The pattern continued to gnaw away at her, but Carla was forced to focus on her students, who were demanding, needy and utterly wonderful. She was touched by the way in which they were prepared to embrace her own specialism of the archaeology of emotion. It was a sometimes difficult concept to grasp – partly focusing on the emotions of the archaeologists but also the emotions around death and bereavement. Not just grief but also fear, anger and, surprisingly, hope.
‘But why archaeology?’ asked Helena, one of Carla’s more astringent students. She was at Jericho on a scholarship and keen to prove herself in every class. ‘Why aren’t you teaching social history or anthropology?’
‘Because I’m a trained archaeologist,’ said Carla, not for the first time in her career. ‘It’s what I love. Site work, the camaraderie of digs, the physicality of unearthing the past. But we can bring what we’ve learnt from other disciplines to complement and contextualise the conclusions we reach. Remember, societies are often dominated by patriarchal assumptions – take the burial of stillborn children who were often dumped in mass graves or unconsecrated ground.’
‘Like in Ireland,’ said a student.
‘Exactly. The assumption made by the church hierarchy – childless males – was that these graves were unimportant, but there’s plenty of evidence that they were visited by their mothers from the presence of lumps of white quartz on the ground. What can you conclude from that?’
‘That they were grieving,’ suggested Irene, a student who perpetually ran late but once she was settled was difficult to contain.
‘It shows a resistance to hegemonic mortuary practices,’ said Helena, her face blooming with excitement.
‘Yes, it does,’ said Carla.
‘Do you think,’ asked Irene, ‘that you can apply what we’ve learnt to modern day burials? Take that woman who was burnt up by Silent Brook—’
‘That’s not a burial,’ snapped Helena. ‘It’s a slaughter. The woman was alive when she died.’
Carla saw she had all the students’ attention. The news that she had attended the crime scene was clearly common knowledge and they were waiting for her reaction.
‘I think,’ said Carla slowly, ‘that some assumptions about dispossessed women are due closer scrutiny.’
‘But why Silent Brook?’ asked Helena. ‘Why there?’
‘That,’ said Carla, ‘is a very good question.’
Back in her office, Carla felt both invigorated and exhausted. She picked up the phone and dialled the number she’d been ringing the last two days but got through to the same deadpan secretary who told her Mr Franklin was currently unavailable. She leant back in her chair, frustrated. Occasionally, she wanted to pick up the phone to Dan and tell him about the new life she was making for herself. He’d loved the start of term gossip and had often been the one to soothe her frayed nerves after a difficult semester. This was what she missed most, although she occasionally thought she caught sight of Dan on the street as she went shopping for groceries. The flash of a balding head or the way someone stood, hands in pockets, while looking through store windows.
Patricia was occupied with a forthcoming grandchild. Her daughter-in-law was having a difficult third trimester and Patricia was often at their home, helping out with the other grandkids. Carla cooked quick meals in Hoyt Lane’s homely kitchen. Soups and fish dishes with a salad. She wasn’t thriving exactly, but neither did she feel at sea as she had done when she’d first arrived in Jericho. Only at night, as she listened to the ticking of Patricia’s grandfather clock, was she able to admit that what she was doing was waiting. She had set various cats among the pigeons and was waiting for feathers to fly. She had no other strategy than to wait and see.
She missed Erin but had been reluctant to disturb her busy mentor. Erin, however, must have had Carla on her mind as she invited her over to supper by text. As Carla closed her office, she heard Albert’s laugh coming from the office at the bottom of the corridor. She watched as the door opened and he emerged with a colleague, a tall man whose profile was in shadow. Albert turned his head briefly towards her but snapped his gaze away again, ushering his colleague away from Carla towards the back staircase. Only when his companion turned briefly towards her did she wonder if it was the elusive James Franklin. It was hard to tell from this distance, but neither man was inclined to loiter.
