Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(80)

When at last he’s taken from the room, Rocky shares his latest theory with Murph: that there really might have been a Jamie: either someone Jerry mistook for his dead sister, or someone who convinced Jerry that she was Jamie.

“And you think that’s the person who killed those women ten years ago?” Murph asks. “And now Nowak’s wife and the Lewis woman, too?”

“It could be.”

“But why start killing again now all of sudden, ten years later?”

“Jerry’s death. That might be what triggered it. Nowak was killed just days after he died; Lewis about six weeks later. And when you look at the victimology . . .”

Murph nods thoughtfully. Of course he knows as well as Rocky does how important it is to profile the victims along with their killer. You look at what they have in common, figure out why they might have been targeted by the unsub—unknown subject.

Rocky goes on, “Nowak was on duty on Jerry Thompson’s cell block the night he killed himself.”

“Or was murdered, depending on who you want to believe.”

“Right. And Phyllis Lewis’s connection to Thompson was less direct, but it’s there, Murph. She lived right next door to Allison, and Allison’s testimony put Jerry into prison in the first place.”

Murph whistles under his breath.

“So let’s say this person—someone Jerry believed was Jamie—really did—does—exist,” Rocky continues. “If Thompson’s death was the trigger, where do we look for the motive?”

“Revenge.”

“Exactly. You kill Nowak’s wife to get back at him. You kill Allison’s neighbor to get back at her.”

“But why not Nowak himself? Why not Allison herself?”

“For some people, losing a spouse is a fate worse than death,” Rocky says simply. “Believe me.”

“I do.” Murph gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm.

Determined to focus on the business at hand, Rocky says, “Whoever killed Cora Nowak knew what losing her would do to her husband. And he maximized the impact with that gruesome sandwich delivery.”

Rocky and Murph had studied the grainy surveillance videotape that showed the perp dropping off the so-called lunch that night. You couldn’t make out a damned thing; just a dark, hooded figure with his face completely obscured. It could have been anyone.

“But you’re talking about a wife,” Murph tells him, “not a next-door neighbor. What about the Lewis case? That doesn’t make as much sense.”

“No,” Rocky agrees. “It doesn’t. Unless there was more to the relationship between Allison MacKenna and Phyllis Lewis than we know.”

“They’re both married with kids.”

Rocky gives Murph a pointed look.

“Okay,” Murph says, “anything’s possible. But I don’t buy it.”

Frankly, Rocky doesn’t, either. But you have to look at all your options.

“We’ve got to talk to anyone we can find who knew Jerry Thompson ten years ago, anyone who can shed some light on this. Including his father.” Rocky is still intrigued by B.S.’s mention that Jerry’s father was there the night he was attacked by his sister, and by his own memory of the photograph sitting in the case file.

He quickly dials the precinct and asks Tommy, the station house desk sergeant, to put him through to Mai Zheng, one of the newer junior detectives on the squad. She’s incredibly proficient when it comes to computers and records.

She answers her phone on the first ring.

“Mai,” he says, “I need you to do something for me. Write down this name: Sam Shields.”

He quickly tells her to look into Shields’s background; find out if there was any way he had been a part of Jerry’s life after all, and whether he’s the man pictured in that old snapshot in Jerry’s file.

“I want to know where he was in December 1991, around the time that Jamie Thompson was murdered,” he tells Mai, “and I want to know where he was when the Nightwatcher murders took place—and where he is right now. Got it?”

“Got it,” Mai says. “I’ll get right on it.”

He hangs up to see a thoughtful-looking Murph scratching his chin.

“If we go with the revenge theory, Rock,” he muses, “then who’s next? Because you and I both know there’s gonna be another one.”

Rocky hadn’t gotten that far in his line of thinking, but Murph is right.

Promptly putting himself back into the predator’s shoes, Rocky returns, “Who else do you blame for Jerry Thompson kicking the bucket?”

“Doobie Jones, if you know what we know.”

“True,” he tells Murph, “but chances are, the unsub doesn’t, and anyway—how are you going to get to Jones in here?”

“You’re not. It has to be someone accessible. Someone who has more to lose.”

Jesus.

It dawns on Rocky, and he can feel the blood drain from his face.

He’s up and on his way to the door in a flash.

“Rock,” Murph calls, startled, “where are you going?”

Rocky manages to summon a one-word reply, and it comes out sounding strangled. “Ange.”

Unnerved by a second police car that races past with wailing sirens, Allison bites her lower lip and looks at Ben, behind the wheel.