The Boys in the Church

by Chris Culver

  I didn’t want to feel all that anymore, so I put my phone on the breakfast table and grabbed a glass from the cupboard beside my sink. Pizza and salad could wait. Now, I needed a drink. I poured myself two shots of vodka from the bottle in my freezer and felt the ice-cold liquid slide down my throat.

  More than friends, more than family, more than anything, I needed relief. That was why therapy didn’t work for me. As long as I could remember my past, I’d grieve for it. Liquor made me forget. It was as simple as that.

  I poured myself another shot and carried my glass to the living room, where I sat down on my sofa—just as I had sat hundreds of times before—and drank until the world stopped hurting.

  18

  My alarm woke me up at a little before seven the next morning. My mouth felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton balls, and my head pounded with every beat of my heart. At least I wasn’t nauseated. Those were the worst hangovers. Headaches and dry mouth I could deal with.

  I swung my legs off the bed and walked to the kitchen, where I choked down two big glasses of water and two ibuprofen. The pills and water would take time to work through my system, but both ought to help me feel better. After that, I took a shower, got dressed, ate a cup of oatmeal, and then headed out.

  My station was buzzing as I arrived. The morning shift was heading home, and the day shift was just coming into work. I grabbed a cup of coffee from the break room and joined the rest of the staff in the conference room for that morning’s briefing. Delgado seemed even more cantankerous than usual and expressed his disappointment in the amount of gas our patrol officers had wasted answering calls and the relative dearth of tickets written by our officers manning the speed traps the night before.

  I was tempted to remind him that serial murderers kept the tourists and speeders away, but I kept my mouth shut through the ten-minute briefing. Delgado didn’t ask about my homicide case, which was just as well because I had nothing new to report. At ten after eight, the sheriff dismissed us all, and I tried to walk to my desk. Before I could even leave the conference room, though, he put a hand on my elbow.

  “You hold on a sec, Detective,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

  I turned and forced a smile to my lips. “Sure.”

  The two of us watched and waited while our colleagues left. Once we were alone, Delgado focused on me with his arms crossed.

  “Didn’t see too much of you yesterday,” he said. “Care to share what you were doing?”

  “In the morning, I was working a homicide. In the afternoon, I was sleeping after having been awake the previous twenty-four hours.”

  He nodded and glowered. “I suppose you ladies need your beauty sleep.”

  Delgado’s idiotic jabs had long since stopped making me angry. Now they annoyed me.

  “Anything else?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and forcing a smile to my face.

  “You had coffee with Agent Lawson.”

  “I did,” I said, nodding.

  “What did you talk about?” he asked, stepping up on his toes so he could look down his nose at me.

  “My private conversations are my own. I had coffee with a colleague during a break. If that’s a problem, you can take it up with my union rep.”

  He blinked a few times and shifted his weight back to his heels.

  “You’ve never liked me, have you?”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Before we worked together, I was completely indifferent toward you.”

  Delgado held his eyes on me for a moment before sighing and walking toward the conference room’s table and pacing along the far side of the room.

  “We’ve got a problem in this station,” he said. “Somebody’s been leaking confidential information to the press.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I said, raising my eyebrows. I lowered my voice as if we were conspiring. “I hear they had the audacity to steal the sheriff’s cell phone and use that themselves to make it look like the call came from him.”

  He stopped pacing and turned toward me with his arms crossed.

  “What did you hear about that?”

  I scoffed. “Oh, come on, George. You called Angela Pritchard and told her about the church.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  I scoffed again and shook my head before seeing he was serious.

  “Okay, sure,” I said. “If you want to play a game, I’ll play along. You called her because it was a big break in a huge case. It got air time across the Midwest. The County Council appointed you to your position, but to stay in the job, you’ll need to win an election. That’s hard to do when nobody knows you, but if you become the guy who broke the Apostate case, the campaign slogans will write themselves.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “You have a devious mind, Detective.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m leaving now. I’ve got better things to do than to waste my time talking to you.”

  He said something else, but I left before he could finish. As long as Delgado was the sheriff, my future in the department was questionable, but as long as I had a job, I’d do it the best I could. That meant ignoring my boss and getting to work.

  I walked through my station and downstairs to our small forensics lab. The stainless-steel door was locked, but light spilled through its frosted-glass panel. Nobody answered my knock, but somebody was around. I leaned against the wall for about five minutes, waiting. When Darlene came down the stairs with a cup of coffee in her hand, her eyes opened wide.

  “Oh, hey, Joe,” she said, smiling. “I was getting coffee upstairs when I got caught by Jason Zuckerburg on his way out the door. He’s a talker.”

  I smiled and nodded. “I’ve heard that.”

  Darlene stepped past me and used a key from her purse to unlock the lab.

  “Coming from you, I don’t imagine this is a social visit,” she said, opening the door. I hesitated.

  “What makes you think this isn’t a social call?”

  Darlene stopped in her tracks and cocked her head at me.

  “I assumed,” she said. “You’re not the talkative sort. Emily Hayes said you made a joke the other day.”

  “I remember,” I said. “She didn’t think it was funny.”