‘Been thinking about you a lot. Going to tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself?’ Erin kept an eye on Ethan, who was sitting with them, slurping as he devoured his mac and cheese. Carla had barely eaten the dish back in England. It hadn’t been Dan’s favourite and she was happy to give that carb- and fat-rich dish a miss. Ethan, however, had his plate filled and was ignoring Carla and Erin as they chatted.
‘No need to worry about me. I’ve been busy with classes.’
‘Well, that I can sympathise with. It’s a juggle trying to combine both jobs, especially when Baros is giving me a hard time. Talking of him, is that all you been doing?’
Carla shrugged and put a forkful of pasta in her mouth.
Erin glanced at Ethan. ‘I had a chat with my assistant Jenny about daisy wheels. Can you believe she went on a sightseeing tour of them a few years back?’
Carla put down her fork and picked up the goblet of red wine. ‘Did she have any helpful observations?’
‘Not really, although I did manage to surprise her about the design of the Franklin Mall. My guess is that half the pagans in this county have been over to visit the place since Jenny heard it was built as a hexafoil. I told her to be discreet, but I don’t think she paid me any attention.’
‘I don’t think it really matters, although I do think the design is important even if I can’t yet work out why.’
Erin glanced at Ethan’s bent head. ‘You’re not listening to this, are you?’
‘No.’ He pulled his ear buds out of his pocket and continued to eat.
‘There are two possibilities,’ said Carla. ‘One is that the architect who designed Franklin Mall, whoever that might be, thought a hexafoil pattern would make an innovative shape but didn’t feel the need to emphasise the pattern. It was certainly never included in the publicity. I’ve looked on the internet.’
‘Which is odd as it’s such an unusual design.’
‘Well, that was certainly commented on, but no mention was made of hexafoils.’
‘OK. And what’s the other possibility?’
‘That James Franklin himself commissioned the design from the architect. I’m erring towards this as Franklin seems to be a dominant personality in this town based on people’s reactions when his name is mentioned. My view is that he’d have a strong view on the architecture of a shopping mall bearing his name.’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I would if I could get hold of him. I’ve rung his office three times but can’t get beyond his secretary.’
‘You could try accosting him in the parking lot outside his HQ. He has to go home at some point.’
Carla watched Ethan snort into his food. ‘You’re trying to get Carla arrested, Mom.’
Erin pulled a face at her son. ‘You’re supposed to be listening to music. You know,’ she poured Carla another glass of wine, ‘he’s the town’s biggest benefactor and that must include the college. Why not speak to someone there? They might have some more details and you might be able to charm out an email for him.’
‘I don’t know anyone—’ Carla thought of Anna Caron. At Albert’s cheese and wine party, much had been made of her society connections and she had said she knew Franklin. ‘Do you know Jack and Anna Caron?’
‘Know of them, certainly. He’s in your department, isn’t he?’ Erin picked up the dish and proffered it to Carla. ‘More?’
‘I’m struggling to get through this lot.’
‘I’ll take it.’ Ethan slid the rest of the mac and cheese onto his dish and put his head down.
‘Did you get any further with those numbers in Lauren’s notebooks?’
‘Dead end. I did, however, manage to show them to Charlie Baros.’
‘Lucky you. How was he?’
‘Barely polite and said the numbers didn’t mean anything to him. I did believe him though.’
‘What numbers?’ asked Ethan, his head still over his food.
‘These.’ Carla pulled out her notebook. ‘They could be some kind of code or cipher. Definitely not telephone numbers.’
‘They’re map coordinates,’ said Ethan, after finally lifting his head and pulling out an ear bud.
Carla and Erin stared at him. ‘Are you sure?’ asked Carla.
‘Wouldn’t you recognise them if that was the case?’ asked Erin.
Carla shook her head. ‘Of course. There would be two numbers, a longitude and latitude reference. Where they intersect would be the coordinate.’
Ethan was shaking his head. ‘It’s not considered as accurate as the Universal Transverse Mercator. It’s an aviation system also used by the military. It’ll pinpoint a smaller point than the GPS system.’
