eggers’s room. A moment later, Eggers answered the phone.

“I’m sorry about the hour,” Riley said.

“Don’t worry,” Eggers said, not sounding the least bit groggy. “I wasn’t able to sleep myself. I’ve been worrying about when the killer might strike in Dermott.”

“Me too,” Riley said.

She told him what she’d just found out about the passenger train.

“That’s right,” he said. “That’s the one that’s worrying me.”

She asked, “Do you think somebody on that train will be in danger?”

“That depends on when the next freight train will pass through there. Like I said earlier, freight trains don’t follow a strict schedule, but …”

Riley waited for him to finish his thought.

“I’ve got a dispatcher friend, Hank Deever, who’s on night duty right now. He’s got a lot of information at his fingertips. He might be able to give me some idea. I’ll give him a call.”

“Please do that,” Riley said. “What’s your room number? I’m coming right over.”

“Fifteen,” Eggers said.

“Just a few doors down,” Riley replied as she hung up.

She hastily put on her clothes without bothering to straighten her hair. Then she hurried outside and down the sidewalk to Eggers’s room and knocked on the door.

Still in his pajamas and a rather old-fashioned robe, Eggers was holding his out-of-date folding cell phone when he answered the door.

“I just talked to Hank,” Eggers told her. “He says a freight train runs through Dermott most days at around two o’clock—about an hour after the passenger train from Chicago departs again.”

Riley felt a chill of apprehension.

Those two trains followed the same pattern as passenger and freight trains had for the other three murders.

Eggers shook his head and added, “Look, I know I’m just a an over-the-hill railroad cop, and maybe I’d do the world more good if I just gave up this kind of work and took up fishing. But I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

Riley was struck by the expression on Eggers’s face.

She had a strong gut feeling …

This guy knows exactly what he’s talking about.

She simply had to trust his instincts.

“Get dressed—fast,” Riley said. “Then come to my room—it’s number seven.”

She already knew that Bill and Jenn were in rooms on either side of hers. She hammered on each of their doors, demanding that they get up and get dressed and come to her room. A few minutes later, Bill, Jenn, and Eggers were all in Riley’s room.

Eggers was the only one aside from Riley herself who seemed especially awake. He took a look at the others, then went about setting up the coffeepot that was in the room. In a few moments, the smell of fresh coffee filled the air.

Riley paced the floor, hoping she could persuade her colleagues to agree with her. As she told them about the passenger train and the freight train that would follow soon after it, Eggers passed around cups of coffee.

Then Riley said, “The killer is working faster. And he’s going to kill again tomorrow, in Dermott. We’ve got to do something to stop him.”

Jenn said, “Not if we’ve caught him already. Not if he’s Timothy Pollitt.”

Riley flashed back to the interrogation room.

She remembered what Pollitt had said when Bill asked him about Sally Diehl.

“She was friendly. She liked to talk to us.”

Riley realized something.

Those were the only words that Pollitt had said that sounded truly sincere.

Riley realized that some parts of the puzzle were falling into place in her mind.

She blurted, “Timothy Pollitt didn’t kill Sally Diehl. He didn’t kill anybody. Don’t ask me how I know that, I just do. I’m absolutely sure of it.”

A silence fell in the room.

Am I going to have to beg? Riley wondered.

Jenn looked confused and indecisive.

But Riley noticed a welcome and familiar change in Bill’s expression. After working together for so many years, they’d learned to give each other the benefit of the doubt. And Riley could see that Bill was ready to do that.

He finally said, “OK, what do we do next?”

Riley thought for a moment.

Then, without another word to the others, she picked up the motel phone, called the front desk, and asked to be connected with Bull Cullen’s room. Seconds later, she heard the groggy sound of Cullen’s voice.

“Agent Paige? What the hell do you want?”

Riley said, “Cullen, you can’t take the FBI off the case.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Riley ignored the question.

“My colleagues and I think there’s an excellent chance that the killer will strike tomorrow just outside of Dermott, Wisconsin, sometime around two o’clock.”

