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"What do you want to know?" Tolmay asked, lowering himself onto one of the armchairs with a grimace.
"We understand that you were asked to leave the foundation due to your injury," she began. "Is that correct?"
"Yes, that's right. I was badly injured, and I couldn't do my job anymore. They needed people who were able to work on the farm and in the fields," he said.
"But we also know that you sent threatening letters to the foundation. Were you angry about being asked to leave?"
Tolmay's eyes flickered with annoyance. "Of course, I was angry," he said. "I put my heart and soul into that place, and then they just discarded me. I had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. So I threatened them. I told them I wanted a severance package. And to my surprise, they agreed to pay it. So now, at least my expenses are being covered, and I'm getting regular salary payments until my leg heals, and my neck is fully healed, and I can work again."
"So this is still from that accident?" Cora asked, glancing at his cast and brace. More than two months ago, and he was still limping this way? There was no way he could have moved around swiftly at the foundation, she thought. No way could he have run into the woods. This man was only able to move at a hobble.
"Yes, it is," he said.
"What happened?" Gabe asked sympathetically.
"It was just after I'd been promoted to the next level up," Tolmay explained. "I headed out in the morning to do some work on maintaining the barn. That was my job; I was on it full-time. I climbed up the scaffolding, and when I was almost at the top, it collapsed. I feel the best part of ten meters. I smashed my leg in four places and also injured my neck. I could easily have died. For sure, it was my lucky day, even though it didn’t feel like it at the time. The doctors say I'll make a full recovery, but it's been a very slow process. I’ve had multiple operations."
Cora was listening to his words. And suddenly, she was seeing them in a different light. Looking at things from a different angle.
"Who put the scaffolding up?" she asked.
"I did," he said.
“So why did it fall down?” Gabe asked. “Had you used it before?”
"I had. I'd been climbing up and down it for days. I don't know why it collapsed. They said that two of the steel supports seemed to have sheared off and that there might have been a weak spot. But I was knocked out at the time, and the priority was to get me to the hospital, so nobody really wondered about it until much later."
"I'm wondering about it right now," Cora said. She turned to Gabe, seeing the excitement flare in his eyes as he got onto her wavelength. There was a lead ahead, a whole new avenue of thinking to explore.
"I'm wondering if this killer intended to murder four victims by now. And Tolmay was the one he picked first. And in that case, Gabe, I’m now seeing that he targeted you, too. Not because you were looking into the crimes. But because you fit his profile."
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
"You think?" Cora could hear the incredulity in Gabe's tone. "Me? Why me? How can you suddenly tell this?"
"Because I'm sitting here, and I'm looking at both of you two, and what I'm seeing is similarities."
"Well, yeah. We're both men. So was Tony Inkley. But two women – Heidi and Serena - were also murdered. So what exactly are we talking about here?"
"Your eyes," Cora said impatiently.
“Eyes?” Gabe looked suddenly thoughtful. So did Tolmay.
"You both have green eyes. And so did Heidi. It was one of the first things I noticed when I looked through the dossier that Stefan gave us. I should have picked it up earlier, but it was such a minor detail compared to what I thought we were looking for. I think if we look back at the photos, we’ll find it’s a common factor."
"So someone is targeting people with green eyes?" Now, both men were looking at her with the same astonishment reflected in both their - green - eyes.
"Let me check!"
Gabe hastily opened his phone, scrolling back through the notes they'd made and looking at the photos they'd found on social media.
"Yes," he said. "Green eyes. All of them."
"It must mean something to him. There must be a reason. The most obvious I'm thinking of is that this killer has green eyes, too. He's killing people in his image. Maybe the ones who succeeded where he failed."
Tolmay was listening to this conversation with an incredulous expression on his face.
"This is crazy!"
