CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“We’ve been focused on the meaning of the objects,” Kate said. “We were close to being on the right track, but not precisely.”
“You don’t think it was penance after all?” Marcus asked.
“No, I do,” Kate said, placing the photographs she’d printed from the hotel’s business center on the table and beginning to arrange them. “I just don’t think that was the message for me.”
She moved the photographs to their rough positions on an imaginary map of the United States. If she was right, then taken one by one, the ciphers were meaningless, but taken all together, they delivered a very clear message, one that would tell Kate exactly where Cox was going next.
“Mind cluing me in on what you’re doing?” Marcus asked, a touch peevishly.
“Yes. I mean no. I don’t mind, and yes, I’ll clue you in on what I’m doing.”
“Take a breath, Kate. Form the complete sentence before saying it out loud.”
Kate glared over her shoulder at him. “So help me God, Marcus, if you screw with my good mood right now.”
He lifted his hands. “Sorry. I can’t help it.”
Kate turned back to the photographs. “I think the objects are important, but not just the objects. Where they point is what matters.”
“Where they point?”
“Yes. “The letter opener was the key. He didn’t put that on a piece of furniture. He hung it from the chandelier. Like he’s shouting, ‘Look at this.’”
"Look at what exactly?"
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out.” She pointed at the photographs.
“Each object was very carefully arranged so that they were visible from the street, but they were also carefully oriented. The second and hour hands of the pocket watch, for example, were aimed at a precise angle through the window that wasn’t perpendicular or parallel to the street.
And that letter opener was also angled away from the road. ”
"Okay. So you think Cox is leaving a sort of trail of breadcrumbs or a compass? 'I'm going here next. Catch me if you can?"
“Something like that,” Kate agreed, pulling up Gloria Prentiss’s address on her phone.
“I want you to help me figure it out. Look up the houses and figure out how the houses are oriented relative to a map of the United States. Then look at the photographs of the objects and figure out which direction they were pointing. I’ll bet anything it’s a roadmap of Cox’s travels since beginning his eighth commandment spree. ”
“Oh boy, Geography. I love Geography.”
Kate chuckled at the sarcasm in his tone. “Who hates Geography? It’s like, the easiest subject.” He smiled sadly at her, and she frowned. “What?”
“Nothing. Road map coming up.”
Kate's heart thumped with excitement as they built their map.
Paul Delaney's cufflinks pointed northeast in the rough direction of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Ruth Osgood.
This could be it. He could be telling Kate exactly where to go next.
Figure out where the letter opener pointed, and they would know what his plans were.
That meant playing into his hands, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t outsmart him. They’d done it before. And as resourceful as Cox was, they had more resources at their command than he did.
Her excitement faded when she realized that Ruth’s dog was pointing the wrong way. “The dog’s nose is pointing south,” Marcus said. “Should be pointing southwest if it’s supposed to be leading us to Jordan Prescott in Louisville. I’m sorry, Kate. It sounded really good, but…”
Her excitement faded further when she saw that both the second and hour hands Jordan Prescott’s pocket watch were pointed just a tick off due east rather than precisely northeast to Buffalo.
When Karen De Luca’s music box pointed southeast instead of southwest to Greenfield, Indiana, her heart started to thump again, not with excitement but with panic.
Was she wrong? How could she have been wrong? This didn’t make sense. Or rather, it did make sense. It made perfect sense. This fit so well.
Marcus lifted his hands and let them drop. “Shit. So much for that.”
Kate stared at the makeshift map, eyes narrowed almost to a squint, lips pressed together until they hurt.
“Plot the other three victims,” Kate said.
She started on Schulz. Marcus looked at her, decided it wasn’t worth his time to argue, and started on Douglas Hale. Schulz pointed almost due east. Same with Hale. Patricia Lowe’s letter opener pointed northwest.
“A lot of them point east,” Marcus said half-heartedly. “Maybe that means something.”
