“I certainly do,” he said. “Hisname is Ezra Pitsis. Oh, huh, would you look at that—I never even made theconnection. pi in his name too, hah! I bet he had some fun with that one. Now,I do recall he had to move in with his adult daughter after he was fired—I’msure that was a bitter pill to swallow.”
Zoe’s heart was racing in herchest. It was almost too good to be true. Ezra Pitsis… he fit all of thenecessary checkboxes. Obsession with pi, a strong link in his name that wouldlikely be enough to push obsession over the edge into psychosis, a violent history,a traumatic event as a trigger… She took down the address eagerly, barely ableto wait long enough to thank the professor before slamming the phone down andjumping up from her chair.
She rushed into the corridor insearch of the rookie, heading toward the sheriff’s office where he hadmentioned he was going last. He was going to want to come with her on this one.They had their guy—and all that remained was to make the arrest.
***
Zoe leaned her head out of the carwindow, not minding the cold air, and craned up to look at the house number onthe wall. “Thirty-three,” she said, nodding rapidly over at Flynn in the driver’sseat. “This is it!”
Flynn practically threw the carinto park, somehow managing not to throw them both through the windshieldconsidering the speed with which he did it. They already had the lowdown on theaddress: Ezra Pitsis had been thoroughly disgraced in the academic world afterhis violent outburst, unable to find work in any kind of mathematicaldepartment anywhere. He had an active LinkedIn profile that listed him as stillsearching for work. He hadn’t been able to make the money required to move outof his daughter’s home, and they were still both living there, here in NorthSyracuse.
Zoe leapt out of the car at thesame time as Flynn, both of them racing up the path to the front door, Zoegetting there first and knocking hard on the door. It didn’t look too shabby,this house: five rooms on the top floor, Zoe estimated, by the windows, and itwas well-kept. Not the kind of tiny hovel she had seen some academics reducedto when their careers came to an end. Pitsis had landed, if not exactly on hisfeet, then at least not in the dirt.
The door opened just a crack, thekind of suspicious crack that someone allowed if they weren’t sure what toexpect on the other side. Only a couple of inches wide, just enough for a womanto look out at them and for Flynn and Zoe to catch only a glimpse of her.
“Hello?” she asked, hesitantly,eyeing them both up and down.
“We are looking for Ezra Pitsis,”Zoe said. “Is he your father?”
“Yes.” She seemed guarded still. Zoecould only make out a little of her face. Asymmetric angles between her eyes, amouth that was half a millimeter fuller to the left of her cupid’s bow than theright. “What is this about?”
“We need to speak to your fatherabout an ongoing investigation,” Flynn said.
The daughter seemed to release aheavy breath, looking down at the floor for a moment. There appeared to be atouch of frustration in the gesture. Zoe couldn’t help but wonder.
“Again?” the daughter asked, aftera long pause.
Zoe and Flynn exchanged a glance.That was ominous. “He’s been spoken to before?” Flynn asked.
“Yeah, he’s having a hard timeright now,” she said. “He just keeps getting drunk and doing stupid stuff. Hedoesn’t mean any of it. He lost his career, and I guess he’s just lashing out.I keep hoping he’ll get over it. What’s he done now?”
“Is your father home, Miss Pitsis?”Zoe asked, thinking it was best not to tell her what they were actuallyinvestigating in case she shut the door on them.
“No, he isn’t,” the daughter saidslowly, still looking between them. “I don’t think I’ve seen you two before.You’re not local cops, are you?”
Flynn reached into his jacketpocket and pulled out his badge, showing it to her. “No, ma’am. We’re not.”
The daughter’s eyes widened, evenin the slim sliver that they could see of her face. She looked up at both ofthem then, her gaze going between them again, and Zoe silently lifted her ownbadge as confirmation.
“FBI only get called for seriousstuff, don’t you?” she said. It didn’t really sound like a question. Theinflection was wrong. Down instead of up. Zoe couldn’t always work out whatthese differences in normal structure meant, but she could hear them, and thenumbers could calculate them and the tonal range. In this case, her best guesswas that it looked like doubt.
“This is a very seriousinvestigation,” Flynn confirmed, still not giving anything away. “Do you knowwhere we can find him right now?”
The daughter bit her lip. Zoe knewthat a lot of people didn’t like giving information to the police, especiallyif it would get someone they loved into trouble. But after a brief moment ofinternal battle, Pitsis’s daughter relented.
“He’s at a bar in town,” she saidat last. “The Queen of Clubs. It used to be a livelier place, but it got kindof run down, and he says he likes it there. He’s there almost every day now.”
“Thank you,” Zoe said, whirlingaround and heading back toward the car immediately. Behind her, she heard therookie giving some other kind of small-talk niceties to close off theconversation, but Zoe had neither the time nor the patience, nor theinclination, for any of that. By the time Flynn got back into his seat, theengine was running and the GPS set, Zoe having leaned over to his side. Theyset off without delay, Zoe grasping hold of her seatbelt to keep it away fromher neck and looking eagerly ahead, impatient to get to the bar and arrest themurderer of four innocent women.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Zoe checked her gun in itsholster, seeing Flynn do the same out of the corner of her eye, as theyapproached the bar. “With caution,” she said, pausing to make sure
