Page 99 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

The hallway and stairs were dark. I hung up my jacket, kicked off my shoes, and was about to start up the stairs when I heard a ding from the kitchen.

Five thirty was early even by Nana Mama’s standards, so I padded down the hall and into the kitchen we’d added to the house a few years ago. I expected to find my grandmother hardat work, mixing blueberries into pancake batter or cutting bread for French toast. Instead, I found Ali sitting at the table eating soft-boiled eggs with toast and juice. He saw me and searched my face.

“Did you get him?” he asked.

“That is none of your business, young man,” I said firmly. “Why are you up so early?”

Ali swallowed. “To talk to you about the Dead Hours investigation, about —”

I was at the end of my rope. I slammed my hand so hard on the counter, he recoiled and looked at me like I was a wild thing, which was the reaction I was after.

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing about the Dead Hours killer. At all. Do you understand, Ali?”

He stared at me, then shook his head ever so slightly.

“You don’t understand that you could have compromised the investigation?”

“Not really, Dad,” Ali said in a thin voice. “I just wanted to show you something. Please, I think it could help you.”

“With what?”

“With the Dead Hours investigation,” he said. “I found this —”

“Enough,” I said and turned on my heel. “I’m going to sleep, and when I get up, you and I are going to —”

“Please, Dad!” Ali called out behind me.

I ignored him until I reached the bottom of the stairs and realized I could hear him crying as he said, “Please listen to me, Dad. Please. I think I found him, and you won’t listen to me.”

Hearing the pain in the voice of my youngest, I sighed and went back to the kitchen. He was still sobbing and wiping at tears.

“What did you find?”

Ali stared at me. “You really want to know?”

“I do. Whatever it is.”

He watched me a moment more before saying, “Notwhatever. Whoever.” He reached for his iPad and began tapping on the screen. “I know you’re going to want to kill me, but I’ve been at two of the three most recent Dead Hours crime scenes.”

My head felt ready to explode. “What?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said. “And you won’t be mad. Well, maybe a little mad, but you shouldn’t be. Not after you see these.”

He made a final tap on the screen and turned the iPad to show me two different pictures taken at the Bart Masters crime scene. They were crisp and clear and focused on an older, slightly hunched-over man with a full beard and shaggy silver hair. He held a cane and wore a tweed overcoat and matching snap-brim cap.

“Now, I wasn’t at the Pelham scene, but theWashington Postwas.”

He clicked on a file and up came a picture of the scene beyond the yellow tape across the entrance to the national park. Perhaps twenty people were outside their cars looking at EMTs removing the bagged body of Henry Pelham.

Ali isolated a piece of the crowd and blew it up. There, four or five cars back, stood a man with red hair and a goatee wearing a dark blue windbreaker and cat’s-eye sunglasses.

“Okay?” I said.

“Wait for it,” Ali said, and he called up a picture of the crowd gathered across the street from Tyler Elementary and the Dalton McCoy crime scene. Again, he isolated someone in the crowd and blew up the image. This man’s hair was dark and cut military tight. He wore mirror aviator sunglasses and a dark hoodie.

“I’m not seeing it,” I said.

“I do,” Ali said. “Do you know what a super-recognizer is?”

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