She nodded. “We’ll talk when your lawyer gets here.” She got up and walked out. She reached for her phone and tried to contact the driver with the expired glasses who had killed Pamela’s daughter. There was no answer. Contacting the family, she asked for an update.
“What update?” the woman said. “He was killed several weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How did he die?” But she knew; goddammit, she knew. “He was hit by a car while riding his bike.”
“And he was riding a bike, why?”
“Because he had killed a child. With a felony on his record, he didn’t get to drive again,” she snapped, “at least not for a very long time. And then the irony of it all is that he ended up in a car accident.”
“And where did that occur?”
“Up by the university,” she said.
“I don’t remember seeing an accident report about that.”
“I don’t know why you didn’t see it.” She added, “If you want to find it, it wasn’t right at the university. The accident was just a few blocks away.”
“Right.” Kate pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do the investigators know who did it?”
“No, not at all. It was a hit-and-run.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kate murmured.
“He made a lot of mistakes in his life, but killing that poor child was an accident. He wasn’t paying enough attention, and he needed a new pair of prescription eyeglasses for sure, and, of course, he deserved to be punished for killing someone, but he didn’t deserve to die.”
“No, ma’am. I get that. I am sorry for your loss. Thank you for your time.” Kate hung up the phone, and, staring down at the information, her stomach got queasy. “How though? Just how the hell did that happen?” she whispered to no one.
At that, she turned on her email and checked for theconcerned citizenemail that had been sent to Bill, the ex-cop, the guy who had lost his son. Kate read it intently. Nothing was on the surface, but something was underneath. An intimation that something needed to be done, something more. Was that it? Was killing Jillie’s killer it? Was that what needed to be done? Was it that these people needed to be dealt with in kind? And, if the city wouldn’t do anything to fix it, then the survivors would do something?
Not that the city would come and fix the intersection after they had already refused once, but Pamela—and her proxy—actually wanted these people to pay for killing their loved ones. The oldest motive in the world: revenge. As Kate sat here, staring, Rodney came into the bullpen, crowing in delight.
“The mother is no longer quite so cocky.”
Kate looked up at him. “And?”
“Apparently Pamela was making phone calls, trying to get somebody to kill the guy who killed her daughter. In her opinion, Pamela didn’t feel he did enough time.”
“She was trying to hire somebody, right?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Did you already hear that from the father?”
“No. But he did intimate that Pamela wasn’t right in the head, and that’s why they were keeping her locked up.”
“So she had a cell phone, but it had no battery, so she couldn’t contact anyone.”
“I bet she’s not that stupid. Do we still have people at the house?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Have them search her room for a battery for that cell phone,” she said.
“You think she’s behind this?”
“I’m not sure, but we’re close. We’re very close.”
“She couldn’t have done it on her own. Not being blind. Not the way they had her locked down.”
“No, she wouldn’t have, especially with her failing sight. And I don’t know that she even knows about the other victims, the loved ones they left behind. It could be that she set something into motion that somebody else took up, and it eventually took on a life of its own.”