"I assumed it was an accident initially," Pritchard said, but something in his eyes suggested otherwise. "The tunnels can be dangerous, especially if someone isn't paying attention or following proper safety protocols. Given Langford's general carelessness about his work, an accident seemed... fitting."
"And now that you know it was murder? Now that you know Linda Graves was also killed in the tunnels?" Isla leaned forward. "Do you have theories about who might be responsible?"
Pritchard was quiet for a long moment, his gaze moving from Isla to James and back again. When he spoke, his voice carried a strange mix of caution and fascination.
"If I were investigating these cases," he said slowly, "I would look for someone with extensive knowledge of the tunnel system—obviously. But more than that, I'd look for someone who understood these victims' fundamental nature. Someone who saw past their professional facades to the defects underneath."
"Defects," James repeated.
"Linda Graves presented herself as a social worker dedicated to helping families, but her actual behavior showed callous disregard for the people she was supposed to serve. David Langford wore a city uniform and was paid to maintain critical infrastructure, but he treated every interaction as an opportunity to demonstrate his superiority over the 'stupid' civilians he encountered." Pritchard's intensity was building now, his clinical detachment slipping. "They were hypocrites of the worst kind—people in positions of trust who used that trust to demean and harm others while hiding behind official authority."
"So you think the killer is motivated by a sense of justice," Isla said. "Punishing people who abuse their positions?"
"I think the killer sees something most people can't see," Pritchard said. "The disconnect between presentation and reality. The gap between the role someone claims to fill and their actual impact on the world." He paused, seeming to catch himself. "But that's purely speculation, of course. I'm a research scientist, not a criminal profiler."
Isla stood, signaling that the interview was coming to an end. She'd learned what she needed to know—Pritchard had both motive and ideology that aligned with the murders, and his professional encounters with both victims had clearly left deep impressions. But they had no physical evidence, nothing that connected him directly to either death beyond circumstantial associations. And more troubling still, he simply didn't seem physically capable of the crimes—too frail, too weak, too muchthe aging academic rather than someone who could wrestle unwilling victims to their deaths. Beyond that, there was no indication he even knew about the tunnel system, let alone had the expertise to navigate it and use it as a weapon.
"Thank you for your time, Dr. Pritchard," she said, pulling out a business card. "If you think of anything else that might be relevant to our investigation, please call me."
Pritchard took the card, studying it briefly before setting it on the table. "Of course. I hope you catch whoever's responsible. Though I have to admit—" he hesitated, then continued with an expression that looked almost like a smile "—there's a certain elegance to using the tunnel system itself as the weapon. The heat that cooked Langford, the water that drowned Graves—it's as if the infrastructure they were supposed to maintain and serve was turned against them. Poetic justice, in a way."
The comment hung in the air, disturbing in its appreciation for the killer's methodology. Isla maintained her professional mask, but she filed the reaction away as another data point in the profile that was slowly solidifying.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Isla stared at her computer screen, watching her latest theory crumble like sand. Dr. Samuel Pritchard's consulting contract with the city was explicit: psychological evaluations only, conducted exclusively in designated office spaces. No site visits. No field work. No reason whatsoever to have ever set foot in the steam tunnel system.
"His scope of work is completely limited to personnel assessment," Isla said, more to herself than to James, who sat across from her desk reviewing the same records. "He evaluates people in controlled settings—his office, the employee health center, conference rooms. That's it."
James scrolled through another document on his laptop. "I just got off the phone with his former supervisor at the university. She said Pritchard's entire career has been lab-based research. He's never done fieldwork, never been involved in infrastructure projects, never consulted on anything related to city maintenance or engineering."
Isla rubbed her temples, feeling the familiar pressure of a headache building behind her eyes. Two murders in three days, both requiring intimate knowledge of Duluth's underground labyrinth, and their prime suspect—the man whose ideology perfectly aligned with the killings—had apparently never been underground at all.
"What about his physical capabilities?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. She'd seen Pritchard's trembling hands, his thin shoulders, the way he'd moved through his house like someone unused to physical exertion.
"I called his doctor's office—didn't get specifics because of privacy laws, but the receptionist confirmed he has regular appointments for a chronic condition." James looked up fromhis screen. "And three colleagues I spoke with all said the same thing: Pritchard is brilliant but physically frail. One of them mentioned he can't even carry his own equipment boxes anymore, has to have grad students help him."
The words settled over Isla like a weight. She'd been so certain when they'd left Pritchard's house, so convinced they'd found their killer. The ideology fit, the encounters with both victims fit, even his disturbing appreciation for the "poetic justice" of the murders fit. But ideology wasn't evidence, and certainty wasn't proof.
"He could have an accomplice," Isla said, though even as she spoke, the theory felt thin. "Someone physically capable who shares his worldview about defective souls and moral corruption."
"Maybe," James said, but his tone suggested he didn't believe it either. "But nothing in his records suggests he has close associates. He lives alone, works alone, and from what his colleagues say, he's not exactly the collaborative type. Hard to imagine him trusting someone else enough to bring them into something like this."
Isla stood and moved to the whiteboard where they'd mapped out the case, staring at the photographs of David Langford and Linda Graves, at the timeline of their deaths, at the connections they'd painstakingly documented. Two victims. Two very different murder methods. Both killed in tunnels they should never have entered, both lured there by someone they'd trusted enough to follow into darkness.
Her phone buzzed with an email from Deputy Marshal Barrett—another update on the Brune manhunt, another report of nothing to report. Two weeks of searching, hundreds of tips called in, dozens of possible sightings investigated, and Robert Brune remained as elusive as smoke. The Lake Superior Killer could be anywhere by now. He could have crossed into Canadaweeks ago, could be in Montana, North Dakota, or even Mexico if he'd been smart about it.
He could be anywhere except here, except in custody, except facing justice for the fifteen murders she'd connected him to.
Isla's chest tightened with familiar frustration. She'd identified a serial killer who'd evaded detection for decades, solved cases that had been written off as accidents, given names to victims whose families had never known they'd been murdered. And for what? So he could slip away into the winter darkness, leaving her with press conferences and interview requests and the gnawing knowledge that she'd been close enough to stop him and had let him run?
"Isla?" James's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. "You okay?"
She realized she'd been staring at the whiteboard for minutes without speaking, her hand clenched around the dry-erase marker hard enough to make her knuckles ache. "I'm fine. Just thinking."
"About Pritchard?"
"About all of it." Isla set down the marker and returned to her desk, sinking into her chair with exhaustion that went deeper than lack of sleep. "We've got two unsolved murders in three days, a prime suspect who doesn't fit physically or logistically, and meanwhile Brune is god knows where doing god knows what while we chase our tails with steam tunnels and personality assessments."
