Kate stood to leave.
“Wait.”
Kate turned.
“I don’t appreciate your insinuating that I’m a champion of evil.”
“It was directed at the institution. I’m sorry, but I have an emotional connection to all of this and—I’m—”
“Kate, tell me what you’re looking for.”
“I’m just trying to locate family members and thought the church might have records.”
“We’ll keep this confidential?”
“Like the seal of the confessional.”
Joan thought a bit longer, consulted the obituary before typing on her keyboard. Within seconds it beeped. Kate was unable to see what she was reading on her monitor. A long moment, heavy with anticipation, passed before Joan typed another command and the printer came to life. She reached for the single sheet, read it, then turned it facedown.
“Krasimira Zurrn was a member of this parish and her card shows that she’d listed her son, Sorin, as next of kin. At the time of her death it appears we had him listed at this address.”
She slid the page to Kate, whose heart sank as she read “1388 Vista Verde, San Diego.”
“Is that the only address you have for him? There’s a notation.”
Joan DiPaulo took the page back, drew it to her face and lifted her glasses to study it. “Yes, so there is.” Joan then typed. Again the printer came to life with another sheet.
“Here you go. It appears Krasimira Zurrn had updated the information. This was the address we had for her son. We have no other information.”
A sudden pulse of victory thudded in Kate’s chest.
The address: 2909 Falstaff Street, Denver, Colorado.
* * *
Kate had a vague memory of shaking Joan DiPaulo’s hand and thanking her before she was standing in the parking lot, fumbling through her bag for her phone.
She had a plane to catch.
She texted Chuck to call her, then drove to the hotel to check out. Before heading to O’Hare she tried calling him but got his voice mail. Her heart raced as she wove through traffic along the Kennedy Expressway. After returning the rental, she got in line for a check-in kiosk to get her boarding pass. While waiting she scrolled the dozens of photos on her phone while growing anxious that she hadn’t heard from Chuck.
She was contemplating calling Reeka when her phone rang.
“Kate Page.”
“It’s Chuck—”
“Good, Chuck, listen I’m at O’Hare heading home. I can put big pieces of the puzzle together. Huge creepy pieces, I think our guy killed a fifteen-year-old girl when they were in school together—”
“Kate—”
“Chuck, listen, his mother committed suicide believing he was a murderer. I can confirm Jerome Fell, a key suspect in the Alberta abduction was Sorin Zurrn. We just need to confirm Fell is Carl Nelson—I know we can—”
“Kate—”
“In his teens he built a confinement room and kept a coffin in it—”
“Kate, he’s in Minnesota.”
“What?”
“Don’t fly back. I want you to get on the next plane to Minneapolis and get up north to a place called Pine Mills near the Lost River State Forest. We’ll get a photog to meet up with you. I want you to write up your Chicago stuff on the flight and help with our coverage in Minnesota.”
“I don’t understand, what’s happening?”
“Our Minneapolis bureau got a tip that some bird-watchers found the body of a white female in the forest and that investigators have evidence tying the murder to Rampart. We hear they’re planning a major press conference up there with Rampart cops, FBI. The story’s getting bigger.”
Kate froze.
“Excuse me, miss, are you using that machine?”
Kate turned to an older man with a ball cap, then stepped away, keeping her phone to her ear and swallowing.
She thought of Vanessa.
“Chuck, did they identify the victim?”
“No, nothing like that so far. Sorry. Kate, can you handle this?”
“I’ll get on the next plane to Minneapolis.”
CHAPTER 52
Albany, New York
All right, here we go again.
Constance Baylick set out on another day of searching the regional, state and national data banks holding DNA profiles to determine if any new ones added to the system matched hers.
Maybe this time.
She’d been assigned to lead on DNA analysis of profiles collected thus far from the Rampart investigation to help with identification or links to other crimes.
Constance was a new hire of the New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center, part of the state police crime lab in Albany. She’d graduated among the top in her class at University of California, Davis, where she’d studied molecular cell biology. She was still working on her PhD. She knew her stuff.
Constance slipped on her headphones to listen to “Born This Way.” Mother Monster helped her concentrate as she set out to work.
She had full authority to access CODIS, all affiliated databases and networks. She received all the newsletters, alerts and bulletins and was well aware of the backlogs.
Sometimes you pray and sometimes you get lucky.
She started by running her routine checks, locally, then with the New York State DNA Databank, then the regional systems.
Then she went into the National DNA Index System, known as NDIS, which held profiles of convicted criminals, people arrested or detained, unidentified human remains, missing persons and the relatives of missing persons. It was common for police agencies across the country to regularly search their profiles against new ones added to the system.
As expected, nothing new so far.
Constance continued clicking through the system. The song had nearly ended when Constance froze.
Ping. Ping. Two hits. Holy cow!
Constance yanked off her headphones, the music ticking at her neck as she checked the identifier number of the submitting agency: Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. She entered her security code and downloaded the profiles.
These were two distinct forensic hits that the system had identified as possible matches with profiles she’d submitted from the Rampart case.
Constance immediately began working to verify that the two Minnesota profiles matched two from Rampart. She scrutinized and tested the genetic markers—alleles—comparing them to the first one until she had it.
Okay. Looks like a definite match here.
She went to the second.
It was trickier. It drifted into pedigree and
