“I shouldn’t have spoken at all,” he said.
They both answered to find out about yet another victim. As Kate stood, she looked over at him. “Now you need to bite your tongue.”
“The DB’s up in the same area too.”
“I know.” Her voice was soft. “I’m just hoping it’s not connected.”
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
“You driving?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m driving.”
As they headed to his car, she thought about the odds of yet another victim in that areanotbeing connected. “I wonder how many traffic fatalities we have up in that area.”
“We can pull the stats later, if you think it’s important,” he said.
“It’s not that I think it’s important. I’m just wondering what the odds are that this guy has done it again.”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” he said.
“I wish we could deal with one case at a damn time.”
“Not enough hands, not enough hours. We’re assigned the first one, and, because of your connection, we’re assigned the other. Don’t forget. The rest of the team has other cases of their own.”
“I know, and it’s great that we share notes, but I’d really like the time to dig fully into one for once, with all my focus there,” she said.
“In this case, you don’t have that option, and you get to dig into more than one.”
She sighed. “I get that. I really do. It just sucks.”
“You just clear off your plate and compartmentalize, so you only have one on your plate at a time and can give it 100 percent of your focus while you can.”
She looked at him, then frowned. “You know, in theory—”
“Let’s just go with it,” he interrupted, before she could get too far.
She laughed. “Let’s just hope this one is open-and-shut.”
“Are they ever?”
“Yes, just not very often.”
As soon as they arrived at the scene, a crowd had already gathered.
She groaned. “Is this the exact same corner?”
He nodded as he stood here, grim faced, looking out at the crowd. “I wonder how many people are duplicates.”
“Let’s start getting photos, and then we can at least match interviews to the photos.”
And that’s what they did. While everybody was still shuffling around, Kate and Rodney walked around the crowd themselves and took photos of everybody standing here, watching. When somebody protested, Kate looked at him. “Really? You’re standing here, gawking at a crime scene, and you’re complaining that we want to know who you are?”
The kid immediately backed up. “I just didn’t know what was going on.”
“In that case, give me your name and phone number,” she said, immediately pulling out her notepad. He glared at her, and she patiently waited, until he finally mumbled it out and then took off.
She noted who he was and why he was here for future reference. As she walked over to join her partner, Rodney put a hand on her shoulder. “You need to come see this.”