The Boys in the Church

by Chris Culver

  “Are we done now?” she asked. “Or do you want to stay for a while in case Mary Joe comes home? We can get drunk together. It seems to be the closest thing she has to a hobby. That and hunting you.”

  He rolled his eyes and turned toward the kitchen, where he had seen a small hallway. It led to a bedroom with an en suite bathroom. An unmade king-sized bed rested against the far wall between two windows. There was a dresser against the wall on the right and a chest of drawers to the left. Curiously, a set of wooden steps led to the bed.

  Helen walked to the bed, patted a pillow, and then shook her head.

  “Your girlfriend is a slob,” she said. “She doesn’t even make her bed.”

  “I’m sure you’ll teach her to be a better housekeeper,” he said. Mary Joe kept an end table on either side of the bed. He didn’t know which side of the bed she slept on, so he started by checking out the end table on the right. As soon as he opened the drawer, a bottle rolled inside. Glenn felt his shoulders sink, but Helen laughed.

  “The more I see of this girl, the more I like her,” said Helen. “I’m thinking she might have an alcohol problem, though.”

  “If she does, we’ll take care of that,” he said, crossing the room to check out her other end table. This one held paperbacks. She liked science fiction. He hadn’t known that going in. Details like that could make her experience with him easier. He picked up a copy of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein and showed it to Helen. “She likes reading. That’ll help.”

  “We’ll get her some books,” said Helen. “Now let’s go.”

  “In a minute,” said Glenn, walking to her chest of drawers. Her end table hadn’t held condoms or other birth control methods. She didn’t have a boyfriend. He’d be the only man in her life.

  He opened her top drawer and found simple cotton underwear. It was nice, but a beautiful woman like her deserved something more sensual. He took a pair so he’d know her size and then closed the drawer. In her second drawer down, she had bras and socks. Socks were easy enough to size, so he ignored those. He took a bra, though. It looked simple, but it must have held what it needed to hold. He’d get her something pretty.

  He searched her chest and dresser drawer by drawer until he had taken a complete outfit for her. Then he went to her bed and grabbed one of the eight pillows on her bed. She’d appreciate that once he took her.

  When he finished, he closed everything up the way it had been when he arrived. Helen was in the kitchen, waiting for him.

  “We can’t just take her, you know,” she said.

  Glenn nodded. “I know. She’s a cop. We need to study her movements and plan this one.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Helen, shaking her head. “You need to deal with Trinity and Thad. They’re nowhere near ready, but once you have Mary Joe, you’ll forget all about them. They’ll rot, and then I’ll have to deal with them.”

  Glenn forced a cold smile to his face. “What do you want, Helen?”

  “Get rid of them,” she said. “If you don’t plan to feed your goldfish, you might as well dump them down the toilet right away.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Anything else you want me to do, your highness?”

  “You can curb the attitude for starters,” she said. “I can make your life hell if I want to. Don’t forget that.”

  “You’ll never let me,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes and walked through the open rear door. He grabbed the pillow and clothes he had taken and left. The day had started poorly, but it had improved greatly. He lost Jude and Paige, but neither had seen him without his mask. They couldn’t identify him.

  He’d watch Mary Joe for a while, and then he’d take her. He’d show her the world and make her happier than she could ever be on her own. Together, they’d right the sins of his past and make the world a better place.

  But first, he’d have to break her.

  That was a worry for tomorrow, though. For now, he held her pillow and her clothes and imagined better days ahead.

  21

  Agent Lawson and I walked toward the house. Four special agents had erected a perimeter around the yard, which Angela Pritchard was smart enough to avoid crossing. Still, I lowered my voice.

  “I called my dispatcher and asked her to send paramedics,” I said. “I think we can get a helicopter if needed. It might be quicker.”

  Lawson shook his head and swore under his breath again.

  “Thank you, but I think we’ll be okay. My guys were wearing vests. The rounds didn’t go through them. We used a Taser to subdue Mr. Marshall, but he’ll be okay.”

