CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“FBI!” Marcus boomed. “Open the door!”
Kate adjusted her grip on her handgun and took a deep breath.
This was the part of the job she’d never get used to no matter how many times she had to do it.
This was the part where one wrong move or one right move at the wrong time would make her relationship with Cox or anyone else a past tense problem.
The door of a neighboring apartment cracked open, and one of the Chicago PD officers with Kate and Marcus waved firmly at the resident to go back into their house.
The door closed, and Marcus’s massive fist pounded on the door again.
“Emily Warren! Come out now with your hands where we can see them! If you don’t come out, we’re going in! ”
No answer. Marcus looked at Kate. Kate nodded. He looked at the officers. They nodded.
He squared up in front of the door. He took a deep breath, lifting his right leg as he did so. As he exhaled, he kicked, snapping the door in half and sending the splinters flying inward.
Kate and the officers rushed inside, weapons sweeping right and left.
The small one-bedroom was modestly furnished, an old white loveseat and easy chair set at right angles in front of a cheap coffee table on a white plastic rug.
The rest of the furniture was equally cheap, clean but inexpensive and weathered from decades of continuous use.
The smell matched, ammonia, Pine-Sol, and the dry must of accumulated age.
The walls contained no crosses, no images of Jesus or Mary, no Bibles, no religious iconography of any kind.
The lone reading material was a six-month-old issue of GQ featuring an actor Kate recognized as very trendy but didn’t know by name since she hadn’t seen a movie since Mike took her to see the cheesy romcom of the year on one of the last dates he’d attempted before accepting that there was no chance for them.
“Bedroom’s clear,” Marcus’s voice called.
“Restroom clear,” one of the officers said.
“Kitchen clear,” another officer added, a little unnecessarily since Kate could see the kitchen from the living room.
And just as unnecessarily, Kate said, “Living room clear.” She dropped her handgun and added, “Damn it.”
“Search the apartment,” Marcus said. “I’m going to talk to the neighbors. Look for anything that might tell us where she’s going.”
Kate turned to the police sergeant, a serious-looking African American man with a bodybuilder’s muscles named Anthony, and said, “Put an APB out on her. And get roadblocks up around the city. She could be out there looking for another victim.” Or she’s already found one.
Anthony nodded once, then pulled his radio out and made the call. Kate and the other officers began to search the apartment, splitting up to take each room. Kate took the bedroom, believing that most intimate of places to be the most likely location of something incriminating.
Emily Warren’s bedroom was tidy but cluttered with the accumulated detritus of forty-three years of single life. The top of her dresser was populated with little knickknacks, ceramic, plastic, and earthenware figurines of people and animals with overly large eyes and smiles.
Kate inspected each one, looking for a hidden seam or hole where something could be stuffed. It would be nice to find out who her next target was, but Kate also hoped to find proof of her connection to these crimes, and possibly a connection to Cox.
It hit her that Emily’s descent into odd behavior began around the time Kate captured Cox the second time.
Either her communication with her mentor had been cut off, or she had admired Cox from a distance and spiraled when some fantasy of getting together with him was derailed by Kate’s actions.
Or she was hoping to get his attention by picking up where he left off.
She found nothing from the knickknacks and moved to the drawers. She raised an eyebrow when the underwear drawer revealed sensible underwear in nine orderly stacks with one row of decidedly insensible things made of lace and silk that appeared designed to highlight more than to cover.
Far be it from her to judge anyone’s sexual habits, but the fact that this expression was limited, apparently to the wearing of kinky underwear with no indication in her personal records or apartment that anyone else ever got to see it suggested a component of repression.
Kate wondered if stabbing the victims was a substitute for the act of intercourse for Emily.
As the search continued and she found nothing to connect Emily either to the crimes or to Cox, she began to wonder if Emily was involved at all, or if her big breakthrough was going to turn out to be a red herring.
Considering the area manager’s testimony, Kate really doubted that, but she’d been sure about Whitmore too, and his connection to Cox really did turn out to be tangential.
She left the bedroom to find Marcus talking with the police officers. No one was searching, which meant they had finished searching, which meant they had found nothing, which meant that either there was nothing to find or Miss Warren held dear the age-old proverb not to shit where she ate.
“Neighbors said she left about fifteen minutes before we got here,” Marcus said. “So, the dragnet should pick her up.” Kate nodded, and Marcus said, “Uh oh. I know that look. What’s wrong?”
“There’s nothing here,” Kate said. “Nothing that connects her to the case.”
Marcus lifted an eyebrow. “I mean, we’ve got her connected to the case.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have proof that she’s the killer. At the moment, the evidence against her is circumstantial as well.”
Marus frowned. The officers shared pensive looks. Clearly, they were thinking the same thing.
“It might not be here,” Marcus said. “Not all killers are going to be stupid enough to leave incriminating evidence in their own homes. Let’s wait for the dragnet to pick her up, then we can sweat her a bit. Maybe she’ll be willing to work with us in exchange for a plea deal.”
Kate shook her head. Something nagged at the back of her mind that made her doubt that. She started to pace the living room. “It has to be her, though. I know I said that about Whitmore, but she’s the last person left with a connection to all three victims.”
“Relax, Kate,” Marcus said. “We’ll figure this out.”
Kate chewed on her lip. Yeah, they’d figure it out, but would they figure it out in time to stop the next murder? That was the real issue at hand.
She paced in a lazy figure eight, never quite the same shape both times. Marcus watched her for a moment, then gave up trying to calm her down and instead called Anthony to ask how the roadblocks were coming.
