CHAPTER TWELVE
Isla stood at her desk, scrolling through Thomas Kramer's blog on her laptop while around her the bullpen hummed with the controlled chaos of an investigation that had spawned too many leads and not enough answers.
Phones rang. Keyboards clattered. Someone's printer jammed for the third time in an hour, prompting a stream of creative profanity that Kate would have disapproved of if she hadn't been locked in her office on yet another call with Washington.
The posts themselves read like sermons from a dying religion.
Isla clicked through entry after entry, watching Kramer's tone shift from academic disappointment to something approaching rage.
Early posts were measured, scholarly essays about the importance of patience in landscape photography, analyses of historical compositions, tributes to photographers whose names she didn't recognize.
But as the years progressed, as his tenure was denied and his influence waned, the writing took on a darker edge.
Becoming part of the landscape.
Isla felt the words settle into her chest like stones.
"The awards they win are participation trophies," another post declared.
"Recognition for showing up with expensive equipment and adequate technical skills.
Any child with a smartphone can capture a sunset.
The question is whether they can become the sunset—whether they can dissolve the boundary between observer and observed until the photograph is not a representation of the landscape but an extension of it. "
She scrolled to a post from just six months ago, written after Derek Paulson had won the Minnesota Arts Council prize that had apparently sent Kramer into a spiral of bitter commentary. The title was simply: "Thieves."
"Derek Paulson stands before his stolen sunrise and accepts applause from critics who wouldn't recognize authentic vision if it walked up and introduced itself.
He has spent exactly fourteen months photographing Hawk Ridge—fourteen months!
—and believes this qualifies him as an authority on the location.
Harold Benson spent three years at that overlook.
Three years of communion, of patience, of allowing the landscape to reveal itself.
Paulson takes a photograph every few weeks and calls it dedication.
"There will come a reckoning. There always does. The landscape remembers those who honor it, and it remembers those who merely use it. The thieves will learn, eventually, what it means to truly become part of the scenes they've been stealing."
The thieves will learn what it means to truly become part of the scenes they've been stealing.
Isla pushed back from her desk, her eyes burning from hours of screen time, her mind churning through implications she didn't want to face.
Kramer's blog was a manifesto wrapped in academic language—a detailed articulation of exactly the philosophy that seemed to be driving the murders.
The killer wasn't just staging bodies at scenic overlooks; they were making photographers become the landscapes they'd been capturing.
Turning observers into subjects. Dissolving the boundary between artist and art.
Exactly what Kramer had been preaching for years.
But that was the problem. It was exactly what Kramer had been preaching—publicly, extensively, for anyone to read.
If he were the killer, would he really have left such an obvious trail?
Would he have published his worldview in exhaustive detail, creating a roadmap that any halfway competent investigator could follow straight to his door?
Psychopaths were arrogant. She'd seen it before—killers who believed they were too smart to be caught, who left breadcrumbs because they couldn't resist showing off.
But Kramer's blog didn't read like arrogance.
It read like desperation. Like a man screaming into a void, hoping someone—anyone—would hear.
"Rivers."
She looked up to find James approaching, his tablet tucked under one arm, his expression carrying the particular weight of someone who'd been making difficult phone calls.
"Surveillance is set up on twelve photographers," he said, settling into the chair beside her desk.
"Everyone who fits the victim profile—professional, award-winning, works primarily in outdoor landscapes.
Local PD is rotating units, and the Marshals are lending support for the higher-profile targets. "
"What about the locations?"
"Park rangers are increasing patrols at all the major overlooks—Hawk Ridge, Enger Tower, the Lester River corridor.
Plus, I've coordinated with the State Parks system to add coverage at Gooseberry Falls, Split Rock, and Tettegouche.
" James paused, consulting his tablet. "It's not perfect.
There are too many scenic spots and not enough bodies to cover them all. But it's better than nothing."
"Better than nothing." Isla let out a breath that might have been a laugh if it hadn't been so hollow. "That's our bar now? Better than nothing?"
