Bess didn’t respond. Lucy didn’t have any real theories, she was grasping at straws.
Bess headed for Carol’s office as soon as she arrived, but Carol was nowhere in sight. She called her cell phone, but only got her voicemail. She was being ignored after all, but it was less likely because of the events of the night before, and more because she didn’t want to hear Bess complain about being picked up by Lucy.
“I have to go out for a little bit,” Bess told Lucy. “Errands. Will you be okay on your own? I can call Wayne in if you want.”
“No way, Wayne doesn’t work Sundays, you know that. It’s his family day.”
“Right. I forgot. But you’re cool, right?”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Sure, Bess, why not.”
“Don’t be that way, you know I’d let you go if you needed to.”
Lucy didn’t say anything for a few long seconds. Finally she shook her head and stalked away.
“God damn attitude,” Bess muttered as she headed out the door.
She walked all the way to the jail and arrived out of breath. There were more reporters on the sidewalk this time and Bess did her best not to make eye contact with anyone as she slunk inside.
This time the cops were a little more prepared for a visitor, although they still eyed her with some fascination.
“Two visits in a week? You got a thing for inmates?” the guard asked her.
“Fuck off,” Bess replied.
“Nah, I’ve heard about that, ladies who get off on psycho killers. It’s a disease.” He opened the door to the same room she’d been in before. This time Tam was already inside. “This is not a conjugal visit, lovebirds. Keep it PG in here.”
“Did you get the notes?” Tam asked as soon as the door was closed.
“Did it ever occur to you that those notes make you seem incredibly guilty?”
“Of course, that’s why I gave them to you and not the police.”
“Let’s skip the part where I ask you a million questions to prove you’re not actually a stalker asshole and assume I believe you, or at the very least feel okay believing you because you’re locked up in here.”
“Sounds good to me, I guess,” Tam said. “So, what do we do now?”
“Why Daniel Mills? What brought you to him?” Bess asked.
“Wow, okay. Yeah, he’s my favorite in all this. There were a couple other suspects early on, but Daniel, Daniel’s the one I like for it.”
“Brilliant. But I need to know why.”
“It’s the church. See, I read this thing that with serial killers like this, they usually start with someone they know. They know the first victim and they like it or they don’t get what they need from it and they go from there.”
“Where did you read this?”
“I guess I saw it, really. Um, that movie Zodiac? With Jake Gyllenhaal?”
“Never mind. Forget I asked. Just… just tell me why it’s Mills.” Bess reminded herself that Tam was basically a child playing detective the only way he knew how—by watching murder movies on basic cable. And who was she to judge? She was playing detective by listening to a kid who got his ideas from David Fincher movies.
“Okay, so Mills attended the same church as Margot Cooper. Her parents still go there, but Margot actually stopped about a month before she disappeared. Margot was in Mills’s young adult study group on Monday and Wednesday nights. And by all accounts, he was pretty in love with her.”
“What accounts?” Bess asked, praying he would not bring up Jake Gyllenhaal.
“Her friends, her parents.”
“You talked to her parents?”
“Oh yeah, they were happy to talk to me, thrilled actually. I mean, I guess they’re less thrilled now. In fact, talking to them probably doesn’t look so good for me now… looking back…”
“Focus. I don’t have all day for this. If he had a thing for her, why didn’t the police check him out?”
“They did for a second. I mean, they basically checked out the whole town right at first. Cast a big net, you know? But they ruled him out because he was supposedly at work when she was kidnapped.”
“So then how’d he do it? Was Jesus his copilot?”
“That’s funny. I like that. But no, no. The cops have the timeline wrong. They don’t really know when she was kidnapped. All they have is an approximate time of when she was last seen and when her parents reported her missing. They’ve got no way to know when she was abducted. And the time of death is even worse. That head was pretty decayed, and of course she was killed somewhere else, no clue where, so they don’t know if there were accelerants for the decay. So the real timeline is more like a twenty-four-hour window of abduction, time of death—fucking forget it—it’s like a possible month long window. The smallest window is the placement of the head in that lot. Had to have been between two a.m. and five a.m. And nobody—I mean nobody—has an alibi for that timeframe.”
“Stop. This doesn’t make logical sense. Why would the cops discount someone as having an alibi if they don’t really know when she was abducted?”
“Because they’re cops, Bess. They’re fucking useless. But also because someone said they saw a woman who matches her description getting into a vehicle at seven p.m. the day she went missing.”
“And you don’t think that was her?”
“I mean, it coulda been. But I don’t think that’s who kidnapped her. Margot was popular enough. Margot had friends. She could have been with anyone at 7 p.m. on a Friday. That’s no big deal.”
“I see your point,” Bess said.
“Glad someone does.” Tam smiled at her and Bess was struck again by how truly young he looked. “Okay, here’s what you need to know—Mills matches up with every single woman. I swear. But he actually knew Margot. The best contact I had was Margot’s best friend, Cherish McKenzie. She’ll talk to you. I’m sure of it. She was scared of Daniel Mills.”
“Will she talk to the cops?”
Tam considered. “Probably not. She doesn’t trust that detective.”
“Howland.”
“Yep, she said she knew him.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to Cherish McKenzie and find out what I can about Mills. Do you know her number?”
“Of course. But be careful. Daniel knew I was following him.”
10
CHERISH HAD SOUNDED eager to talk when Bess called her. It felt too easy, but Bess was grateful for something easy. They were meeting at the Morning Glory Café where Tam had worked before his arrest. Cherish said she and Tam had always gone there in the past and she felt comfortable with the location.
The café closed early on Sundays, so Bess called Lucy and asked her to close up for her. Lucy had whined a little, but eventually relented. What else could she do? Bess didn’t like leaving her alone all day, but they’d be dead most of the time, anyway. Wayne wasn’t the only person in Antioch who considered Sunday to be a family day.
When Bess entered the café there were no other patrons. She strolled to the counter and ordered a large black coffee and added her own cream and sugar at a small station set up to the right of the cash register. Bess carried her coffee over to a small table in the corner where she felt like they would have some privacy. She obsessively checked her phone for messages or calls until a petite young woman came through the doors and smiled at her.
“Are you Bess?”
“I am.” She stood to meet her. “Cherish?”
“That’s me, yeah.” Cherish awkwardly reached to shake Bess’s hand. She couldn’t have been taller than five feet and Bess had the absurd impulse to squat slightly. Instead she sat back down. “Sorry about making you come out here, but I can’t be too careful.”