CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Faith finished the last of her sandwich, crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it into the wastebasket.

"Two points," Michael said absently.

They had just left the interview room with Nina and her attorney. The interview was essentially a rehash of the first one, but with an angry balding man shouting at them about how abusive this entire travesty was the entire time.

It hadn't changed anything. Nina Verbeck was still under arrest for the murders and awaiting her arraignment the next morning. Michael, Faith and Turk were eating dinner at the precinct because after a day of interviewing a suspect, arresting a suspect, interviewing a suspect, filling out paperwork and putting together an initial plan of action for the courtroom shenanigans, then interviewing a suspect with her lawyer, they were too exhausted to go anywhere else.

And here we sit drinking coffee so we can have crappy sleep tonight , she thought, drinking the passable brew the Chicago Police Department's 5 th District kept in their breakroom. I wonder how many law enforcement officers die of heart attacks before the age of fifty.

"Oh," Michael said. "Before I forget, Ellie wants to invite you, David and Turk over for dinner the weekend after we get back. So this weekend, I guess."

She scoffed. "You think so? I have a feeling we'll be dealing with court stuff for the next two weeks. We have an arraignment and probably an extra hearing or two to deal with motions by the defense, not to mention the arguments in conference rooms."

Michael smiled. "Aww, is someone upset they might have to talk to lawyers?"

"Are you not upset?"

He shrugged. "Not really. I'll just fly Ellie out here if it looks like we'll be a while. You should fly David out."

"Yeah, but I want him to actually like me. Seeing me after dealing with attorneys all day might make him rethink moving in with me."

"Better get him used to it now," Michael suggested. "He'll have to learn to deal with you when you're angry."

She looked at Turk, who sat patiently in a corner of the room waiting for his humans to tell him it was time to leave. When he caught Faith's eye, he got to his feet and trotted over to her. She ruffled his fur and said, "What do you think, boy? Did we get her?"

"We got her," Michael answered. "Her lawyers will try to argue that we're making her fit the profile, but that painting cinches it up. It's the birthmark, really. That proves that she was painting the victims and not just some random girls."

Faith lifted her eyes to his. He smiled, but there was tension behind his smile. "You're not sure either, are you?"

He pressed his lips together. "It looks pretty damned convincing. She was practically salivating over the details of the murders. She had the powder, she had the painting that is absolutely of the crime scenes, she loves alchemy… what are we missing?"

Faith shook her head. "I don't know, but I feel like we're missing something."

He sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that."

"You feel it too," she pointed out. "That's why you look tense."

Michael tapped his finger on the table and didn't answer for a moment. When he did, he said, "It's definitely not the most iron-clad case we've made. I guess I'm in the same boat as Detective Hilary. If we didn't have the painting, I'd say Nina's probably not our killer. But we do have the painting, and I just can't see how it's a coincidence."

"Maybe she found crime scene photos," Faith said. "She could have hacked into a database to get them."

"Maybe for the first two," Michael said, "but not the third one. Not Lorraine Hayes."

"Maybe she has a friend in the crime lab who got her the pictures?"

"And she'd rather stand trial for murder than say that?" Michael shook his head. "No, she makes sense as a murderer."

Faith leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "Does she?"

Michael frowned. "She makes sense to me. What are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking about the method of the murders. We have someone scaling a fence at the botanical gardens, climbing a twelve-story fire escape up and down, and chasing a girl in a forest path. The killer broke all three of their necks, and Lorraine, at least, was prepared to defend herself."

"She was running away, not trying to defend herself."

"Yes, but why?" Faith pressed. "She outweighs Nina. She's younger than Nina. The killer wasn't carrying a weapon."

"The killer didn't use a weapon, but that doesn't mean she wasn't carrying one."

"Yes, but the killer grabbed each victim and quickly twisted their necks. We have talcum powder from the first two victims to indicate where the hands were positioned. I don't see the killer holstering or dropping a weapon, then grabbing their neck and twisting. And I know that Dr. Test said that a woman could snap someone's neck, but could a woman snap someone's neck while that person was running? Even if we say that Nina could overpower Lorraine, I don't think she could overpower Lorraine right away. There would be a struggle, and there wasn't one. The killer grabbed Lorraine, twisted, and lights out. He would have had to be significantly stronger than Lorraine, and that means he would have to be a he."

"So why would Nina argue with us and say that the killer could have been a woman? Why would she be miffed that we assumed it was a man?"

"Because she's arrogant. And she has an unhealthy obsession with alchemy and probably with the murders. As she would put it, she's not a pleasant person. But I'm starting to have serious doubts that she's a murderer."

Michael frowned at Faith. Then he sighed. "Damn it."

"You have doubts too," Faith deduced.

He lowered his head to his hands. "Yes. Damn it." He lifted his head again and said, "So what do we do? We already arrested Nina. We're going to bring her up on charges tomorrow."

"That gives us tonight."

