able to give a useful description about the person who had chased her, aside from the fact that he was Caucasian. It could be their guy, or not.
And then O’Donnell pointed out that if there was one incident, there might be more. They got the dispatch logs of the past week. They filtered out anything that wasn’t in the vicinity of McKinley Park. Then they read the logs, searching for anything that might be relevant to their case.
“I have an interesting call here,” Tatum said. “From a man who saw a strange object in the sky. The dispatcher asked if it might be an airplane, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s probably it.’”
Zoe raised her eyes from her monitor. “That’s irrelevant.”
“You think?”
She turned back to her monitor. “I think I found something. There’s an entry on the sixteenth. That’s . . . Sunday. A drugstore owner called at ten fifty-one p.m. to say two girls ran into his store because someone chased them. He saw no one, but the girls wouldn’t leave until their parents picked them up. It could be the unsub.”
They kept going through the logs, finding two more instances of people reporting a man walking around the neighborhood, talking to himself, sometimes following passersby.
“You think this is all our guy?” Tatum asked Zoe.
“It’s possible. He’s probably spiraling out of control, and those could be moments when he snapped. All four instances are late in the evening. In each case it was a white male. Three out of four say he was talking to himself.”
“Sounds like the same person was reported,” O’Donnell said. “It’s anyone’s guess if this is the unsub or not.”
“We should get those people to talk to a sketch artist, see if we can get a common description,” Koch said.
“I’ll increase patrol presence in the area,” Bright said. “I’ll brief dispatch to relay any weird calls they get from the area of McKinley Park to the task force.” He got up and left the room.
“Hey, check this out,” O’Donnell said, sounding excited. “This is an actual case file. Vandalism. A shop’s window had been broken on Sunday night, not far from the location of that drugstore.”
Tatum didn’t see the connection. “It could be anything.”
“Originally, this was reported as vandalism because nothing was stolen. Except when the uniformed cops talked to the shop owner, he told them he thought maybe he had a cage missing. He wasn’t sure, because he said they might have been sold, and his assistant just forgot to list them—”
“Who’s they?” Zoe asked.
“Hamsters. A cage of hamsters.”
Tatum stared at her. “You think he might have stolen some hamsters?”
“I mean . . . he’s obsessed with blood, right? And if he couldn’t get human blood that night—”
“That works,” Zoe said. O’Donnell grinned. “Do they have security cameras there?”
“Unfortunately not,” O’Donnell said. “But we’ll send some crime technicians over tomorrow. They might still get some fingerprints from the area of the windowsill.”
“If we line up the reports of the sightings and this burglary, maybe we can get an idea of his route,” Zoe said. “If they’re all connected and it’s really the unsub, we can use geographic profiling to get a better idea of where he lives.”
“And we’ll do that, first thing tomorrow,” Tatum said.
“We have a breakthrough here,” Zoe said.
“I’ve heard. You have a lead. It sounds like a good lead, but it can wait until tomorrow. It’s already ten.”
Zoe frowned at him. “This could potentially—”
“Zoe.” He raised his eyebrows, hoping she’d get the message.
“Fine.” She groaned. “We’ll head back to the motel.”
“It’s late, and my kid’s already asleep,” O’Donnell said. “Do you want to grab a drink before heading back?”
Tatum frowned. “It’s late. We should probably—”
“Yes,” Zoe said to Tatum’s astonishment. “I’d love a drink.”
CHAPTER 43
Bernice’s Tavern was just what Zoe needed. As if to contrast the dark moments from the night before, it was a cheerfully lit room, with tiny Christmas lights twinkling on the walls. Old-school bar paraphernalia covered every wall—beer posters, framed pictures of bands and celebrity bar patrons, a street sign. None of it was tacky or forced; it didn’t feel like stuff that had been bought at a hipstery garage sale. The clutter was a tapestry of the place’s history.
Zoe ordered her usual Guinness, Tatum ordered Honker’s Ale, and O’Donnell had a beer named Daisy Cutter, which Zoe wasn’t familiar with. There was an actual jukebox in the bar, and Zoe considered walking over and choosing a few songs. She hadn’t done that in years.