commander. Weâd better get Jacoby in on this, too.â
He stepped away from them and started making his calls.
McCabe said. âPete, this location ⦠the K-9 training facility is out there. Whereâs the crime scene in relation to that?â
âYouâve got the farm with the community garden and the dog parkââ
âAnd the horse patrol has stables there,â McCabe said. âBut where isââ
Sullivan tapped the screen. âThe road down to this ramp was put in last spring. Compliments of Ted Thornton. He wanted a convenient boat ramp on the Albany side of the bridge. He paid, and the city approved.â
âI must have missed that.â
âMost people did. They put it in while some construction was going on up on Delaware. They put a couple of picnic tables down there and stuck up a sign about it being a public ramp, in case anyone noticed and asked questions.â
McCabe nodded. âOkay. So youâre the killer and youâre driving around with a body in your car and you see a side roadââ
âNo problem about the dog park being nearby,â Sullivan said. âNobody likely to be down there walking their dog at night. No hikers following the âyellow brick roadâ through the woods and over the old bridge. And probably no cops hanging around at the facilities.â
âThe âyellow brick road,ââ McCabe said, her head coming up.
âThe bricks ⦠when they were building the old turnpike road, the bricks they used had a yellow hueââ
âI know about that. When I was a kid, a teacher told us that Albany once had its own yellow brick road and that a portion of it was still visible.⦠If the victim is Vivian Jessupââ
âWrong movie. She was in Alice. â
âI know that. But both Alice and The Wizard of Oz were stories about little girls whoââ
âBut what do the first two victims have to do with the stories? They were in their early twenties, not little girls. The first vic was found beside her car after she left a club. The second vic got a flat tire on her way home from work. And if this is Jessup, even if the killer knew about the yellow brick road, he didnât dump her body there, either. He left her on theââ
McCabe held up her hands. âOkay. Youâre right. Iâm having a wacky brainstorm. So the killer manages to find Ted Thorntonâs new road down to a boat ramp. But if it is our guy, why did he move the body in the first place? He didnât move the other two.â
Lieutenant Dole spoke behind her. âMcCabe, youâre assuming he killed her somewhere else.â He held up his ORB. âJacoby put me on hold. Get moving and take that kid Baxter with you. The CO was in a meeting, but heâs on his way. As soon as he gets here, weâll be over there.â
Sullivan said, âI hope Jacoby can keep Clarence Redfield away from this. Thatâs all we need, to have Redfield threading about this.â
âSee you at the scene, Lou,â McCabe said.
She was already going over what she had seen on-camera as she started down the hall in search of Baxter. If it was Vivian Jessup ⦠if she was the third victim ⦠then a Broadway actress had become the victim of a serial killer while visiting Albany.
That was not going to thrill the mayor.
Even with the fast trainâninety minutes instead of the two and a half hours it used to takeâcosmopolitan types from Manhattan had not been making Albany their destination of choice. City dwellers had not rushed to relocate to Albany to take advantage of the cheaper real estate market. Most of them seemed uninterested in even coming up to spend a day or a weekend in the capital. The mayor had been spending serious moneyâmuch of it from corporate benefactors like Ted Thorntonâon a campaign to sell the attractions of Albany to the rest of
Matt Christopher, Daniel Vasconcellos, Bill Ogden