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Tate had nothing to lose from Paulie being alive. He's the one who screwed Paulie, not the other way around."
"So what's his motive?" Luc asked. "Tate's al double-your-pleasure now, and the two of them are out there roaming the world." Luc pretended to hold a microphone. "Seth Tate, you've been touched by evil and split into two people! Where are you going next?"
He mimed extending the microphone to Keley, who leaned solemnly over it. "To Disney World, Ron. I'm going to Disney World."
I looked up at the screen, the emptiness in Paulie's gaze, and the wound at his throat. "Cutting ties," I quietly said. "Maybe it's not about revenge. Maybe it's symbolic - Tate was cutting ties to his past. But why? And why cut him?"
"What are you thinking, Sentinel?"
I squinted at the screen. The wound was slick and clean, not unlike what happened when flesh met a sword. "The Tates literaly flew out of the missile silo, and at least one of them has the power to control a vehicle. If Tate wanted Paulie dead, why not just wipe him out with magic? Why use a weapon? Why use a blade?"
Luc and Keley tilted their heads at the screen. "Huh," Luc said. "Good catch, Sentinel."
"He had a sword in Nebraska," I explained. "I don't know if he created it or found it, but he was pretty good with it."
"If Tate was the perp," Keley suggested, "maybe he wanted a tangible act. He didn't just snap his fingers and blow Paulie away. He wanted to participate in it, and he did so. Slowly - with purpose."
"So he's a man with a purpose," I said. "Or two men with a purpose, who aren't afraid of murder. That doesn't make me feel any better."
"Especialy since we don't know what the mission is," Luc said.
"It looks to be an angry mission," I said. "A brutal, angry mission."
"True that, Sentinel." Luc's phone beeped, so he puled it out and checked the screen.
"Wel, that is interesting," he said, then tapped his phone a little more. "I signed up for the Hyde Park neighborhood watch.
They get crime alerts from the CPD."
"Sneaky," I complimented. "Not a bad way to stay in the loop."
"No, it is not," Luc said, then tapped the panel for the overhead screen. "Especialy when it gets us a picture of our perp from the clinic's security camera."
Keley and I both leaned forward, then watched as an image of a man who looked just like the former mayor of Chicago filed the screen.
"Looks like we can confirm Tate has an agenda," Luc said.
I sighed. "Yeah," I agreed. "Problem is, which Tate? And which agenda?"
We stared at Tate's picture in color and in black and white. We blew it up, then shrank it again, trying to discern any identifying feature that might tel us which Tate had done the deed. But there were no scars. No moles. No hair whorls or visible birthmarks.
By al accounts, there was nothing distinguishable about this particular Tate.
So no dice.
That was problematic in two ways. First, it got us no closer to figuring out what the Tates were and where they were going. If we were to have any hope of closing these guys down, we needed to know what they were so we could plan our attack accordingly. Otherwise, we were severely outmatched against two magical something or others with no obvious weaknesses.
Wheaties couldn't even get me out of that jam.
Second, and more important, if one Tate was murdering former accomplices, where was the other Tate? Had they split up? Were they off satisfying their own agendas and wreaking twice as much havoc at once?
Sure, investigating murder wasn't exactly our job. But we had a history with Paulie and with Tate, which brought this under our relative jurisdiction. Besides, Diane Kowalcyzk had already let Tate off the hook once, and she certainly didn't seem to be doing supernaturals any favors.
We needed information. And I had a pretty good idea where we could get it. Wel, three ideas, actualy. If Tate could double up, I'd go one better; I'd triple up.
My first cal was to my favorite shifter. Turns out, murder was also on his mind.
"You've seen the pic?" Jeff asked.
"I have seen the pic. I'm in the Ops Room, and you're on speakerphone. What do you know?"
"Not a lot," he said. "Four dead, one former mayor as suspect. Wel, half a double former mayor, anyway. You got anything else?"
"Nope. We've been talking about the brutality, but that's about it."
"Yeah, Paulie definitely met a bad end. Or maybe a deserved end, depending on who you ask."
"Let's consider the deserved-end angle. Do you know anything about Paulie that would suggest Tate thought he had it coming?"
"Not that I'm aware of, but I'm not privy to the entire file. It's in the CPD servers, and I'd have to, you know, sneak around in there to take a look."
He paused silently for a moment, as if waiting for me to object to the possibility that he'd hack the servers to get information on a case. But if it weren't for Mayor Kowalcyzk, Tate wouldn't have escaped, so I didn't realy feel that bad.
"Do what you need to do," I said at Luc's nod, absolving Jeff of any vampire-related trouble.
"Wil do," he said. "I'l do some looking and get back in touch. In the meantime, be careful. Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like Tate's clearing the slate. I'd advise anyone who's been in contact with him to keep an eye out."
Unfortunately, he was probably right. That made Gabriel (my second-favorite shifter, although I'd never confess it to him) my next phone cal.
"Can you spare a moment?" I asked him, skipping the niceties.
"If it's a quick one. What's news, Kitten?"
"A former coleague of Tate's is dead. Murdered earlier today, as were four people who were around him at the time. It was a pretty gruesome scene, and we think Tate might have been involved."
"Why's that?"
"He's the only one who showed up on the security camera.
He and the victim had a connection, so there's a theory Tate's visiting old friends. Malory is one of those friends, at least theoreticaly, so you might want to consider doubling up on big guys with guns."
"Noted," Gabriel said.
Finaly, since Paige hadn't yet made it back to the House, I gave her a quick cal.
"You're a master researcher," I said. "Do you think you'd be able to try to figure out what Tate is and how we can stop him?"
"It's a nice idea," she said, "but as you know, I'm down a thousand books or so."
