Dale City, Virginia, Friday, July 15, 2016
The loud thumping woke Tatum up with a start. His vision snapped into focus only to see a pair of large, menacing green eyes staring at him, mere inches from his face. His hand shot down to pull his Glock from its holster, but he was in his underwear, no gun in reach. Reflexes took hold, and he pushed himself backward, away from his attacker. He tumbled to the floor, scrambling for any sort of protection. His attacker disappeared from sight as Tatum bounded to his feet, his heart racing. He turned on the light and blinked.
His ugly orange tomcat stared at him with disdain.
“Damn it, Freckle!” Tatum yelled at him. “I told you not to get on the bed.”
Freckle blinked and yawned, clearly bored. Tatum looked for the water pistol, Freckle’s nemesis, but it was nowhere in sight. In all likelihood, the cat had destroyed the thing when Tatum wasn’t around, like he’d done to the three previous ones.
There was another thump. Someone was knocking on the door; that was what had woken him, not his sociopathic cat. He put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, grabbed his Glock from the night table, and walked over to the front door. He’d gotten used to the new apartment in Dale City, but he was groggy from sleep, and in the dark, the hallway felt almost unfamiliar. He missed his previous apartment in LA, even though this one was much more spacious, in a better neighborhood.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Police,” a sharp, formal voice declared.
Tatum flattened his body against the wall and unlocked the door, then opened it slightly and peered out. A cop in uniform stood outside, an old, confused-looking man next to him. Tatum sighed, put the Glock on the small stand nearby, and opened the door.
“Good evening, sir,” the cop said. “Do you know this man?” He glanced at the befuddled gray-haired man beside him.
“Yeah.” Tatum sighed. “He’s my grandfather. His name’s Marvin.”
“We found him wandering around Logan Park,” the cop said.
“Where is Molly?” Marvin asked in a frail voice.
“He keeps asking for her,” the cop said.
“Molly was my grandmother. She passed away,” Tatum said. “We just moved here . . . I think he’s having a hard time adjusting.”
“I’m very sorry,” the cop said. “He was with some young men who ran once they spotted us. I think they were about to rob him.”
“I see,” Tatum said. “Thank you, Officer.”
The cop glanced at the table where the Glock rested.
Tatum cleared his throat. “I’m a federal agent,” he said. “My badge is in the bedroom, if you want to—”
“That’s okay.” The cop nodded. “You should make sure he stays indoors, sir,” he said. “He shouldn’t be walking around at two a.m. It’s dangerous.”
“You’re right, Officer. Thank you. You heard that, Grandpa?”
“Is Molly asleep?” Marvin asked, his voice trembling.
“You have a good night, sir,” the officer said and walked away as Tatum closed the door.
Tatum and his grandfather looked at each other silently as the cop’s footsteps faded.
“Goddamn it, Marvin.” Tatum exploded once he knew the cop would be out of earshot. “What the hell?”
“Well, what did you want me to do?” Marvin asked, straightening, the confusion fading from his face. “I don’t run as fast as those youngsters. Would you rather I called to say I’d been arrested for buying drugs?”
“I would rather that you weren’t buying drugs at all,” Tatum said. “What the hell are you buying drugs for, anyway? You’re eighty-seven years old.”
“They’re not for me. They’re for Jenna,” Marvin said, striding into the apartment.
“Who’s Jenna?”
“A woman I know, Tatum.”
“Where did you meet this woman?”
“Bingo night.”
Tatum shut his eyes and breathed deeply. “How old is Jenna?”
“She’s eighty-two,” Marvin yelled from the kitchen. “But she’s very feisty.”
“I’m sure she is,” Tatum muttered, walking after his grandfather. “Well, if Jenna’s eighty-two, she shouldn’t be doing cocaine either.”
“Tatum, at our age, we can do whatever we want,” Marvin said. “I’m making a cup of tea. Do you want one?”
“I want to go back to sleep.”
“You have a flight in a couple of hours anyway,” Marvin said.
“Yeah, listen—about that. Don’t get arrested while I’m gone. I need you to take care of Freckle.”
“No way.”
“It’s just for a few days.”
“Why don’t you take the cat to a shelter? Or, I don’t know, dump it on the highway.”
“I should take you to the shelter,” Tatum grumbled as Marvin handed him a mug. He took a sip. “Listen, just make sure he has food and that he doesn’t destroy the house. We just moved in. And make sure he doesn’t eat the fish.”
“What fish?”
“The one in the bowl in the living room. I need you to get an aquarium for it. I’ll leave you some money.”
“We have a fish?”
“Yeah. His name is Timothy, and apparently, he’s a bastard. You two should get along great. Just keep Freckle away from him.”
“That beast hates me.”
“He hates everyone,” Tatum said. “But maybe if you stopped throwing your shoes at him—”
“If he’d stop pouncing at me, I might stop throwing shoes at him.”
Freckle prowled into the kitchen, glanced at Marvin, and hissed menacingly.
“Cut that out,” Tatum told the cat. “I need you two to behave when I’m gone.”
The cat and the old man both looked at Tatum, their eyes round and innocent.
Tatum sighed. “And feed the damn fish,” he said.
When Tatum saw Lieutenant Samuel Martinez from the Chicago PD, he was quite taken with the man’s mustache. He shook his hand, wondering how the mustache would look on his own face. It was well groomed and thick, with a Tom Selleck-ish style, giving Martinez’s mouth an aura of importance. The thick-rimmed glasses framing the man’s eyes further elevated the seriousness he conveyed. Tatum suspected that if he tried the same face décor, he’d look like a pervy literature teacher who slept with his students. Some mustaches belonged on other people’s faces. So far Tatum had failed to find one that belonged on his own.
“Agent Gray, I’m glad you could come,” the lieutenant said. They stood in the entrance of the Chicago Police Department headquarters, where the Central Investigation Division was housed. It teemed with people, both cops and civilians, and the air carried the faint buzz of several conversations merged together. Martinez’s voice penetrated the hubbub easily, his words clipped and measured. “Please follow me.”
They took the elevator up two floors and then walked down a corridor into what appeared to be a meeting room. Half a dozen people sat around a large white table in the center. Several whiteboards hung on the walls, on which various images were tacked and timelines drawn. A large map of Chicago was taped to the wall to Tatum’s left, marked with circles drawn with a red Sharpie in two spots.
“This is the situation room for the Strangling Undertaker cases,” Martinez explained. “Please, come in.”
“The Strangling Undertaker?” Tatum raised an eyebrow.
“That’s what the newspapers started calling him,” Martinez said. “A reporter came up with the nickname a few days ago, and it’s caught on.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Tatum muttered.
Martinez introduced Tatum to the people in the room. Five were detectives. The sixth, a much older man with frizzed hair and numerous liver spots, was introduced as Dr. Ruben Bernstein.
“Bernstein joined the task force three days ago, soon after we found the second body,” Martinez said. “He’s an experienced profiler, and he’s already been a tremendous help.”