  My shoulders relaxed, and I breathed easier.

  “That’s good,” I said, nodding. Lawson grunted but didn’t otherwise respond. I stayed on the front lawn while he walked inside the house. After five or six minutes, Sheriff Delgado came from a side street and stood beside me.

  “I hear we got him,” he said.

  “After he shot two FBI agents,” I said.

  Delgado sighed and looked down. “Are they dead?”

  “No. They were wearing bullet-resistant vests,” I said. “This shouldn’t have happened. Angela Pritchard screwed everything up.”

  Delgado shook his head. “We couldn’t have done anything differently. Woman’s got instincts and sources we can’t stop.”

  “If that’s the story you want to stick with, go for it,” I said. “Good luck.”

  Delgado said nothing until Agent Lawson came out of the house and came toward us.

  “Detective Court tells me Marshall shot two of your men,” said the sheriff. “They doing okay?”

  “They’re fine,” said Lawson. “So is Mr. Marshall. We got lucky. We could have lost someone today.”

  “Good to get lucky sometimes,” said Delgado. “You can use my station for your interrogation. I bet Marshall’s got a cabin somewhere around here. You find that, you’ll find his other victims.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” said Lawson. “You better be thanking your lucky stars nobody died today.”

  Delgado said nothing. Then he stepped back and put his hands on his hips.

  “For the record, I didn’t know Pritchard was in town. I didn’t call her. You can check my phone.”

  Lawson snorted and looked away. “Then congratulations, Sheriff Delgado. You picked up a burner cell phone.”

  “I don’t like your implication, sir.”

  “I don’t care,” said Lawson, glancing at the sheriff for the first time. “Gallen Marshall shot two of my officers today because of you. He saw Pritchard and reached for a gun. Without her, he wouldn’t have seen us coming.”

  “I’m not the only person who could have called her,” said Delgado. “Your team knew what was going down. Joe knew what was going down. Anybody could have called her, so don’t put this on me.”

  “I confiscated their phones before I told them what was going on. You refused to give yours up. You’re no longer welcome at my crime scene. Please step away.”

  Delgado held up his hands and started backing up. “I’m leaving, but you can’t blame me for your team’s screwups.”

  “Get out of here, George,” I said. “I don’t want to fill out the paperwork if Agent Lawson beats you up.”

  Delgado rubbed his hands together as if he were wiping them clean. Then he walked away. Agent Lawson glowered at him for a while before focusing on me.

  “Thank you, Detective,” he said. He paused. “How’s your double-homicide investigation going?”

  I tilted my head to the side. “It’s going. The Highway Patrol is looking for Thad Stevens’s car, and their technicians are going through a computer found at the crime scene. We’ve got a lot of potential suspects, but Trinity and Thad are the strongest at the moment. Unfortunately, they’re still gone, and none of their friends know where they are.”

  Lawson nodded but said nothing.

  “Unless you need me, I’ll head out,” I said. “Do you have my cell phone?”
/>   Lawson shook his head. “I left it in the conference room at your station. Sorry. Let me talk to my team. I’ll give you a ride back.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  He nodded, but his eyes were a little distant. After a moment, we walked to his SUV. Neither of us said a word until we reached my station.

  “Thank you for your professionalism, Detective. I’ve enjoyed working with you, but with Mr. Marshall in custody, we’ll pull back to St. Louis to sort out any remaining loose ends.”

  I hadn’t worked with Lawson much, but it was bittersweet to see him leave. Having an FBI agent around had kept Delgado on his toes. I had liked that.

  “Good luck in St. Louis,” I said.

  He nodded. “We’ll be in touch.”

  It was a clear dismissal, so I got out of the car and went to my desk inside the station. There, I spent the next hour writing a statement describing that morning’s events.

