by Mike Omer
He hit the brake and got out of the driver’s seat, sprinting toward the yellow tape. A cop stepped in his way. He recognized him immediately. It was Ellis.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice loud, wavering. “What happened to Hen?”
“Mr. Fishburne,” Ellis said. “You can’t go in there.”
“Is she there? Did she have an accident? Is she hurt?”
“We haven’t found Henrietta yet,” Ellis said. “She isn’t here.”
A jolt of relief. Then confusion. If Hen wasn’t here, why had they cordoned off her car? What was going on?
Details swam into focus. A man wearing gloves scraped the ground near Hen’s car, placing the result in a small plastic bag. Another man was dusting one of the car’s door handles with a small dark brush.
And then he saw three men at the far side of the parking lot, moving through the trees carefully, their eyes on the ground.
“What happened?” he whispered.
“I don’t have an answer for you yet. We’re looking into it.”
“But something made you call those people, right? You found something.”
Ellis hesitated. “I don’t know anything for sure, but there are some indications that a violent altercation took place here.”
“And those men over there . . . are they looking for my wife?”
“Mr. Fishburne, I promise I will give you an update as soon as we know more. But you can’t be here.”
Ellis gently pushed him away from the yellow tape. Bill complied, realizing that the way Ellis escorted him back to his car wasn’t very different from the way he had helped Chelsey go back to bed, just hours earlier.
CHAPTER 22
Albert Lamb’s home was a small white house on a quiet street. The wooden stairs drummed hollowly as Tatum climbed them, Zoe following close behind. Instead of buzzing the bell, Tatum knocked, as if the ringing of the doorbell would somehow sully the atmosphere of grief in the house.
A series of loud barks erupted beyond the door. A few seconds later Albert’s voice called, “Just a second.” A longer wait followed until Albert Lamb opened the door. He was dressed in a suit, but it was rumpled, his thin hair in disarray. Eyes puffy from sleeplessness, or tears, or both. A large golden retriever pushed past him, wagging his tail, and sniffed Tatum’s legs.
Albert looked at them blankly. It took a moment until the sliver of recognition shimmered in his eyes. “Oh. You’re working with Detective O’Donnell, right? Tatum Gray?”
“That’s right,” Tatum said. “Can we come in?”
Albert motioned them inside. The house was dark and still. Even the dust motes seemed to hover in space, unwavering, frozen by grief. Albert led them to the living room, shuffling strangely, and Tatum suspected that he might be intoxicated. The dog followed them, his own head lowered, tail drooping. He clearly wasn’t impervious to the heavy blanket of sadness that hung in the air.
The living room was surprisingly colorful—the rug round and blue, the couch off white, a couple of matching chairs. A glass coffee table sat in the middle of the room. A potted plant stood in the corner, identical to the one in Catherine Lamb’s home. Tatum guessed that she’d bought two of them, one for herself, one for her father. Albert Lamb’s plant showed no signs of neglect. Yet.
“Sit down.” Albert motioned at the couch. “I’ll be just a second.”
Tatum sat down; Zoe remained standing. Albert stepped out of the room, and Tatum decided he’d been wrong: the man wasn’t drunk—he was simply an inch away from breaking. Every movement seemed to take a toll.
Zoe immediately began pacing the room, examining a bookshelf, a picture of Catherine hanging on the wall, the window. Tatum had no idea if she was trying to build some sort of profile for the old man or just nervously reacting to the sadness that weighed the room down. The dog followed Zoe everywhere, looking up at her, expectant. Tatum counted the seconds until Albert returned with a small tray, holding three glasses of water and a bowl of crackers. He laid the tray on the coffee table and sat down on one of the chairs. Zoe joined Tatum on the couch.
“How can I help you?” Albert asked. His voice was tired, uninterested. He didn’t ask for news about the case. People handled grief in different ways. Many of them wanted the guilty party to be found, hoping it would give them some sense of justice or an inkling of closure. Albert Lamb didn’t seem the type.
