Chapter Sixteen
Bryn awoke with a yawn and long stretch.
When he checked the time he saw it was almost ten.
The previous day had turned into a long drag waiting for the cops to do their work at the hospital.
It took manpower to clear the surrounding buildings though eventually it had been confirmed that Gunnar had spotted the correct location for the sniper.
The cops found bullet casings and scuff marks showing someone had been there recently.
There hadn’t been any attempt to conceal the evidence.
Was it really only yesterday he kissed me?
The one bright spot in a shitty afternoon.
That kiss. Wow. Bryn’s cock responded at the thought and he touched his lips before heading for the shower to deal with it. Wish Gunnar was here to help.
Dressed and dry, he went to find his partner. Gunnar was in the office at his computer and Emmett was there too. Bryn paused at the door, enjoying the comforting, familiar scene.
“Good morning, sleepyhead. How are you doing this morning?” Gunnar rose from his seat. He’d left his hair down and Bryn’s thoughts strayed to what it might feel like to run his hands through it.
“Hey, are you in there?”
“Just daydreaming. Thanks for letting me sleep in.”
“Hmm, thought you might have picked up a concussion I didn’t spot yesterday. You needed the rest and you’re not that late.” Gunnar walked across to him and peered into his eyes. “Have you eaten?”
“No, not yet.”
“I put a box of donuts in the kitchen,” Emmett said. “They’re from Kane’s.”
Bryn was already moving. Emmett had bought a box of twelve and there were two of the honey-dip kind. “These are mine.” Bryn snagged both of them. Gunnar gave an amused shake of his head.
“That is not an appropriate breakfast.”
“You can make me pancakes if you want to,” Bryn said around a mouthful of sticky goodness.
“Sure. Pancakes are never a bad idea.” Gunnar got busy mixing batter then cooked up a huge stack of pancakes.
“Not sure I can eat all those.” Bryn eyed the teetering pile. “But I’ll give it a go.”
“They aren’t all for you, mister.” Gunnar pulled maple syrup from a cupboard. “Emmett, you want pancakes?”
“Yes please!” the call came back.
Gunnar divided the treats between three plates, taking the biggest portion for himself. He and Bryn had started eating when Emmett arrived, clutching his laptop.
“Don’t think you’ll need that in here,” Bryn said. “It’ll get sticky.”
“I think I’ve got it!” Emmett shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Got what?” Bryn put more syrup on his pancakes.
“The kill site!”
“For the Walmart killer?”
“Yes!”
“Sit down, Emmett, and tell us what you’ve found,” Gunnar said, “before you have an aneurysm.”
“I…yes, of course.”
“Take a breath.” Bryn carried on eating.
“Sorry, I’m excited. You know I was working on the symbol you sketched, Bryn?
I’ve had to fit it in between other jobs, so it took a while but…
I thought I’d look at it from a different angle.
The killer is obsessed with historical murderers, isn’t he?
So I thought, what if his kill site is also historical.
I started looking for older interpretations of the symbol and found out that smugglers often used secret signs to mark safe houses, warn fellow smugglers, or indicate the presence of contraband goods.
The signs were typically simple and discreet, so they wouldn’t attract unwanted attention. ”
“Okay, interesting.” Gunnar paused with a loaded fork halfway to his mouth.
“Isn’t it? So apparently smugglers would use chalk to draw symbols on walls or trees. For instance, a circle could indicate a safe house, while a cross might warn of danger. In some cases, they would carve or paint symbols like arrows pointing in a specific direction.”
“I saw an arrow in a circle,” Bryn said.
“Circles indicated safety, so the symbol you saw probably meant a safe direction.”
“This is all great, Emmett, but how does this get us to the kill site?”
“I started looking into Boston’s smuggling history. Did you know that there are a ton of tunnels under Boston?”
“Other than the ones with roads in them, no,” Bryn admitted.
“Well, there are old tunnels in Boston’s North End, often referred to as smugglers’ tunnels or pirate tunnels, which connect the wharves to basements of houses and other locations. The Old North Church also conceals a labyrinth of tunnels—secret routes that were crucial to the colonial resistance.”
“Wow.” Bryn pushed his plate away.
“That’s not all. There are also tunnels under Boston Common that were used for covert operations and troop movements during the Revolutionary War.
