With the description of the Logan suspect being broadcast citywide at five-minute intervals, she was dazed and confused, because everything about the killer matched the man she’d seen on Twenty-first Street.

There was just one problem: It was eight ten when she saw him vanish in Center City, and eight fifteen when he murdered three people in a church seven miles away. In Philadelphia traffic, it could take five minutes to go one block. Traveling seven miles that quickly was impossible.

Since Sandy had broadcast the killer’s description on police radio’s central band five minutes before the murders, she knew homicide would come to her to ask what she’d seen. She also knew, from chatter in the district, that Mann had been reinstated and was working on the case.

Taking out her cell phone, she dialed his number repeatedly. He picked up after the eighth call.

“I’m in Logan at the crime scene,” he whispered into the phone. “I can’t talk now.”

“That’s too bad,” she said frantically. “This can’t wait.” Mann had never, in the three years he’d known Sandy Jackson, heard panic in her voice. This was the woman who was a better shot than any man he knew. She was the woman who had stood up to the old boy network and demanded that he do the same. She had chased a suspect down in a foot pursuit that was already legend. Yet here she was, on the other end of the line, sounding almost afraid.

Mann drifted away from Lynch, Coletti, and Smithson and found a quiet corner in the sanctuary. “What’s so urgent that it can’t wait?” he asked.

“I saw a guy who fit the killer’s description. He was standing at Twenty-first and Locust.”

“When?”

“About five minutes before the shooting at the church. I got out of my car to stop him, but he vanished.”

Mann was quiet for a few moments, trying to understand what Sandy was saying. Clearly, it didn’t make sense that the killer would simply disappear. Mann decided to steer her toward a more plausible explanation.

“Maybe the guy you saw was only dressed like him.”

“He wasn’t just some guy,” Sandy insisted. “I think he was the killer.”

“But that’s impossible,” Mann said, the confusion evident in his voice.

“I know. That’s why I’m telling you first. I don’t want to tell this story while I’m sitting across the table from some detective who thinks I’m crazy.”

“Why would anyone think you’re crazy?” Mann asked. “You said it yourself. What I saw was impossible: a man standing on the corner of Twenty-first and Locust just minutes before shooting three people a half-hour away. I know it sounds crazy and I don’t expect you to believe me, but I know it was him.”

“How can you be so sure?”