She looked at Erin, who shrugged. ‘Never underestimate what random things teenagers pick up.’
Ethan crossed his arms. ‘Thanks, Mom. I won’t say anything else.’
‘No.’ Carla jumped up. ‘You might have something. Let me get my phone.’
Erin shook her head. ‘Don’t use your phone; use my laptop. We all want to see this.’
Erin had cleared away the food despite Ethan’s grumblings. She called up a mapping software app that used the system and they were huddled around the screen. The app had a zoom function which would allow them to look with a degree of accuracy at each coordinate.
‘We’ll do them in order,’ said Carla. ‘Lauren was a scientist and unlikely to place the numbers randomly.’
‘What’s the first number?’
Ethan read it out as Carla typed. She saw immediately it was Wildmarsh Street, the house where Madison KnowlesTaylor was killed. Erin had noted the address too. ‘It looks like she’s making a note of the coordinates of the killings. What’s next?’
Ethan read out the number. The map zoomed into the Franklin Mall car park. ‘Stella King.’ Carla let out a long sigh. Here, once more, she was walking in Lauren’s footsteps.
‘What’s the third number?’
Carla typed in the coordinate, and it came up on the map as a sea of green. ‘It’s just woodland.’ She leaned forward. ‘Shining Cliff Wood. Mean anything to you?’
‘Mom!’ Ethan gripped Erin’s arm.
‘What is it?’ asked Carla.
‘It’s where Iris Chan was found killed.’
‘Iris Chan? Who’s she?’ asked Carla.
Erin sighed. ‘A graduate of Jericho who was murdered a few years ago.’
Carla felt a surge of anger. ‘Why has no one mentioned her to me?’
‘Because it’s not an open inquiry. There’s a lifer in jail serving his sentence for the killing.’
Carla felt her stomach fall in disappointment. ‘Is there a possibility that he might be responsible for the other two killings?’
‘No chance. Madison Knowles came after Iris Chan. When I attended the scene at Wildmarsh Street, I remember thinking it was just as well we already had a killer for Iris with a confession.’
‘He confessed?’ said Ethan. ‘You never told me that.’
‘I don’t discuss my cases with you, remember?’
‘You talked about Iris Chan a lot, Mom.’
Erin sighed. ‘This is making my head ache. What about some more wine?’
Carla looked at her watch. ‘Not for me.’
‘So, what are we saying by these doodles, that Lauren was trying to link the cases? It’s interesting, but you say one of her notebooks is missing. We’re never going to be able to get into her head as to why she thought Iris Chan’s murder was connected to the other two deaths.’
‘But why write down the map coordinates? That’s what I don’t understand. Surely the most obvious thing to do would have been to write a list of names. Madison, Stella and Iris. She was working through a list of cases. Why write down the coordinates?’
Erin, she saw, got the point. ‘I don’t know. We think the locations are significant, don’t we? The house on Wildmarsh Street, the Franklin Mall. They’re both random and also unusual.’
‘And the woods?’
‘Spooky but not particularly strange. There’s a lot of mythology connected to the place, but don’t let that affect you. This is New England, remember.’
‘OK.’ Carla made a screenshot and called up the image. ‘What about if I draw a line between the three spots? Does that help? Where’s the drawing tool?’
Ethan took the laptop away from her and expertly joined the three places. ‘You know, they’re pretty evenly spaced.’
‘They are. Well spotted,’ said Erin. ‘But the pattern doesn’t mean anything to me.’
‘Me neither, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.’ Carla rubbed her eyes, focusing once more on the screen.
‘But Lauren was an archaeologist, which meant land and location were important to her, surely.’
‘Exactly.’ Carla’s voice was loud in the kitchen and both Erin and Ethan lifted their heads. ‘She was in the middle of trying to work things out when she died. I need the file on Iris Chan.’
Erin made a face. ‘Good luck with that. I wouldn’t bother trying to tap up our not-so-friendly detectives. You’ll get nowhere with Baros and Perez. You need to go straight to the top.’