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I’m beating out Journey’s Stone in Love on my steering wheel, trying to keep myself from punching it and committing a misdemeanor.
Stay calm. Nothing would be solved by taking out a mailbox on the way to the precinct.
Our neighborhood is surrounded by other vintage craftsman homes, with wide front porches, manicured lawns and the aura of lives lived well. A woman jogging with a stroller lifts her hand to me and I recognize her—Gia, from across the street.
My last memory of Gia was her flirting with Russell, the former Vikings linebacker who lives next door. In that version, Gia was recently separated from Alex, her husband. I wonder who the baby belongs to as I lift a hand back. Apparently, I’m a good neighbor in this version, too. I don’t know why that’s important to me, but the fist in my chest loosens a little.
The sky is bright, the air loose and filled with the scents of summer—freshly cut grass, lilacs still blooming along the street. I drive by the lake on the way to the precinct and for a moment, Eve is sitting beside me.
Her auburn hair is down, taken by the wind through the open window and she’s grinning at me. Her shoes are off, a little paint on her toenails and she’s wearing a blue sun dress. She looks over at me and grins.
I am undone.
I turn off the radio and drive the rest of the way in silence.
The precinct is as familiar as my old Chuck Taylors. Housed in an historic downtown building, made of rose granite, it has a city clock that rises nearly thirty stories above the street and gongs out the late hour of my arrival.
I pull into the lot behind the building and shake away the swift memory of me in my Camaro of yesteryear.
Yesterday.
In fact, it feels as if I was just here as I hoof it inside, past the massive rotunda with the giant King Neptune sprawled in the center. I rub his right toe for luck, then head toward the city police annex and follow the hall down to the conference room.
Twenty-four hours and twenty-plus years ago, I was staring at pictures of the coffee shop bombing victims.
Now, the conference room walls are a collage of names, photographs, timelines, and scene descriptions connected by notes and lines and my own chicken scratchings. I recognize Eve’s name on a few of the reports, her signature above the line, Director, Department of Crime Scene Investigation.
I don’t know why that brings a sigh of relief. At the very least, I know we have the best person on the job.
“You made it,” Burke says, and I turn. He hands me a cup of coffee. “I would have thought you’d wear a suit for the press conference.”
Press conference? Oh no.
“You can borrow one of my suit coats,” he says, then approaches the board. “We got lucky this time. A survivor. Have you talked with her yet?”
There are over a dozen pictures on the wall, all of girls ages fifteen to thirty, and my body turns cold.
What is this?
I approach the board and scan my bad handwriting.
All the girls were strangled, their bodies found in lonely places—a park, an alleyway, a dumpster, an abandoned warehouse. And with every body, a twenty dollar bill with the words thank you for your service, written in black ink.
Right. The Jackson murders. As in Andrew Jackson, from the twenty dollar calling card. I wonder if I coined the name because that feels like something out of the mind of a novelist.
Am I still a novelist?
My gaze falls on a picture. Not Ashley’s—that might have had me gripping my knees, or on the floor, but of…no, please no… I swallow hard.
“John Booker is a victim of the Jackson killer?” His picture is tacked away from the others, and it’s his official mug. He’s in uniform, stars on his shoulder, wearing his badge, salt and pepper hair, keen eyes, his face solemn.
He can see into my soul, so I look away and take a sip of the coffee, hoping it’s bracing.
Burke is frowning at me, so I ask, “I mean, are we sure our evidence is solid on that? It’s such an anomaly.”
“The Chief was pretty sure he’d caught the guy. Who knew he would have wired his house?” Burke is shaking his head even as I’m speed reading the report.
An ambush at the home of a man named Lou Fitzgerald. It killed Chief Booker and wounded two others. And, Fitzgerald is still at large. A loose description of the man is sketched on the board. Over six feet, bearded, hair clipped short, a tattoo on his upper forearm sketched out and added to the profile.
