A Killer's Mind (Zoe Bentley Mystery #1)(87)

CHAPTER 59

It was just after ten when Tatum got back to his apartment. He took a deep breath, prayed to the saint of lost apartments, and opened the door.

The living room was almost its former self. One of the couches had a weird new stain, the TV had a three-inch crack in its top-left corner, and two potted plants were mysteriously missing. But other than that, the place was nice and neat, and the unholy horrors Tatum had seen the night before were mostly gone. The fish, the only model citizen in the house, swam in its aquarium, looking pleased. There was a strange item decorating the aquarium floor, and when Tatum came closer, he saw it was a beer bottle. The fish didn’t seem to mind, so Tatum left it there.

He checked out his bedroom. The bedsheets were missing, and Tatum hoped someone had burned them. There was a sealed bag, and he could barely discern the shape of his brown shoes inside. He took the bag to the kitchen and threw it into the trash. Freckle sat on the kitchen table, a look of deep disdain in his eyes. Tatum made sure he had food and water. He tried to pet the cat, who morphed from calm feline into crazed scratch monster in less than a nanosecond. Tatum withdrew his newly bleeding hand.

“Asshole,” he said.

Freckle hissed at him and lay down, content to plot his evil plans undisturbed.

Tatum walked over to Marvin’s bedroom and knocked on the door.

“Hey, Marvin?” he said.

His grandfather opened the door and grinned. “Welcome back,” he said.

“Thanks for cleaning up the place,” Tatum said.

“I didn’t clean it up. Are you insane? Did you see how it looked? I hired a nice woman to do it.”

“Well . . . that’s almost as thoughtful, so thanks.”

“Sure, sure. You want some tea?”

Tatum nodded and followed his grandfather to the kitchen. Marvin stopped at the doorway, looking at Freckle, who stared back, narrowing his eyes.

“Get out, Freckle,” Tatum snapped, still annoyed about his scratched hand.

The cat stood up, stretched, bounced off the table, and walked out of the kitchen slowly, radiating contempt.

“There’s something very wrong about that cat,” Marvin said, getting two mugs from the cupboard.

“True,” Tatum said. “I noticed the fish was fine.”

“Yeah.” Marvin nodded. “I think it’s happy in its new home. So how was Chicago?”

“Not so good. I kinda messed things up.”

“That’s some nasty killer they have there. I read about it in the paper. Is he the one you were investigating?”

“That’s the one.”

“I also read that they sent a cute woman with you.”

“Did the paper say she was cute?”

“No, but there was a picture of you two at one of the crime scenes, and I determined with my own two eyes that she’s cute. Was she any good?”

Tatum shot the old man a look and realized to his relief that it was an innocent question. Marvin was referring to her profiling abilities. “She’s . . . incredible, really.”

“Then why didn’t you catch the guy?”

“We got distracted,” Tatum said. “There was another serial killer . . . or maybe he’s the same guy. We’re not sure yet.”

“Is there a serial killer convention in Chicago?”

“Sounds like it, huh?” Tatum sat at the kitchen table.

Marvin put a steaming mug on the table in front of him, then sat on the other side, drinking from his own mug. “So,” he said, “are you going to catch the guy?”

“The police will probably catch him,” Tatum said distractedly, frowning. He was thinking over the story Zoe had told him about the Maynard serial killings.

“There’s a place called Maynard,” he said.

“Sounds like some kind of sauce.”

“No, it’s a town. In Massachusetts.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Not surprising. It’s a small town.”

“Like Wickenburg?” Marvin asked. There was distaste in his tone.

“Yeah, I guess. Maybe just a bit larger. I thought you liked Wickenburg.”

“Bah. At first it seemed wonderful. A peaceful, small town, a place where everyone knows everyone and people say hello to each other in the street. Sounds ideal, huh?”

“I don’t know about ideal, but it sounds nice, I guess.”

“The thing you have to understand, Tatum, is that when everyone in town knows each other, everyone also has an opinion about each other. And those opinions stick and sometimes spread. You get into one small argument with your neighbor, everyone knows about it. If your kid gets into a fight in school, it’s suddenly everyone’s business. And these things don’t go away—they accumulate. I was Marvin Gray when I got there, and by the time I left, I was Marvin Shouted-at-the-Town-Meeting-That-One-Time-and-Always-Argues-with-the-School-Principal Gray.”

“That’s a long name,” Tatum said. “Was Dad such a problematic kid that you had to argue with the principal?”

“He was a teenager. Occasionally, he was a bit stubborn. And he could never keep his mouth shut.” Marvin grinned, like he always did when talking about Tatum’s dad. “He was a good kid. But everyone formed their opinions about him. Never gave him a real chance when he grew up.”