“Michael, greetings,” Overby said.

“Charles.” Then to Dance a nod. She thought he looked tired as he sat heavily beside her.

“What do you have?”

The deputy answered, “The preliminary report from the hospital. Not much, sorry to say. But not surprising. Given how smart this guy is.”

“How did he do it, the elevator?”

“There’s not a lot of security video but it seems he dressed in scrubs—cap and booties too—and stole a key from the maintenance room. He got into the elevator motor room on the top floor, cut the wires feeding both cars. Primary and backup. CSU took toolmarks but you know how helpful those are.”

“There was some power,” Dance said, recalling the blinding glare from the lights attached to the security camera. She explained this.

O’Neil said, “Probably battery backup for that, in the car itself. But it must not’ve been connected to the intercom.” He glanced at notes. “There was a fire in the elevator shaft but it was from ether. Hot burn but no smoke. What people smelled was from the burning Honda. We think he did that to make sure the fire alarms didn’t go off. That would send an automatic notice to the fire department. They’d be there in five, ten minutes. He wanted to keep the carnage going for as long as he could.”

“Well,” Overby said.

Dance added, “And we have no idea what he’s driving now. There’s no security video in the garage at the hospital. If that’s, in fact, where he parked. Or, for all we know, he hiked a mile to where he left his new wheels.”

She explained that while they believed the unsub was a pro, hired by somebody else, their one suspect—Frederick Martin—had not panned out. The other victims at Solitude Creek seemed unlikely targets for a pro. “We’re back to thinking somebody may have been targeting the venues themselves. The roadhouse, the Bay View Center or the hospital. But why? We just don’t know.”

She noted that Overby wasn’t fully attentive. He was staring at his computer screen on which was a streaming newscast from a local TV station. The Hero Fireman was giving another interview—this time about his efforts at the hospital incident.

Overby muted the set. “I read an article one time. It was pretty interesting. About a fireman in Buffalo, New York. You ever hear about it?”

There were presumably a lot of firemen in Buffalo, Dance reflected. But you usually let Charles Overby run with whatever it was he was running with.

“No, Charles.”

“Nup.”

“He was pretty good at his job. Brave. There’d be a fire in an apartment. He’d race in, make his way around the flames, save a family or the pet dog. Happened three or four times. He knew just where the fire’d started, how best to fight it. Amazing how he saved people. His truck was usually first on the scene and he could read a fire like nobody else. That’s what they say: reading a fire. Firemen say that, I mean.