The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3)

by Brian Shea

  "It's a cross.”

  Gray hit a button and the image on the screen shifted, rotating ninety degrees to the right.

  Kelly was immediately kicking himself for not seeing it earlier. How long had he stared at the wound on his partner’s hand? How many times had he sought its meaning? Once the image had been rotated, it became readily apparent that one of the lines was a fraction longer than the others, and when turned to its current position, it clearly showed a cross.

  X, cross, a mark is a mark, right? Kelly sought, to no avail, to absolve himself for his shortsightedness. "What's the significance of the cross?"

  "We're clear on the fact that everything I say stays here, correct?" Gray asked.

  "Of course." In Kelly's past experiences with his department’s upper echelon and the recent cover-up he had tried to expose, his circle of trust was extremely small, and currently limited to the members of his immediate team. "You can trust me."

  "I got that feeling about you," Gray said.

  "I'm guessing its meaning is something significant?"

  "We've been hunting this person for a long time."

  "You know who he is? You’ve got a line on our killer and you waited until now to let us in on it?" Kelly asked, leaning toward frustration.

  "Well, yes and no," Gray said flatly. "BAU has done an extensive workup on our guy. He's been busy, not just here in Boston but around the northeast and across the country."

  "So we are dealing with a serial killer?"

  "Yes and no."

  "You keep saying that. I’m hoping you plan on getting around to filling me in."

  "Well, to answer your first question…Yes, we do know who he is. But not in the way you’re thinking.”

  “Do you always speak in riddles?”

  Gray gave a wire-thin smile. “The more definitive answer is we know the type of person he is. BAU has done an extensive workup based on the findings we've accumulated over the years."

  Kelly knew the reputation of the FBI's prestigious Behavioral Analysis Unit, made famous in recent years by the TV show Criminal Minds, Hollywood’s representation of the unit. Their true capabilities were far different from the television portrayal and much less dramatic, but, just like on TV, real-life profilers did analyze extensive amounts of data accumulated from crime scenes and case facts, and apply expertise in developing a behavioral makeup of the suspect. By doing this they were able to effectively render a profile to aid law enforcement’s investigative efforts.

  BAU developed a set of identifiers that, when applied to suspect searches, improved the likelihood of identifying a person of interest where normal investigative efforts had failed. The FBI didn’t have an endless supply of agents to work every violent crime, but in bigger cases they were brought in to assist. It was a useful tool in identifying unknown perps, at least to give a starting point of establishing patterns.

  And their unit, as small as it was and based out of Quantico, was tasked with only the highest priority cases, ones that drew the most attention. Apparently a dead priest had hit the jackpot and raised a red flag. Kelly wondered why Rourke's death hadn't caught the FBI’s attention, but then he remembered what Charles had said when he found the mark on Phillip Small's hand. In the Rourke case the X was initially passed off as a non-related wound, and not categorized in any way that might have alerted the FBI to the presence of the killer in Boston city limits.

  "What’s the meaning behind the cross?” Kelly asked.

  Gray gave a half smile. He had the chiseled jawline and close-cropped hair of ex-military, and the look of somebody who had served.

  "It carries religious significance. Because of that, we named him The Penitent One."

  Kelly took a sip of his coffee and rubbed his weary eyes. "You've given him a nickname?"

  "Every killer gets one until their real identity is revealed. His official label is Unsub 05-80920. The identifier is the year and zip code of the first known body. I don't know who came up with the nickname, but whoever did—it stuck."

  "I guess it's ironic that the case that brought us together took place in the penitential confines of the confessional."

  "That’s definitely a unique twist and a bit of a departure from the way he carries out his business," Gray said.

  "So I’m guessing you've got a list of unique identifiers for this Penitent One? At least an idea of the type of person we're looking for?" Kelly asked.

  "I do." Gray tapped a couple keystrokes on his laptop, and a document populated the screen.

  "Here's your killer." Gray turned the screen toward Kelly and pushed back slightly in his chair.

  Kelly's eyes widened at the depth and detail of the list the BAU team had compiled for this killer. It was the first break in the case.

  Kelly stood and walked over to the whiteboard, uncapping a red marker. Drawing an arrow extending from the suspect line into the open space to its right, Kelly began jotting a bulletized list extracted from the BAU report.

  First was the notation ex-military/police.

  Kelly finished copying the list as the phone rang at his desk.

  Barnes answered and hollered down the hall to him, “Debbie Shoemaker's on her way in.”

  Shoemaker, who had arrived at the police department lobby ahead of schedule, strode to the main desk area. Her heavy perfume managed to penetrate the bullet-resistant encasement where the main desk officer took walk-in complaints, causing him to cough.

  "Debbie Shoemaker. I'm here to see Detective Michael Kelly, hon," Shoemaker said between smacks of the gum in her mouth.

  "Is he expecting you?" Officer Lewis asked gruffly.

  Contrary to the majority of receptionists around the world, most police departments made sure they selected some of their less-friendly faces to be the receivers of the walk-in complaint.

  Many of those complaints handled in the lobby required limited police involvement. A gruff gatekeeper was always appreciated by those on the investigative floors for keeping the loony tunes from consuming valuable time with their rants and insane complaints.

  Today's gatekeeper, Jeffrey Lewis, choked by the woman’s perfume, held up one finger and retreated to his desk to call upstairs to Homicide.

  Kelly answered the phone.

  "It’s Lewis down at the main desk. Got a Debbie Shoemaker here, says she’s here to see you." Lewis was equally surly when addressing Kelly. It was his nature.

  Kelly looked at his watch. She was half an hour early, which was fine. The quicker he got done with this, the quicker he could bring the team up to speed on the new information Gray had revealed before he headed over to the autopsy.

