Page 16 of Go Under

The sun rose as the three agents left the Philadelphia Field Office, bathing them in orange and gold and softening the chill of the winter morning.

No boon waited on their horizon today, though. The end of their rainbow led only to death.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The historic neighborhood of Brandywine Village was up in arms about the death of one of their own. Kate stiffened when she saw the news vans parked at the intersection nearest the victim’s house. Darnell glanced at Kate, noticed her expression, and drove past their turn. “I’ll pull up behind the house and have the uniforms create a cordon for us. Keep the collars of your jacket up and look down on the way in, and they shouldn’t recognize you.”

“Might think about buying a hat, too,” Marcus suggested.

Kate rolled her eyes. “That’s not funny, Marcus.”

Marcus opened his mouth, decided better of it, and clammed up again.

Kate wasn’t exactly a celebrity, but with Cox on the run and all of the publicity surrounding him, the media was more interested in her than Kate preferred. Speculation would already abound that Cox was active again. She didn’t want to add more fuel to that fire.

And she didn’t want people scrutinizing her. She was barely holding herself together as is. She didn’t want some celebrity psychiatrist with a plastic smile analyzing her obsessive tendencies on national television.

So, as she stepped to the rear door of the quaint, two-story Victorian, she stood in between the tall, imposing Darnell and the shorter but more imposing Marcus, and looked straight at her toes. Whenever a microphone or camera looked in danger of coming too close, one of them would snap at the offender, and the instrument would withdraw.

They made it inside without further fuss and encountered two Wilmington police officers flanking a pale and clearly uncomfortable detective. The detective sighed with audible relief when the FBI agents arrived. He eschewed greetings and got directly to business.

He gestured at the body sitting at the kitchen table. “Donna Frick, sixty-six. Schoolteacher, retired just last year. Killed, we believe, with a single stab wound to the chest that ruptured the aortic valve. Hence the copious amount of blood pooled under her chair. The, uh, sutures came after.”

Kate studied Donna Frick’s face. The woman was petite in life, svelte in build.

Kate pulled her phone out to take pictures of the sutures. The material was the same dull waxy thread used on Gerald Mace. “Darnell, do we have the coroner’s report from Gerald Mace yet?”

“Not yet,” Darnell replied. “We expect initial findings tomorrow.”

“We need it faster than that,” Kate replied. “This material looks unique. It might be a lead on the killer.”

“It’s catgut,” Marcus said. “Or at least it looks like it.”

Kate looked at him. “Catgut?”

“Yes. It’s a type of thread made from fibers taken from the intestinal lining of animals, usually sheep or goats, not cats. It’s commonly sold like this, with a coating of chromium salts to keep it sterile.”

Kate frowned. “How commonly?”

“It’s not anyone’s first choice anymore, but you can still find it anywhere.”

“So, it won’t be an unusual purchase.”

“We can look into it, but probably not enough to help us.”

She sighed. “All right. Well, we have that detail, at least. The killer stabs them through the heart or close by, then sews their mouth shut with catgut. I’ll look into catgut and see if there’s any religious significance. Maybe that will give us something. Do we have any security footage?”

“Killer took the ring camera and the recorder with him,” the detective said. “The residents of Brandywine Village voted against installing street cameras. Said it would ‘sully the picturesque nature of the old neighborhood.’”

“Of course,” Marcus said drily.

“Where’s the cipher?” Darnell asked. “Usually there’s a cipher with commandment killings, right?”

“We didn’t notice anything,” the detective said. “You mean the chicken scratch and stuff that they usually leave, right?”

“Right,” Kate said.

She put her phone away and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Then she got on her hands and knees and looked under the table.