Ten Plagues

“Not dangerous, like Carlo, the gang member whose building you ran into just before it exploded?” she cut in. “He’s got a rap sheet as long as your arm. If he wasn’t a juvie, he’d be doing life.”

“No, I’m not talking about Carlo. I mean—”

“We’re not going to discuss this here. We’ll take you downtown and start talking about people who might be crazy enough to want to hurt you.” Detective Collins caught his arm.

Paul pulled away. “I’ll do whatever you need to do, but what about LaToya? Every man and woman who wastes time talking to me isn’t out hunting for her.”

“Oh, we’ll be hunting for her, all right,” she said grimly. “We’ll just be hunting inside your head.”

She grabbed Paul’s arm again and hauled him out of the apartment. He went along peacefully, feeling like he was being arrested but too upset about LaToya to care. She was right. Detective Collins had it figured out exactly right.

Juanita and LaToya had been killed because someone hated him.

It was true.

“It’s a lie!”

After two hours of badgering in the interrogation room, Paul had it figured out, and he told Detective Collins that for the tenth time. “These murders aren’t about me.”

“You know they are.” Detective Collins had her heels dug in.

Paul sat with his hands clenched together on the table in front of him. It was all he could do to keep from leaping over the table and shaking some sense into the pretty little tyrant.

“Just because they’re both from my neighborhood, and I knew them both, doesn’t mean this is about me. You’re wasting valuable time. If you won’t go out and hunt for her, at least let me.”

“Rev, do you really think O’Shea and I are the only ones working this case?” she stormed.

“I know how it is when a crime gets committed on the South Side. It’s not a priority.”

“This one is. We’ve got forensics working on the pond, both women’s homes, and the site of the explosion.”

“That fountain.” Paul’s stomach twisted and he’d only seen the pictures. “He made a fountain flow with blood.”

“Blood meal. It’s a garden fertilizer. Available in every store that sells potting soil. All it really did was dye the water red. Just another thing we’ve found out while you say we’re doing nothing.” Detective Collins placed her hands flat on the table and leaned forward. “The ME is personally doing all the prelims for the autopsy. The forensics lab has pushed this case ahead of everything else. The FBI is running all the results we’ve got through their computer looking for similar crimes. We’re tracking down the delivery man who brought that package to you. We’ve got people going through your records at the mission—”

“I shouldn’t have let you do that,” Paul interjected. “I should at least be there. Those records are—”

“—and hunting through your old case files from your cop days.” She kept talking as if he were a buzzing insect. “We’ve got one poor schmuck going to every art supply and hardware store in the city, trying to identify the exact type of cutting tool Pravus used to make his signs. We’re tracking down the name. Someone thought Pravus sounded Middle Eastern. I told them it was Latin, but still we’re trying to rule out any terrorism. We’re digging through the rubble of that building, tracking down the source of every incoming call on your cell. We’re questioning everyone who might know someone you drove completely crazy!”

Paul inhaled sharply. Somewhere along the line, he’d done something to someone that had resulted in this. He scrubbed his face with his right hand, still coddling his left. He wanted to wash reality away. “I can’t bear to think about it.”

Keren caught his arm, his good arm, and pulled it away from his face. “Well, you’re going to have to think about it! I don’t have time to baby you while you—”

“Back off, Keren,” O’Shea growled from where he leaned, with his arms crossed, against the wall off to Paul’s left. “He’s a witness, not a suspect.” He’d mostly observed, throwing in a question now and then. Paul got a sense the two of them were doing a routine with him that they’d performed a hundred times before. But Detective Collins was losing her cool. That wasn’t part of the routine.

She let go of his arm. After a few moments of obvious effort, she said, “Sorry, that was out of line.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Paul said through a clenched jaw. “I know you’re trying to find a connection between me and this lunatic. But I’ve thought it over and we’re on the wrong track. Yes, I know both of them, but lots of people know both of them. They were from the neighborhood. This guy could have come from here and been victimized by someone in this area.”

“Pravus phoned you, Rev. He knew you and cared enough to track down your cell phone number and mail you that sign.”