CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Oh, God damn it.”
Marcus’s epithet pulled Kate’s mind from the darkness of her own thoughts. She found no relief when her eyes fell on the reason for that epithet. “Shit. Pull behind the house.”
Marcus obliged, turning down a side street to avoid detection from the hawkeyed reporters currently clamoring in front of Patricia Lowe’s house.
“Should’ve seen this coming,” he grumbled.
“That’s the side effect of letting the whole world know what’s going on.
” He made a left turn. “Doesn’t help the vic’s a former city councilwoman. ”
It also didn’t help that they couldn’t get a flight to Baltimore until eight in the morning, meaning it was after noon that they were pulling up to her home in the affluent Federal Hill community. Kate was beginning to regret insisting that the police not clear the scene until they arrive.
Patricia Lowe had served for over twenty years on the Baltimore City Council before her ouster ten years ago after being convicted of embezzlement.
According to the background research Kate had conducted on the flight, Patricia had vehemently maintained her innocence, accusing her opponents of running a "hack job" on her and claiming that every charge was a "boldfaced lie".
Kate doubted that.
Marcus parked in front of the house sitting behind Lowe’s home and peered through the windshield. “Looks like they’re not looking at the back of the house right now. We should be able to sneak in.”
“Fingers crossed.”
The two agents moved across the yard of the first house. Kate glanced at the windows and saw that they were all thankfully shut. The others in this neighborhood wanted nothing to do with the scandal that had awakened them this morning.
The drone of the gathered reporters and the irritated police officers trying to keep them away concealed Kate’s lockpicking efforts.
Marcus kept watch while she forced open the back door.
Kate had a feeling the local officers responding to the scene would be unhappy with the two of them sneaking in, but the last thing Kate wanted to do right now was interact with the press.
The latch clicked, and the door swung open. Kate straightened and led Marcus into the home. The door led into a dining room sporting a long table with twelve richly upholstered chairs surrounding it.
Sure enough, an officer inside said, “I heard something, back door.”
“FBI,” Kate called back. “We’re here to examine the crime scene.”
Two frowning police officers and one glowering detective poked their head around the corner. The detective snapped, “What the hell are you two doing?”
“Avoiding the circus,” Marcus said. “We’d rather get some work done than contribute to some asshole’s Pulitzer.”
“And you didn’t think calling ahead would be a good idea?”
“We didn’t want to risk being overheard,” Marcus explained.
The detective continued to glower at them. “The press is going to figure out you’re here anyway.”
“And the longer we can delay that, the better,” Kate replied.
The detective scoffed but his anger was waning.
No doubt the grizzled veteran understood how frustrating the press could be.
“Well, come on in,” he said. “Got a nice one for you.” He turned around and called ahead, “Hey, Miller, make sure the windows and blinds are all closed. Got some shy feds want to peak around without the vultures noticing.”
“They’re all shut, boss,” a voice—Miller, presumably—called back.
They entered the living room, an expansive space with a vaulted ceiling, and a floor two steps lower than the rest of the house.
The room was occupied by a massive leather sectional and a hand-carved coffee table made from a very dark wood that Kate didn’t recognize.
A crystal chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling, sporting over fifty lights.
The light sparkled and gleamed across the living room, casting colorful shadows like stained glass.
Hanging from the center of that chandelier, held in place by three strings so that the blade pointed through the living room window, was a gleaming silver letter opener.
Kate regarded that letter opener while Marcus approached the only living person in the room who wasn’t a member of law enforcement.
“Are you serious, guys?” he scolded. “Why’s she in the room?”
He led the girl away before the chagrined police could respond.
The weeping young woman wore a fitted navy pantsuit and gleaming black heels.
Her hair was done in waves and was almost iridescent under the light.
Her makeup was modest and not expertly applied.
Much of it ran down her cheeks as she wept, glancing at the body on the floor and shivering as Marcus led her to the dining room.
“Ms. Lowe’s assistant,” the detective—whose name badge identified him as Slocum—replied. “She called it in.”
Kate nodded and pulled her attention away from the letter opener and got her first good look at Patricia Lowe.
She looked to be in her sixties, which matched the age on her online profile.
Her hair was white, but it appeared dyed that way.
The roots were a coppery gray. Her eyes were bloodshot and bulging, a side effect of the strangulation, but in life, they had been a striking copper color.
She wore a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, both a size too large for her.
Apparently, Cox had caught her right when she got out of bed.
“CSI just looked it over,” Slocum informed her. “They didn’t move anything, but they checked for prints and fibers. Killer used black latex gloves, which I guess is true of the other scenes too. Manual strangulation, and it had to happen quick because there aren’t any defensive wounds.”
