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“Anyone else?”
“Someone from Church called me, maybe half an hour after Virtue.”
Kate sighed.Judith lacked a decent alibi.But Kate doubted she was a killer.Whoever it was had been able to overpower Whitman, a sturdy man in good health, sufficiently to get him in cuffs and attached to a radiator.
Someone could have assisted Judith, though.Assisted her, or straight up done the deed on her behalf.A friend at the Church.An admirer, even.She was an attractive woman.Muttered prayers aside.
“I’m going to keep you in custody for now, Judith, while we do some checks.”
“If God wills it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Around Christ’s plate, there were two pieces of bread, instead of four.The roles of Judas Iscariot and Peter were reversed: Peter was clutching the purse, while Judas brandished the knife.Meanwhile, instead of pointing with a skeptical index finger, “Doubting” Thomas held up two digits – index and middle – as if he was making a blessing.And under the right-hand side of the table, there were more sandaled feet than there were Apostles…
The email had been sent to Kate’s FBI address at five-oh-four a.m.That disturbed Kate more than anything else.It was the precise time she woke up every morning, the exact time she’d been waking up, groggy and under-rested, ever since a date was first set for Denton’s execution.She’d never told anyone about this, never written it in a letter or an email or a text message.But someone knew this detail.Someone knew it, and they wanted her to know that they knew it.
Unless it was just chance.Purely random that the email had gone out at a time that happened to mean something to her.But the longer this case ran on, the less Kate believed in words like random and chance.
The email appeared to be from A.D.Winters, and the title was Urgent Updates.As it opened, a hi-res image appeared on the screen.It was da Vinci’s famous “Last Supper,” or rather, a cleverly adapted version of that fifteenth century mural.Underneath it, three blank boxes.Their meaning and purpose weren’t immediately clear; it was Marcus who’d first spotted the extra feet underneath the table.Further analysis of the image revealed a number of subtle variations from the original.
“What if it’s a Spot the Difference?”Marcus had said.“You put the number of differences in the boxes and that…”
“What?”
He shrugged.“I don’t know.It reveals a message?”
“So we’ve potentially got to spot anywhere between a hundred and nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine differences between the original and this doctored copy?”
“Nobody said it was easy.Anyway, there’s got to be some kinda cheat software we can use.”
The IT team were working on that.In the meantime, Kate and Marcus were back to spadework.Digging for connections between the locations, the witnesses, individual bits of evidence.Spadework, along with cellphone mast triangulation, actually solved ninety percent of their cases nowadays – though that never featured in the TV shows and the movies.The audience would find it boring.They liked to think of the Bureau as a crack unit of geniuses, swimming, swinging, and leaping their way to justice, while solving conundrums in their heads.If only…
Kate was having trouble concentrating.She sensed a shift in the case, and not a good one.Previously, the killer’s enigmatic puzzles had been placed at the crime scene.But the da Vinci picture had been emailed directly to her.So, did that mean that there was a killing that they didn’t yet know about?Would there be one, or worse still, was the killer implying that they could even prevent it by solving the puzzle quickly enough?Could they be looking at a copycat?That seemed unlikely, as they’d released only the most rudimentary of details to the media so far.It only served to remind her, though, that Winters intended to brief the press this evening.
“You come across the name Gregory Mercer?”Marcus asked suddenly.Kate almost jumped, so lost as she was in her own spiraling doubts and concerns.She glanced over at his screen.A wild-eyed arrest shot of a pale and gaunt young man with an unruly shock of bright red hair.
“Religious blogger,” Marcus explained.“We’re all doomed, that sort of thing.Seems to believe there’s a coming Apocalypse and only a handful of the righteous will survive.That’s his arrest photo from Stelling County PD.”
“What did he do?”
“Dangerous driving,” Marcus explained.“Earlier this year.When asked why he was doing ninety miles an hour on a residential street near an elementary school, he said it was a test of faith.”
“What did he get?”
“Ninety days county jail.Banned for two years.He believes it was all foretold in the Book of Hosea.”
“Of course it was,” Kate said.“Why’s he pinged?”
“He won a scholarship to Brantley College.Studied under Whitman.Dropped out after a year.”
“Reason?”
“Doesn’t say.Meanwhile, growing up in New Manchester, Pennsylvania, guess who teaches his Confirmation Class.”
“Father Tom?So, he’s linked to both victims.”
“Not just linked.Take a look at his blog.”
