“We’ve got a room waiting for us at the local precinct,” Shelley said. “The cop I spoke to assured me that the coffee is awful, but also that the air conditioning is completely inefficient, so we have lots to look forward to.”
“Lead the way,” Zoe said, wishing she could at least find that funny to lessen the blow.
CHAPTER SIX
With a sigh, Zoe chose a chair and sank down into it, reaching for the first file that had been left for them.
“Thank you, Captain Warburton, we really appreciate your help,” Shelley was saying near the door, making good work of the small talk and pleasantries that Zoe had never enjoyed.
It felt good to be part of a team that worked. Where each of them had their own separate roles. Shelley was to understanding people what Zoe was to numbers, and though neither of them could really comprehend what the other did, at least it made everything flow easier.
After a good twenty minutes of studying the files, they were no closer to getting anywhere. Though the locals had managed to amass some family statements and get a lot more information than the initial files they had reviewed on the plane, none of it seemed to be helpful. Zoe threw her pages down on the table with a groan of frustration.
“Why can it not ever be a simple connection?”
“Because then the locals could do it, and we’d be out of a job,” Shelley said calmly. “Let’s go over what we know. Talk it out. Maybe something will click.”
“I doubt that very much. The two of them were such different people.”
“Well, let’s start with that. John was a healthy guy, right? A gym rat.”
“His housemate said that he spent almost all of his spare time at the gym. He was in good shape.”
“And a nice guy, too.”
Zoe made a face. “He donated money to charity and helped out at a soup kitchen on Sundays. That does not necessarily mean he was a nice guy. Lots of people do things like that because they are hiding a darkness.”
“You’re grasping at straws,” Shelley said, shaking her head. “We can’t read anything else into that. He had a clean lifestyle. No drugs, no convictions, not even any disciplinary record at work.”
“And she was the opposite.” Zoe directed this last statement at a photograph of a smiling Callie Everard, beaming at the camera and holding up a bottle of beer while an inebriated-looking young man held his arm around her shoulders.
“Well, maybe not. Yes, she had some trouble with drugs earlier in her life. But she went in and out of rehab when she was twenty-three, completed the course, kicked the habit. She had been clean for a couple of years. Back on track.”
Zoe considered this. “Maybe there could be something there. Both of them into clean living, even if only recently.”
“What, like a fitness cult or something?” Shelley asked.
Zoe gave her a dark look.
“Well, it’s possible,” Shelley said. “Just look at all that stuff with the exercise bikes. And that self-help cult, the one that was tricking women into sleeping with the founder and giving all their money away.”
“I suppose I have to concede that point.” Zoe wasn’t familiar with all of the ins and outs, but she had heard mention of the cases. Shelley was right, in a way. You never really knew what might be going on under the surface until you dug down far enough.
She lifted photographs of the pair of them, looking for similarities. It was always frustrating to come in on a case like this. With a single victim, you could analyze the evidence single-mindedly, fixate on every small detail of that one person. With three or more victims, you had enough data points to build a pattern. To recognize that the killer was travelling in a certain direction, or only targeting blondes under five foot ten, or that they revealed themselves in a certain tic that showed up at each scene.
With two, it was much harder. You couldn’t put things together in the same way. A similarity in numbers might just be a coincidence that would be broken by another body. You might notice that each of their ages were prime numbers only for that to turn out to be meaningless. You couldn’t tell what was important and what was just a red herring, thrown out by your own brain and holding no deliberate intentions.
“There is one thing they have in common,” Zoe said, tapping the pictures. “Tattoos. Dowling had a tiger on his left bicep. Everard had a rose on her right thigh, picked out in dotwork. She was on her way to see a friend about getting another one, too.”
Shelley shrugged. “Does that really warrant a connection? A lot of people have tattoos.”
Zoe was flipping through more photos, noticing more marks on areas of skin that were visible in different shots. They were almost all taken from the victims’ social media profiles, and it looked as though they were both proud of their tattoos. Of showing them off. Did that mean something? “It was not just one tattoo each. Look. Both of them were covered in them. Dowling had the whole of one leg done, right down to the foot. And Everard, here, on her back and stomach.”
“I still don’t know that it means anything. It’s just a cultural thing nowadays.”
Zoe wrinkled her nose. “A cultural thing?”
“Yeah. You haven’t noticed? A lot of people are getting inked in their early twenties now. Covering their whole bodies. Even faces and hands. There’ve been a lot of celebrities getting it done. Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, you know? Rappers and singers and sports players. It’s considered cool right now.”
“Face and hand tattoos sound like remarkably bad ideas,” Zoe said, making a face. “Imagine never being able to hide the mistake that you made at a young age, of choosing to get something stupid put onto your body forever.”
“There must be some kind of connection between them somewhere,” Shelley breezed on. “I’m betting it would be in their personal lives. Maybe they both knew the same people, somewhere in their lives. A bar or a club, a group of friends, a cousin who knew a cousin. Maybe they were at the same event together without even knowing it. We just have to keep digging until we get to it.”
Zoe nodded. “Well, then, I know where we should start.” She lifted Callie Everard’s file, made a note of the address listed in it. “The friend she was going to see: Javier Santos.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Zoe walked around the small studio space, taking in the illustrations and drawings that littered every possible surface. Whether Javier was talented or not was for someone else who had more interest in the arts to say. The fact that he was prolific, however, was not up for debate.
“These are all for tattoos?” she asked, scanning them mentally.
“Yeah, sure.” Javier nodded. “Most of them have been used. I can whip you up something unique, though, if you’d like.”
Zoe shot him a look to see if he was joking. He seemed earnest, which was worse.
“I do not think so,” she said, settling for these simple words and hoping that he would not press the issue. She would not like to spoil the interview before it even properly kicked off by telling him exactly what she thought of people who would get tattoos.
Especially tattoos like these: random, indiscriminate pieces of art. Zoe could understand someone liking the cartoonish form of a woman’s face as a piece of art, something to put on a wall or in a book. But to have it inked onto one’s body for the rest of your life? To wear this person’s face—this fictional person, who meant nothing to you or to anyone else, who was only born from an artist’s random daydreams?