Watching him.
Judging him.
When he finally brought the car to a stop, Lisa turned to him. “I knew this was coming, you know. I guess it’s pretty ironic it happens today of all days.”
Tolan was puzzled. “You knew what was coming?”
“This moment. The moment you finally realize what you’re capable of. What you did to Abby.” She paused. “Sooner or later it had to catch up to you.”
What he did to Abby.
“You knew? You’ve known about her all along?”
“Yes,” she said.
Tolan was at a loss. “… How?”
“The same way I know about Detective Carmody. And Anna Marie Colson.”
He just looked at her. “What?”
“Come on, Michael. Do you really think this is the first time I’ve helped you?”
49
Like the lowlifes who had broken into Hastert’s apartment, Blackburn always kept a ring of bump keys handy. Such keys were once a well-kept secret in the locksmith’s arsenal, an essential tool for quick and easy entry. But it didn’t take long for the home-invasion crowd to catch on.
The keys were of various makes, each with its grooves filed down to the lowest cut, allowing it to be used in just about any lock that accepted that particular make of key. Once the key was inserted, the locksmith or thief — or, in this case, cop — would lightly “bump” the back of it with a screwdriver, or some other blunt instrument, until the key turned and the lock opened.
The process was so simple, a kid could do it. And Blackburn had no doubt that more than a few had.
After he and Kat took a quick look around the perimeter of the house, they decided to go in through the rear door. There were two locks, the knob and a deadbolt, but Blackburn had no trouble bumping them both.
“I knew those hands were good for something,” Kat said.
The moment they were inside they flicked on their Mag-Lites, illuminating a basic, upscale tract home: kitchen attached to a sunken living room. Hallway leading to a bathroom and three bedrooms.
“Where do you want to start?” Kat asked.
Blackburn handed her a pair of crime scene gloves, then shone his light toward the bedroom doors. “Most people keep their secrets in their closets. You take the first one, I’ll take the last, and we’ll meet in the middle.”
“A head-on collision.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Just thinking out loud. What exactly are we looking for?”
“Bank statements, check stubs. The most recent ones you can find. Patient files would be nice.”
“Janovic?”
“Or the new victim — Hastert.”
“Good luck.”
“I can dream, can’t I?” He gestured for her to get started. “Make sure you put everything back where you got it. We don’t want to leave any footprints.”
“Roger.”
As Kat pulled her gloves on and headed for the first bedroom, Blackburn navigated the narrow hallway until he reached the last door. Resting a hand on the butt of his holstered Glock, he pushed inside, shone the light around.
The master bedroom.
King-size bed, double-wide dresser, closet to the left, bathroom to the right. Nothing special. The wall above the bed featured a stark black-and-white photograph of Tolan, awash in sunlight, standing in a large, open room with high windows.
Taken by the wife, no doubt.
On closer inspection, Blackburn realized it was shot at the old Baycliff Hospital. A gathering spot. A Day Room. He remembered seeing this and several more like it in The New Times magazine, shortly after Abby’s murder.
He took a quick look through the dresser drawers, making sure that every sock, every pair of boxers remained in place, but found nothing of interest.
Moving to the closet, he slid open the door, shone his light inside, and found the usual assortment of clothes and shoes. A set of pristine golf clubs were buried in a corner, looking as if they’d been sitting there since the day they were purchased.
Undoubtedly the product of peer pressure.
The shelf above held a few boxes, their handwritten labels chronicling several years’ worth of tax returns. Blackburn pulled the most recent year down and quickly rifled through it, found a couple of check registers. A scan of their contents, however, yielded nothing of use.
Replacing the box, he closed the closet and turned, sweeping the flashlight beam around the room again.
He decided to move on.
The center bedroom was a home office. Functional and unpretentious. Bookcases holding a mix of hardcover and paperback books, both fiction and nonfiction.
Another reader, like Hastert.
The closet was a bust. A couple of coats hanging inside, more books piled on the shelf above them.
Shutting the closet door, he moved to a desk that was pushed up against the far wall, its blotter littered with various pieces of paperwork and mail. Blackburn quickly looked through them, but again found nothing of interest.
Sliding open the bottom drawer, he was hoping to see a row of hanging file folders, but instead found even more books, most of them snooze-inducing tomes covering a variety of mental health issues.
One of them had Tolan’s byline and the title What Color Is Your Anger? Blackburn pulled it out and leafed through it, vaguely remembering that it had been a bestseller a couple years back. The book that put Tolan on the map.
As far as Blackburn could tell, there was nothing special about it. Just a retread of every other self-help book out there, this one assigning colors to our various moods, followed by an armchair analysis of what triggers them.
It was all gobbledygook to Blackburn and seemed out of character for Tolan. As if he’d been slumming in the world of pop psychology. Why the public and the press latched on to this kind of nonsense was anybody’s guess. One of the many mysteries of our culture.
He was returning this masterpiece to its designated spot when he realized he’d missed something in the back of the drawer, wedged behind the rest of the books. Quickly moving them out of the way, he reached in and pulled out a box. A rectangular metal box with a padlock attached.
Blackburn felt a tiny surge of adrenaline that was immediately offset by puzzlement.
It was a tackle box.
The kind fishermen use.
But if this connected in the way he thought it might, that didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense at all.
Still, he had to wonder, if you’re using a box like this to store your fishing tackle, why not keep it in the garage with the rest of your gear? Assuming Tolan had any. Why stick it in the back of a desk drawer, hidden by a bunch of books?
Setting it on the desktop, Blackburn rattled the padlock, but it was securely fastened. Bump keys wouldn’t be any help with this, but a properly bent paper clip would.
He had just found one in the top desk drawer when Kat’s voice rang out from the adjoining bedroom.
“Hey, Frank, I think I’ve got something here.”
Snatching up the tackle box and carrying it with him, he moved down the hallway to the next room, which had been set up as a den.
Sofa. Armchairs. TV.
Kat stood near the closet, a box of her own at her feet. This one made of battered cardboard.
“The shelf in there is full of these,” she said. “All labeled. Old mementos and stuff.” She held out a newspaper clipping. “Take a look at this.”
Blackburn set the tackle box on the floor, then took the clipping from her and shone his light on it. It was a fifteen-year-old article taken from the LA Times, yellowed with age, its headline reading: