Kelley mouthed a rude comeback, then took a sip of coffee, glowering at Lonergan.
Foster pointed out the finer points. “A pink backpack. Silva’s face, the paint still fresh. Spikes, which punctured her tire. And here, here, and here, doors and padlocks. And over here a house.” Her finger bounced along the photo. “The house repeats several times. It has to be important. Look also at the little dots, some of them almost too light to pick up. Spots in red. Like blood.”
“There’s also a face there we haven’t seen before,” Li said. “Which means there’s somebody we haven’t found yet. Maybe the blood on Ainsley’s jacket belongs to her?”
“Here,” Foster said, pointing to a faint sketch of a face that hadn’t yet been painted in. “No idea who this might be. It looks like she started but didn’t finish. There’s no telling how long she’s been at this.”
“There are no prints or DNA on the victims,” Bigelow said. “So nothing connects her to anybody, even to Silva, as quiet as it’s kept. And if Silva dies, we don’t even have her shaky ID going for us. Davies could argue, and her lawyers will, that Silva was mistaken, hopped up on pain meds and out of her head wrong.”
Lonergan readjusted in his squeaky chair. “And this painting looks like what a kid would do with movie posters. Maybe she’s just one of those twisted people who’re news junkies and lose their minds over high-profile cases. Instead of tackin’ up newspaper clippings, she paints the details.”
“I’d believe that,” Li said. “Maybe, if it weren’t for the spikes. Those never made the news reports, or if they did, I didn’t see it. Davies wouldn’t know about the spikes unless she put them there . . . or someone who was with her.” She stepped up to the photo again, pointed at an image in the far corner. “A cell phone. We never found Birch’s.” She found another spot on the canvas. “And another. We never found Rea’s either.”
Lonergan frowned. “Wait. Back up. Someone like who?”
Foster faced him. “Tom Morgan.”
Lonergan stood, the clearing of his throat loaded with pomposity and scorn. “You’re takin’ a wrong turn. A woman’ll poison you, shoot you, but I don’t see one guttin’ you from stem to stern, then draggin’ you under a bridge. That’s a guy. That’s a guy with issues.”
“I can name at least five women right off the top of my head,” Foster said, challenging him. “Including Davies. We have Silva’s ID.”
“Maybe,” Bigelow said, “but I think Lonergan’s kinda right. These women were hacked up. Women don’t tend to do that.”
“And maybe we’re trying to shoehorn Silva’s attack into the others,” Symansky said. “They could be unrelated. Her ID could be wrong. The painting, not coincidence but Davies pinging off the same thing that’s got the whole city wound up, with some weird additions.”
Kelley nodded. “Right. I know we all want to wrap all this up and find the guy, but we can’t make the mistake of making stuff into what it isn’t. We’ve got a few threads here. We need to make sure we’re not jumbling them up.”
As much as Foster hated to admit it, she knew they were right. “First move then, find Davies. Second move?”
“The family,” Li said. “Priscilla.” She studied the photographs of Amelia’s painting, pointed to it. “That house.”
“So we let Morgan sit in there for a while and think,” Lonergan said. “Maybe we tell him his sister’s in trouble. See if he tries to do somethin’ about it. Least that’s how we used to do it before cops went all soft.”
You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Finally, Kelley spoke. “You know, I don’t see anything wrong with that plan.”
Bigelow gave Lonergan a thumbs-up. “Score one for Lonergan-Bigelow.”
“I’m going to follow up with Naperville PD,” Li said.
“I’ll start with Priscilla,” Foster said.
“What about Davies?” Symansky asked. “We’re not going to beat the bushes for her?”
“Her brother’s had his phone calls,” Foster said. “I think she’ll come to us.”
CHAPTER 71
There was only a brief moment of anxiety as Amelia Davies walked into the police station hours later with the lawyer she’d hired for Bodie and, if things went sideways, herself too. When she’d gotten back to her phone after meeting with her father, there had been five frantic messages from Bodie telling her where he was and what had happened. He had no idea she’d attacked Silva, and she didn’t tell him, but he knew other things, things she didn’t want the police getting out of him. She wondered the entire way there how difficult it would be to sneak into the ICU to finish what she’d started.
But the immediate problem now was Bodie. Again. Amelia didn’t fear the police. She’d plunged that knife pretty deep. Silva couldn’t possibly last too much longer, and Amelia doubted she was in any condition to talk to anyone, let alone Detectives Foster and Li. She got strange looks from the police when she announced herself at the desk and she and the lawyer she’d hired for Bodie, Edwin Bishop, were shown into the small interview room, but she did her best to ignore the stares. It was confidence she wished to convey.
“Remember, let me do the talking,” Bishop said. “Follow my lead.”
Amelia sat calmly at the table. She wasn’t worried or tense, not anymore. She knew she was smarter than any detective. “I understand.”
She liked that Bishop sat beside her in a ridiculously expensive-looking suit, graying at the temples, his face expertly shaved. He looked every bit the part of a high-priced attorney, which was what she’d needed. She wanted to make an impression, to strike fear into the detectives’ hearts so they would know they were not going to have an easy time with Bodie.
The door opened, and Foster and Li walked in and sat at the table. Bishop spoke first. “Ms. Davies has retained counsel on behalf of her brother, Bodie Morgan. What are the charges, and when can I confer with him?”
“We let Mr. Morgan go about five minutes ago,” Foster said. A cell phone rang. It wasn’t hers or Li’s or Bishop’s. “That’s probably him calling now to tell you all about it.”
Amelia ignored the ringing. They’d made a move she hadn’t anticipated.
Bishop looked confused. “What’s happening?”
Li folded her hands on top of a file on the table but didn’t answer. Foster cleared her throat. “Bodie Morgan’s psychiatrist was attacked last night. We’d like to talk to Ms. Davies about that. Would you mind telling us, Ms. Davies, where you were around midnight last night?”
Amelia almost laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
“Are you accusing her of attacking this person?” Bishop asked.
“We’re not accusing her of anything,” Foster said. “We’re just having a conversation.”
Bishop started to get up. “Like hell you are. It’s a fishing expedition.”
“Not quite,” Li said. “Silva ID’d Ms. Davies as being the woman who attacked her.”