“I didn’t say that. People over my pay grade make that decision.”
She didn’t reply.
“You still think he rides this bus?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“How long have you been looking for him?”
Kate shrugged. “I don’t know, forty? Forty-two hours total.”
I gave her an appraising glance. “In the past four days?”
“Whatever it takes, Doc.”
We pulled up to the Washington Monument stop, and I watched Kate studying each person who came on the bus. When they’d all paid their fares and taken their seats, I said, “What exactly are you looking for?”
“Their faces.”
As we drove on, making a few stops over the next ten or fifteen minutes, Kate explained her innate skill. I’d heard of super-recognizing and its opposite—some people could remember every face they’d ever seen, and others could not remember even familiar faces.
“Any interesting faces so far?” I asked as we left the US Capitol stop.
“They’re all interesting.”
“No duplicates?”
“A few times, but they’re usually tourists coming on and off, and I’ll remember them from a few hours before.”
“How about stand-outs? Someone who really hit you between the eyes?”
“You mean like my spider-sense?”
“Sure.”
Kate tilted her head, thinking. “There was one, earlier today. But he wasn’t on the bus. He was this homeless guy in Army fatigues, big crazy beard, pushing this grocery cart piled with his stuff in plastic bags, and he looked so…vacant…so…I don’t know. More than drugs. Like he was unplugged. I mean, a cop lit up his siren maybe fifty feet from him, and the guy didn’t startle, didn’t even flinch. For some reason, seeing that, every alarm in my head started ringing.”
Every alarm in my head started ringing as well. I asked her to describe the homeless guy in detail. As we pulled into the bus depot at Union Station, the end and beginning of the Circulator line, there was little doubt in my mind she was talking about Tim Chorey, the deaf vet who’d dismantled his Glock and submerged himself in the reflecting pool the day of the first bombing.
I didn’t tell that to Kate, though. She said, “I’ve had enough for today. Think I’ll catch a cab, head home from here.”
“I’ll get off here, too,” I said, glancing at my watch. “A walk over the hill will do me some good.”
Night had fallen during our ride. As we exited, a bus lumbered and sighed into the parking bay beside ours. The digital sign above the windshield blinked from D8—HOSPITAL CENTER LINE SOUTHBOUND to UNION STATION.
“Good night, Dr. Cross,” Kate said, shaking my hand. “I appreciate you thinking enough of my theory to check it out.”
“A good idea is a good idea,” I said, and happened to glance over her shoulder at the sign on the other bus, now emptying of riders. The direction had changed.
D8—HOSPITAL CENTER LINE NORTHBOUND, it blinked. VETERANS AFFAIRS MEDICAL CENTER.
Chapter 25
I wished Kate Williams a good night and watched her walk off. Then I climbed on the empty Hospital Line bus. The driver, who looked to be in his fifties, was drinking coffee from a thermos, an egg-salad sandwich in cellophane in his lap. I noted his name, Gordon Light, posted at the front of the bus.
I identified myself as a consultant with the FBI, which he met with skepticism. “And how do I know you’re not messing with me?”
“I can give you the private phone number of the special agent in charge of the bombing investigation,” I said. “His name’s Ned Mahoney.”