  Darlene smiled before turning toward her office. “You’ll get better. What can I do for you, Detective?”

  I looked around. Our forensics lab had a thousand clean and well-appointed square feet. Darlene walked toward a desk built into the far wall. White evidence boxes stacked four high surrounded her like a child’s fort.

  “I was hoping to see where you were on the Lilly and Mark Foster murders.”

  “Sure,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Your killer shot his victims with a nine-millimeter pistol. Dr. Sheridan extracted five bullets, which I’ve examined. By the twist and the lands and grooves, they were fired by a Glock 19. If you find a firearm, we should be able to test for a match.

  “Based on the quantity of drugs found in the house, I requested assistance from the State Highway Patrol. They’re going to try to break into the victims’ cell phones to see what they can find.”

  “Did you request a dump of their texts and phone calls?”

  She nodded. “I did. Their cell provider hasn’t responded to my request.”

  I nodded and put my hands on my hips. “Thanks for your work on this. I appreciate it.”

  “My pleasure,” said Darlene. I gave her a half smile before turning to leave. She called out before I could even take a step. “Hey, Joe. I shouldn’t ask this, but do you think the Apostate killed Lilly and Mark?”

  I turned toward her and shook my head. “No. Part of me wishes he had, but my strongest suspects are a couple of teenagers.”

  A smile formed on Darlene’s lips.

  “Cases like this make me glad I don’t have children.”

  “You and me both,” I said, turning. “Let me know if anything turns up.”

  Darlene said she would, so I walked upstairs. F
or the next fifteen minutes, I wrote notes at my desk and checked my email before stretching and giving myself a moment to think. With the Apostate out, Trinity and Thad were my prime suspects in the murders of Lilly and Mark Foster. By now, every police officer in the state would have seen their pictures, and every trooper with the Missouri Highway Patrol was looking for their car. If they were in Missouri—or any of the surrounding states that exchanged information with us—we’d find them. I hoped they came in before anyone else got hurt.

  As I started writing an email to the Highway Patrol’s liaison to thank him for his help on the Lilly and Mark Foster cases, I noticed Agent Lawson walking toward my desk. He looked at me and gestured with his head toward the lobby.

  “Time to get moving, Detective,” he said. “We’ve got a busy morning, and we’re late for a briefing upstairs.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked, straightening.

  “Yeah. It’s a big meeting, and you want to be in on it.”

  I allowed a polite smile to form on my lips. “I usually make that decision for myself.”

  Lawson’s lips were straight, and his demeanor was professional, if a little stern.

  “Do you trust me, Detective?”

  I tilted my head to the side. “I don’t trust anyone around here.”

  “Probably smart. Give me your phone and come upstairs anyway.”

  “My phone?”

  “Yep,” he said. “That’s the price of admission, and it’s non-negotiable.”

  Lawson hadn’t led me astray or lied to me so far. I didn’t think he’d lie now, but giving him my phone felt strange. Still, I reached into my purse.

  “Do I get a receipt or anything?”

  He scoffed, but his lips curled upward. “Come on. Just give me the phone. I’ll keep it with me until we’re done.”

  I handed him my cell, which he powered off and put in an inside pocket in his jacket.

  “So what did I earn by giving you my phone?”

  “A seat at the table,” he said. “We’re arresting the Apostate this morning.”

  I shot to my feet.

  “Did you tell Delgado?”

  “No, but he found out anyway. He’s upstairs, but my people are watching him. Let’s go.”

  I nodded and followed the FBI agent upstairs to the second-floor conference room. About a dozen FBI agents stood around in tactical vests. The room held a nervous, almost frantic energy. These men and women understood what lay ahead for them. This was it: the reason they had left their families and come to St. Augustine.

  As Lawson walked through the room, the crowd quieted. Sheriff Delgado stood by himself at the foot of the conference room’s table. Lawson walked to the head and smiled to his team.

  “Morning, everybody. You know why we’re here and what we’re doing. Our suspect lives on a half-acre plot in a developed residential area. Our plan is to drive to the suspect’s neighborhood in civilian vehicles and park in the locations I have already given you. At my signal, Mike’s team will infiltrate the suspect’s home through his front door, while Stacy’s team surrounds the house from the rear. Everyone else will stay in their cars in case the suspect evades our other teams. A helicopter will be overhead in case he bolts.”

  Lawson opened a folder on the table in front of him and sorted through some documents before holding up a picture.

  “Our suspect is Gallen Marshall.”

  The instant I saw the picture, I gasped before I could stop myself. Lawson looked at me, his brow furrowed, before focusing on his team again.

  “Mr. Marshall is a forty-seven-year-old Caucasian male. We consider him armed and extremely dangerous. He lives alone, although female students frequently visit and stay the night. You all know your jobs, and most of you have seen this information already. Let’s get to it.”

  Three agents clapped, but most of them left the room, preparing for the job ahead. Lawson and Sheriff Delgado crossed the room toward me.

  “Something you want to tell me, Detective?” asked Lawson.

  “I know your suspect,” I said, glancing to Delgado and then to Lawson. “He didn’t do this.”

  19

  Delgado glowered at me and crossed his arms.

