Parallel Lies by Ridley Pearson Page A

didn’t have to spare.
    “Probably all parked under bridges with their heaters running, waiting to give out speeding tickets,” Tyler complained. He was inside the Suburban now, welcoming the warmth.
    “No doubt.”
    “And if we wait ‘til morning,” he added.
    She interrupted him, “Another half dozen trains will have passed through. Another half dozen chances that anyone who knows anything about that boxcar will be long gone.”
    “Yes.” Feeling frustrated, he decided to challenge her. “I take it that we’re both in agreement that what happened in that boxcar was more than a fistfight.”
    “Two of the Railroad Killer’s nine victims died at the knife. Are you aware of that?” she asked.
    “Painfully.”
    “We never gave that to the press.”
    “No. But the NTSB has it.”
    “So we can cut the crap,” she said. “We both know why we’re here.”
    “They’ve got the right guy in lockup,” Tyler said, attempting to sound certain.
    “But a copycat couldn’t possibly know about those two who were knifed. So there could have been two guys out there all along, and the Bureau has only arrested one of them.”
    “The point is, the focus of what we’re doing—that wasway too much blood in that boxcar. Given that no hospitals are reporting similar wounds, someone either died there or has bled out since.” He added, “So what we’re really looking for in these camps is a body.”
    “And someone who can tell us who did it.”
    “That would be nice,” he agreed.
    “Bleeders draw attention,” she said.
    “Or they wander into a cornfield with a pint and they freeze to death,” he said.
    “The victim does. The killer climbs back into a freight car, climbs back into his own bottle, and that’s the end of it.”
    “In which case we’ve got a killer riding the rails,” he pointed out, “and a body that’s freezing solid, if it hasn’t already.”
    She informed him, “The question you failed to ask back there at the yard was whether or not car eleven-thirty-six had been inspected there or not. If it had been, and it was found clean and empty of riders, then we know whoever boarded did so between the depot and the St. Louis yard. That increases the chances of discovering a potential witness at one of these camps.”
    “You give seminars, do you?” he asked a little bitterly, because she was right, he had in fact failed to ask. She had rushed him, which had been her intention—and he hated the fact that she might have thrown him off his game.
    “A little upset, are we?”
    “What you failed to take into account, Ms. Priest, was the weather,” he advised. “Ahead of that storm, temperatures across the Midwest were in the forties. According to the forensics team, that blood froze on contact. The storm hit this area the night before—ergo, the fight, or whatever happened in that boxcar, also happened the night before,
after
the temperatures had dropped. The storm is a real slow mover—that’s why the big dump. So, whether I asked that question or not, I figure we’re in the general area of where whatever happened, happened: four to six hours by slow freight train out of St. Louis.”
    She looked impressed. The way she fiddled with the car’s heater, he thought she was trying to think of a comeback. She asked, “Would you have killed him if your partner hadn’t stopped you?”
    The car’s interior suddenly felt the size of a Volkswagen bug. Once again he saw she’d done her homework. He fished for the door handle. He’d had enough. He heard the pop of the automatic door locks. She wanted an answer.
    “Leave it alone,” he said. He popped the locks back open. She popped them shut.
    “I’ve got a little problem with enclosed spaces,” he confessed. He popped the door open and climbed out of the Suburban. The cold cut through his clothes.
    She put down the window and spoke loudly, “I’d like to know about your temper before I enter those camps with you.”
    “The man was