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“Why not?”
“I’ll explain later.I’m going to Pennsylvania.”
“I was only teasing you about Cheryl, you know.You don’t have to go on the lam.”
“Listen.Ten years ago, Father Thomas ran an outreach program with death row prisoners.It was at one DOC site – the William C.Weidt Facility in Wedmore.”
“Okay…”
“Robert Denton was held there for six and a half years prior to his execution.”
There was a long pause, as Marcus took this in.
“I don’t want to sound rude, Vee.But so what?It’s a coincidence.I don’t see what it gives us.”
“There are too many times,” Kate said, “when this case has intersected with things concerning me, or which only I would know about.Like five-oh-four.”
“Five-oh-four.”
“The last message, the da Vinci email, was sent to me at that time.And it’s when I wake up.It’s the exact time I’ve been waking up, every morning, since November last year, when they set a date for Denton’s execution.And then there’s the Last Supper…”
“Kate-”
“The painting of the Last Supper reveals what?An image of Denton’s actual last supper!It’s real, Marcus.I know it sounds crazy, but…”
“Kate.I think you might be seeing things that aren’t there.I don’t mean they’re not there, but I’m concerned you might be putting too much significance onto them.”
“Wait, I haven’t told you about-”
“Kate,” he said patiently.“Remember when you came back to work?Not for good.I mean, when you came back at first and you weren’t ready.Do you remember that?”
Kate felt anger flash down from the top of her scalp, right through her body.
“It’s not that!”she said hotly.“This is real!And don’t talk to me in that voice!”
“What voice?”
“That patient, understanding voice.Like you think I’m having another episode of that… that time, but you don’t want to say it.”
“Doyouthink you’re having another episode?”
“Why do you care what I think?”Kate half-shouted into the phone, her hands trembling.“You’ve already made your mind up.And you know what?Fine.Stay on leave.I’ll solve this case without you!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There was something about prison that instantly made you feel guilty.It was a little like going through customs and immigration at Newark: suddenly you felt as if your bags were filled with pangolin skins and rhinoceros horns, or that innocent, tipsy tattoo you’d gotten on your final night no longer said I?Cancun, but I Joined MS-13.
The unsmiling faces.The mace clipped to every belt.The endless doors and gates, necessitating a great, long loop of keys attached to every khaki-clad staff member.The smell.The constant metallic clanging.Kate could think of many better places to spend a Saturday.
To be fair, there was far less clanging up on Spur C.They didn’t call it death row, but that was its function.Up to a year before the appointed date, the condemned men moved from Gen Pop into this unit of single cells, where they sat, or stood, paced or rocked or slept the remaining hours of their lives away, while elsewhere teams of lawyers frantically filed plea upon plea in the hope of getting the sentence commuted.
“It’s quieter than I imagined,” Kate observed to the unit warden.His name badge said Kovacs.
“It can get to you,” said Kovacs.
He had an encyclopedic memory for the men under his care, past and present, and he reeled off the facts of Denton’s prison career like a shopping list.Sentenced to death in early 2016, Denton had been sent to Leavenworth, from where he’d mounted three unsuccessful appeals.In late 2018, he’d been shipped to the Wedmore Facility and, within a few months, renounced any future bids for clemency, announcing that he accepted his fate.
In November 2024, the Department of Justice had announced Denton’s impending execution date, causing Kate’s nightmares to return in earnest.And they troubled her still now, three months after his last breath.For some reason – superstitious or administrative, Kate wasn’t sure – condemned men’s cells were kept empty for a year after the execution, although there were no traces of Denton inside.
