"We don't have one. We just know that on the night Katherine Marcus was killed, someone else got his head handed to him in the parking lot of the last bar she went to."
Maggie Mason said, "There was a bar fight in the parking lot. So what?"
"None of the patrons at the bar remember any fights? in or out of the place. Between one-thirty and one-fifty, the only people to leave the bar were Katherine Marcus, her two friends, and this witness, Moldanado, who went right back in when his piss was finished. No one else entered. Moldanado sees someone staking out the parking lot at approximately one-thirty, guy he describes as 'regular-looking,' maybe mid-thirties, dark hair. Guy was gone when Moldanado exited the bar at one-fifty."
"At which point the Marcus girl was running through Pen Park."
Souza nodded. "We're not saying there's a clear connection. Maybe there's none at all. But it seems pretty coincidental."
"But again," Friel said, "what's your operating theory?"
Souza shrugged. "I don't know, sir. Let's say it was a hit. The guy in the parking lot, he's watching for the Marcus girl to leave. She does, he makes a phone call to the perp. The perp's waiting for her from that point on."
"And then what?" Sean said.
"Then what? He kills her."
"No, the guy in the car. The lookout. What's he doing? He just up and decides to beat some guy with a rock or something? Just for the hell of it?"
"Maybe someone came up on him."
"Doing what?" Whitey said. "Talking on his cell phone? Shit. We don't know if this has anything to do with the Marcus homicide."
"Sarge," Souza said, "you want we should just blow it off? Say, fuck it, there's nothing there?"
"Did I say that?"
"Well? "
"Did I say that?" Whitey repeated.
"No."
"No, I did not. Show some respect for your elders, Joseph, or we might send you back to working the crystal meth corridor around Springfield, hanging out with bikers and chicks who smell bad, eat lard straight from the can."
Souza checked himself with a slow exhalation. "I just think there's something to this. That's all."
"Not disagreeing, Trooper. Just saying you've got to bring us that something before we redirect manpower on what could turn out to be an isolated, unrelated incident. Also, the Last Drop's in BPD jurisdiction."
"We made contact," Souza said.
"They tell you it's their case?"
He nodded.
Whitey spread his hands. "There you go. Keep in touch with the detective in charge and keep us posted, but otherwise, leave it be for now."
Friel said, "Since we're on the subject of operating theories, Sergeant, what's yours?"
Whitey shrugged. "I got a couple, but that's all they are. Katherine Marcus died from the GSW to the back of her head. None of her other injuries, including the bullet wound to her left biceps, were considered life-threatening. Bludgeoning was committed by a wooden instrument with flat edges? some kind of stick or two-by-four. ME has conclusively stated that she was not sexually assaulted. From our own legwork, we know she was planning to elope with the Harris kid. Bobby O'Donnell was her ex-boyfriend. Problem was he hadn't accepted the 'ex' part yet. The father didn't like either O'Donnell or the Harris kid."
"Why not the Harris kid?"
"We don't know." Whitey glanced over at Sean and then back again. "We're working on it, though. So, best we can figure, she's planning to boogie on out of town in the morning. She has a pseudo-bachelorette party with her two friends, gets run out of a bar by Roman Fallow, and drives her friends home. It's starting to rain now and her wipers are for shit, the windshield dirty. She either misjudges where the curb is because she's drunk, nods off for a second at the wheel for the same reason, or swerves to avoid something in the road. Whatever the cause, she drives her car into the curb. Car stalls and someone approaches the car. According to our old lady witness, Katherine Marcus says, 'Hi.' That's when we think the perp fired his first shot. She manages to hit him with her car door? maybe his gun did jam, I dunno? and she takes off running into the park. She grew up there, maybe she thought she had a better chance of losing him there. Again, we can't even surmise why she chose to run for the park, except for it being a straight run in either direction on Sydney and not a lot in the way of neighbors to help her out for at least four blocks. If she'd stepped out into the open, the perp could have run her down with her own car or shot her pretty easily. So, she bolts for the park. She goes in a pretty consistent southeast pattern from that point on, cutting through the garden co-op, then attempting to hide in the ravine under the footbridge, then making a final beeline for the drive-in screen. She? "
"Her path consistently brought her deeper into the park," Maggie Mason said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Yes, Sergeant." She removed her glasses and placed them on the table in front of her. "If I'm a woman being chased through a city park, whose terrain I'm familiar with, I may begin by leading my pursuer into it in the hopes he'll get lost or held up. But the moment I can, I'm going to start heading back out. Why didn't she cut north toward Roseclair, or double back toward Sydney? Why keep going deeper into the park?"
"Shock, maybe. And fear. Fear makes people forget how to think. Let's remember, too, her blood alcohol level was at point-oh-nine. She was drunk."
She shook her head. "I don't buy it. And here's something else? from your reports, am I to surmise that Miss Marcus was, in fact, faster than her pursuer?"
Whitey's mouth opened a bit, but he seemed to forget what he was going to say.
"Your report, Sergeant. It states that on at least two occasions, Miss Marcus seemed to choose hiding over running. She hid in the garden co-op. And she hid under the footbridge. That tells me two things? one, that she was faster than her pursuer, otherwise she wouldn't have had the time necessary to attempt to hide. And two, that she paradoxically felt that keeping ahead of her pursuer wasn't enough. You add that in with her lack of attempt to run back out of the park, and what does it tell you?"
No one had an answer for that.
Eventually, Friel said, "What does it tell you, Maggie?"
"It presents the possibility to me, anyway, that she felt surrounded."
For a minute, it seemed to Sean like the air in the room went static, popping with electrical currents.