  After that, I dove back into the Mark and Lilly Foster murder investigation. Trinity Foster and her boyfriend were still missing, but they weren’t my only suspects. Mark and Lilly had a lot of cocaine in their house, which meant they bought and sold drugs. If I could find who they bought from and who they sold to, I’d have new suspects.

  So I spent the rest of the day talking to narcotics detectives in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Memphis. I also drove around and talked to every drug dealer I knew in St. Augustine County. I learned a lot about the drug trade in the mid-south, but I learned nothing about Mark and Lilly. At a little after six, I drove back to my station to fill out paperwork and document my day.

  The shift had changed over about an hour ago, so I had the bullpen to myself. I typed my notes, checked my email to see whether Darlene from the forensics lab had sent me an update, and then called the liaison from the Missouri Highway Patrol to see whether anyone had spotted Thad’s car or whether they had anything new on the computer taken from the Fosters’ home. The news was negative on all counts.

  I hadn’t solved my case, but Agent Lawson had arrested the Apostate with only minor casualties, Sheriff Delgado had made a fool out of himself once more, and I had vodka and gin in my freezer waiting for me at home. I planned to celebrate. After shutting down my computer for the day, I stretched and yawned, ready to go home.

  “Joe! I need you in here now.”

  It was Jason Zuckerburg’s voice, and it sent a hard shiver down my spine.

  I didn’t know what he wanted, but I ran toward the receptionist’s desk with my hand over my pistol’s grip. Six people stood near the station’s big oak front doors. My feet slowed, but my heart continued to race. As first, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, and then their features came into focus. Both Paige and Jude had lost considerable amounts of weight, but they stood in front of me.

  I counted to ten and blinked, expecting them to disappear in some kind of dreamy haze. They didn’t, though. This was them. I blinked and covered my mouth.

  “You’re alive,” I said, my voice a whisper. “How are you alive?”

  Paige stepped forward. She had sunken cheeks, and it looked as if some of her hair had fallen out. Her clothes and skin, however, looked clean.

  “We killed him,” she said. “He’s dead. We killed him and stole his car.”

  I nodded and took an uncertain step forward, not comprehending what she’d said. My legs felt shaky. Before I could stop myself, I laughed. Behind me, Zuckerburg did, too.

  “You’re alive,” I said again. Now that the initial shock was wearing off, I smiled and felt it with my entire body. As a police officer, I had seen humanity at its worst. I had seen people hurt each other for no reason at all, I had seen married men and women abuse each other in the worst ways, and I had seen people I cared about die. As bad as those days were, they were balanced by the good days when I got to help people and make my community safer. Sometimes, I even got to save someone’s life. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like this at work, though.

  An overwhelming sense of lightness spread through me. I had spent weeks looking for Paige and Jude. I had trudged through the woods, talked to their friends and parents, searched their rooms at home. Then, after finding nothing, I had written them off as dead. I had accepted that my missing-persons case had become a homicide. I had been wrong, though. I could have cried. Or danced.

  “You’re alive.”

  I couldn’t stop whispering it. Zuckerburg walked around the desk and leaned toward me, breaking me from my delighted reverie.

  “If these guys killed the Apostate, we need to call Agent Lawson,” he whispered. “They arrested the wrong guy this morning.”

  He was right, so I nodded and looked to Paige and Jude and their parents and smiled.

  “We have a lot to talk about,” I said. “Officer Zuckerburg will take you to the conference room in back. You can relax for a few minutes. I’ve got to make calls.”

  22

  While I called Agent Lawson, Jason called St. John’s Hospital. The doctors at St. John’s rarely made house calls, but they made an exception for this case. Things moved fast after that. An ER physician and two nurses came in an ambulance and checked Paige and Jude out. They were dehydrated and malnourished, but neither showed signs of infection or serious illness. It would take time, but they’d recover physically. A registered dietician from St. John’s even agreed to create a diet plan for them to speed things along.

