Day 232:

Interviews complete. No conductor has ever seen suspect on a train. No LCTA personnel have ever sighted suspect in another station. Does suspect never leave Simon Park? How long has she been there? How does she survive?

Investigate: theft.

Further incidence of citizen-initiated contact. Should citizens be warned? If no one comes near, evidence of suspect’s wrongdoing will be difficult to find. Other lines of inquiry proving unfruitful. Must continue to rely on public’s unwitting cooperation for sake of justice.

Record of contact follows:

Asian-American male, late teens, walks rapidly away from suspect after standard rejection interaction. In three days of close observation, have seen 137 rejections. Where does suspect find will to persist despite repeated failure? (Officer Tang’s keen eye was considered matchless by the other officers of the Crescenton Police Department, but since she never used it while she was looking in the mirror, she was not able to detect that, perhaps, she and the woman in Simon Park Station had one thing in common.)

Investigate: drugs.

African-American female, late 30’s, approaches suspect. Female seems to have been listening to previous conversation. She squats near suspect, easily within attack range (Gun out of holster, safety off, cocked).

Female: “Excuse me. I’m a telemarketer, and I just wanted to let you know that I feel your pain. No one listens anymore. All I’m doing is offering them something. I understand that not everyone wants to buy what I’m selling, but the least they can do is find out what it is. Most people just hang up after, ‘Would you be interested in—’ . . . so, in my head, I usually end it with, ‘—purchasing a solid gold house for the low, low price of $1.99?’”

Investigate: real estate fraud.

Suspect, at first perplexed, scowls out of agreement (?) or general villainy (!) “Don’t I know it! Everyone just loves to think that they’re too busy to deal with me, as if their time was so valuable that simply paying attention to me for thirty seconds would be some kind of colossal loss. A lot of these jerks say, ‘Sorry, not interested,’ and then they go over there and stare at the wall for five minutes while they’re waiting for the damn train to come!”

Female appears close to tears (effect of a chemical weapon?) “I-it’s just so dehumanizing . . .”

Suspect in similar state (weapon misfire?) “Sometimes . . . I feel like I can’t go on . . .”

Suspect and female burst into obnoxiously loud wailing, hug. Subway passengers regard pair warily, give wide berth. Crying persists for several minutes.

Female: “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to be interested in buying a subscription to—”

Suspect: “No way. But, don’t you feel that there’s something missing from—”

Female: “Nothing I’d expect to find in a subway station.”

Suspect and Female release, regard each other fondly. Female: “Sorry about that.”

Suspect: “I know. Just had to get it out of the way.”

Investigate: public indecency?

Empathy was not Officer Tang’s strong suit, in much the same way as elephants are not known for their delicacy, but she had some skill at reading suspects. She hadn’t the foggiest clue as to their motives, but she could generally tell when they were about to run, pull a gun, etc. The vibe she was getting from the subway woman was loud and clear: she was nearing the breaking point.