“What do you think?” Davis asked as he watched Zach’s expression as he took the changes in.
“It looks good,” Zach said. “It suits you.”
I looked at my husband to see if he was teasing, but his expression was serious.
“Thanks.” It was clear that Davis had been holding his breath a little, and he released it with my husband’s approval.
“Here’s a copy,” Davis said as he handed a sheet of paper to Zach.
“Could I see the original?” my husband asked. “I can’t get a solid feel for copies.”
I thought about the photocopied sheets upstairs, and wondered about that statement. Zach must have seen something on my face, though I could have sworn I’d hidden my puzzlement.
“I like copies for display so I can get a handle on how things fit into the puzzle, but when it comes to getting a feel for something, I have to hold it in my hand.”
“That makes sense to me,” Davis said as he handed a clear plastic envelope to my husband, who took it as if it were loaded with poison. “There’s something else you need to know before you read it.”
“What’s that?” Zach asked, clearly distracted by wondering about the contents of the letter.
“Usually they come here without any routing, but this time it was addressed directly to you.”
Zach frowned as he took the letter, but I felt a chill run through me. It was one thing having my husband investigate the murders from the safety of that room upstairs in police headquarters, but when I realized that the killer was aware of what Zach was doing, it made my heart freeze.
“This isn’t happening,” I said.
Zach read it, then handed it to me.
“Should I?”
“He mentions you, too,” my husband said.
I took the letter and read.
Finally, a worthy adversary. I thought it was going to take another execution before they were smart enough to call you. You and your wife make such a nice looking couple. It would be a shame to break up the set. But I’m getting ahead of myself. By all means, do your best to catch me. I will strike again, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I’m as safe as if I were in Parson’s Valley. That’s probably where you should have stayed, but I’m looking forward to seeing if you can puzzle out my next move before it’s too late.
“He’s clearly nuts,” Davis said. “Why would he taunt you? What does it possibly gain him?”
I turned the letter over and saw “4O” written in delicate script on the back. “We’ve got another clue here,” I said.
Zach took it from me, studied it, and then said, “Evidently I’m not as smart as he thinks I am. I have no idea what it means. Does anyone else? Does forty mean anything to anyone?”
“It’s part of a puzzle,” I said without thinking.
“This isn’t one of your creations,” Zach said. “Real killers don’t send clues through the puzzle page.”
“I didn’t say it was,” I replied. “But it’s clear that this guy is intelligent.”
“Not from the way he committed the murders,” Davis said. “He stabbed both victims in their homes. That doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist.”
“Did you find any clues at either of the murder scenes? Did anyone see the victims with the killer? Has he made one single mistake you can point to?”
“No,” Davis reluctantly admitted. “He’s been lucky so far.”
“That, or very good.”
Zach asked, “So, what’s your point?”
I wanted to see something before I pushed my theory any harder. “Let’s go upstairs, and I’ll tell you.”
Davis started to follow us, but he got a call on his phone. “I’ve got to take this.”
“We’ll see you up there,” Zach said.
“Don’t wait for me. This might take awhile.”
After we left his office, Zach said, “This better be good.”
“Trust me, okay?”
Steve was waiting outside the task force room, and I saw he was using his time to work one of my puzzles. He saw that I’d caught him. “Don’t you ever do any easy puzzles anymore? It might be nice to have a no-brainer once in a while.”
“As a matter of fact, I made a simple one this morning.”
“When’s it going to show up?”
“I’m guessing sometime next week.”
He looked puzzled. “You don’t know when your puzzles are going to run in the papers?”
“The exact date? No, not usually. If I do a themed puzzle summary, they’ll usually run it when I ask them to, but I have to have those in a month early.”
“If you two are finished discussing number puzzles, I’ve got work to do,” Zach said as he unlocked the door.
“You know, it would make it a lot simpler if you gave me a key, too,” Steve said as we all walked inside.
“Not even Davis has a key to this room,” Zach said. “As long as I’ve got evidence stored in here, I’m going to keep it that way. No offense, Steve.”
“None taken. I don’t mind hanging around waiting for you to get back.” He grinned and slapped his newspaper against his leg. “I’m on the clock either way, Chief.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you started calling me Zach? I haven’t been the chief for a while.”
“I’m not sure it’s a habit I can break,” Steve said with a smile. “Or even want to.”
“Do you have a problem with Davis?” Zach asked softly, and I knew Steve was treading on dangerous ground.
“No, sir. He’s my boss. I’m behind him a thousand percent. Grady made his choice and I can live with it.”
Zach was clearly tired of that particular conversation; I could see it in his eyes.
Zach took the original of the note we’d just gotten and stored it in a locked box where he kept all of the other letters the police had received from the killer. Once that was safely put away, he pinned the front copy on the foam board with the rest of the copied notes, and then placed the back copy on the other side of the room. I didn’t know why he’d separated them so entirely, and then suddenly, I realized he was giving me my own space to work out my theory.
“It seems that there has to be a code here somewhere, don’t you think?” I asked.
“What makes you say that?”
I smiled at him. “If I told you it was woman’s intuition, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t.”
I walked over to the back copies.
“If we only knew for certain what they meant,” I said as I studied them. I was sure the numbers on the backs of the photos and letters were related to some kind of puzzle, a format the killer was using to map out the murders in his mind. But beyond that, I had no idea how it all came together.
“What do you want me to do, Ch—, I mean, Zach?”
Zach smiled at Steve. “I know it’s going to be tough, but you can do it.” He pointed to a pile of boxes in one corner of the room. “Those are notes from the two crime scenes. I need you to make a list of everything they have in common for me.” As Steve moved toward the boxes, Zach added, “Don’t include just what you see. Try to dig a little deeper and tell me what’s not there.”
“It sounds like I’m looking for a white dog in a snow-storm,” Steve said.
“Something like that. Are you up to it?”
“You bet,” he said as he moved away from us.
“How about you?” Zach asked. “Do you mind spending some of your time here to work on that theory of yours?”
“You can have all I’ve got.”
Zach nodded, and then to my surprise, he kissed me briefly on the lips. It was about as public as he ever got with his displays of affection. “You’re my kind of gal, you know that, don’t you?”