Li’s eyes widened. “There’s going to be a next time?”
Foster smiled. “I get hunches. I follow them.”
“All righty then. Next late-night prowl, count me in.”
“Deal,” Foster replied. “Buy you a coffee? A real one, not from the cop pot. As a peace offering.”
Li stood for a moment, studying Foster. If her new partner kept up the pace she was on, she was going to be a prime candidate for burnout. Li could see it in the lines around her eyes, the strain in her neck. Foster was tightly wound and forcing her way through her days. Li had noticed her secreting clips and pins and little things into her pockets. Now she couldn’t sleep, she said. Foster had no idea that Li knew why. Griffin had given her a heads-up about her son’s murder, and of course everyone knew about her former partner. But Foster didn’t talk about any of that. She hadn’t shared a single personal thing about herself, and it didn’t look like she ever would. Li, though, had other plans. She had no intention of working with a stranger.
“You cannot buy me with coffee, Harriet Foster,” she offered lightly. “I want chocolate. Lots of it. But for now, show me what we’re looking at so I can catch up.”
With the smoke cleared, the two went over everything again. Foster took the Riverwalk, paying close attention to the fence gap. Li took the captures from Michigan Avenue the afternoon of the march and running all the way up to the time of Birch’s murder. Rea’s autopsy had been pushed back until noon, which gave them more time to be careful and deliberate.
Li finally disengaged after hours of searching, rolling her chair away from the monitor, running her hands through her hair. “Oh my God, if I have to look at another frame, I’m going to beat somebody down.”
Foster faced her. “So I should have called you in last night, then?”
“Yes, but also hell no. You do you, Foster.” She stood, stretched. “I’m going for shit coffee. Want another one?”
“No thanks.” Her eyes went back to the monitor. “I’m wired enough already.”
Li walked away on leaden legs. “Good call.”
She was back in minutes with a fresh mug of scorched coffee that literally twisted her lips when she took a sip. Li tucked back in front of her computer to pick up where she’d left off. “We have less than an hour till the ME.” Foster nodded but didn’t answer.
“I’m married,” Li said. Out of nowhere, not related to anything. No time like the present, she figured. “With a son. Two years old.” Foster looked up. Li grinned. It was time to ease into knowing each other. “You didn’t ask, I know. But we should know a little about each other. Will, my husband, is an ER doctor at Rush. Very smart, very handsome. Very not Chinese. Also, very busy, rarely home. My mother moved in about a year ago to help with the baby. Walter.” She saw the perplexed look on Foster’s face. “After Will’s grandfather. Don’t ask. My mother wasn’t happy. Still isn’t, but what can she do, right? We call him Wally. It still sounds like an old man’s name. I go by my maiden name for the job. Otherwise, I would have had to do all kinds of paperwork and switch out that strip of masking tape off my locker.”
“Two’s a fun age,” Foster said.
Li snorted. “Is it? When? Because right now it’s a lot, and it’s constant. And my mother, my dear, wonderful, beautiful Chinese mother, is driving us nuts.”
Foster smiled and turned back to her screen. “An ER doctor. Wow. The scheduling alone.”
“Freaking tell me about it.” Li grinned over the rim of her cup. It was a start. Slow and easy wins the race. She tucked in to resume her search. “I’m seeing tons of pink backpacks from this march. Trying to pick out Peggy, even with that red hair, is like looking for a needle in a hundred haystacks.”
Foster was only half listening as the deserted Riverwalk played on her monitor, frames blinking as the moon shifted position or the streetlights above changed color. “I’m not having much luck here either. All I . . .” She stopped, leaned in, her eyes glued to the images. “Wait.”
Li rose and walked over to stand behind Foster. “See something?”
Foster pointed at a shadowy figure slipping through the gap. She froze the frame. “There. It’s him.” She checked the time stamp. Twelve thirty-nine, Sunday night. Foster consulted her notebook. “We have him with Ainsley at twelve thirty-six. Three minutes later he’s slipping through that fence.” She started the tape again, and they watched the figure move through the gap and disappear into the night. “Three minutes to walk back to Birch, maybe take one last look, and then vanish.”
“It sure looks like the same guy who came down the stairs with her,” Li said. “He’s carrying the duffel. Only it looks empty, doesn’t it? Like it weighs nothing.”
“Still no shot of his face,” Foster said. “His head’s down and turned from the cameras. He knows where they are. I’m not seeing a car. It has to be parked out of camera range, otherwise where’s he going?” Foster reached for her phone, dialed. “We need footage from Columbus and Michigan, Randolph and the Lake Shore feeders going east-west. His car will be on one of them.” While she made her call, Li sounded it out.
“Two people come down those steps, one of them Birch with her pink backpack. Ainsley’s there passed out. The one that’s not Birch checks him. They move on, out of the shot.” She leaned forward, focusing on the screen. “He’s back forty minutes later, bends down, touches Ainsley’s jacket, I guess, putting the spot of blood on it, and then, poof.”
Foster hung up and sat down again. “Through the fence and away.”
“You heard all that while you were on the phone?” Li asked, impressed.
“I can chew and talk at the same time.”
“Good to know,” Li said. “And we know this guy stepping through the gap in the wee hours of the morning’s probably not just some rando nightwalker because . . .”
“Most decent people, like Elyse Pratt, would raise the alarm when they stumble on a dead body, call the police. No 911 call came in on Birch until hours later from the bridge. So either Mr. Rando’s completely oblivious and didn’t see Birch lying there, which is highly unlikely . . .”
“Or he put her there,” Li broke in, “and was legging it, slow and easy. And he used the same escape route for Mallory Rea . . . skirting the cameras.”
“We need to find that car,” Foster said.
Li was already on it, sliding up to her desk again to begin the search. “And one cold SOB.”
CHAPTER 37
Dr. Silva stood at Bodie Morgan’s apartment door, her fist poised for a knock. She took a bracing breath and then rapped lightly, going over her pitch as she waited for the shuffling inside to get closer to the door. How she hated being in such a vulnerable position, having to literally beg, her very future dependent on someone like him. Protocol? Ethics? Boundaries? She was breaching them all, but she didn’t care. One way or another, she was going to get the hell out of Westhaven.
There was a peephole, but in a split-second decision she reached up and covered it with a finger. If Bodie knew she was at the door, he’d never open it. She could feel him on the other side, hear him breathing as he peeked through the hole to find it blocked. For a moment there was a groundswell of anticipation, hesitancy; then she heard the chain disengage and the door unlock and swing open. Bodie stood there. For a moment there was a look of irritation on his face, replaced smoothly by the well-practiced smile she remembered, followed by the disguise of the quiet, affable man she would stake her career on being as fake as fool’s gold.