He needed to be out of the room—out of the house—away from these people. Baker was sitting frozen in his seat, watching them with wide open eyes. Zoe couldn’t read his expression, but she didn’t need to. Baker was irrelevant.
Zoe had been able to see for a long time that they were in the wrong house. The man’s feet were too small—which wasn’t a problem in itself, because he could have been deliberately wearing a larger pair of shoes, but he was certainly too heavy to make the imprints that she had seen at the riverbank. And she had already ascertained that there was only one culprit involved in these killings. He wasn’t an accomplice. He didn’t know a thing.
“What are you doing?” Flynn hissed, as Zoe bundled him out onto the pavement and toward the car.
“Get in,” Zoe snapped at him, refusing to talk out in the open where anyone could overhear. Not while the Bakers and all of their neighbors were listening in.
Once they were in the car, which rocked slightly under the force with which Flynn slammed his door, Zoe turned to him with all the sharp-angled fury she could muster herself. “You were hounding him,” she said. “He gave you an alibi, corroborated by a witness. There is nothing else you can ask from him.”
“It’s not enough proof,” Flynn said, sullenly, stubbornly. “His wife could have been lying.”
“Any agent with a shred of experience could see that they were not lying,” Zoe told him. “And you cannot reasonably expect him to have proof that he was home all night. But it does not matter. He is not our man.”
“How can you even tell?” Flynn shook his head, his voice rising in volume. “Just because he says it’s true—”
“That is not the only reason,” Zoe cut him off. She hesitated, then; of course, she couldn’t tell him what she could see—that Baker didn’t fit the numbers, and therefore he didn’t even need an alibi. She knew he was innocent just from looking at him. But there were other ways to know whether someone was lying or not. Ways that she had learned, little by little, from Shelley. “You will learn to see the signs in time. Now, just drive. Back to the station. We need to liaise with the sheriff.” She ended her argument lamely, knowing it wouldn’t be much help. The equivalent of telling someone that they would understand when they were older. But what else could she say, when she didn’t really understand how she understood it herself? Shelley had been a good teacher. Zoe had never claimed to be the same.
Flynn stared at her for a long moment, Zoe counting the seconds as she refused to look back: six, seven, eight, nine. When he started the car, Zoe dared to look at him. His face was red, a vein pulsing ominously at the side of his forehead. Zoe counted his heartbeats in it, saw how elevated the rate was. He was probably too furious to speak, which was a blessing. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to win any further argument.
As they drove away, the car jerking violently around a corner as Flynn viciously attacked it, Zoe couldn’t help her thoughts from straying to just how very different he was from her previous partner. Shelley had been softness and light, and an excellent interrogator. Flynn couldn’t even tell when he was being told the truth. It was going to be an uphill battle from here to work this case into something that could actually be solved, and all the while Zoe knew the clock was ticking—every second he was free, the killer had the chance to strike again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Shacora looked down at her uniform, brushing imaginary bits of fluff or dust from the front and making sure that her name badge was straight. It held her full name, Shacora Maxwell, right under the embroidery designating her as an official park patrol officer.
Officer. Huh! That was putting a shine on something that needn’t have been polished. She was a glorified security guard, with not even that level of power. Not that she really needed it. Nothing happened around here—nothing that required anything more than yelling and shining her flashlight at whichever kids or drunkards were trying to get into the park after dark. Usually a combination of both. Teenagers trying to have a party somewhere their parents wouldn’t catch them.
“All right.” Tony, the park ranger who always did her handover, nodded to her.