"Tonight to do what? Damn it, Faith. If it's not Nina, then the real killer's probably out there right now."

"I know. I'm as aware of this as you are and just as pissed off. I just… she looked good. She looked good to you too."

"She looked really good."

He tapped his fingers on the table again and stared through the window at the night sky. Turk was standing now. He could sense the tension in the room and was watching both humans closely to see what was wrong.

"It's that painting. It's too good. It's too much to be coincidental. A birthmark? That's more than just the same body type and hair. You have to see someone naked to know what their birthmark looks like."

Faith pursed her lips and rubbed her chin. Michael was right. The painting was the most powerful piece of evidence they had that Nina did, in fact, commit the crime.

But now that Faith had thought about the unlikelihood of Nina Verbeck possessing the athleticism to perform the physical feats of the murders, she couldn't shake the doubts from her head. "The red was missing too," she said, "but we haven't found a red victim."

"You want to talk to her and see if she can tell us where the red victim is?"

Faith crossed her arms. "She'll just deny that she knows anything about it. Whether she does or not, she'll say she doesn't."

"We could offer her a plea deal again."

"Not with the lawyer present. The DA isn't going to go for a plea deal in the case of someone who murdered three people this brutally."

"He might to ensure we find the other body."

"I doubt it. If Nina's the killer, then either there will be no more victims, or we'll figure out who the fourth is with or without Nina's help. Finding the body can happen after Nina's sentenced to multiple life."

"So no," Michael said tersely. "You don't want to ask her."

"No," Faith agreed. "I want something concrete, damn it. I want a hair follicle, a fingerprint, DNA, an image on a security camera, fucking anything that can help. That's the part that really pisses me off. Nina's right. All we have is circumstantial evidence because that's the only evidence there. The shoe prints were made as generic as possible, the killer wore gloves and a mask, there's no security footage or eyewitnesses until after the fact. We have nothing but circumstantial evidence."

"Killers have been caught that way before. I think we have enough to catch Nina. That painting…"

"That painting isn't enough to make me confident that she's our guy."

"It was up until a moment ago," Michael said. "Not being a dick, just looking for clarification. What changed? Just the fact that Nina's small?"

"Yes," Faith said, "and that matters. If our suspect isn't physically capable of committing the crime, then she didn't commit it."

"It's not like she dropped a boulder on their heads," Michael countered. "It would be difficult for Nina to commit these crimes, but would it be impossible? She's not buff, but she's not obese either. She could scale a fence and climb a fire escape if she was properly motivated."

"Could, yes," Faith admitted. "But a lot of things have to go perfect."

"A lot of things have to go perfectly anyway for these killings to work."

"But Lorraine's murder wasn't perfect. The killer didn't mean to be seen before he caught up to her."

"So what do we do?" Michael asked. "Where do we go from here? Do we release Nina and say we don't have enough evidence?"

Faith sighed and pressed her hands to her eyes. "Damn it. I wish… Well, wishes were horses, beggars would ride, yadda yadda."

"I don't think yadda yadda is necessary if you complete the phrase," Michael observed. Faith glared at him, and he shrugged. "Just trying to lighten the mood."

"Not really looking for light right now," Faith said. She tapped her finger on the table. "That's another thing that makes me think Nina's not the killer. Our killer's a coward. On the surface, the crimes don't look cowardly, but if you examine them, they are. He's going through this elaborate process because he feels he has to, but he's doing it as quickly as he can, and he's leaving as little evidence as he can. He definitely wouldn't invite two FBI agents and a K-9 to his house where he keeps the powder he's using to complete the spell and a painting of the crimes he's committed."

Michael frowned again. "Okay. You've convinced me now. Damn it. So we release Nina, but then what? Where do we go next? I know I'm asking that a lot, but I'm not coming up with an answer. A nice Faith Bold stroke of brilliance would be great right now."

Faith would have loved one of those herself, but nothing came to mind. "We need to go back to the beginning," she said. "We need to look at the case from the very start and rebuild our profile. We're missing something key. That final piece that will tell us exactly where to look."

"But you're sure it's not Nina?"

She paused for a long time before saying. "Don't release her yet. It could just be cognitive dissonance. Let's rebuild our profile and then look at it again. Worst-case scenario, she spends a night in jail, and we send her home with our apologies in the morning."

"Fine with me," Michael said with a sigh. "But I'm getting coffee and snacks if we're going to stay up late. You want anything from the convenience store?"

"Whatever you get is fine."

"The spiciest chips they have and guava juice. Got it."

Faith managed a half-hearted smile at Michael's half-hearted joke. She looked at Turk, who continued to watch her intently. "I wish you could talk, boy. I wish I knew exactly what you smelled at the crime scenes. Then I might know if we caught the right bad guy or if he's still out there putting someone's life in danger."

She looked out the window at the lights of the city and hoped that in one of the dark corners the lights didn't reach, an innocent young woman wasn't breathing her last.