“Mr. Lamb, we were hoping you could tell us about one of the people in your congregation.”
Albert sighed. “Patrick told me you were focusing the investigation on our church members.”
“Not all of them. Just one man. You know him as Daniel Moore.”
Albert picked up one of the glasses and sipped from it. “Does he have a different name?” he asked.
“His real name is Rod Glover.”
Albert nodded thoughtfully. “So that was his name.”
“You knew he’d changed his name?” Zoe asked abruptly. “How did you know?”
“Because he told me.”
For a moment, no one said anything. Tatum blinked, trying to get his thoughts in order. “What else did he tell you?”
“Not much. He said he wanted a fresh start. He had a disturbed childhood and a violent past. He said there were people after him and that he came to Chicago to leave his past behind. He wanted to change. He wanted to do some good.”
“Did you, perhaps, ask him to elaborate about his violent past?” Zoe said, her voice sharp.
“He said he wasn’t ready to talk about it, and I respected his privacy.”
Zoe opened her mouth to answer back. Tatum shot her a warning glance. She shut her mouth, her jaw clenched tight.
“Do you know where to find him? Do you have a phone number for him?” Tatum asked.
“No.”
There was a loud squawk, and the three of them turned around. Albert’s dog stood at the corner of the room with a large rubber ball in his mouth. He shifted the thing in his mouth, and the ball squawked again. He approached Albert expectantly, but the pastor didn’t move.
“Can you tell us who he was friends with?” Tatum asked.
“He was friendly with everyone.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“Not that I know of, but I wasn’t keeping track.”
The dog dropped the ball at Albert’s feet and whined. Both Albert and the dog stared at the ball for a few seconds without moving. Tatum fought the urge to pick it up and toss it for the dog to catch.
“So you just let this man into your congregation? Into your community?” Zoe asked abruptly. “A man you knew had a shady past? And you didn’t even bother to keep track of him?”
Tatum cleared his throat, raising an eyebrow at her. Whatever went on in Zoe’s mind clouded her judgment. He hoped she would shut up and let him carry on with the interview.
Albert glanced at Zoe. “I am not running a business or a school. I run a church. If I shut the door when the people who needed it most came—”
“Rod Glover was not one of those people.”
“You think he had anything to do with Catherine’s death?”
“We can’t divulge any information about the investigation,” Tatum said.
“Well, if you think so, you are mistaken.”
“How do you know?” Tatum asked.
“I’ve talked to him several times. I’ve seen him help the needy, play with children, support people in the community. This man would never do what was done to my daughter.”
Zoe opened her mouth again, and Tatum raised his finger and glared her into silence. He waited a few seconds, looking at the dog, who faced Albert with wide glum eyes, his tail between his legs. Finally the dog padded away to the corner of the room and slumped on the floor, his ears drooped.
“If he’s innocent, he has nothing to worry about from us,” Tatum said. “We just want to ask him some questions. If you know where we can find him—”
“Like I said, I don’t,” Albert said wearily. “
He left two months ago. A family emergency. He said he didn’t know when he’d be back.”
“We have reason to believe he had a good friend in your community,” Tatum said. “Any idea who?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“What about this picture?” Tatum asked, taking out his phone, finding the photo with Glover’s blurry face in the corner. “Do you remember who he’s talking to?”
Albert took the phone from him as if it were a delicate porcelain doll. Tatum doubted he could even see anyone else in the image, with Catherine sitting in the center. “I remember that day,” he said. “Catherine organized this picnic with Leonor. I wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea. It was supposed to rain, and it sounded like a hassle. But those two could make anything happen. It turned out to be a perfect day. Catherine made apple pie that kept attracting bees.”
“Who else was at that picnic?” Zoe asked.
Albert shook his head. “I don’t know. Dozens of congregation members. Where did you see this picture?”
“It’s on the memorial wall in your church,” Zoe said. “Haven’t you seen it?”
