Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)(24)

Foster closed the website’s window and called the ME’s office. “I’ll check on the time for the autopsy.” Chicago had a population of 2.7 million people. Violent death was a common occurrence. But this killing was different: it had been brutal, shocking, even to her, and Birch had been dumped right on the city’s front step. Everybody from the mayor and the police superintendent on down would be on the detectives’ backs to find who’d done it before fingers started pointing their way, and the ME knew that as well as she did.

Lonergan pulled into the campus lot just as Foster got the information she needed. “Autopsy’s tomorrow morning, at nine.” She dropped her phone into her pocket, jotted the time down in her notebook, then checked her watch. It was a little after 2:00 p.m. “Eighteen hours from now.” She grabbed her bag and her files and slid out of the car. She was always laden down with paper and notes and files, never knowing what bit of information she’d need or when she’d need it. Already, after only a few short hours, it felt like she’d been on the Birch case forever.

Lonergan lifted out on the driver’s side with a grunt and watched her over the roof of the car. “You write down everything in that little book of yours?”

“The important things.”

“Like?”

“Details. Statements. Important things.” She grew defensive as she tucked the files into her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Work.”

He turned to watch students hustle past, none of them bothering to pay them a bit of attention. They had classes to get to, stuff to do. “I guess you got books on top of books filed away somewhere.”

She did. Every case. For seventeen years. “That a problem?”

He shook his head. “Just curious.” He tapped a finger to the side of his head. “I keep my notes in here. Don’t have to carry a thing.” He cocked his head. “What happens if we get into a foot pursuit—you carryin’ all that?”

She glowered at him, not sure he wasn’t questioning her competency or her readiness if, God forbid, they got into a tough spot. “I drop the bag,” she said. Foster looked around, spotted the building they needed, and started walking. “Or not,” she muttered low, sure Lonergan missed it.

They waited for Wendy Stroman and Stella Dean in a small study room on the ground floor of Barnwell Hall, a five-story residence building overlooking a square, leafy courtyard. A round table with two chairs sat in the middle of the space. A saggy couch had been pushed into a corner, swooshes of blue and scarlet running the length of the wall above—the school colors proudly displayed.

They’d gotten a student escort from the registrar’s office, and now the RA had gone to track down the two young women they needed to talk to. Media reports on Peggy’s death were coming in fast and furious. The Birch family wouldn’t get a lot of privacy from here on out.

Lonergan’s judgy eyes scanned the room. “Not much to write home about, to tell the truth.” He wandered over to the window overlooking the lawn and ran a finger across the dusty sill. “You’d think they’d dust the place for what they charge. And it smells like feet.” He turned to face her. “You go to college, Foster?”

She flipped open her notebook as she leaned against the wall. The couch looked germy and uncomfortable, so she decided to bypass it. “Yes.”

“Graduate and everything?”

“With honors.”

“Why be a copper, then? You could be runnin’ Google or somethin’ instead of pickin’ through bodies. Not sayin’ we’re all slouches—we got some Einsteins on the job—but you had easier options is what I’m sayin’.”

Foster couldn’t tell if Lonergan was being sincere or setting her up for some snide remark or patronizing condemnation. He was . . . a puzzle.

“I joined because I didn’t see enough cops on the street who looked like me . . . and there needed to be,” she said. “Also, because I thought I might be good at it.”

“And you think you’re good at it?”

“I am good.” The look she gave Lonergan dared him to challenge her words.

He leaned against the sill, studying her, his arms folded across his chest. “You know what I learned, Foster? Most killers are dumb as cheese. You don’t have to be Sherlock friggin’ Holmes to catch one of ’em. Sometimes the idiots run home and hide under their mommy’s bed . . . sometimes they take naps under a bridge. When we find where Ainsley hid that knife, you can write that down in your book there.”

It was over. The momentary thaw in the ice between them had frozen over again, and she and Lonergan were back where they’d been. “We’ll see,” she said.

The door opened on Foster and Lonergan standing at opposite ends of the tight room, their physical distance a visual cue to their philosophical one. Two young white women eased in—Stroman and Dean, presumably. Foster lifted off the wall and pointed them to the couch, watching as they eased down, sitting far from one another. Lonergan stayed near the window, his arms crossed. One of the women had been crying; her face was red and puffy, her eyes too. They’d explained their purpose in the office, given the RA a heads-up, so Stroman and Dean already knew Peggy was gone.

“Who’s Wendy Stroman?” Lonergan asked.

The petite brunette in the T-shirt with Mozart’s image on the front raised her hand, her brown eyes peeking out from behind severe horn-rimmed glasses. By contrast, the woman next to her, Stella Dean, was blonde and less birdlike, dressed in a white T-shirt and scarlet sweatpants with the school’s name down the leg.