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Marzillo glared at her. “You don’t really believe in that, do you?”
Lopez stuck her hands up and took two steps back. “It’s not a question of believing, it’s a question of don’t-be-stupid. I don’t believe zombies and vampires really exist, but I damn well know how to take ’em out if one day it turns out I’m wrong.”
“Not a bad philosophy,” Jo said, stepping in to examine the eyeball more closely. “Did you learn anything from your grandmother that might help us here?”
Rooted in place, Lopez craned her neck toward the bureau. “Looks like a cow’s eyeball with that oval pupil. My guess is it’s to ward off the Evil Eye? I remember something similar with a pig’s tongue when my abuela wanted to stop some gossip. I can ask my mom if you want, maybe she’ll know.” Lopez shuddered. “No matter what, I can tell you right now, I wouldn’t want to meet Ossokov’s mama in a dark alley.”
Jo gave a fair-enough head wag. “The good news is, neither severed eyeballs nor Santería paraphernalia fit into any of the categories covered by the warrant, so we can’t remove it, anyway. But we definitely want pictures of it.”
“If nothing else, it’ll make fun banners for the unit Christmas party,” Peterson said.
* * *
When they emerged three and a half hours later, they’d found nothing other than the disturbing cow’s eye. Kent’s smug expression failed to hide an inkling of relief as he and Ossokov watched the car being taken away and the police pack up to leave
Once out of earshot next to their cars in the street, Jo called Arnett and put him on speakerphone and caught him up.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he said.
“He must have hidden it all somewhere,” Goran said. “Maybe in the janitor’s closet at the dentist where he works? Or at a friend’s house? Somewhere close by in the neighborhood?”
“Maybe. I’ll stop by and see if the dentist will let me search without a warrant. If not, we’ll get one.” Jo jutted her chin at Lopez. “You’re going over his cell phone records and emails with a fine-toothed comb, so hopefully there’s something in there. Someone he hangs out with, or some place he spends his time, at this point we want to consider everything.”
“I’ll check his location tracking too. Maybe there’s some shed in some run-down park we can trace him to,” Lopez said.
“But if he’s smart enough to use burner phones to communicate with Lacey Bernard, he’s smart enough to keep anything incriminating off his official records,” Marzillo said.
“We have to hope he isn’t,” Jo said. “He wouldn’t be the first criminal to make a stupid mistake. And even if he hasn’t done anything stupid, if we dig deep enough, we’ll findsomething. Friends, friends of friends, all of it.”
Goran gestured to his phone. “Coyne just blew up our inboxes. He got the gym footage. Deena Scott drove up in her car just past midnight last night, and finished her workout at just before one in the morning. Unless she hung around the parking lot for an extended period of time, she was likely killed shortly after leaving.”
Jo tapped at her phone. “Thanks. Any luck with the rest of the canvassing?”
“Several people at the gym recognized her, but didn’t pay attention to what happened after she left. Nobody at the apartment complex heard or saw anything out of the ordinary, but most were asleep by then.”
Arnett’s voice crackled over the speakerphone. “I’ll get a start on listing out all the other cars shown on the video in case our killer wasn’t smart enough to use the back entrance.”
Jo turned to Marzillo. “I know we pulled you off your analyses to come do this, so I’m guessing you don’t have an update for us yet on Deena Scott’s crime scene?”
“The ME’s initial report should be waiting for me when I get back to the lab. My next priority is to get the samples sent out, and to match up the blindfold on Deena to the fabric we already have.”
“Thank you.” She glanced back over at Ossokov and Kent, who were still watching from Ossokov’s front door. “Normally I’d bring him in and see if I could charm some sort of information out of him. But with Kent stuck to his side like fly paper, there’s no way we’re going to get away with that, especially when they’re screaming harassment with every other breath. We’ll have to wait until we have something we can use to apply pressure.”
“Hopefully he’ll do something stupid while we have surveillance on him tonight,” Goran said.
Jo shifted to be sure neither Ossokov nor Kent could read her lips. “You’re splitting the surveillance with another team?”
“Yep. Coyne and I will be on him until he goes into his job tonight, when the backup will take over. The dental office has two exits, but there’s a spot one block over from it where they can keep watch over both at the same time. We’ll sleep and be back at his place by four in the morning. Seems like that’s his preferred time to take people out, so we’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for it.”
“Make plenty of strong coffee. I’d like to believe all our attention will convince him to back off the murders, but I doubt it. And if he’s this good at covering his tracks, we’re not going to be able to take him into custody any time soon. So if he does try again tomorrow morning, we need to be there to catch him in the act.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT
I’m not sure when I last enjoyed myself as much as I did watching the police execute the search warrant, knowing they wouldn’t find anything. The frustration on Fournier’s face when she came out of the house was absolutely priceless. The only thing that would have been better is if I’d been able to watch her inside.
I let myself relish the feeling for a short while, but not for too long—I had work to do, and there would be plenty of time, enforced or otherwise, to sit back and enjoy the release of closure once I was finished.
Closure. An elusive concept, and a future promise you can’t ever be sure of until it arrives. That had been the one worry nagging at me through all of it—that after all of the planning and execution, after taking all of these significant steps, I’d walk away just as tormented as I was when I started. I deserved—needed—peace.