“Oh. No, I haven’t. I’ve been meaning to go, but . . .” He put the phone down. “I’ve been tired.”
“You don’t remember who he spoke to? You seem to recall that day so vividly, and he sat just a few feet away from you.”
“I remember Catherine.” Albert shook his head, as if the presence of Catherine at the picnic dimmed any other detail of that day in his memory.
There was something eerie about the man, something fragmented. Tatum got the feeling that Albert Lamb was a man used to giving big speeches, full of booming, colorful phrases and powerful body language. A man who spoke in the vast space of his church and made sure everyone could hear his words, his conviction. But now, struck by grief, he spoke in short, tired sentences, his voice almost monotone. Tatum could still glimpse a shadow of what the man used to be. A dramatic movement with his arm. A word spoken with sudden emphasis. But it was all jittery, spastic reflexes. Pastor Lamb was gone, perhaps forever. This was Albert Lamb, a widower who’d lost his only child.
“Do you know who made the memorial board?” Tatum asked. Whoever made it probably had other photos from that picnic. Maybe they could see who Glover was talking to. Maybe there would be another photo of Glover. Anything that could shed light on the time Glover spent in that community would help them pinpoint his partner.
“A congregation member. Terrence.”
“Can you give us his phone number?”
Albert picked up his phone from the table, tapped the screen a few times, and handed it to Tatum, who copied Terrence’s phone number.
Zoe persisted. “Can’t you think of anyone Glover was close to? Did you maybe see him sit next to the same person at church? Maybe he’d show up with someone? Leave with someone? Any person at all?”
Albert shrugged. “Like I said, he helped a lot of people.”
“What sort of people?”
“People who could use his experience. People with a similar background who wanted to turn a new leaf.”
Tatum felt nauseous. He glanced at Zoe, saw her eyes widening as she began to understand as well. “People with violence in their life?” he asked.
“Yes. Soon after he joined the community, he told me he would be glad to shepherd others like him. People who grew up with violence and had been violent. People who might feel uncomfortable coming to me or Patrick.”
“Or Catherine?” Tatum suggested.
“Well, Catherine was still young back then. She didn’t really offer counseling yet. So I told everyone that if they had violence in their life, and they wanted support they couldn’t get from me, they could approach Daniel. That he could help them become better men.”
The pastor had let the killer of his daughter into his church and might have even introduced him to his accomplice. “We’ll need a list of all the people who approached Daniel.”
“I don’t have one. The whole point was that this was confidential, that they could approach Daniel without talking to me or anyone else first.”
They stayed in Albert’s living room for ten more minutes, Zoe rigidly silent, Tatum asking questions, the pastor answering them quietly, almost distractedly. And if he knew anything about Catherine’s murder or about Rod Glover, it was hidden behind the impenetrable wall of his grief.
Eventually, they showed themselves out. Zoe walked to the car, her footsteps brisk, as if she needed to get away from Albert Lamb’s house as fast as possible, and Tatum kept pace. He knew her well enough to easily see her rage in the twist of her lips, the narrowing of her eyes.
He should have been used to her anger by now; Zoe was always impatient, quick to flare up. She was easily annoyed by stupidity or by someone disagreeing with her or, even worse, ignoring her opinion. But something in her demeanor right now set his teeth on edge. This wasn’t Zoe’s usual temper, like a fire in a dry field, burning fast, gone in minutes. This was a slow simmering emotion that could stay boiling hot for long.
“If we knew who Glover was talking to that day, it would be something,” she said.
“Why that day in particular?” Tatum asked.
“I don’t care about that day. But this was one time when there’s an actual shot of him, something we can trust. The camera doesn’t lie.”
“You think Albert lied to us?”
“I think Glover lied to him, and he’s passing on the lie, which is the same thing. And every single person in that community has been told some version of the same lie. No matter who we talk to, it’ll be vague stories. But the photo tells the truth. It can show us facts. I want to see how Glover interacted with those congregation members, who he talked to, the kind of people he was attracted to.”
