Survival Clause, стр. 32

I sat back. “I’d appreciate that. This woman—this person—makes me nervous.”

Rehman nodded. “We don’t want another situation like the one last month.”

No, we didn’t. “Thank you,” I told him, and gathered up my bag and my baby. “I should go find Grimaldi.”

“Straight back to the end of the hall.” He gestured to the door.

I told him thanks, and headed out, leaving him to pore over the video footage.

At the end of the hallway, Grimaldi was sitting behind her desk peering at the computer. I put Carrie’s seat on the floor and made myself comfortable in one of the visitor’s chairs. “Anything?”

“A few details.” She dragged her eyes from the monitor and leaned back. “You?”

“We found footage of someone filming,” I said. “But the license plate was hard to make out. Officer Rehman said he’d play with it and see if he could make it any sharper.”

Grimaldi nodded. “What kind of car?”

“Some sort of light-colored small one.” I hadn’t been paying enough attention, to be honest. Too intent on making out the plate to focus on the insignia. “Pretty sure it was the same one I followed down the hill this morning. She must have doubled back and come in the other way.”

Grimaldi nodded.

“I think it was a Japanese import. But whether it was a Toyota or Honda or Nissan or Mazda, I couldn’t tell you. They all look very much the same to me.”

“Rehman’ll figure it out,” Grimaldi said.

I hoped so. “What about you? What did you discover?”

“Not much,” Grimaldi said. “I’m still waiting for Frankie Matlock’s incarceration record. I need it to be pretty detailed—if he had twenty-four hours furlough at any point in the past sixteen years to go to his grandmother’s funeral, I need to know about it—so it won’t be immediate.”

Understood. “Anything else?”

“Still tracking down Jurgensson,” Grimaldi said, “but I have narrowed it down to the single year he spent here.”

“Did that coincide with any of Laura Lee’s years at Columbia High?”

“As a matter of fact,” Grimaldi said, “he was there her junior year.”

“When she was sixteen.”

Grimaldi nodded. “No reason to think she was the student he misbehaved with any more than anyone else, though. Whoever it was didn’t file a police report, so there’s no official record one way or the other.”

“But it could have been Laura Lee.”

“Could have,” Grimaldi said. “She was a student there, so that would have given him opportunity. That doesn’t mean it was her. There were a lot of other kids at Columbia High that year, too. I’ll have to find someone who remembers, who’s willing to talk.”

It made a nice, little syllogism, though. If syllogism was the word I was looking for. If Mr. Jurgensson had had an affair with a student and lost his job over it, it had probably destroyed his career. No other school was likely to hire him after that. And if he’d lost not only that particular job, but his ability to find another, he might have held a grudge. And over the next decade and a half, that grudge could have turned to obsession. Lacking the means to make a living in his chosen profession, he might have taken a job driving trucks. And sixteen years later, if he came across Laura Lee again, slinging hash and selling her body at the truck stop in Columbia, things might have boiled over. And then, after he killed her in a fit of lunacy, he went on to recreate that murder again and again, marking each victim with a Latin numeral.

It sounded like something that belonged on Dateline or 48 Hours, all right.

I shook myself, since the thought was creepy. “Do you know where he is now?”

“I’m still looking,” Grimaldi said. “There’s no sign of him. His social security number hasn’t paid taxes since he taught at Columbia High, but there’s also no death certificate on file anywhere. Or not one I’ve found so far.”

“So he’s either in a shallow grave somewhere, and hasn’t been found—or identified—or he’s living and working under someone else’s name.”

“Or under the table,” Grimaldi said. “Or he’s made it across the border to Mexico, and is living the high life, drinking tequila on the beach and teaching people to surf.”

I suppose. “Any idea which scenario is more likely?”

“No,” Grimaldi said. “But once I figure out who the girl was—or boy—I’ll hopefully be able to eliminate at least the possibility that he’s rotting in a shallow grave somewhere.”

Because if he was dead, it was likely related to the statutory rape he’d committed here in Columbia, and if so, the girl’s—or boy’s—family hit the top of the suspect list.

I tilted my head to look at her. “Do you feel like we’re getting anywhere? Or just turning over rocks, looking for slimy things to crawl out?”

“A lot of police work is turning over rocks and looking for slimy things,” Grimaldi said. “But these are two reasonably strong strings to pull. All in all, I think we’re making progress.”

Good to know. “Any idea when Rafe is expected back?”

“I imagine it won’t be long,” Grimaldi said, with a glance at the clock. “He’s been gone all afternoon.”

She glanced at the door. “In fact…”

Yes, I heard him, too. And so did Carrie, it seemed. She started gurgling louder and kicking her feet harder. When the half-open door opened further, with a knock that was perfunctory at best, my daughter squealed at the sight of her daddy.

“Hi there, pretty girl.” He bent and tickled her feet before turning to me. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Grimaldi and I have been hanging out,” I said, and tilted my head back for the quick kiss he dropped on my upturned mouth.

Not until all that was done, did Rafe greet his boss. And not in a very subservient manner, either. “What are you getting up to with my wife?”

“We’ve been to Damascus and Columbia High.” Grimaldi nodded him into the second chair in front of the desk. “This guy’s first victim was local. A Damascus woman who