  “How do you know he’s not the Apostate?”

  I glanced to Delgado and then to Agent Lawson. “We should talk in private.”

  “Anything you say to him, say to me,” said Delgado. “I’m your superior officer.”

  I looked to Delgado. “You’re my boss, but superior is a stretch.”

  “Excuse me?” he asked, cocking his head to the side and raising his eyebrows. Lawson cleared his throat before I responded.

  “How do you know Gallen Marshall?” he asked.

  Once more, I glanced at Delgado before looking toward the FBI agent.

  “I’d rather have this conversation in private.”

  “Were you sleeping with him?” asked Delgado. I scowled at him.

  “No, and please don’t ask about my private life again,” I said. “It’s inappropriate. You should know that.”

  Agent Lawson crossed his arms and blinked, his eyes hard. “How do you know him, Detective?”

  I exhaled a long breath, considering my options. Another request for privacy would simply add fuel to Delgado’s innuendo-filled speculations. Even though I knew Marshall, I hadn’t done anything wrong. I had nothing to be ashamed of.

  “My mom persuaded me to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She wanted me to see what it was like,” I said, looking to Delgado. “I’m not a drunk, okay? Put that on the record. I went because my mom asked me to go, not because I needed to go.”

  Delgado scoffed and rolled his eyes, but Lawson’s expression didn’t change.

  “How does Gallen Marshall fit into this?”

  I tilted my head to the side. “I’m not supposed to talk about what goes on in the group, but he was there.”

  Lawson nodded and looked to Sheriff Delgado.

  “Can you excuse us for a minute, George?” he asked.

  “This is my station,” he said, pointing toward the ground. “You don’t get to kick me out.”

  “Okay,” said Lawson, putting a hand on my elbow. “Detective Court and I are going for a walk.”

  Delgado sputtered something, but Lawson hustled me out of the building. Two minutes later, we climbed into the front seats of a black SUV in the parking lot, and he drew in a deep breath.

  “Okay,” he said, nodding. “You’ve got my attention. Tell me about Marshall.”

  I shook my head and closed my eyes. “I shouldn’t have even told you I saw him at a meeting. It’s called Alcoholics Anonymous for a reason.”

  Lawson drew in a slow breath.

  “Based on what you know of him, does he pose a threat to the arresting team or himself?”

  My shoulders slumped.

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice low. “He’s depressed. Four years ago, his wife died of metastatic breast cancer. That’s when he started drinking. A year later, he tried to kill himself by driving into a tree. He hit his head on the windshield, but he didn’t die. Since then, he’s been trying to stay sober, but he has a hard time. He’s angry at God for allowing his wife to die, and he’s mad at himself for becoming a drunk. He doesn’t think he’s got a lot to live for. If your team shows up with weapons drawn, there’s a good chance he’ll turn it into a fight.”

  Lawson nodded and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel before drawing in a breath.

  “Okay. I’ll update my team. Thanks for this.”

  He opened his door, but I put a hand on his arm, stopping him.

  “I’m not sure this is your guy,” I said. “How sure are you about this?”

  Lawson stopped moving and looked back at me.

  “Very. Aside from the fingerprint at the church, he fits our profile. He led a movement at Waterford College to remove all religious iconography from the campus and to remove all references to religion from the school’s fight song and motto. He�
��s got a problem with religion and religious people.

  “Not only that, his position on the admissions committee at Waterford gave him access to the personal information of every one of our victims. Some of them even mentioned they were dating another applicant in their personal essays. Those kids who didn’t mention their partners in their essays probably mentioned them online somewhere. It’s standard practice for admissions committees to look up applicants on social media nowadays.

  “Bottom line, Marshall knew these kids, he understands religious symbolism, and we found his fingerprints on two different pews at the church. We can tie him to the site of a body dump.”

  The evidence was compelling. I looked out my window and sighed.

  “I guess I don’t want to believe I met a serial murderer and failed to see him for what he was.”

  “It wasn’t just you,” said Lawson. “It was his colleagues, his friends, and his surviving family. You met him at a meeting. His neighbors talked to him every day and had no clue.”

  That was true, but I wasn’t the average person. I was a police officer, and I should have seen something. It didn’t even register that Marshall was anything but what he appeared to be. He may have murdered those kids, but I didn’t stop him when I should have. That was on me.

  “Let’s pick him up.”

  Lawson and I returned to the station. Delgado said nothing, but his glare told me he planned to chew me out when he had the chance. As much as I liked St. Augustine, and as much as I enjoyed being a detective, my tenure in this station was running out. When the County Council appointed Delgado as the sheriff, it tacitly gave me an ultimatum: do as Delgado says—even when your professional instincts say he’s wrong—or look for a new job. Every day brought me closer to leaving.

  Lawson addressed his officers upstairs again while I grabbed my tactical vest from my locker. Then we headed out. Lawson and I took his SUV while Delgado elected to drive by himself in his personal pickup. Gallen Marshall’s neighborhood was about two blocks from the main entrance of Waterford College, making it popular with the school’s staff and faculty. The homes were nice and modern while the lots were large enough that kids had ample room to play. There were basketball hoops in a lot of driveways.