As the Wicked Watch(58)

Dr. Chan was still the fastest way to find out. Rather than email him, I decided to try and reach him by phone. I could tell by the delay and sound of the telephone ring that he wasn’t in the country, so I was ecstatic when he picked up.

“Hello?” he said. Dr. Chan usually answered the phone by calling my name, but his caller ID might not be working outside the United States.

“Dr. Chan! Hi, it’s Jordan,” I said. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

“Oh, Jordan, hello. Well, actually—” he said before I cut him off.

“Listen, I know it’s only been a couple of days, but I’m calling to see if you’ve gotten those tissue results back yet. You know, the tissue from Masey you sent to the crime lab.”

“Well, you said it yourself, Jordan. It’s only been a couple days,” he said.

“I thought it might be on the fast track. Does anybody else know about it?” I asked him.

“Sure, my assistant. I asked her to get it to the state crime lab,” he said. “She knows.”

“No, no, I mean, other reporters?”

I regretted the question the moment I’d asked. I didn’t want Dr. Chan to think I was accusing him of anything. He’d clearly promised me the exclusive.

“Well, no, Jordan, I didn’t speak to anyone else before I left. I told you that,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Listen, Jordan, I’ve got to go. You caught me in the middle of something,” he said. For the first time, I noticed lethargy in his voice.

“Are you okay, Dr. Chan? You sound exhausted,” I said.

“Look, there’s no way the results are back already, okay?” he said, sounding slightly annoyed. “Let’s talk some other time. I have to go now. Bye.”

The call disconnected and I stared at my phone, baffled.

Where did he say he was? Switzerland? You idiot you didn’t even think about the time difference. You probably called him in the middle of the night.

My cell phone felt hot and clammy in my hand, but I didn’t hesitate to call Joey. It went straight to voice mail. My heart pounded and my mind raced as if I were running out of time. To do what? I didn’t know. There were so many aspects of this case to think about. I turned my focus to last night’s vigil. I hadn’t begun to process what I’d learned there, in particular Shawn Jeffries’s revelation about Masey’s getting rides from school. I walked back over to Ellen’s desk.

“Hey, I’m going to run downstairs and grab a coffee. You want something?”

“Sure,” she said. “I’m buying,” and reached into her wallet and pulled out a ten.

“Thanks, you don’t have to do that,” I said.

“Is everything okay? You’re scrunching,” she said.

When I’m deep in thought or ticked off, my eyebrows curl up like they came with a drawstring.

“No, I’m fine. I’m just trying to process everything from the vigil last night. Monique, Louise hugging Masey’s cousin Yvonne. What’s their connection? I just feel like everybody knows more than they’re saying, and I don’t understand why.”

“Like what?” Ellen asked.

“Well, first, the young lady from Masey’s school named Shawn. She told me that Masey had gotten rides from school in the weeks before she disappeared.”

“Really? I don’t remember that detail from your reporting,” Ellen said, her brows now scrunched up. “Did I miss that?”

“No, you didn’t,” I said. “I asked Tracy to cut it. I’m not sure even the police know that yet. My instinct told me it might be a clue, and I didn’t want to put this girl’s life in danger.”

“You sure her mother or a relative didn’t pick her up from school?” Ellen asked.

“I don’t know. Her mother never mentioned it to me. In fact, she made a big deal out of telling me about the long bus route Masey took from her house to the West Side school. And then there was this other girl named Monique, Monique Connors, who said she was a friend of Masey’s. Well sort of. That’s how she said it, like she didn’t sound so sure about that. She was a little off-putting. I didn’t interview her on-camera, but I saw her hanging around Masey’s relatives later. She was standing next to Masey’s cousin Yvonne. That’s the older cousin that Pamela said Masey hung around her house all the time. Well, she did. And Louise Robinson knows Yvonne. That’s how she got involved in the vigil, I suspect. At first I thought it was because her niece lives across the street from the crime scene, but I think it’s deeper than that.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me that Louise Robinson’s niece lives across the street from the crime scene? That’s one helluva coincidence, isn’t it? Did you talk to her?”

“Yes, her name is Tanya McMillan, the young woman I did the live interview with the day the body was found. Next thing I know, Tanya is calling me and telling me about the vigil. I didn’t realize they knew Masey’s cousin Yvonne until I saw Louise hugging her last night.”

“Wow, the world is small, isn’t it? In this case, it’s almost too good to be true,” Ellen said.

It was a coincidence, but I didn’t want to make too much out of the dots that connected Tanya to Louise to Yvonne. Chicago is a city comprised of neighborhoods and streets, and people who live in certain neighborhoods, on certain streets, know one another. From what I can tell, besides the trip to school, Masey’s life was an amalgam of streets and the houses she’d been in and out of because of where she lived, hung out, and played. As far as the people in her life, only one or two degrees separated them.