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Kate found the bag with the torn-out sheet from the hymn book.
“Can I see the chart?”
With the hint of a sigh, the tech put her coffee down and reached for a slim, brown envelope.Inside was a rough floor plan of the building, listing evidence tag numbers with the locations where they’d been found.
“And the page was found at the back of the church?”Kate asked.
“Yup, on a chair,” said the tech.“Separate from all the other chairs.”
“And there was no accelerant anywhere near that corner of the building,” Marcus said to Kate.“So, whoever set that fire –”
“Wanted the priest dead, and that note found.”
Kate felt a quickening: excitement and anxiety in equal measure.
“Wait up.What’s that on the other side?”
Marcus tapped the plastic-encased hymn sheet in Kate’s hands.She turned it over.
Faintly, with something like a blunt pencil, someone had etched three shapes on the opposite side of the page.A trio of Z shapes of varying size, the lines connecting the printed letters of another hymn, vertically, horizontally, and diagonally.
There was clearly another message here.But was it intended for her, or someone else?
CHAPTER THREE
“This is the last load,” Marcus observed, as he hauled another trio of archive boxes to their resting place, under a pretty stained-glass window.Oddly enough, the headquarters of the county PD was located in an old church, and despite the familiar aroma of cops, coffee, and printer ink, the whole building had a musky, woody scent that reminded Kate of choir practice.
True to his word, Daniels had loaned them a room full of filing cabinets and boxes.He’d thrown in the services of a pair of beat cops, too, but one of them kept complaining about his back and the other one, despite being a fresh-faced guy in his mid-twenties, moved boxes like a grandfather feeding goldfish.Fueled on doughnuts and irritation, Kate and Marcus had done most of the heavy shifting themselves.
Kate was kicking herself.She had taken photos of the hymn book page, front and back, with her camera phone.But the techs had been anxious to get back on the road, and she’d felt their mounting impatience as she snapped her images, ending up with three that were blurred, one which missed most of the top right corner, and one which was a high-resolution, pin-sharp portrait of her right hand.
Rookie mistake.Secure your evidence.Secure access to your evidence.
“You shouldn’t have let them bully you,” Marcus said, squatting on the edge of the desk.“You’ve got your priorities, they’ve got theirs, but you’re calling the shots.”
Kate sighed.It was a very pertinent demonstration of what A.D.Winters, their boss, had said at her last performance review.Kate “lacked assertiveness” and was “too ready to defer to colleagues, sometimes to the detriment of ongoing, investigational needs.” Now, she had no decent images of what was obviously key evidence, and she’d have to wait until everything was photographed and uploaded to the server, three hours away in Portland.
“I could drive back there in two and a half if I ignore the speed limit,” she said.
“Or you could call them, and tell them to make that piece of paper their number one priority for imaging and uploading.Better yet, get them to pull over now, take a couple more shots and email them.”
Kate picked up the phone.
That was the other thing Winters had said at her review.Sometimes she didn’t see the forest for the trees.Which wasn’t a great attribute for a cryptanalyst.She was lucky to have Marcus as a partner, though she’d only admit that under torture.
Just as Kate finished talking to the tech, Marcus received a message.
“That was quick.”
He flipped open his laptop and clicked on the screen.
“Jack!”
The screen showed the blank tiled wall of the mortuary lab.The M.E., Jack Kazarian, insisted on face-to-face briefings, even for the simplest of exchanges.He craved the company of the living, he said.
The screen tipped as if being adjusted, and as the face of a small North Asian girl came into view, Marcus and Kate exchanged a puzzled glance.
“I’m Dr.Cindy Yu,” she said.“Call me Cindy.”
