Now that Tommy was officially off the story she could get in trouble for showing up at the crime scene during the work day. But she didn’t care.
With the wind whipping her hair she drove her Jeep without the top to the Guthrie museum, coming to a screeching halt at a spot out front. She dialed Parker and got the scoop on what happened the night before.
“Sorry, I’m a sucker for brunettes. I’m weak. I know it.”
“Screw you, Parker. That was my story.”
“Calm down, Scoop. You can’t blame me for jumping on it.”
“What?” Tommy nearly slammed the phone into the dash.
“Onto the story. The story! We’re chilling and she gets a call from the freaking killer, dude. What the hell am I supposed to do? Go back to bed? I think not. Even you can’t blame me for going along for the ride.”
“Whatever.” Tommy hung up on him, but he was right. She would have done the exact same thing. In a heartbeat. The killer had called Meg. Son of a bitch.
Tommy made her way into the theater and then took the steep escalator up to the second floor. Then she made her way up to the endless bridge. The wind felt good outside as she made her way down the tiered steps to the edge of the bridge, which overlooked the Mississippi River.
Holding her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she peered down at the grassy banks of the river in the direction where Parker said they had seen the killer shining his flashlight on his latest victim. She saw trampled grass and knew that was the spot.
The killer must have scoped out the spot beforehand to make sure he could be seen from the theater. Tommy looked around and vaguely wondered if the theater had surveillance cameras that might show visitors on the bridge from the last few days. She made a mental note to ask Kelly about that.
Tommy held the lens of her camera up and using the telephoto lens took a look at the grassy area below.
How in the hell did the killer manage to drag a body there without anyone seeing? He had run east of the crime scene with Parker and Meg chasing him and then disappeared.
Then, as Tommy watched she saw movement. A man in a beat-up gray sedan had pulled over on the road near the grassy embankment. To her amazement, she saw the man look furtively around before he got out and walked over to the grassy area. He kept looking around him He was as skittish as a young colt.
Tommy’s heart pounded and she immediately focused the lens on the car’s license plate and snapped off a few shots before zooming in on the man’s head. He had his back to her.
Turn around, dammit! Tommy thought. Come on, turn.
And then, he did. She fired off a series of snapshots at the same time he looked right up at her. The look on his face was pure panic.
He ran to the car, jumped in and peeled out.
Tommy didn’t lower her lens until the car swerved around a corner and out of sight.
“Gotcha!”
The chief looked at the picture on the big screen and shook his head.
“It’s not enough.”
Tommy had plugged her camera into the department’s large white board and was watching as the chief and the lead detectives viewed her photos of the man and the car.
“We got surveillance on the guy. We ran his plates. Registered to Donald Callahan. Lives in the Phillips neighborhood.”
Callahan. That name was all too familiar. Tommy would bet her left leg Don Callahan was Meg’s brother.