Bryn was already moving. Emmett had bought a box of twelve and there were two of the honey-dip kind. “These are mine.” Bryn snagged both of them. Gunnar gave an amused shake of his head.
“That is not an appropriate breakfast.”
“You can make me pancakes if you want to,” Bryn said around a mouthful of sticky goodness.
“Sure. Pancakes are never a bad idea.” Gunnar got busy mixing batter then cooked up a huge stack of pancakes.
“Not sure I can eat all those.” Bryn eyed the teetering pile. “But I’ll give it a go.”
“They aren’t all for you, mister.” Gunnar pulled maple syrup from a cupboard. “Emmett, you want pancakes?”
“Yes please!” the call came back.
Gunnar divided the treats between three plates, taking the biggest portion for himself. He and Bryn had started eating when Emmett arrived, clutching his laptop.
“Don’t think you’ll need that in here,” Bryn said. “It’ll get sticky.”
“I think I’ve got it!” Emmett shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Got what?” Bryn put more syrup on his pancakes.
“The kill site!”
“For the Walmart killer?”
“Yes!”
“Sit down, Emmett, and tell us what you’ve found,” Gunnar said, “before you have an aneurysm.”
“I…yes, of course.”
“Take a breath.” Bryn carried on eating.
“Sorry, I’m excited. You know I was working on the symbol you sketched, Bryn? I’ve had to fit it in between other jobs, so it took a while but…I thought I’d look at it from a different angle. The killer is obsessed with historical murderers, isn’t he? So I thought, what if his kill site is also historical. I started looking for older interpretations of the symbol and found out that smugglers often used secret signs to mark safe houses, warn fellow smugglers, or indicate the presence of contraband goods. The signs were typically simple and discreet, so they wouldn’t attract unwanted attention.”
“Okay, interesting.” Gunnar paused with a loaded fork halfway to his mouth.
“Isn’t it? So apparently smugglers would use chalk to draw symbols on walls or trees. For instance, a circle could indicate a safe house, while a cross might warn of danger. In some cases, they would carve or paint symbols like arrows pointing in a specific direction.”
“I saw an arrow in a circle,” Bryn said.
“Circles indicated safety, so the symbol you saw probably meant a safe direction.”
“This is all great, Emmett, but how does this get us to the kill site?”
“I started looking into Boston’s smuggling history. Did you know that there are a ton of tunnels under Boston?”
“Other than the ones with roads in them, no,” Bryn admitted.
“Well, there are old tunnels in Boston’s North End, often referred to as smugglers’ tunnels or pirate tunnels, which connect the wharves to basements of houses and other locations. The Old North Church also conceals a labyrinth of tunnels—secret routes that were crucial to the colonial resistance.”
“Wow.” Bryn pushed his plate away.
“That’s not all. There are also tunnels under Boston Common that were used for covert operations and troop movements during the Revolutionary War. There are others too, but I focused on those that aren’t open to the public either for safety or preservation reasons. They include the ones under the Common. I dug into archived pictures from before they were sealed and found this.” Emmett swiveled his laptop around. His screen displayed a black and white photo which showed a section of tunnel. On the wall was painted an arrow in a circle.
“Holy fuck, that’s it!” Bryn said. “You’re a miracle worker, Emmett.”
“I just made the links, anyone could have found this. There are maps of the old tunnels too. The killer must have broken in through a sealed entrance or something.”