"That's always been the bar." James's voice was gentle, but firm. "We do what we can with what we have. This morning, we didn't even know there was a pattern. Now we've got protective surveillance on potential targets and increased patrols at likely locations. That's progress."
"Progress would be catching the killer before they strike again."
"Progress is doing everything in our power to prevent that from happening. The rest—" He spread his hands. "The rest isn't up to us."
Isla wanted to argue. Wanted to point out that it was precisely their job to catch killers, that "doing everything in their power" meant nothing if someone else died while they were chasing theories and analyzing blog posts.
But the fight drained out of her as quickly as it had risen.
James was right. They were doing what they could.
The alternative—sitting paralyzed by the weight of what they couldn't control—wouldn't help anyone.
"I found Kramer's blog," she said instead, turning her laptop so James could see the screen. "It's... illuminating."
James leaned forward, scanning the post she'd left open. His eyebrows rose as he read, his jaw tightening with each paragraph.
"'The thieves will learn what it means to truly become part of the scenes they've been stealing,'" he quoted. "Jesus. It's practically a confession."
"Or a manifesto that someone else is using as a blueprint." Isla turned the laptop back toward herself. "Kramer's been publishing this stuff for years. Anyone who wanted to could read it, internalize it, use it as justification for exactly what's happening."
"You're thinking one of his students."
"I'm thinking someone who believes what Kramer believes.
Could be a student, could be a reader, could be someone in the photography community who's been radicalized by his ideas without ever meeting him.
" She rubbed her eyes, trying to push back the headache that had been building since dawn.
"The blog has comments. Some of them are. .. enthusiastic."
James was quiet for a moment, processing. "What's your read on Kramer himself? After meeting him?"
The question brought her back to that cramped apartment, the walls covered with photographs, the trembling hands that couldn't hold a pen steady.
The defiance in Kramer's eyes when she'd implied he might be responsible.
The genuine disturbance that had crossed his face when he'd realized his beliefs might have inspired violence.
"He hates modern photographers," she said slowly. "He genuinely believes they're thieves, parasites, corrupters of an art form he devoted his life to. If thoughts could kill, Derek Paulson and Jennifer Hayes would have been dead years ago."
"But?"
"But I watched him stand up from that chair.
It took him thirty seconds to unfold himself, and his legs were shaking by the time he was upright.
" Isla shook her head. "The murders required strength.
Speed. The ability to strike victims down with a single blow, then stage bodies that weigh a hundred and fifty pounds or more.
Kramer's body is failing him. I don't see how he could physically do what was done to Paulson and Hayes. "
"Adrenaline can do remarkable things."
"Adrenaline doesn't cure Parkinson's. And it doesn't explain how he'd get to the locations in the first place.
" Isla pulled up another window on her laptop—the DMV records she'd requested while reading Kramer's blog.
"He hasn't owned a car in four years. Let his license lapse in 2022.
According to his building's manager, he almost never leaves the apartment—groceries delivered, medical appointments handled by a service that picks him up and brings him home. "
"So someone's helping him. A partner, an accomplice—"
"Maybe. But that raises other questions.
" Isla turned to face James fully, laying out the logic she'd been wrestling with for hours.
"If Kramer's the mastermind and someone else is doing the physical work, why haven't we found any communication?
His phone records are clean. His internet history shows nothing but photography research and blog posts.
No encrypted apps, no burner phones, no suspicious patterns. "
"He could be communicating in person. His accomplice visits the apartment, they plan together—"
"His building has a security camera in the lobby.
Local PD pulled the footage this afternoon.
" Isla pulled up the report that had come in an hour ago.
"Kramer hasn't had a single visitor in three weeks.
No one in, no one out except him—and he's only left the building twice, both times for medical appointments. "
James was quiet, absorbing the implications. Isla watched him run through the same calculations she'd already made, arriving at the same frustrating conclusion.