Kate nodded again and took pictures of the scene, careful to get several perspectives of the letter opener.
“Killer used the kitchen stepladder to climb high enough to hang the letter opener. Opened the curtains too. Got really lucky that he wasn’t seen by the neighbors.”
Miller chimed in, “Time of death was before dawn.”
“He changed his appearance too,” Kate replied. “He knows we’re looking for him.”
“Ah. Right.”
She finished taking pictures, then joined Marcus and the assistant in the dining room. The young woman was still crying but was able to talk now that she wasn’t forced to stare at the dead body of her boss anymore.
“I don’t understand who would do this to her. She wasn’t active in politics anymore. I mean… she tried to be, but she wasn’t popular. She wasn’t a threat to anyone.”
Marcus sat on the chair next to her, empathy etched on his features. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Martha.”
Martha sniffed. “I just wish she’d quit. You know? Like… just let it go, Grandma.”
Ah. Not just an assistant but a granddaughter. That explained the grief. "Can you tell us how you discovered her?"
Martha nodded. She sniffed and said, “She had a meeting with some investors about sponsoring her mayoral campaign. I told her not to go. I’m pretty sure they just wanted to get her to put up her house as collateral so they could take it when she lost. She wouldn’t listen to me, though. She never listened to me.”
Martha wiped tears from her eyes, and Kate shared a look with Marcus. Marcus tried again. “Why did you come to the house?”
“She wasn’t answering her phone. She missed the meeting. She never missed meetings. I came over to check on her, and her door was unlocked, so I…”
She pressed her palms to her eyes. Her lips trembled.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Marcus said gently. “We’ll go through the back so the press doesn’t hound you. Kate, can you tell Baltimore’s finest to have a cruiser take Miss Lowe home?”
“One last question before you go,” Kate said. “Can you tell me the significance of the letter opener?”
Martha looked up at the silver item and laughed. “That was… Grandma being Grandma.”
“Can you explain?”
“She had this thing where she’d steal things from the offices of her political opponents. She’d always make up a reason why she had to visit their office for a meeting or something, and she’d take something. Always something small, but she had to take something.”
“Did she ever say why?”
Martha laughed again. “I asked her once why she took the letter opener—that was councilman Richter’s, by the way—and she looked at me like I was crazy and said, ‘Because it’s mine.’ I just let it go. Grandma could be weird sometimes.”
Her face took on an almost desperate expression. “She was a good person, though. I know it sounds bad, but she was. She was good to everyone who was good to her.”
Kate’s mind strayed to the embezzlement scandal, but they weren’t here to investigate Patricia Lowe, and she didn’t need the details of Lowe’s embezzlement to know that it counted as a transgression of the eighth commandment.
She left to ask for a cruiser, and Marcus escorted the weeping young woman out of the house, taking care to give her grandmother’s body a wide berth.
Kate gave Slocum a hard look when she returned to the living room. “Why did you keep her here?”
“Press showed up minutes after we did,” Slocum muttered, his eyes on the ground.
“Didn’t want to throw her to the wolves, and we thought if we took her out back, they’d figure out and find us.
And if we take her to the station, then the press thinks she’s a suspect, and every news network in the city digs up rumors about Martha hating her grandmother or wanting her money or something. ”
Kate frowned. Those were all good points. “Still, you could have taken her to another room.”
“Well…” He shifted his feet. “We wanted to see how she’d react. We wanted to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?”
“That she didn’t… you know.”
Kate gave him another hard look. “This murder matches the MO of seven different murders over the past two months, all of them committed by a known serial killer.”
“People copy serial killers,” Slocum replied. “Especially family members who sense an opportunity. We had to make sure.”
That was a good point too. Kate hated it, but it was. “She needs a ride home.”
“Miller.”
The big officer nodded at Slocum, then at Kate, then headed toward the back of the house.
Kate looked back at Patricia Lowe’s body.
She wondered if Cox ever thought about the side effects of his “correction”.
Did he consider the fact that people would copy him?
At least one woman had already murdered her husband and written the seventh commandment on the wall of their home in his blood after catching him cheating.
Did he think about the innocent people harassed and suspected of his crimes?
Did he even try to justify that, or did he just accept it as part of the price of bringing the world back in line with God’s commandments?
This needed to end. She needed to get him off the streets. For good.
Those last two words danced around the back of her mind. She didn’t let the thought solidify. That would only make things worse. She needed Cox off the streets, but she would do it the right way. If she lost sight of her moral center, then she would be giving Cox a moral victory he didn’t deserve.
You will not break me. I will not become your scapegoat.
She pulled her camera out and began taking pictures of the scene. Maybe this one would finally reveal the critical piece of information she needed to bring Cox to justice. She could always hope.