“Is that a fish?” he asked. “Or a water stain?”
* * *
Soon dusk fell over the little cabin, and Nina was anxious that any light would give them away. So they were forced to sit in the dark, waiting.
Walter tried to nap, but his brain would not allow it. Instead, he pulled the musty old blanket over his head and turned on the flashlight, like he used to do when he was a boy, up late and reading under the covers long past bedtime. He knew that if even the tiniest sliver of light appeared, Nina would take it away from him.
He took out the photocopies he’d made of the pages from the killer’s notebook and laid them on the floor around him, trying to figure out the key for that last fragment of text.
He got nowhere.
He had hoped that the keyword was in some way related to the word for the already translated page, whether phonetically, thematically, or structurally, but if it was, he could not discover the connection.
Then he went back into the file from Iverson, and starting reexamining the original cryptogram included in the August 1969 letters—the ones that had been sent to the newspapers. The code that had been solved by the teachers.
I like killing people because it is so much fun.
At the end of that message, a grouping of 18 extra letters whose meaning or significance had never been determined.
EBEORIETEMETHHPITI
Strange, when the rest of the message had been based on a relatively simple substitution code. But the way these last letters were grouped, there was no way they fit in.
In fact, the more Walter stared at them, the clearer it became that this segment had been created with a code so complex that each letter had more than one meaning. That first E was clearly an I, but then the second and third E seemed to have a totally different meaning.
I am? Could those first three letters spell out “I am?”
Walter concentrated on that third E. If there was a sliding key being used, then what was the numerical distance between the letter I and the letter M? Five. Move five more letters down the alphabet and you get R. But then at the fourth E, the key seemed to switch again, leaving him with a D.
Frustrated, he went back to the O-R-I, and after several false starts and aborted attempts, he wound up with S-C-H, which he added to the letters he’d already deduced.
I AM SCHR_D_________
That couldn’t be right. It seemed as if he was stuck with too many consonants in a row, and couldn’t think of any English words that began with SCHR. He decided to tackle the last three letters, I-T-I.
If the Es did not have the same value, then the Is must not, either. It seemed to Walter that the last I was actually a T, but the neighboring T seemed to be an A.
The number of three-letter English words ending in AT was enormous. Bat, rat, mat, sat, hat, fat, cat...
Cat.
I AM SCHR_D______CAT
Like lightning, it hit him. There was only one thing it could be, only one way to make those seemingly unrelated letters spell something. Something eerily apropos.
I am Schrodinger’s cat.
“My God,” he said out loud, throwing the blanket off his head and shoulders.
Bell looked up, squinting at the sudden light. Nina raised her head from the pillow and opened her eyes.
“Are you crazy?” she hissed. “Turn that off!”
“What is it?” asked Bell.
Walter ignored both of them and grabbed the photocopy of the final page in the killer’s diary, honing in on the final untranslated chunk. Using the word Schrodinger as the key he tore through the final segment, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle as he translated.
Walter held up the translation, his hands shaking.
“It’s details of his next murder.”
Nina took the translation from Walter and read out loud.
“I think I shall wait until the following Monday night. Pretty little Miranda Coleman, usherette at the Roxie Theater, works late on Monday nights. She leaves at eleven thirty and walks alone to the lot where she parks her car on Hoff street. She will die at 11:40 p.m. next Monday the twenty-fifth of September.”
And those same English words scratched furiously into the page.
BY KNIFE
Bell stood, setting the rocker rocking.
“Why that’s...” He looked at his watch. “A little more than two hours from now.”
Nina jumped up from the bed, letting Walter’s translation seesaw through the air and land at his feet.
“Then we have to go,” she said. “Now! We have to stop him!”
“But what about...” Walter gestured around with pleading hands. “What about the plan. The trap. He...”
Nina rolled her eyes.
“Don’t be a fool, Walter,” she said. “Why would the Zodiac disrupt his plans for us? Unless he’s desperately impatient, there’s no real reason he would need to come get the book today. If his next victim only works late one day a week, then he’d have to wait seven more days to kill her. Why would he do that, when he can just come up and get the book after she’s dead?”
“Nina’s right,” Bell said. “Having intercepted our supposed note to Iverson, our killer will be confident that no one will be coming for it. Which means he doesn’t have to hurry. He can retrieve the journal any time. Which means he’s going to kill that girl in two hours, and we’ve been waiting in vain for him to walk through the door.”
From the main room came the low, haunted-house sound of the creaky old front door swinging slowly open.
31
Walter jumped as if someone had stuck him with a cattle prod, and hooded the flashlight with his palm. Bell stepped back and nearly tripped over the rocker. Nina clamped a hand over her mouth then pointed at their tools.
“The chloroform!” she whispered. “Get it!”
Walter went to the duffle bag and traded the flashlight for the chloroform bottle and a rag. Soft steps and shifting noises came from the main room. He made certain the cap on the bottle was loose enough to open easily at the very last minute, but not loose enough that fumes could escape and overwhelm him.
His hands were shaking so badly, he was afraid he might drop the bottle. Nina grabbed the handcuffs and duct tape while Bell got out the syringe and started to prepare the chemical cocktail that would keep the killer unconscious long enough for them to put him through the gate.
“Ready?” Nina whispered.
“I suppose so,” Walter said.
“Come on,” Bell said.
Walter crept to the door, chloroform and cloth held together in one hand, reaching for the knob with the other. They had deliberately left it open a crack so that they would be able to surreptitiously peer into the main room and see when the killer was bending to check under the flagstone.
Walter looked through the crack.
The light had been switched on in the main room, but no one was at the fireplace.
Where was the killer?
There was a footfall just on the other side of the door. Walter stepped back, his breath catching, and bumped into Bell.
The door swung open and Chick stuck his head in.
“Hey, hey, cats and kittens,” he said. His gaze dipped to the handcuffs in Nina’s hands and he flashed a wink and a sly smile. “Oh, wow, kinky!”
Walter couldn’t imagine what he was referring to, but clearly both Nina and Bell did, since they turned matching shades of magenta.
Nina elbowed past Walter and shoved the newcomer back into the living room.
“Never mind, Chick,” she said. “What the hell are you doing down here? We told you to stay up in the main lodge until we called you on the walkie-talkies.”
Chick looked sheepish.