CHAPTER NINETEEN
When Miles walked into the takeout burger shack, the smell of frying meat and sizzling onions was so thick that he nearly started to salivate.
The little hole in the wall place was called The Smash Burger Barn and came highly recommended by Kowalski.
It was a narrow counter-service spot on Congress, about a block from the precinct, with eight small tables and a chalkboard menu above the register.
Kowalski had offered to send one of his people when Miles had stood up and announced he was going out to grab dinner for him and Vic.
Miles had declined without much explanation, and Kowalski had not pushed it.
He seemed to understand that there were times when a person needed to be somewhere other than where the work was, even if the somewhere was just a burger place a block away.
He wasn’t sure how he felt when, given the time to himself in the corner, his first thought was to call Sarah Kim.
They’d already had one semi-vulnerable conversation today, and he didn’t want to push it.
But he had felt very unsettled and almost plagued ever since discovering Catherine Valdez’s body. They had been so damned close.
Before he was fully aware of it, he was pulling out his phone and placing the call. Sarah answered on the second ring.
"Hey," she said. "How are you doing? I heard about the new victim."
"Not great," he answered honestly. He kept his voice low even though the nearest table was comprised of a couple in their twenties who were looking at something on one of their phones together and paying him no attention. "We got to Valdez about five minutes after it happened. Give or take."
"I know. I saw Vic's update in the case file." She paused, giving him room to speak if he wanted, and when he remained quiet, she offered a simple: "I'm sorry, Miles."
Miles looked at the pickup counter. The screen had moved to 105. "I keep running the timeline. We were at the precinct. We had her name on the list. We were twelve minutes away and she was still in that room when we got there."
"You didn't know it was her specifically," Sarah said. "You had almost fifty names, right?"
"Yeah."
"And you got there fast once you had a reason to go. The neon, the language on the website—"
"Sarah." His voice was quiet but flat. "I know. It doesn't help."
She was quiet for a moment, and he appreciated that she didn't fill the silence with something reassuring. She understood, most of the time, when reassurance was not the thing he needed.
“Then why did you call?” she asked. There was a touch of a smile in her voice, just to let him know the question wasn’t being asked in a defensive manner.
“Because it’s driving me crazy. I…I feel haunted by it.”
"Tell me what you're stuck on," she said.
"All of it." He set his elbow on the table and looked at the space in front of him without focusing on anything in particular.
"The setup at her studio was identical to the first two scenes.
The electrician the PD is using as a consult confirmed it.
It was the same modification to the transformer housing—the same stripped wiring in direct contact with the metal frame of the sign, the same disconnected ground capped off inside so nothing on the exterior suggested the unit had been opened.
You would have to crack the housing to see it, and by the time you thought to do that, the contact would already be made.
" He turned his phone in his hand. "He's not experimenting with this.
Whatever refinement happened, it happened before the first killing.
He came into this series already knowing exactly what he was doing. "
"That's been consistent throughout," Sarah said.
"I know. It looks different when you're standing in the room with the body still warm." He said it without particular emphasis, as a simple statement of fact.
Sarah didn't say anything, and he kept going.
"Celestine. Song. Now Valdez. Three different locations, three different victims, three different contact points.
And each scene reads identically. You stand in the room, you look at what was done to the transformer, and the logic of it is completely clear.
Remove the ground, strip the wiring, ensure the current has a path to a surface the victim will touch.
It's not complicated once you know how it works. The complication is doing it without leaving any trace that the unit has been opened, and he's solving that every time. I…Christ, I keep reviewing it and arriving at the same place. I understand what he did but it’s not helping to catch the bastard.”
“What about the manifesto?” she asked. “That was the same, too?”
"Yeah…taped to the wall next to the mandala. It was on the same index card, same block lettering. He took the time to tape a note to her wall after she was already on the floor and still got out before we pulled up."
"Do you think he saw you coming?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe that's simply how long the whole sequence takes him.
" He paused as a small, flickering thought came to mind.
“And that's what I keep coming back to. The sequence of it all.
He can't modify those transformers at the moment.
He's going in before the murder. Hours before.
Maybe the night before, maybe the day of.
He opens the housing, disconnects the ground, strips the wiring, closes it back up, and then he leaves, and he waits. "
"For the victim to make contact," Sarah said.
"Right. So, the question is where he waits and how he knows when it's done.
Because he has to know, he was in that room after Valdez was dead.
He taped the note to the wall. That means either he was in the building the entire time, hiding somewhere, or he left after setting the trap and came back once it was finished.
" Miles stopped for a second, feeling that flickering thought grow larger as a new idea started to take form.
"And the more I think about it, the more I think he's not hiding inside.
He can't be certain when contact will be made.
It could be minutes or hours after he finishes the modification, depending on the victim's routine.
He's not going to sit in a back room for six hours waiting. "
"So, he goes back in," Sarah said slowly. "After."
"Or he never fully leaves. He's close. Outside somewhere, in a car, on the street, somewhere with a sightline to the front of the building.
He watches for something that tells him it's done.
The lights change, the sign flickers, a window goes dark.
Something." Miles leaned forward, letting the new idea take hold.
"Think about the mandala at Valdez's studio.
The tubes were still cycling when we got there, still losing power.
The circuit had only just been broken. He couldn't have confirmed that from blocks away.
He had to be close enough to see the window.
And the note wasn't mailed and it wasn't left during the setup visit.
It was taped to the wall after she was dead, which means he went back in.
He was outside watching, he confirmed it was done, and then he went back inside to finish.
The manifesto is part of the scene. It's not an afterthought. "
"And then he walks," Sarah said.
"And then he walks. The whole operation has a perimeter to it. Not just the interior modification, but the exterior watch."
"That's not a small thing," Sarah said. "If the watch position is part of the plan, then the site selection is about more than just the victim and the neon. He needs a location where he can observe from outside without drawing attention."
"Yes. And I hadn't fully worked that out before now. I don't know yet what to do with it, but it's sitting wrong with me, and I think it's sitting wrong for a reason."
There was a brief pause on her end. He could hear her chair shift, the faint sound of her moving closer to her desk, maybe. He wished he could be there with her, and when that thought landed, he let it stay, too.
"You know, I think I know where to look," she finally said. "Give me a few minutes with the case files and the scene photographs."
"What are you—"
“Hush. Let me work.”
“Yeah, but—”
"Order one-oh-seven!"
The voice from the counter was flat and automatic, the cashier barely looking up as she set two bags on the pickup surface and placed the drink carrier beside them.
"That's me," Miles said. He stood and moved to the counter, tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder as he picked up the bags and confirmed both drinks were secure in the carrier. "Okay, I've got the food. What are you looking at?"
But Sarah had ended the call. She was off to look into whatever idea she'd come up with. Miles smiled in spite of the situation, and now, with the food, drinks, and a possible breakthrough from Sarah Kim, he found himself in much better spirits as he hurried back to the precinct.