Delusion in Death (In Death #35)(27)

Because she wanted the visual, she hauled in another board, filled it with her possible suspects, connected them with the specific victim or victims.

She had a contentious divorce with an equally contentious child custody battle. A former cohab charged with assault who’d done time. A vic who’d worked in corporate medicine, another whose brother was an internist, a mother who was a retired army colonel. Six civil suits filed for a variety of reasons, and a number of family members, cohabs, spouses, exes, and coworkers with criminal records.

Not as many as she’d feared, she thought, but still numerous. She sat again, put her feet up again, and studied the faces of her possibles. Lives to explore, questions to ask. Lines to tug.

Some may—should—connect to whoever Roarke found. Those she’d bounce to the head of the class. Two motives were better than one.

It would give the investigation, at least an arm of the investigation, a direction. If the direction was correct, one of those faces hid a calculating, psychotic nature.

Most people, however clever, however controlled, never hid it completely. There were chinks, clues, habits. At some point, the real person showed through the facade.

Most tended to live alone, live quietly, keep to themselves—as neighbors and coworkers routinely claimed after the killer among them was revealed.

But not this one, no, she didn’t think this one stayed huddled in his space.

He frequented or worked in that bar. He knew how to socialize, how to make himself part of the fabric. He thought far too much of himself to live the quiet, unassuming life.

That’s what her father had done, though he’d traveled from place to place, never staying too long. But he’d socialized while leaving her locked away. He’d made his deals, run his cons, played his games.

As Stella had. Morphing, absorbing herself into the role she played. But there’d been chinks, other than the ones the child had seen long before the worst of the nightmare began. Weaknesses for illegals, for sex, for money, and a pure love of destroying others on the way to the goal.

Annoyed, she pushed herself up straight. Why was she thinking about them? They had nothing to do with the case, no connection or correlation to it. Yet her thoughts kept drifting back to both of them, to Dallas, to all that pain.

Push it down, push it away, she ordered herself.

Though she understood it was likely a waste of time she ran fresh probabilities, and picked three possibles at random. She did deeper runs now, shifting through layers, looking for triggers, abnormalities, odd affiliations.

To switch her focus and keep sharp, she brought up a split screen of crime scene images and the promotion image of the bar, before it was washed in blood.

She tried to imagine the killer. Had he served drinks or ordered them? Had he walked in that day with a smile on his face, alone, in company, or to take his shift?

Sat at the bar, or worked behind it?

Ventilation system was on, circulating the air. That’s what carried the substance throughout.

The bar, she thought again, or near it. The bar’s the hub. Not a big place, and everyone’s moving or talking—grabbing food, ordering drinks while they’re still on special.

Sit at the bar, your back’s to the room, she thought. But you could angle your stool, or use the mirror behind the bar to keep an eye on things.

She put her feet up again, thinking position. And tried to put herself inside that noise, that movement—the smells, the sounds.

As the long day took its toll, and she began to drift, she imagined too well.

Voices bounced off the walls, cutlery clattered at tables while people dug into the nachos, potato skins, rice balls, and drank away the dregs of the workday.

She recognized them—CiCi Way, and Macie Snyder, the boyfriend, the blind date laughing around the table.

Joe Cattery at the bar with Nancy Weaver, Lewis Callaway, Stevenson Vann, the accountant sitting alone with his work waiting for the latte he’d never drink.

The bartender, working the stick and arguing sports with a man he’d soon try to kill.

Joe Cattery turned to her first.

“I’ll be dead in a few minutes. Since you’re here, why don’t you stop it? I’d really like to see my wife and kids again.”

“Sorry. It’s already done. I’m just here to figure it out.”

“I just wanted a couple drinks. I wasn’t hurting anybody.”

“No, but you will.”

She watched Macie and CiCi get up, start toward the stairs leading down.

“We were going to have dinner,” Macie told Eve. “I have a good boyfriend, and an okay job. I’m happy. Still, I’m nobody. I’m just not that important, you know?”

“You’re important to me now.”

“But I had to die for that.”

“They all do, don’t they.” Stella swiveled on a bar stool, a drink in her hand, blood dripping from the slice in her throat. “You don’t give a shit about anybody till they’re bleeding on the ground.”

“I have a man I love. I have a partner and friends. I have a cat.”

“You’ve got nothing, because there’s nothing inside you. You’re broken in there so nothing holds long.” Lifting her glass in a toast, Stella shook back hair matted with blood. “What you are is a killer.”

“I’m not. I’m a cop.”