She began sorting the pictures. Terrence was organized—the folders had a date and a short description of the occasion. She created a copy of the folders, keeping only the images Glover appeared in. She put on a Katy Perry album as she did it, but the music only irritated her, and she shut it off.
A knock on the door. She opened it. Tatum stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
“I figured we could talk about what we know and brainstorm about going forward,” he said.
“Sure.” Zoe moved aside, letting him through the door. Tatum walked inside, grabbed the one chair in the room, sat on it. Zoe paced back and forth, biting her lip, not knowing how to start.
“There’s a good chance that more than one man approached Glover for advice like the pastor suggested,” Tatum said. “Do you think Glover really assisted any of them?”
Zoe let out a bark of forced laughter. “Oh, I’m sure he made it seem like it. Talked to them, got them to open up, confess their dirty little secrets to him. Made it feel like there was someone in their corner.”
“Why?”
“Maybe he found it amusing. Or he wanted to know about their vulnerabilities. It’s possible he was looking for an accomplice all along.” Zoe tried to think it through. “He joined this Christian community. But he might have felt uncomfortable, going there Sunday after Sunday, listening to sermons about sin. Maybe he wanted to see there were others in that church who were like him. It would have made him more relaxed.”
“Are you telling me Glover had impostor syndrome?”
Zoe clenched her fists. “He was literally an impostor. It’s not a syndrome if it’s true. Glover tried to worm himself into the community, but all he saw around him were people praying, talking about good deeds and good intentions, and he knew who he was. Even if he pretended to be a stand-up guy, he’d killed several women before, had constant fantasies about killing again. Some part of him must’ve found this dissonance uncomfortable. So he went to that idiot pastor—”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Fine! That gullible pastor, gave him a sob story about his violent past. This gets him two things. First—it’s a confession of a sort, so now he doesn’t feel like he’s hiding. And he gets a queue of ex-cons, wife beaters, violent criminals, all happy to talk to him and get their own guilt off their chest. Lucky for Glover, Baptists don’t have confession, or this ploy probably wouldn’t have worked. Now he can sit every Sunday, listen to the sermon, comfortable in the knowledge that he’s surrounded by violent men. And that moron Albert Lamb believes that he—”
“Stop saying that!” Tatum’s voice had a bite to it, and Zoe paused, bewildered.
“What?”
“Stop calling Albert Lamb an idiot.”
“Why?”
“Because it bothers me.” Tatum raised his voice. “There’s no need to talk trash about—”
“Tatum, he let that man into his community and introduced him to other potential killers.”
“Albert Lamb is a good person. He saw a man who was trying to change his ways and decided to help him.”
“That man raped and killed five women!”
“But he didn’t exactly hand his résumé to Albert Lamb, did he? How could Albert have known that—”
“He couldn’t! But he could’ve been more careful. A stranger comes to you, telling you he has a violent past, you don’t give him a welcome party. Especially not if you have a whole community that trusts you.”
“What do you want? Everyone in the world to be suspicious of every single person they meet? How on earth do you expect people to function like that?”
Zoe clenched her fists in frustration. “A little suspicion could go a long way!”
Tatum’s eyes widened, his eyebrows rising. “Who are you angry with here?” he asked.
Zoe’s fists tingled. “What?”
“This isn’t about Albert. He had no way of knowing who Glover is. You realize that. Because you did the same thing, right? Didn’t you tell me you once invited Rod Glover to your room?”
“I was a kid!” Tatum was being obtuse. The difference was obvious. “I didn’t know better. Albert Lamb had a responsibility.”
“Like your parents did?”
“No, that’s not—”
“You told me Rod Glover ate at your house plenty of times, right? In fact, he had the key to your front door. Because he was such a nice neighbor.”
“Tatum, shut up, you have no idea—”
“And what about the police in Maynard? Ignoring the truth, even when you laid out the facts in front of them?”