Page 6 of Go Home (Kate Valentine #1)

She returned to the hymns themselves, looking for patterns, frequent letters and words, line-endings, stanzas.

She went back to the authors of the words, the composers of the music.

Discovered that the person who’d translated the war-song from its original sixth-century Irish had been born in 1823 and died at the age of sixty-seven.

23, 6, 7… And she remembered some further wisdom from the man who’d mentored her, first as a student, then on the rocky path from academia to federal agent.

Patterns can be found everywhere, and most of them are meaningless .

She was so absorbed in her task that she jumped, cartoon-style, when she realized there was a steaming cup of coffee and a donut at her elbow. She looked up to see Marcus grinning.

“Cracked yet?”

“ I might be cracked. But the code?” She rubbed her eyes. “Thanks for the coffee, but I’ll pass on the donut. I’m going to end up looking like a weather balloon.”

“Yeah, right,” he said, automatically. “He must have had a key.”

“I know,” she said, still wrapped up in the puzzle. “Wait – what? Who must have?”

“The killer must have had a key. They found the lock to the confession box door in the debris. Solid iron, didn’t melt.

The killer locked Father Tom in there, and apparently took the key with him.

I had a quick word with his housekeeper lady.

She was in a rush dropping a kid off, but she said he had a box full of church bits and pieces in his study. ”

“What are we thinking? The killer took it from his box?”

“If that’s the case, then they had to know him pretty well. Him, and the day-to-day business of the church. There’s a committee of church members who take care of everything: weeding the garden, cleaning the hall. She’s given me names. And he had an assistant last year.”

“A curate?”

“That’s the word. A trainee priest, right? Zbigny-something. Polish. They didn’t get along.”

“How so?”

“The curate was very religious. Thought Father T was, I dunno, not up to the mark.”

Kate looked at the note she’d made earlier. Did Father Thomas have faith? She remembered Annie’s words in the diner. He really wasn’t like a priest .

“We need to talk to the curate.”

“And look over the house. How you getting on?”

“Stuck.”

Marcus looked at her desk, pages of scrawled notes.

“There are three messages. Each one consists of three pairs of letters, linked by these lines here – see, the Z-shapes? If it’s what I think it is, it’s the distance between each pair of letters that’s significant.”

“What distance?”

“Within the alphabet. Like, A and H are seven letters apart.”

Marcus nodded.

“So each Z gives me three numbers.”

“And you do what with them?”

"That’s where I’m stuck. The code relies upon a key – a chunk of text. The numbers are coordinates telling you where to go in the text, which might be a word or several words."

“So what’s the text?”

She shrugged. “I thought it could be the hymn book. It’s got to be something I could be expected to know or have access to. So connected to me, or connected to the victim."

“Or the killing… I mean, like the church.”

“Or the church. Like I said, I tried the hymn book. I can’t think what else would be in the church. I guess that’s another reason to search the house.”

“Um, a Bible.”

“Say what?”

“A Bible. That’s another thing in a church, right?”

Kate could have kissed him. She felt various things: relief, excitement, sheer embarrassment at not seeing the obvious answer.

“Marcus, you’re a genius.”

"I’m glad you recognize that."

Within three minutes, they had three Bible verses in front of them.

And he laid the fire upon my mouth and he said Lo, this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

And it may be a witness between us, and you and our generations after us. That your children may not say to their children in times to come: you have no part in the Lord.

And I will come to you in judgment. And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and the adulterers, and the false swearers and those that oppress.

It had happened, as she’d known it would.

The confusion gave way to clarity. The fragments drawn together, a picture formed, partially, at least. A well-loved priest who stood among his flock rather than above it.

Who was perhaps a man first, a spiritual leader second.

And someone who saw that as sin, as falsehood, as an insult to the faith.

And sought to wipe it out with fire.

But why did the killer want her to understand this?

Did they see her as a confidant, deliberately encrypting their message because they knew she was a cryptanalyst, specializing in codes and cyphers?

Could they be trying, in some twisted fashion, to say that they were equals?

Or were they toying with her, sending her a puzzle to solve as part of a warped duel?

That thought depressed and sickened her in equal measure: not just the idea of treating a human life – a human death, of the ugliest, most pitiless kind – like a parlor game.

But also the intimacy of it: this sick stranger talking directly to her, breathing his or her secrets in her ear.

Saying what, though? The quotes were all from books of the Old Testament: Isaiah, Joshua, and Malachi.

Each one reflected some concern with being a “witness.” Though the word wasn’t used directly in the first quote from the prophet Isaiah, Kate knew that it was a central theme of that particular book.

Given the painful gift of prophecy by God, Isaiah bore witness to God’s design for the people of Israel, from defeat and exile to purification and salvation.

The same preoccupation was obvious in the other two books: the leader Joshua witnessing God’s plans for the twelve tribes of Israel, the prophet Malachi warning people that they had strayed too far from God’s laws.

Did the killer see himself as another witness, a prophet with an uncomfortable message? Or was it about Father Thomas? Could he have seen something, quite literally been a “witness” who had to pay the price for what he’d seen?

Kate’s phone rang. Winters. The boss.

“Look at CBYN.”

Assistant Director Victoria Winters didn’t do hellos, goodbyes, how’s-your-fathers. Not at work, anyway. Down at Delaney’s for team drinks, sipping mojitos at the summer picnic, she could be different. But today was no picnic.

Marcus got the local news station on his laptop. An anchor with dazzling teeth was standing in front of the blackened shell of St. Andrew’s.

“A law enforcement source has linked the death of Father Thomas to another fatal arson attack in Bangor, exactly three months ago.”

“Seriously?” Kate muttered.

An image of a soldier, straight-backed and proud in desert fatigues, flashed on the screen. The legend underneath: MGS Matthew Kowalski.

“The charred remains of former Marine Sergeant Matthew Kowalski were found close to the city’s Washington Bridge, an area increasingly populated by panhandlers, drug addicts, and the homeless. Traditionally regarded as one of the safest U.S. states, Maine has in recent years…”

Marcus turned the volume down.

“We had absolutely no idea of any link,” Kate said, trying to control her anger. “And as for this ‘police source’…”

“That’s not important,” Winters said. “Correction. That’s less important than the fact that it’s out there now. A priest and a decorated veteran. It’s a gift for the media, whether there’s a link or not.”

“Understood.”

“There’s a vacuum, and that’s why the media’s filling it with speculation. So we need to shut it down with some solid progress.”

“With respect, we have made progress, ma’am,” said Kate.

“I’m listening.”

Kate recounted their efforts at decrypting the message, the various angles they were intending to explore.

“Good work,” Winters said. “But there’s a long way to go. I’ve told our press team to stand by for a briefing in twenty-four hours’ time. By then, we need something solid to feed to the newshounds.”

“Can we at least stall any theory regarding an earlier killing? It’s not an angle we’ve been considering. Without wanting to sound too cliché, ma’am, it’s news to me.”

“I’ll do what I can. But get me results, Kate.”