Page 49 of Nothing Watching

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

With her mind racing, needing to process and investigate what this suspect had told her, Juliette glanced at Wyatt before standing up and walking out of the interview room.

In a moment, he followed.

“Need some time out from Vogel?” he asked her, rubbing his forehead. “So do I. I’m thinking this guy’s going to be a tough one to crack. In fact, I have to admit he’s been at the point of convincing me he’s not guilty. How can anyone talk so much without giving a thing away? By now he should have let something slip.”

“Yes. I feel the same,” she said.

His eyebrows shot up. “You do?” he asked.

There was a patter of footsteps, and Sierra, who’d been watching from the observation room, walked quickly around to meet them in the corridor.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “I know it’s not going well. I’ve been looking for chances to research what he said, but none of it has really made sense.”

“Not until the last thing he said,” Juliette confirmed.

“About the location?” Sierra’s eyes sharpened. “What are you thinking? He’s lying—or he’s giving something away?”

“I think he’s giving us an insight into the type of character he is, and that he shares a lot of attributes with the killer,” Juliette confirmed, as Wyatt nodded in understanding.

“If he’s not the killer, then we need to take that seriously,” Wyatt agreed.

“He’d operate close to home. That was what he was hinting at. That’s a big clue, because it is what someone of that mentality would do. He was helping us, even if he didn’t mean to. And perhaps it’s the one thing that we haven’t considered enough,” Juliette said.

Sierra nodded. “Now that I think of it, all the victims were going home. They were between their work or study place and their home, apart from the last victim, who was out at the shops but also returning home. If we plot their routes, I guess their home destinations are not so far apart,” she said thoughtfully. “Berlin changes character so fast that I thought the youth hostel was miles out of town, but it wasn’t.”

“Exactly. The killer must know the area well,” Juliette said, her mind racing with new possibilities. “He’s someone who knows the streets, the shortcuts, the back alleys, someone who can navigate the area with ease.”

“We need to plot everything on a map!” Sierra said.

“Exactly,” Juliette said. “Sometimes, without even knowing it, people create patterns. And the faster he’s killing, the closer he might be staying to his home base, without meaning to.”

Wyatt looked at her, his eyes brightening with a newfound understanding.

“We could get him that way!” he exclaimed. And then, they all rushed to the back office.

Juliette quickly found a map of the city and pulled it up on her laptop. Sierra searched for the exact coordinates of each crime scene, as well as the start points and the end points, or home destinations, of the victims. They had four, including the attempted murder earlier today, which gave them a good amount of information. Then, together, they began plotting the locations of each site and direction onto the map.

As they worked, a pattern began to emerge. Juliette caught her breath as she saw it. The start points, the kills, and the end points formed a rough spiral that was curling inward.

With a hand shaking from excitement, Sierra highlighted the central point on the map, the place where the tip of the curlicue pointed toward.

“If I’m right, then this is the epicenter,” she said. “It’s about half a mile in diameter and you can see how he branched out in every direction to do the kills. Further at first, and then working closer in.”

Juliette felt a knot form in her stomach. It was too coincidental to ignore. She turned to Sierra and Wyatt, who were both staring at the map, looking intent.

“We need to trap him,” she said. “There’s only one way we can do this, and that’s by getting a massive police presence within that half-mile circle. Because even if he doesn’t know it, that’s where the pattern shows he’s going to kill again.”

She knew that nothing was certain, but this theory was the most solid alternative they had to the continued denial of their only suspect.

Juliette felt relieved that Fischer was on their side. To make this work, she’d need the support of every available police officer, and fast.

*

An hour later, with calm efficiency, the operation was swinging into place.

Vogel had been taken down to the cells in case they needed to question him further, or the DNA evidence came back as a match. Fischer had informed her superiors that they were on the point of a breakthrough, thanks to important information he’d given them. That was not strictly true, and Juliette knew that everything was riding on this now. They could not afford to fail.

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