“And?”
“And if he does, maybe we should follow him, see where he’s in such a hurry to get to.”
“All right,” I say, taking a bite.
We have to wait another fifteen minutes, but then Aguilar sits up straight, calling attention to a dark-haired, compact man heading for the pickup. He wears a cotton field jacket, jeans, and a pair of tan work boots, casual but neat. Even from down the street I can see something’s wrong with his face.
“Does that look like bruising to you?” I ask.
Aguilar grunts. “Maybe she did fight back.”
“The ME says no to that. Not that Green would commit before the autopsy, but I could tell what she was thinking. The stab wound to the heart was the fatal one, and probably the first to be delivered. He came up from behind, probably cupped a hand over her mouth, and stabbed her in the chest, holding the knife in an ice-pick grip.”
“Makes sense,” he says. “But somebody laid into the man.”
“We’ll have to ask him about that.”
Young pulls the truck door shut and gets going. He drives up Dunlap and puts his right blinker on to turn at Queensloch. Once he reaches Hillcroft, tapping the brakes, Aguilar starts after him. We keep a few car lengths between us, but there’s not much traffic around at a quarter to nine on a Sunday morning. If he’s jumpy, there’s not much we can do to prevent him from spotting us, but that’s always the case with a one-car tail. To do it right, you need a team-or better yet, an eye in the sky. I tell myself not to worry, though, because nine times out of ten the possibility that he’s being followed never occurs to a suspect. That logic aside, I can feel my adrenaline pumping. Next to me, Aguilar grips the wheel tight.
Young crosses Braeswood and Beechnut, finally taking a right on Bissonnet all the way to the Loop. Aguilar gives me a look, but I say nothing. We trail him to Buffalo Speedway, where he hits a red light. A Honda hatchback stops behind him, and we stack up on its bumper.
“Is he taking us where I think he’s taking us?”
Aguilar lets out a breath but doesn’t answer.
The light changes and we crawl forward.
“He’ll turn on Belmont,” I say.
But he doesn’t.
“He’ll turn on Wakeforest.”
But again, he doesn’t. We’re skirting West U., expecting any minute for Young to take the right turn that will lead directly and inevitably to our crime scene. At Kirby, though, he puts the left blinker on, heading away from the house, crossing under Highway 59.
“That’s a roundabout way of getting here,” I say. “Do you think he was heading to the scene and changed his mind? Maybe he spotted us?”
Aguilar shrugs. “If my wife left me and that’s where she was staying, maybe I’d take detours, too.”
“Maybe, but he didn’t actually turn. It’s like he was heading that way out of habit, then realized he can’t do that anymore. Not after what he did to her last night.”
He takes Kirby to Westheimer, then cuts across to Shepherd and takes another left, leading us across Allen Parkway and Interstate 10 and farther north. In sight of the North Loop, he pulls into a strip center parking lot and stops. Aguilar keeps going, but I crane my neck to keep an eye on him. We circle round, edging into the far side of the lot.
“He’s getting out,” I say.
Young’s door pops open and he slides to the ground. He doubles over, one hand still hanging on to the door handle. After a couple of dry heaves, he vomits onto the pavement.
“I’m not believing this.” Aguilar laughs. “This is our guy.”
Wiping his mouth, Young gets back in the truck and keeps going. We follow him under 610. After a series of turns, he pulls into a full parking lot, weaving through a stream of coated pedestrians hunched over by the brisk wind. The building on the far side of the lot has a round central window divided into quarters by a masonry cross.
“Looks like I’m going to church after all,” I say.
Young parks his truck near the back of the lot and gets out, pausing at the tailgate to let a couple of arriving cars pass. We’re the last in line.
“Stop the car,” I tell Aguilar. “I’m not letting him go in.”
He jerks to a halt right in front of Young, throws the car in park, and has his badge out before I can even make it around to the driver’s side. He’s already into his spiel before I walk up, telling a startled Young that we’re the police and we need his cooperation on an important matter. He doesn’t mention the specifics, though, not wanting to give anything away.
“I don’t understand,” Young says. His lip sports a fresh cut and there’s a purple crosshatched scrape along the jawline. He clutches a scuffed Bible in one hand. I notice cuts and bruising on his knuckles, too. “Did I run a light or something?”
“We need your assistance, sir.” Aguilar puts a friendly but firm hand on his shoulder. “We’re making inquiries and I think you can help us. You’re willing to do that, aren’t you, sir? To help the police?”
Young nods slowly. “Of course.”
“Are you all right, sir?” I ask. “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”
“You should see the other guy.” He gives me a queasy smile that only gets queasier when I don’t return it. “No, I’m okay. It’s nothing.”
It doesn’t look like nothing. Young’s eyes are red-rimmed and watery, and there’s a feverish pallor to his skin. Symptoms of flu, perhaps, though my money’s on stress. The stress of getting caught so soon.
“Is there anything you need from your vehicle?”
He glances at the truck, then me, not comprehending.
“We’re gonna need you to accompany us,” Aguilar says.
“To go with you? I can’t leave my truck. Maybe I could follow you.”
I jab my thumb at the church. “I’m sure nobody will bother it here. Now, is there anything you need to get?”
He moves like he’s in a trance, pulling open the driver’s door, looking inside like he’s never seen the truck’s interior before. I glance over his shoulder. Simone Walker’s clothes were missing from the scene, and so were her laptop and cell phone. According to Dr. Hill, she often took them out with her when she smoked, sitting at the outside table to answer email and update her Facebook page. No sign of any of that in the truck cabin, though.
Aguilar pops open the passenger door. “Anything I can help you with?”
“No,” Young says. “No, thanks.”
He takes nothing from the truck, only deposits the Bible on the dash. When he locks up, he has to use the key. Either there’s no automatic opener or it doesn’t work.
“Okay,” he says.
I open the back door for him. He starts to get in, then pauses, conscious of the churchgoers watching on the periphery. His pale cheeks redden and he hurries into the car, pulling the door shut himself. Aguilar and I exchange a look over the roof. We’re taking a chance not putting him under arrest or even patting him down. But it’s a calculated risk. He knows what he did, but he doesn’t know whether we know. He doesn’t know how much we know. As long as he believes there’s a shot at getting out of this, he’s still liable to talk. Technically he’s just a witness, a person of interest helping with our investigation. If we read him his rights and treat him like a suspect, he’s not going to give us a thing.
We get inside and close the doors.
“You all right back there?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” he says, nodding for emphasis.
I trade another look with Aguilar. Young hasn’t asked why we want to talk to him. Either he’s very trusting or he already knows.
The man who drowned his own father in the bathtub last night is sitting in Interview Room 1 with Jerry Lorenz, one of the greenhorns on our shift. So I install Young in Interview 2 with promises of coffee and breakfast muffins on my return. Down the hallway I find Lt. Bascombe in front of the monitors. He sends Aguilar off to his cubicle for a much-needed nap and beckons me into the room.