The Night Killer

she asked David as he came out of a carrel with a piece of paper in his hand.
    “Yes, indeed. Our girl Tammy Taylor was arrested for shoplifting ten years ago. I e- mailed the mug shot to Frank,” he said, handing the paper to Diane. “Hopefully she hasn’t aged too much.”
    Diane looked down at the copy of the mug shot David had printed out. Frank told Diane that if she could come up with a photograph of Tammy, he and Ben would show it at a few free clinics and homeless shelters on their lunch hour. This should make Ben happy. Frank told her that once Ben got something in his head, he wouldn’t let it go until it was solved. Frank said it as if he himself had no such compulsion.
    “It still looks like her,” said Diane. “A little younger perhaps, but anyone who has seen her lately would still recognize her. Thanks, David, for running the prints.”
    “Sure. How did your meeting go? Must have been short,” he said.
    Diane sat down at their debriefing table and looked at the photograph again, wishing there were clues of some kind in the lines of Tammy’s face. David drew up another chair and sat down. She told him about the phone call.
    “It’s so sad for them,” she said, looking up.
    “Did the highway patrol have any information about what happened?” he asked.
    “Not that they would say over the phone,” said Diane.
    “I assume they want you to investigate their parents’ deaths,” he said.
    “Yes. That’s what I suspected they wanted when they called last night,” she said.
    “So when do we start?” said David. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in the chair.
    “You’re assuming I said yes ,” said Diane.
    “Of course,” he said.
    “I said I would do what I could. But you don’t have to get involved. I’ve used you enough already,” she said.
    David wagged his finger. “It’s hit too close to home,” he said. “This whole thing in Rendell County needs resolving—all of it. You know, the sheriff’s stubbornness is damned dangerous. If there’s a serial killer on the loose—and it looks like there is—what makes him think the guy’s going to stay in Rendell County? We all have a stake in this, and he’d better get his ass on the phone to the GBI, or the FBI, and get some help. If he doesn’t, he needs to be taken to court and removed from office. I know some judges here. I could put a bug in their ear.”
    Diane smiled.
    “Figuratively,” he added, smiling back.
    David was an expert in forensic entomology, as well as every other thing they did at the lab. He unlaced his fingers and set all four legs of his chair on the floor with a loud whack just as the elevator doors opened and Izzy stepped out.
    “What the hell was that?” Izzy said. “You having a gunfight in here?” He walked over to the two of them and set his evidence case down on the floor and drew up a chair.
    “How’d it go?” asked Diane.
    “I was diligently working the break- in at that little jewelry shop on Main and Oglethorpe,” Izzy said. “Lifted lots of prints, even got a few fibers on the door-frame where the perp broke in. I’d packed everything up when the owner came and told me and the detective that it was all a big mistake, and he’s sorry, and he would pay any fines for making said mistake. Detective Hanks was pissed. I wasn’t all that happy.”
    “What do you think changed his mind?” asked David.
    “I think he discovered that his pissant son was the thief,” said Izzy. “So what’s cooking here?” he asked.
    Just as he spoke, Diane’s phone rang. She was hoping it was the Barres, but it was Travis.
    “Slick and his girlfriend ain’t at home,” he said. “He got a friend to house-sit the dogs. Said he’s coming back tomorrow. We’ll see. The house sitter did say the old lady was with them and she seemed fine,” Travis added.
    “Thanks for looking,” said Diane. She told him that Tammy Taylor was in the system.
    “I’m not surprised. What’d she do?”
    “Shoplifting,” said Diane.
    “I’d of expected more than that,” he said. “I suppose that’s just what she got caught at.”
    Diane told him about Roy Jr. Barre’s accident. “I don’t have any details.”
    “Oh, God, no. Those poor people. Roy Jr. was supposed to come back and go through his parents’ house again with me. I don’t imagine Spence or Christine will feel like it for a while. I’m just real sorry for their trouble.”
    Diane heard another call coming in on her