Fiona pushed her chair back, opened her briefcase, and reached inside.

“Here are the photos from Maynard.” She opened a letter-sized brown envelope. “You’ve seen the photos of Walker, but we want to put them in context. You need to see all three together.”

She lined the photos up across the table, repeating the names of the victims as she did so. “Walker. Maynard. Adams.”

Sam stood to get a better look. He stared at each for a moment before moving to the next. After he’d studied all three, he said, “It’s in the prop. The signature is in the prop. The killer is telling us something, but I don’t know what it is.”

He picked up the photo of Joseph Maynard. “This structure is too well thought out to have been some random means of hiding a body. He was very well organized here. I’m assuming he brought the blanket with him? Do you know?” he asked Fiona.

“No one in his family had seen it before, and since one of his buddies had driven that night, it hadn’t come from the victim’s car. So yes, we are assuming the killer probably brought it with him.”

“The structure was carefully constructed. See here, it looks as if several large boxes were opened up and then pieced together to make the shelter.” He slid the photo closer to Fiona and pointed. “This is not the work of someone tossing cardboard boxes onto a corpse to hide it. It’s more than that. I just don’t know what.”

He placed the photo between the others and lifted the last one to take a closer look. The photo slipped from his hands and flipped over. On the back was written: Calvin Adams. Age 62. DOD: 2/9/09. Dutton, NE.

Sam stared at the writing, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up.

“What?” Fiona asked. “What are you thinking?”

It took several moments for Sam to put his thoughts together.

“I’m thinking this is the damnedest thing.” His eyes were still on the back of the photo.

“What?” she repeated, somewhat impatiently.

“I went to high school in Dutton.” He sat down, the photo of Calvin Adams in his hand. “The regional high school for all the small towns around where I grew up was in Dutton.”

She stared at him as if trying to follow his train of thought.

Sam stood and reached across the table for the other two photos.

“Walker was killed in Lincoln. Where I went to college. Maynard in Kendall, Illinois, where my wife grew up, where we were married. She’s buried there. Adams was killed in Dutton…” He looked down at Fiona, who was swiveling very slowly, very quietly, from side to side. “Am I imagining something here? Am I being paranoid? Is this some cosmic coincidence?”

“You know what Mancini says about coincidences, Sam.”

“Yeah. There aren’t any.” He tossed the pictures back onto the table. “I do not like what I’m thinking.”

“Maybe it is a coincidence,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe this one time-odds being what they are-John Mancini’s theory will, by percentage, be proven wrong.”

They sat in silence for several long moments.

“Maybe you’re right,” he told her. “The chance that any of this could somehow be connected to me is practically zero. On the surface, it could be interpreted that way. I’m sure you’re right. This is one of those odd times when true coincidence comes into play.” He looked at her and smiled. “Sorry. It just spooked me for a moment.”

“It spooked me, too.” She laughed as if relieved. “For a minute, anyway.”

“Okay, spooky moment has passed.” Sam rearranged the photos. “Let’s see if we can figure out what our killer is telling us. Hamburger stuffed in the mouth. House made of cardboard. Empty water bottle in the mouth.”

“Maybe it’s the locations,” Fiona ventured. “Behind a soup kitchen for the poor. Under a bridge in a cardboard house. Sleeping on a park bench. Maybe they all relate somehow?”

“Excuse me.” There was a tap on the door frame. “Sam DelVecchio?”

Sam looked over his shoulder. In the doorway was a man in black, wearing a clerical collar. Years of training brought Sam to his feet.

“Yes, Father?” he addressed the man.

“I’m Kevin Burch.” The priest came into the room to introduce himself. “I’m Robert’s cousin. Trula told me you were up here, and I just wanted to pop in to meet you. I hope I’m not intruding.”

“Not at all, Father.” Sam took the hand the priest offered.

“It’s Kevin,” the priest told him. “Everyone here calls me Kevin. Robert’s kind enough to let me call this place home.”

He turned to Fiona.

“Ah, Father… er, Kevin…” Sam began. “This is Special Agent Summers. She’s with the FBI.”

“It’s Fiona.” She pushed back her chair to rise and Kevin waved her off.

“Don’t get up. Please. It’s nice to meet you.” He shook her hand as well, then looked at the table. “Looks as if I’ve interrupted something important here.”

“We’re just going over a case. The FBI has identified three victims that appear to be the work of the same killer. One of those cases happens to be the case we took on this week.”

“The good Samaritan from Nebraska.” Kevin moved closer to take a look. “The gentleman who was found behind the soup kitchen? A mission of some sort?”

“Yes.” Sam’s eyes darted to the photos, wondering if perhaps they might be too gruesome for the priest.

“Mallory called me about it.” He picked up the photo of Ross Walker and studied it, but did not flinch from the carnage. “Poor soul. Do you have any leads?”

“None. We were just discussing the fact that there are two other very similar cases that-”

“What’s in his mouth?” Kevin asked.

“A hamburger from a fast food restaurant,” Sam told him.

Kevin studied the picture, then picked up the next one.

“What’s this supposed to be, some kind of shelter…?” he asked.

“Apparently. It was put around him by the killer,” Fiona explained.

“And this?” Kevin next went to the picture of Calvin Adams. “The water bottle…”

“We don’t know what it all means,” Fiona said, “but we feel very strongly it’s connected somehow.”

The priest began to nod, as he replaced the photos in order, his expression solemn.

“If I could…” he began hesitantly.

“You have some thoughts, Father?” Sam asked. “Er, Kevin?”

“You’re Catholic, Sam?” Kevin asked.

“Yes.”

“Fiona?”

She nodded. “Me too, yes.”

“You’re familiar then, with the Church’s corporal acts of mercy?” the priest continued.

Fiona nodded. “The call to Christians to perform acts of charity and kindness to the needy,” she said. “To live as Christ would, treat our fellow man as He would.”

“Well said.” The priest then lifted the photos, in order, and dealt them out in front of the two investigators as if dealing from a deck of cards.

“Feed the hungry.” He peeled off the photo of Ross Walker. “Shelter the homeless.” Joseph Edward Maynard.

“Give drink to the thirsty.” Calvin Adams.

If a pin had dropped in the room, all three would have heard it land.

“Of course, being a priest, maybe I’m just reading into the photos what I see from my own perspective,” Kevin said. “Maybe it isn’t that at all.”

“No, that’s it.” Sam nodded slowly. “That’s it.”

“Except that Joseph Maynard was far from being homeless,” Fiona pointed out. “Calvin Adams was the homeless person.”

“But if the killer was selecting his victims at random, he wouldn’t have known that,” Sam told them. “And I’m just about one hundred percent certain that the victims were random.”

He explained that the killer could not have known that Ross Walker would have been the volunteer to take trash out to the Dumpster on the night he was attacked, but the killer had come totally prepared to commit murder.

“We may never know for certain if Maynard had been picked out ahead of time or if the killer had simply been in the parking lot, waiting for someone-anyone-to step outside.” He turned to Fiona. “You said that Calvin Adams was homeless and that he often slept in that park. In that case, he wouldn’t have had to look too far to find a victim. Especially if Adams was already asleep.”