The Key Killer

Chapter 5

Retelling her experience this time around, she feels as if the agents are taking her seriously. Maybe a bit too seriously.

Every word gets noted by Simmer's pen, scribbling like a four-year-old. Having been a neat hand-writer all her life, she wonders honestly if he can even read that.

"You said he held a scalpel in his hand, but he didn't hurt you?" McCarthy asks with curious wonder in his eyes.

"No, not physically."

Simmer looks up from his notes for once and his forehead wrinkles even more than before.

"He did insult my journalistic progression," she explains with an absent-minded chew on her cheek.

"Right, I take he isn't a fan of the articles you write?"

"Not the latest ones."

More scribbling.

"And you did not see his face?"

Memories of the expressionless mask shoot through her thoughts. For a split second, Zoe's imagination takes her on a rodeo, forming the eyes she has never actually seen. Dark as night.

"I didn't even hear his voice, Agent McCarthy," she says, taking a deep breath to cool her mind's chatter.

"Right, he was using some kind of device?"

"Yes."

"A voice modification device?"

"I wouldn't know what else it could have been. The tones were very low and mechanical, but I remember being surprised how clear the speech itself sounded. It wasn't hard to understand what he was saying."

Simmer goes to town on his notebook. An amusing thought crosses Zoe's mind, ushering her to speak more, and faster, and see if the federal agent could keep up.

"What did he say?"

Her amusement is short-lived and swiftly replaced by apprehension. Should she tell the agents about their conversation or the way she has behaved around him? Any other human being would have surely tried to get away or attack him, but not submit without attachment.
Somehow, it feels just too private.

"I don't remember exactly. It all went so fast, you know..."

Remembering every single word down to its syllable, she suddenly feels incredibly selfish about lying. What if she could really help the FBI to make him stop? Maybe everything she believes to know about governmental institutions has been corrupted from studying their war crimes and political circus for too long. 

"I asked him who he is, but he didn't tell me his name." Not a lie. "Then he went off to rant about my work before he disappeared through that window," she says while her head cocks towards the window, next to the agent's unbelieving faces.

"We will have to look for fingerprints after we are done, but Miss Stromgrad, why did he leave?"

She's been asking that same question ever since.

"Maybe he realised he had the wrong address?"

For the first time, Simmer fully looks up from his notes and his cold eyes bore into hers as if trying to read her soul.
  
They don't believe her.
Heck, she doesn't even believe that.

"I didn't ask him, so I don't know the answer to that question. Will that be enough then?"

She suddenly feels extremely uncomfortable around the men, as if she is the one that has done something wrong.

"One more question, if that is alright, Miss?" McCarthy has returned to his usual, chirpy self, obviously feeling very comfortable in the position of the interviewer.