Kate kept pacing, wracking her brain to think of where she’d gone wrong. What piece was still missing that kept her from finding the answer?
A floorboard creaked under her feet. She stopped, rocked backwards, then rocked forward. Each time, the board creaked again. Marcus looked over on the last creak, saw her expression and raised an eyebrow. “Found something?”
In answer, Kate dropped to her knees. She pulled her knife and wedged it into the crack between the creaky board and its fellows. The board held for a second, shifted, then finally lifted free. She set it to the side and looked into the small cubby revealed.
Inside the cubby was a journal, a whetstone, and—wrapped in a microfiber polishing cloth—a short-handled pugio. Kate pulled the knife out and removed the polishing cloth. The knife had been cleaned, and the blade gleamed dully in the light, but flecks of blood remained on the hilt.
Kate’s heart leaped with satisfaction. They’d caught her in time. If her knife was here, then Emily Warren wasn’t out there murdering anyone else.
She smiled at Marcus and saw the same relief on his face. “Well, looks like you were worried for nothing, Kitty.”
“Because I’m so relieved, I won’t turn your head inside out for calling me Kitty,” Kate replied. “I will hand this to you and ask you to send someone to get that blood tested to confirm it matches at least one of our victims.”
“Will do, Kitty-cat.”
“Don’t push it.”
Kate lifted the journal from the cubby and opened it. The first page revealed stenographer’s shorthand, the same style used at each crime scene.
The journal was new, the leather still taut and free of stress cracks. At first glance, Kate could only make out portions of the script, but what she could read revealed the depths of Emily’s insanity.
And her obsession with Cox.
“God will recompense on his own head the wicked. God is good and just. God is right to do this.”
“The Lawgiver is God’s instrument. I am God’s tool. The Lawgiver speaks in through me. Not my will but thine be done.”
“I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and God please, oh, it’s so good but it’s not, and my soul give to you all to you, why and the blade pierces so deep, and the blood, and oh, it’s good, but it’s not, and sinner! I am a sinner going to hell.”
Near the end was a more tragic entry, slightly more coherent and self-aware than the others.
“The Lawgiver has ruined me. He has used me as a scapegoat to accomplish what he couldn’t. He has sacrificed my soul to save his. He lies, but he still speaks God’s truth.”
After that were three pages of repeated phrases begging God to spare her this cup ending with an ink blotch where her pen had broken.
She folded the journal and was about to hand it to another officer to be booked into evidence when she saw a corner of paper sticking out of the back.
She pulled it, and it came out, then tore slightly.
She cursed and opened the journal to find a small slit in the back cover where that paper had been folded and placed inside.
She used her own knife to carefully widen the hole, then pulled the paper the rest of the way out.
Though not much older than the journal, the paper showed more damage.
Aside from the tear Kate had just given it, the creases were frayed from being folded and unfolded many times and browned as though they’d been held to an open flame.
When she opened it, she discovered a small hole that had indeed been caused by flame.
When she saw the handwriting inside the note, her throat closed. The words written inside weren’t stenography but plain English, and the handwriting wasn’t Emily’s but a far more recognizable script that Kate knew instantly.
The signature at the bottom was genuine.
My Disciple,
To say I do not envy the task set before you is an understatement.
And yet, I admire you for the trust God has placed in you to carry out this most important task.
I admit I was surprised when it was revealed to me that you had been chosen for this purpose, but God’s wisdom is unfathomable.
We must trust Him that all steps He takes are for the furthering of His will and the establishing of His kingdom.
I won’t offer false consolation or false hope.
You know the penalty you will pay for carrying out this task.
God’s commandments are inviolate. His choice to use you to correct the error of the sixth commandment does not preclude you from the judgment you will earn by breaking it in its correction.
I will only say that I am proud of you. So, few could do what I know you will do without hesitation.
And should Satan fill you with fear, remember this. God asks the greatest sacrifices of His greatest servants. Your name may not be written in the Book of Life, but God will remember you for your actions even if the rest of His kingdom is fated to forget.
Yours for as long as God wills it,
The Lawgiver
Kate finally drew in breath, a ragged gasp that caused the officers in the room to look at her with concern. “You all right?” one of them asked.
She swallowed and nodded. “Yes,” she said, a little hoarsely. That wasn’t entirely true, but she didn’t feel like explaining the truth right now.
She folded the letter and asked for a plastic evidence bag. Once the letter and journal were carefully placed inside, she got to her feet and said, “Okay. We’ll keep a pair of officers here in case she returns before she’s caught. The rest of us can go back to the precinct until we hear—”
Marcus burst into the apartment just as one of the officer’s radios crackled. “Kate, they found her.”
“What?”
The radio told her the rest. “Be advised, we’ve confirmed a female subject on the roof of the George N. Leighton Courthouse. Subject matches the description of Warren, Emily as per All-Points Bulletin—”
“Shit,” Kate interrupted as the last piece fell into place. “That’s the last event. That’s the pièce de resistance.”
“What?” Marcus asked.
“Judgment,” Kate said. “He who sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”
“But she’s alone on the roof. Who’s she going to…” His eyes widened as he realized the answer.
“Let’s go,” Kate said. “Make sure paramedics and negotiators are there ASAP. We don’t have long.”
She rushed out of the apartment, Marcus shouting commands over his cell phone, officers listening for instructions on their radios, Cox’s words echoing in Kate’s head.
God asks the greatest sacrifices of His greatest servants.