Page 11 of Go Alone

She gestured at her notes and Marcus read aloud. “‘Likewise, it shall not be permitted to remove a landholder from his lawfully held property by devious action within the confines of the law.’”

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Okay, I think I know what that means, but what’s with the archaic language?”

“I think it’s a quote,” Kate said. “I’ll call Gabe in a bit and see if he can dig anything up.”

Professor Gabriel Levine was the Chair of the Linguistics Department at New York University. He was also Kate’s mentor, having both endorsed her application to the graduate Linguistics program at NYU and encouraged her to leave the program for the FBI when her father was killed less than a year later.

Most importantly, he was Kate’s friend, possibly the only friend she had except for the one she wanted to cover like a blanket. She often reached out to him, not just about cases but for help with personal problems that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing with Marcus or her mother.

“So the killer’s quoting some old legal document instead of the Bible.”

“Well, they’re quoting the Bible too. Here it says, ‘Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man.’”

“That’s King James Version, right?” Marcus said. “Any significance to that? It kind of lines up with the old-style speech in the other quote.”

Kate gave Marcus another tired smile. “You’re off by about three hundred years. The legal quote isn’t really archaic language, just very formal language. That’s falling out of favor, but it’s easily intelligible. The King James was printed in 1611 and it’s rapidly becoming impossible for modern readers to understand it without a thesaurus.”

“So no significance?”

“Probably not. Anita knew the King James well enough to recognize that the killer was missing most of the tenth commandment. I imagine most people in this area are familiar with that version of the Bible.”

“Do we think the killer’s from this area?”

“Definitely not Millbrook, or someone would have recognized him,” Kate replied. “Probably not Wayne County either. It’s not quite small-town enough that everyone knows everyone, but people from the outlying communities might pick up a Wooster vehicle even if they don’t know the driver by name, especially if it’s as unique as a robin’s egg blue delivery van.”

“But probably someone from central Ohio.”

Kate shook her head. “The King James is still one of the most popular versions of the Bible on Earth. Several other Commandment Killers have used it, and almost all of them have used it to reference their commandment. I don’t think it really tells us much at all.”

Marcus sighed and headed back to the coffeemaker. “Well, shit.”

“It tells us something about the killer, though,” Kate said.

“What’s that?”

“Listen to the tone of this condemnation here. ‘Howard Greer moved boundary stones in secret and called it civic duty. He didn’t care that he was leaving old people homeless. He didn’t care that they couldn’t start over. They were just in his way. Now his way has reached its end.’”

“Huh. Sounds vindictive.”

“Sounds sad,” Kate said. “The killer says twice that Greer didn’t care. It’s bitter, yes, and a little vindictive, but mostly it’s sad. The killer can’t seem to understand how anyone could be as callous as Greer was.”

“Was he callous?”

“I assume Anita will find out if he was,” Kate said. “He was a zoning commissioner. Maybe he screwed with someone’s permits in the past. That could fit with the idea of devious action within the confines of the law.”

Marcus set a cup in front of her. “Try the coffee,” he said. “It tastes like shit.”

She chuckled and sipped the steaming brew. Shit wasn’t the word she would have used. Maybe fireplace ash mixed with stuff burned off the bottom of a roasting pan. It had caffeine, though, and it felt wonderful after hours of wracking her brain to decipher a code.

“So the killer’s saddened by Greer’s behavior,” Marcus said. “No offense, but sad people don’t paralyze their victims and suffocate them by pouring Miracle Gro down their throats.”

“I’m not saying grief is the only motivating factor,” Kate clarified, “only that the tone of this message seems sad to me. Contrast that with Emily Warren, the Sixth Commandment Killer, and Caroline Bennett, the Seventh Commandment Killer for example. Emily believed that by executing God’s will, she was denying herself entry to Heaven. Her messages were defined by steadily increasing terror for the fate awaiting her immortal soul. Caroline was angry, viciously angry, at the people who she believed were responsible for the destruction of her own marriage, not just those of others. This guy?” She shook her head. “He seems weary. Like he’s in the final stage of disbelief that people can be so cruel.”

“So we don’t think this is Cox.”

Kate shook her head slowly. “No. This doesn’t feel like him. Possibly a copycat but most likely one of his disciples.”

Marcus scoffed. “Well, whoever he is, he’s got the world’s biggest blinders on if he can’t see the cruelty in his own actions. And why Leonard Odum’s home? That’s the part I still can’t wrap my head around. Was Odum cruel too?”