“Did you see who parked it here?”

He shook his head.

“What about the occupant of room 10? Has he checked out yet?”

“No, but he paid through the month, in cash. He doesn’t have a car; he has a motorcycle.” He handed Tess a registration card with all the information Smith had given him.

Tess noted that there was no motorcycle in the lot. She called the work crew supervisor and asked about Jim Smith.

“He wasn’t home when we came by to pick him up this morning. I put him down as a no-show. Today was the last day anyway.” He gave Tess the phone number he had for Smith. Tess remembered the burner phone in the knapsack; it was unlikely that the number would get her much.

Though Tess doubted she’d find any evidence, she went to her computer and applied for a warrant to search room 10. Once she was able to access the room, she found the place as clean as if housekeeping had recently been there. Frustrated, but glad that she had a name to go with her suspect, Tess had the truck impounded and room 10 sealed in order for a crime scene team to process the room more completely than she could.

The elation she felt at recognizing that Jim Smith was her man was tempered by the knowledge that she’d been one step behind him for far too long. Was Jim Smith the gunman in both Tami’s shooting and the incident at Faith’s Place?

Her phone rang, and she saw it was Steve.

“Good news,” he said when she answered. “Tami came around. She was able to give the deputy on her room a statement. The guy you’re looking for is part of the temporary work crew. His name is Jim Smith.”

“That is not a surprise.” She told him where she was and what she had found so far.

“What?”

“Yeah. Did Tami say anything else?”

“Only that when she went out with Smith, he was very interested in the woman who made a scene at the market. That was Chevy, correct?”

“Yep.” Tess felt the click of things sliding into place. Poor Tami. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Smith pumped her for information about Chevy and then tried to kill her.

“It all fits, Steve. Now we just have to find Jim Smith.”

“Working on that. You sent me the information from the work crew. His driver’s license picture is there. I’ll get a press release out right away.”

“Thank you, Steve. I appreciate that.”

“No problem. We’ll catch this guy. If anyone deserves to be caught, he does. According to Tami, he shot her cold, never said a word, never showed any emotion. His nickname is fitting.”