Riley heard a groan of annoyance.

“You really don’t know when to quit, do you, Agent Paige?”

Cullen hung up the phone.

Riley immediately called the front desk again and asked for Cullen’s room number.

Then she put the phone down and headed for the door.

“Come on,” she said to the others.

“Where are we going?” Jenn asked.

“To wake Cullen up.”

Followed by Bill, Jenn, and Eggers, Riley strode down the sidewalk toward Cullen’s room.

She pounded on his door.

A voice inside called out, “Who is it?”

“You know who it is,” Riley yelled.

“Go away,” Cullen replied.

Riley pounded on the door again. This time a handful of tired-looking people poked their heads out of other motel room doors, grumbling about calling the police.

Riley ignored them but she saw Bill flash his FBI badge. The complainers disappeared back into their rooms.

“Damn it, Cullen,” she yelled. “This is your wakeup call. We’ve all got work to do. And we’ve got to start right now. Get up and open the door.”

A moment later, a bleary-eyed, pajama-clad Cullen opened the door, and Riley and her colleagues filed inside.

“You guys are being ridiculous,” he said. “We’ve got our guy and you know it.”

“Has Pollitt confessed yet?” Riley asked.

“No, his lawyer won’t let him talk. And why do you think that is? Why do you think he tried to run in the first place?”

Riley could think of too many reasons to mention. The guy had a domestic abuse record, for one thing. And he had a secret life that he’d gone to a lot of trouble to conceal from everybody. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to any cops. And in any case, no lawyer was going to let him do that.

It doesn’t mean he’s a murderer, she thought.

In fact, she now felt absolutely sure that Pollitt wasn’t a murderer. Certainly not the one they were looking for.

Cullen rubbed his eyes.

He said, “I know what I’m doing, believe me. There are lots of people we can interview who knew the victims. Sooner or later, we’ll find a connection between Pollitt and all of the victims. We’ll find corroborating evidence.”

Riley could hardly believe her ears.

What made Cullen so sure that there was a connection between Pollitt and the victims—even if he really was guilty of the murders?

He really doesn’t have the first idea of what he’s doing, Riley thought.

Cullen was starting to seem more awake now. He was grinning smugly.

“You guys really can’t deal with this, can you? That I’m going to wrap up the case, I mean. Without the FBI’s help. You’re going to get outshone by a railroad cop. I’ll get all the glory, and you’ll look like idiots. Well, that’s just too damned bad. You’re off the case. Orders are orders. And I’m giving the orders here.”

Cullen finally seemed to notice Mason Eggers’s presence in the room.

“What’s old Grandpa doing here?” he asked.

“He’s come up with a theory,” Riley said. “And a damned good one.”

Cullen’s eyes lit up.

“So Grandpa’s got a theory! This I’ve got to hear!”

Mason Eggers’s hands and voice shook nervously as he spread his map out on a table and explained everything to Cullen. Cullen didn’t stop grinning during Eggers’s whole explanation. Riley could tell by Cullen’s expression that he thought the theory was complete nonsense.

When Eggers finished, Cullen crossed his arms and shook his head.

“You guys are really grasping at straws, aren’t you? Listening to this over-the-hill old coot. You can’t even come up with an idea of your own!”

Riley suppressed a moan of discouragement.

What’s it going to take to get through to him? she wondered.

She said, “We’ve got to set up a stakeout in Dermott. And we’ve got to get to work right now. If you don’t want to be involved, my people are going to do it anyway.”

Suddenly Cullen’s expression changed. He chuckled and said, “OK.”

Riley was startled.

OK? she thought.

This had been easier than she’d expected.

Cullen added, “Let’s get moving. Let’s wake everybody up. Just one thing, though. I want Grandpa to come along.”

Now Riley understood.

Cullen expected the stakeout to be a bust, and he wanted to see all of them made fools of—Riley, Bill, and especially Jenn, for having bloodied his nose.

And of course, he wanted to make a fool of Eggers too.

But that didn’t matter to Riley.

What mattered was stopping a killer—and saving a life.