There are others too, but I focused on those that aren’t open to the public either for safety or preservation reasons.
They include the ones under the Common. I dug into archived pictures from before they were sealed and found this.
” Emmett swiveled his laptop around. His screen displayed a black and white photo which showed a section of tunnel.
On the wall was painted an arrow in a circle.
“Holy fuck, that’s it!” Bryn said. “You’re a miracle worker, Emmett.”
“I just made the links, anyone could have found this. There are maps of the old tunnels too. The killer must have broken in through a sealed entrance or something.”
“And you know where this exact piece of tunnel is?” Gunnar asked. Emmett nodded. “Get the information over to the feds right away. Great work!”
Emmett took his laptop and rushed away.
“We’re not going to look for the tunnel?” Bryn asked.
“No. It’s not our case and this will take manpower. We need to leave Bell and his team to it. I’m sure he’ll let us know if they find anything.”
“The more I think about it, the more certain I am that the killer must be somebody who works at the store. He must have balls of steel to buy stuff from there but he picked a new cashier. Betty-Jo had only been working there a few days and with that hooded top too, she wouldn’t have recognized him.
Staff around her were busy and concentrating on their customers. ”
“Or he doesn’t have normal emotions. If they’ve narrowed down the list of possible suspects, I could read them all. I feel really guilty about Betty-Jo’s death, Gunnar. I want to do something.”
“I’ll make the offer, but let’s wait and see what they find at the kill site. Forensics might give them a slam dunk.”
“Let’s hope. Emmett never got any pancakes and he really deserves some.”
“I’ll whip up a fresh batch. You can never have too many.”
The rest of the morning and early afternoon passed without incident but there was a sense of growing anticipation in their shared office even as they planned their next cases to accept.
It was almost three when Gunner’s cell rang.
“It’s Bell.” He connected the call and put it on speaker.
“Hey, Bell, I hope you’ve got good news for us.
You’re on speaker talking to me, Bryn and Emmett. ”
“If I had my way I’d be poaching Emmett for our office right now.
He was spot on with the location and that place is a goldmine of evidence.
The entrance was well hidden and chained closed.
The killer had even taken the trouble to use an old-looking padlock and chain but there were telltale marks of usage around the keyhole.
Once we got inside—and I have to tell you that place is the stuff of horror movies—we found a wider section of tunnel about three hundred yards in.
There was a portable table covered in kit.
Ropes, knives, surgical gloves… The stuff he bought at the market, which by the way we think he used either to make cut wounds hurt more, with the salt or lemon juice, or to attempt healing with the honey.
He may have used that one himself rather than on his victims if he had a wound that he didn’t want to show to a doctor or buy stuff from the chemist that might incriminate him further down the line. ”
“But he wasn’t there, I’m guessing?” Bryn said.
“No, he wasn’t. We’ll put a watch on the entrance, close it up again, in case he comes back once forensics have finished, but the media caught wind of what we were doing and it’ll be all over the papers and the internet by now.
We’d managed to keep the links between the killings quiet but it’s going to come out sooner or later. ”
“If it does, he’ll bolt,” Gunnar said.
“Yeah, which is why I have a favor to ask.”
“We may be ahead of you if your request is for Bryn to read your suspects. He already suggested it.”
“Are you sure you can’t read minds?” Bell asked. “That is what I was going to request from Warden. If you’re okay with it, I’ll let him know. Gotta go through the right channels and he’s not a man I want to piss off.”
“You want us to come to you?”
“That would be easiest. We’ll bring them all in. If they’re innocent it should be a case of truth reading but if anyone resists, then we may have to ask Bryn to look at memory and future intent as well.”
“Anything that gets this guy caught is good with me,” Bryn said.
“In that case, let me make a call to Warden and I’ll see you in…let’s say an hour. I’ll set things in motion to get the suspects brought here. None of them live that far away but we may need to track some of them down if they don’t answer our calls.”
He ended the call and Bryn made eye contact with Gunnar. “We have to be close, right?”
“The net is definitely drawing in. Let’s hope this guy doesn’t run before we get him.”
Ten minutes later, Warden joined them. He glanced at Bryn, who was occupying his beanbag. “We could get another desk in here, you know.”
“I’m good,” Bryn said.