Page 27 of Nora
He paused. “He doesn’t have a computer. He did have a phone, but there isn’t much on it. Very little email. A couple of apps. Why?”
“Someone knew he’d be on that trail that morning. If that someone was local, it wouldn’t be a hard thing to find out. But if the killer isn’t local—”
“Then maybe it was someone he communicated with who learned his schedule that way.”
“Yes,” she said. “That is what I was thinking.”
“We’ll go back through his phone and the computers at the monastery. He didn’t have one of his own, but the abbot said they have two that are available to the community.”
That sounded rather tedious. There was also no way to know when, or even if, Michael Kelly had ever used either of those computers. The poor techs would have to look at everything for the past several weeks. At that thought, another floated into her mind and settled itself there.
“Let me know?” she asked.
He sighed. “Of course.”
She muttered a thank-you, then ended the call and quickly dialed another number.
“Nora, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Sabina O’Malley answered. Sabina was a tech guru who worked for a friend’s security firm. She wasn’t Nora’s first choice to reach out to, but she was good—damn good—at what she did.
“I was hoping you might have an algorithm or something AI-ish that might help me,” she answered.
Sabina laughed. “Lucy on vacation or something?”
Lucy James would have been Nora’s go-to. She was newly pregnant, though, and experiencing extreme morning sickness. Not only did Nora not want to burden her but Brian, Lucy’s husband, wasn’t letting anyone near her. Not unless they were bearing weak herbal tea and crackers andonlyweak herbal tea and crackers.
“Not to make you feel like second fiddle, but she’s out of commission right now,” Nora answered, hoping she hadn’t offended Sabina. They’d worked together only once before and while Nora liked and respected her tremendously, she didn’t know her as well as she knew Lucy.
Sabina laughed. “Lucy is a legend. I figure if I’m second to her, I’m not doing too badly in life.”
Nora smiled, liking her even more. It was true—being second to someone who was considered the best in the world was not a bad place to be.
“So what can I help you with that’s AI-ish or algorithm-y?” Sabina asked.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Maybe a little.” Sabina chuckled. “But I’m always happy to help you all. What’s going on?”
Nora spared a thought for Franklin. She should have cleared this with him. But forgiveness was easier to ask for than permission, so she filled Sabina in on everything. She told her about the K9 program, the murders, the participants, the potential suspects, everything. Including the morning’s murder of Michael Kelly.
Sabina was silent, then she chuckled. “Well, wow. That was not what I expected to hear. Although I probably should have known better. You ladies of the club tend to lead interesting lives.” Nora grinned at her reference to her and her friends. “So what specifically do you need?”
Nora took a deep breath and asked for something she didn’t even know if Sabina could deliver on. “If I send you the files, can you run all the victims through a program to see if you can findanysimilarities between them? The killer is picking his victims somehow, it’s not completely random. But I can’t see what the connection is. We have a church secretary, a teacher, a former mayor, a housewife…the victims are different ages, genders, and ethnicities. Something ties them together. It might be something they have in common among the group or it could be some sort of link to the killer.”
“You don’t think it’s random?” Sabina asked. “It has been known to happen that a serial killer doesn’t have a pattern.”
Nora shook her head. “A true serial killer always has a pattern, but it may not be an attribute the victims share. It might be something they have in common with the killer so not easily observable. Besides, even if we just look at the man who was killed today? The trail is remote. If the killer went looking for a truly random victim, it’s not the spot he’d go.”
“So he knew to be there at that time.” Sabina’s tone was thoughtful. “Which means the killer had some prior knowledge about the victim.” Her voice drifted off in thought as she spoke.
“That’s my hunch. But the reports I have don’t go into the kind of detail needed to uncover that link. And even if they did, I’m not sure a human brain could find it in any sort of reasonable time frame.”
“Ha, but a computer…”
“You think you can help?” Nora asked, hopefully.
Sabina was silent, but Nora heard her clicking away on her keyboard in the background. After a beat, she spoke. “I can help. I’ve been trialing a new AI program I developed that might work. I’ll have to tweak it a little, but it will be a good test case. Send me everything?”
“I’ll do that right now,” Nora answered.
