88: Poole’s heart thudded. He set the phone down on the conference table and pressed a button. “Sam, I’m in the war room with your team. I’ve got you on speaker.”
“You’re not allowed in the war room.”
“I brought him in, Sam,” Clair answered. “The case has gotten complicated. There’s a link to Bishop. More than a link. He’s all over it.”
Poole leaned in close. “Where are you? Where is the diary?”
He heard Porter breathing on the other end, but the man did not reply.
Poole looked up at the others, then back to the phone. “Libby McInley is dead.”
Porter said nothing.
“We found her bound to her bed. Ear, eyes, tongue, in white boxes, identical to Bishop’s other victims. Her fingers and toes were removed too. She was tortured. Every inch of her body had been cut.”
When Porter spoke, his voice was even, measured. “It wasn’t Bishop. Bishop wouldn’t kill Libby McInley any more than he killed her sister.”
Poole looked up at Klozowski. “Your IT guy thinks it was Bishop’s mother. I’d like to know what you think.”
Again Porter went silent.
Poole heard Porter talking to someone, muffled, the phone covered, and then he returned to the call.
“Sam?”
“I’m going to text you an address. When you arrive at that address, follow the path at the back of the property. It’s overgrown, but if you look close you’ll find it, like a deer path. It will lead you to a lake. You’ll need a team. You’ll want to sweep the lake,” Porter told him.
“Where are you, Sam?”
“When you get to the lake, look for the cat.”
“You’re not making sense, Sam. If you—”
The line went dead.
Poole cursed under his breath.
The phone vibrated and an address appeared:
12 Jenkins Crawl Road
Simpsonville, SC
“He must have found it,” Nash said, still staring at the phone.
“Found what?”
“Bishop’s childhood home.”
“I don’t like this,” Clair said. “Why is he being so secretive? That didn’t sound like him. Who was he talking to?”
Klozowski had entered the address into a browser on his computer. He turned the screen around so everyone could see. “That’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m not sure why I should trust him at all,” Poole said. “He stole the diary. He’s clearly holding something back. Libby’s death didn’t seem to surprise him. What else does he know?”
Nash leaned back in his chair. “I think if he knew something he thought would be useful to us, he would have shared it. He’s got no reason to hide anything.”
“Yet he disappeared with the diary and left his phone behind so we couldn’t track him.”
“Sam’s working the case,” Nash said. “You can trust him.”
Poole clucked his tongue, then nodded. “I’ll call the Charlotte office and get them out there right away. We have a jet at O’Hare. I can be there in a few hours.”
Clair rose and went to the boards. “If you can get us that list of employees at Stroger Hospital, we can work that angle. Maybe we can box Bishop in from both sides.”
Poole nodded and disappeared out the door, his walk quickening to a run.
Floyd Reynolds—UniMed America Healthcare/Insurance Sales—Strangled/body hidden in snowman
Ella Reynolds—Found in Jackson Park Lagoon/recently bought car—drowned, salt water
Randal Davies—Oncologist. Worked at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital—overdosed with lisinopril
Lili Davies—Found posed inside stockroom of Leigh Gallery—drowned, salt water
Darlene Biel—Pharmaceutical sales rep—poisoned with cyanide
Larissa Biel—Missing from corner of West Chicago Avenue and North Damen as of 2/14 morning
Unknown Boy
Libby MCInley
Killed by Bishop’s mother?
Has photo of Bishop’s mother and neighbor/Carter
Lock of blond hair—possibly Kirby? How would she get it?
IDs in the name of Kalyn Selke/obtained with Bishop’s help
Corresponded with Bishop while in prison/means unknown
.45 in possession
Felt safe in prison, not on outside
poems
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
A telling analogy for life and death:
Compare the two of them to water and ice.
Water draws together to become ice,
And ice disperses again to become water.
Whatever has died is sure to be born again;
Whatever is born comes around again to dying.
As ice and water do one another no harm,
So life and death, the two of them, are fine.
Let us return Home, let us go back,
Useless is this reckoning of seeking and getting,
Delight permeates all of today.
From the blue ocean of death
Life is flowing like nectar.
In life there is death; in death there is life.
So where is fear, where is fear?
The birds in the sky are singing “No death, no death!”
Day and night the tide of Immortality
Is descending here on earth.
You can’t play God without being acquainted with the devil.
underlined words
ice
water
life
death
Home
fear
death