  Unfortunately, the soul was a lot harder to heal than the body, and both already exhibited signs of severe PTSD. They had each other, though. I didn’t put a lot of stock in teenage relationships, but they’d survived hell for each other. Maybe they could learn to live for each other, too.

  Once we figured out the kids were okay for the moment, we dove into the investigation. Agent Lawson interviewed Paige in the second-floor conference room while Agent Costa interviewed Jude in the first-floor conference room.

  The Apostate abducted Paige from the library, where she had volunteered. She had stepped out the back door to smoke a cigarette, but before she could even light up, someone stepped out of the tall shrubs near the building. She never even saw her assailant’s face. He pressed a sweet-smelling rag to her mouth. She tried to scream, but in doing so, she breathed in fumes that knocked her out.

  Jude’s story was similar. He got a message on Snapchat, supposedly from Paige, asking her to meet him at the library because her car needed a jump-start. He waited for her at the same break area from which the Apostate had abducted his girlfriend. Then, somebody came out from the bushes. His assailant pressed a sweet-smelling rag to his mouth, which knocked him out. When Jude regained consciousness, he was on the ground in a concrete dungeon with a chain-link fence. Paige lay beside him on a cot.

  They stayed in that room for weeks, but their captor always wore a mask. He came to them often and gave them water but never food. That was why they were malnourished. They were scared and thought they would die. Early on, their captor said he’d release them if they gave him the PINs to their bank accounts. Obviously, that was a lie.

  They escaped because their captor made a mistake. He left the chain-link fence open and gave the kids a bucket of water. The room’s only light came from a bare bulb that hung on a long chain from the ceiling. Jude broke the light against the chain-link fence’s post and then waited. When their captor came down the steps, Jude threw the bucket of water on him. Paige then grabbed the light’s chain and tugged as hard as she could. She pressed it against their captor’s neck, shocking him. Then, they took his car keys and ran. They assumed he was dead.

  Instead of going to the police station right away, they drove to Paige’s house, where they sat and held each other on the couch, waiting for her parents to come home. Unfortunately, they didn’t know her parents had moved out of the house a few weeks after she disappeared. They fell asleep and only woke up the next day when Paige’s mom came home, having heard from a neighbor that someone was in the house. They had slept for almost twenty-four hours. After t
heir ordeal, I couldn’t blame them.

  The story was horrifying, but it explained a few things. It also gave us a lead. Jude, Agent Lawson, Sheriff Delgado, and Jude’s mom and dad crammed into Sheriff Delgado’s SUV to see whether they could figure out where the Apostate had held them. Paige, Agent Costa, and Paige’s mom stayed in the conference room to go over her statement again.

  I didn’t have an assignment, but I didn’t want to go home. So I stayed and drank terrible coffee and watched Agent Costa, Paige, and her mother write a formal report. At about eight, my phone buzzed with an incoming text message.

  Hello, Mary Joe.

  I didn’t recognize the number, so I ignored it and slipped my phone back in my pocket. It buzzed again. And then again.

  Are you at work? What are you wearing?

  I needed my phone, so I couldn’t just turn it off. As a police officer, I gave out a lot of business cards to people. Half of St. Augustine County knew my phone number, but most people had enough common sense to avoid harassing a police officer. I excused myself and walked to the bullpen, where I flicked my thumb across the screen and opened the settings on my phone to block the number. Before I could, I got another text message.

  Are Paige and Jude with you?

  It felt as if something very cold had gripped my belly. I typed a response.

  Who is this?

  The response came almost in seconds.

  A friend. An admirer. A potential lover. You know who I am.

  In other circumstances, I would have rolled my eyes. Here, the entire world seemed to disappear except the screen of my phone. My heart thudded in my chest. No one should have known about Paige and Jude. I used voice-to-text to enter my response.

  A name would be nice.

  The sound of the station’s front door opening carried through the lobby and to the bullpen in which I stood. I ignored it.

  The newspaper calls me the Apostate.

  For a moment, my throat tightened. I should have called out for somebody, but the bullpen was empty.