“Okay,” Tatum said, pulling out his phone and finding Terrence’s number. It was time to see if there were any more photos.
CHAPTER 23
Terrence Finch was a professional photographer, and he told Tatum that he would be in his studio until evening. The studio was in South Ashland Avenue, a quick drive from Albert’s home. Zoe seemed so electric and volatile that Tatum actively wished he had a Katy Perry album, or one of the other musical horrors she listened to, just so she’d calm down a bit.
The studio was located between a car wash facility and a sad-looking hamburger joint. Someone had sprayed a heart in black spray paint on the studio’s wall and then tried to write names inside it. However, the heart was too small, and it ended up being the love declaration of blob + unreadable scrawl. Tatum wondered if Blob and Scrawl were still together and whether they had kids, perhaps named Smudge, Blot, and Splotch.
Zoe pressed the buzzer for much too long, resulting in a sharp, angry drone that made Tatum wince. They waited for ten seconds, and Zoe hit the buzzer again.
The door swung open, an irate man with a goatee standing in the doorway.
“Terrence Finch?” Tatum asked.
“Shhhhh!” The man put his finger on his lips and motioned them inside. They followed him, and the door closed behind them.
The studio was a very large room, tall lights in the corner, all aimed at the center. A large white fabric was stretched over the rear wall and the floor, littered with toys. A baby crawled on the fabric, chasing an orange ball. A photographer circled the set, taking photos of the toddler, who was utterly mesmerized by the ball.
The man who had opened the door ignored them, walking over to a woman who stood in the corner of the room. Both of them were staring at the baby with pure adoration. Tatum surmised that the man with the goatee wasn’t Terrence Finch; he was the child’s father. There was no real resemblance, but maybe the baby used to have a goatee, too, and they’d simply shaved it off for the photo shoot.
The photographer paused for a second to glance at Tatum and Zoe. “I’m Terrence. I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said, already turning back to the baby, who screamed in frustration as the ball rolled away.
Tatum watch
ed as Terrence shifted around the setting, his camera repeatedly clicking. He was about forty, brown hair, his scalp peeking through in patches. He had a gangly body, his arms twisted in uncomfortable angles as he tried to get a good shot of the baby’s face.
The baby picked up a cube, put it on top of another cube, then added a third. But they weren’t aligned properly, and the tiny tower tumbled down. He let out a screech of outrage at the audacity of gravity.
“Try again, Leo,” the mother said encouragingly. Leo’s father looked frustrated, poised to move, as if at any moment he might step in, take over, and show Leo how you really build a tower with three cubes.
The session kept going for a few more minutes. The mother wanted Terrence to photograph Leo hugging the big teddy bear. Except Leo wasn’t in the mood. Whenever someone waved the teddy bear at the baby, he’d hurriedly crawl to the other side of the set, eyes wide in terror. The kid had good reflexes. Tatum approved. He would never let himself be mauled by a ferocious teddy bear.
Finally, confused by his parents’ instructions, Leo sat in the middle of the set and burst into tears. Terrence stopped photographing, probably realizing this was not a moment that Leo’s parents would want to frame and put on their mantel. The mother picked Leo up, and the family left, with Terrence promising to send them the pictures.
Once they were gone, Terrence nervously approached Tatum and Zoe. “Hi, sorry. You’re the special agent I talked to on the phone, right?”
Tatum nodded, showing his badge. “Agent Gray. This is my partner, Zoe Bentley.”
“This is about Catherine.” His eyes were wide and sad. His voice broke as he said her name, ending in a hoarse whisper.
“How well did you know Catherine?” Tatum asked.
“Pretty well. I’ve been going to the church for the past ten years,” Terrence said. “Everyone in our congregation knew her. I don’t know what will happen to the church now that she’s gone.”
“What about him?” Zoe asked, showing Terrence her phone. It was the image of Glover with Andrea. “Do you know him?”
