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Faith finished the last of her sandwich, crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it into the wastebasket.
“Two points,” Michael said absently.
They had just left the interview room with Nina and her attorney. The interview was essentially a rehash of the first one, but with an angry balding man shouting at them about how abusive this entire travesty was the entire time.
It hadn’t changed anything. Nina Verbeck was still under arrest for the murders and awaiting her arraignment the next morning. Michael, Faith and Turk were eating dinner at the precinct because after a day of interviewing a suspect, arresting a suspect, interviewing a suspect, filling out paperwork and putting together an initial plan of action for the courtroom shenanigans, then interviewing a suspect with her lawyer, they were too exhausted to go anywhere else.
And here we sit drinking coffee so we can have crappy sleep tonight, she thought, drinking the passable brew the Chicago Police Department’s 5thDistrict kept in their breakroom.I wonder how many law enforcement officers die of heart attacks before the age of fifty.
“Oh,” Michael said. “Before I forget, Ellie wants to invite you, David and Turk over for dinner the weekend after we get back. So this weekend, I guess.”
She scoffed. “You think so? I have a feeling we’ll be dealing with court stuff for the next two weeks. We have an arraignment and probably an extra hearing or two to deal with motions by the defense, not to mention the arguments in conference rooms.”
Michael smiled. “Aww, is someone upset they might have to talk to lawyers?”
“Are you not upset?”
He shrugged. “Not really. I’ll just fly Ellie out here if it looks like we’ll be a while. You should fly David out.”
“Yeah, but I want him to actually like me. Seeing me after dealing with attorneys all day might make him rethink moving in with me.”
“Better get him used to it now,” Michael suggested. “He’ll have to learn to deal with you when you’re angry.”
She looked at Turk, who sat patiently in a corner of the room waiting for his humans to tell him it was time to leave. When he caught Faith’s eye, he got to his feet and trotted over to her. She ruffled his fur and said, “What do you think, boy? Did we get her?”
“We got her,” Michael answered. “Her lawyers will try to argue that we’re making her fit the profile, but that painting cinches it up. It’s the birthmark, really. That proves that she was painting the victims and not just some random girls.”
Faith lifted her eyes to his. He smiled, but there was tension behind his smile. “You’re not sure either, are you?”
He pressed his lips together. “It looks pretty damned convincing. She was practically salivating over the details of the murders. She had the powder, she had the painting that is absolutely of the crime scenes, she loves alchemy… what are we missing?”
Faith shook her head. “I don’t know, but I feel like we’re missingsomething.”
He sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“You feel it too,” she pointed out. “That’s why you look tense.”
Michael tapped his finger on the table and didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, he said, “It’s definitely not the most iron-clad case we’ve made. I guess I’m in the same boat as Detective Hilary. If we didn’t have the painting, I’d say Nina’s probably notour killer. But wedohave the painting, and I just can’t see how it’s a coincidence.”
“Maybe she found crime scene photos,” Faith said. “She could have hacked into a database to get them.”
“Maybe for the first two,” Michael said, “but not the third one. Not Lorraine Hayes.”
“Maybe she has a friend in the crime lab who got her the pictures?”
“And she’d rather stand trial for murder than say that?” Michael shook his head. “No, she makes sense as a murderer.”
Faith leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “Does she?”
Michael frowned. “She makes sense to me. What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about the method of the murders. We have someone scaling a fence at the botanical gardens, climbing a twelve-story fire escape up and down, and chasing a girl in a forest path. The killer broke all three of their necks, and Lorraine, at least, was prepared to defend herself.”
“She was running away, not trying to defend herself.”
“Yes, butwhy?”Faith pressed. “She outweighs Nina. She’s younger than Nina. The killer wasn’t carrying a weapon.”
“The killer didn’t use a weapon, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t carrying one.”
