Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)(66)
Silva was guided to the exit. As the police escort walked her down the hall, she could feel Foster and Li watching her, judging her. She grew angrier with every step she took. What right did they have to question her motives? They were going to freeze her out; she knew it. She pushed through the front doors, leaving her escort behind.
“Damn them,” she said under her breath.
CHAPTER 44
At her desk, Foster pored over the record of Bodie Morgan’s stalking arrest. She looked up at Li sitting across from her, pulling up ID records on the women who’d pressed charges against him. “He does seem to have some serious issues,” she said.
Li stared at her monitor. “Listen to this—the two women who reported Morgan for stalking them say he really freaked them out. It wasn’t just him showing up at the same places, a bar, coffee shop, whatever.” She shoved a copy of a driver’s license across the desks. “This one, Katherine Wright, filed her complaint first. Morgan wouldn’t let up. I really hate a creepy guy.”
“She met him where?”
“Both complainants say they remember meeting him in a bar. Not the same bar. But both bars aren’t far from Morgan’s apartment or theirs. And meet him, apparently, is all they did. He approached, tried to pick them up, and I guess they smelled the weird on him and froze him out.”
“But he kept coming back?”
Li nodded. “Nearly every time they walked into a bar, he’d be there. Again, different bars, different nights, he’s there and starts up again. What’d they both do? They complain to the owners. He gets tossed.”
“And they choose different bars the next time,” Foster said.
“Right. Logical. Only he shows up there too. He gets tossed again, and for a while it’s all good, and then, bam, he’s back. Then the second victim swears she sees Morgan in her backyard, just standing there looking up at her windows. That would have done it for me.”
“There was a chase,” Foster said, referring to the report in front of her. “A Detective Tynan caught him?”
Li leaned back, smiled. “Oh, this is rich. The second victim’s Reese Tynan, whose brother, Detective Ciaran Tynan, just happens to work out of the Sixteenth District. Reese tells Ciaran all about the bar creep; bro cop moves into her place, staking it out. Morgan shows up doing his creepy loser thing, and Ciaran comes barreling out the door to grab him, only Morgan runs off. The chase ends on the roof of Morgan’s place. Tynan put in the report later that it looked like Morgan was getting ready to jump when he finally cornered him, but he snatched him back before he could. Morgan’s sporting a fat lip and a shiner in his mug shot. Tynan swears Morgan tripped on the stairs on the way down. I say he had the trip coming. Silva was right. It being his first offense, he got probation instead of time. His walking voluntarily into Westhaven, I guess, was his attempt at proving he wasn’t a complete scumbag?”
“Both women don’t live far from Morgan,” Foster said. “He didn’t go far.”
“And he doesn’t live that far from Birch’s campus either,” Li said.
“If it’s Morgan,” Foster said, “maybe Tynan caught him just as he was about to graduate from stalking to murder.” Li slid the copy of Reese Tynan’s driver’s license across to her. The copies were in black and white, but her eyes went right to the information she wanted to confirm.
“They’re both redheads,” Foster said.
Li nodded. “Like Silva told us. He has a type.”
CHAPTER 45
There was a knock at his door at the ungodly hour of 10:45 a.m. If it was Dr. Silva again, she was going to regret it. Bodie squinted through the peephole, certain that he would see her standing there like a harbinger of doom, a vulture waiting to pick his bones clean. But it wasn’t her. Instead, he gazed upon two serious-looking women. Police.
He knew they were police by the tight set of their jaws, the way they stood, the way they checked the hallway and braced for the opening of the door, ready for anything. Instantly his mood darkened. He wasn’t frightened or intimidated, just annoyed. He wanted to be left alone to figure things out. How could he do that if there were cops at his door? Even the knock sounded authoritative, demanding. Like they had a right. Why was it always women sweating him, pushing him, ignoring him, running him?
He opened the door, and immediately two badges went up in front of his face. He stared at the silver stars, then at the women holding them. He could tell from their expressions and body language that this wasn’t a wellness check or some random canvass unrelated to him. This was about him.
“Bodie Morgan? I’m Detective Foster. This is Detective Li. Mind if we come in? Ask you a few questions?”
Bodie stood in the doorway, his hand on the door. This was as far as he wanted cops to go. He didn’t want them in his home around his things, looking, sizing him up, finding him lacking. His home was his space. He decided who came and went.
“What’s this about?”
“Your name came up during an inquiry into a case we’re working,” Foster said. “We think you might be able to shed some light.” She let a beat pass. “I’m being intentionally vague here, Mr. Morgan, seeing as we’re standing in the hallway, and I’m sure at least a few of your neighbors clocked us from the elevator and now have their ears pressed to their doors, listening to every word we say.”