Kate sighed heavily and ran her hands through her hair. She grabbed a fistful of her auburn locks but released it, afraid she might actually tear some out in her frustration. “It’s right here,” she insisted. “I swear it’s right here. What am I missing?”
She looked back at the map. A spark flickered in her mind, went out, then flickered again. She took a pen and traced lines from each crime scene all the way across the table.
“I guess we’re paying to have the table resurfaced,” Marcus said. “Can’t wait for Winters to ream us about the expense report.”
“Each flight we’ve taken cost more than this whole table,” Kate said, continuing to draw lines. As she did, the answer began to take shape. “And if this works out, then Winters won’t care about a table.”
A moment later, Kate stood up. Marcus leaned over her shoulder and whistled. “Well. That looks promising.”
The first seven objects all pointed toward Baltimore. Cox hadn’t just sent obscure messages with the placement of his objects. He’d aimed all of them at his final target.
“So Patricia Hale was the icing on the cake, huh?” Marcus said. “Why her?”
Kate shook her head. “No. Not her. The objects are all pointing here, but I don’t think they’re pointing to Patricia Hale’s house. I think they and the knife from Hale’s home are pointing somewhere else.”
“Where?”
Kate shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
Her phone buzzed. Poppy. She answered, and the nervous young agent said, “Yes! Hi! Kate! Hello!”
Kate brushed away an image of a cartoon mouse hopping up and down and waving her hands exuberantly. “What do you have for me, Poppy?”
“I have a lead on Cox’s companion!”
Kate perked up. She put the phone on speaker and said, “Go ahead, Poppy.”
“Well, the description you sent us from Northbridge matched the one given by St. Louis police.”
“Yes, I know,” Kate said, trying not to let her impatience show.
“The description popped up for a man named Ian Bolger of Eastwood, Oklahoma. It looks like he dropped off the face of the map about a month after Cox was jailed for the second time. Stopped paying his rent, defaulted on his credit card bills, and essentially went off the grid. Oklahoma was about to declare him dead when we called them for his records.”
“Where is he?” Kate asked, no longer quite able to hide her impatience.
“Right! Sorry! He’s In Baltimore.”
Kate’s eyes widened. “In Baltimore now? Still?”
“Yes, we think so. A man named Walter Larret rented a vehicle yesterday morning. The description I got from the rental company matches Ian Bolger. Walter Larret also rented a hotel room in the city, and according to the hotel, he hasn’t checked out. He hasn’t returned the vehicle either.”
Kate and Marcus looked at each other.
“I’ll call Baltimore PD and have them raid the hotel room,” Marcus said.
“Call the airport too,” Kate said. “Make sure they’re watching the rental car place. Put an APB out on the vehicle too. Thank you, Poppy.”
“Of course! Good luck, Kate! I’m so glad I could help. I really think you’re just the—”
“Tell me later, Poppy. Got to get back to work.”
“Right. Got it. Good luck! Oh, I uh, already said that, didn’t I?”
Kate hung up, then grabbed her laptop and pushed the photographs aside, setting the laptop on the table and pulling up Google Maps. Marcus gave her a quizzical look while he rang the police, and she explained, “He’s still here in Baltimore. That letter opener’s pointing somewhere inside the city.”
She searched for Patricia Lowe’s address and zoomed out, then traced a line northwest from the house in the direction indicated by the letter opener. She continued to zoom out until the line passed through something promising about six miles from Lowe’s house.
Marcus saw what she was looking at and frowned. “St. Anselm’s Cathedral.”
“That’s it,” she said, opening another tab and entering the church’s name in the search box.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Marcus said, “but let’s not jump right to that conclusion just because it’s a church. It could be pointing to any number of places in between Lowe’s home and the church or any number of places beyond.”
“Do you think it’s pointing to a random location, Marcus?” Kate asked, clicking on a link. Her blood froze, and she had to swallow to open her suddenly tight throat. “Or do you think it’s pointing at the former Church of St. Simon and St. Jude?”
Marcus’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”