  "I'll be down in a minute," Kelly said. After hanging up the phone, he made his way to the elevator, which required a fob access, as did pretty much everything within the walls of headquarters. Therefore, either the main desk officer would have to escort a lobby visitor upstairs, which would’ve sent Lewis into a tizzy, or Kelly could go down and receive his own guest. He frequently chose the less confrontational option, not out of intimidation but because he liked the aspect of control it gave him. The small talk enabled him to build rapport before the more intense portion of an interview began.

  As the steel doors parted, exposing Kelly to the lobby, he caught the overwhelming smell of jasmine and lavender. It hung heavy in the air, almost making his eyes water.

  Debbie Shoemaker, who was lingering by the main desk, turned when the elevator doors opened.

  Kelly held his finger on the button, keeping the doors open, and stuck his head into the lobby. "Hey, Deb, I'm over here."

  She perked up and began to saunter toward him.

  At 7:30 a.m., Debbie Shoemaker was dressed as if she were heading out for a long night of bar hopping. She wore three-inch heels that clicked loudly on the tile floor as she walked, and tight jeans that accentuated every feature her body had to offer. She had an exaggerated swagger to her walk, and she was wearing a fuzzy coat unzipped just enough to reveal a skin-tight black top undern
eath.

  And much to Kelly’s consternation, he could tell she was overly excited to see him.

  Her makeup was done, and she had pulled her hair back with an oversize clip. Not that it was needed. Shoemaker’s black wavy curls were coated in the visible sheen of whatever can of hairspray she’d emptied on them. Seeing her all done up was like being transported back to the mid-nineties, as if she were trying to relive the first time they met in the freshman hallway.

  Her lips smacked loudly on the piece of chewing gum in her mouth. "Hi, Mikey. It's been a while."

  She spoke with an overt coyness he already found exhausting.

  Shoemaker entered the small confines of the elevator, and as the doors closed, Kelly had to force himself not to gag at her fragrant trail, which worsened as she spun to face him.

  "Hey, Deb, I really appreciate you coming in this morning. I'm sorry to hear that you had a family emergency yesterday. I hope everything's okay."

  "It was my aunt. She's got the cancer. Smoked all her life, still smoking now. Can't stop her, but she was pretty sick yesterday. I had to go and see her. My sister—you remember Josie—she said that we're coming up on her last days, so…"

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Kelly said, offering a genuine apology. As rough as Debbie Shoemaker's external appearance was, Kelly knew deep down she had a heart of gold. "I won't take up too much of your time. I just want to get a feel for what you saw yesterday. My partner and I are going to run through some questions with you in the interview room, and then we'll get you on your way as quick as possible."

  "I'll stay as long as you want, Mikey. You know that."

  There it was again, Kelly thought. He wondered how long the flirtations would last or how bad they would get. He'd have to suffer through them—his penance today.

  Kelly ignored the remark and was grateful when the bell dinged as they reached the second floor.

  "It's just down this way, Deb.”

  He led, she followed. He brought her to the doors and fobbed his way in.

  "Ooh, Mikey. Fancy digs," she said, entering the office space.

  "We have an interview room already set up."

  He took her down the hallway to Interview Room A. The office was relatively empty, and only a few detectives were beginning to trickle in. Nobody had scheduled an interview this early in the morning, although as the day progressed the rooms would begin to fill.

  The door was already open. Kelly flicked a switch on the wall outside the interview room.

  "Debbie, just so you know, I just activated a camera system in here. We have to record everything in our interviews.”

  He walked her in. A table in the center had a chair on one side and two on the opposite side where Kelly and Barnes would sit. He showed her the camera system tucked in the corner. It would be looking down at the back of Kelly’s and Barnes's heads, but into Shoemaker’s face.

  A traditional interview was always designed to record as much of the suspect's reactions as possible. It was equally important to do so in a witness interview so that they could check the veracity of the statements made during the course of questioning. There were few differences between criminal and witness interviews other than the tone of the questions.

  Rapport would be built, although Kelly and Shoemaker had a longstanding history, and based on the comments she'd already made, she seemed to be open to any and all questions he asked.

  "Deb, can I get you a cup of coffee? Glass of water? Soda? Anything?"

  "I'll take a coffee, Mike. Thanks." She plopped herself into the plastic seat and made herself comfortable.

  "Just give me a second. I've got to grab my partner and that cup of coffee, and I'll be back here in just a moment. I am going to shut the door, though."

  Kelly left. His first stop was the break room, where he poured a cup of coffee from the pot that was already brewed. He grabbed two creamers, a handful of sugars, and a stir stick so she could make the coffee as she liked. Then he turned his head toward Barnes. "You ready to do this, Kris?"

  "Sure thing." She grabbed a notepad and stood up from her cubicle.

  As she walked closer, he was grateful for the break from the heavy perfume. Kristen Barnes always kept her clean scent subtle.

  "You're in for a real treat," Kelly whispered.

  "Oh, I can't wait!" Barnes said. "This is your old high school girlfriend, right?"

  Kelly rolled his eyes because he had already briefed her that he had known Debbie back in the day. "Not a girlfriend, Kris, although you're going to get to witness some heavy flirtations from her this morning."

  "This morning just keeps getting better and better."

  "Shall we?"

  The two entered Interview Room A, and Kelly was once again assaulted by Debbie Shoemaker’s overwhelming aroma.

  She was their first and, at present, only witness to the killer the FBI called The Penitent One.

  9

  They’d spent the better part of the last forty minutes in the gas chamber of perfume with Debbie Shoemaker recounting how her life led to where she was now. She'd worked herself up from the bottom and now owned her own beauty salon, which might explain the liberal application of makeup, hairspray, and perfume. Kelly had spent a great deal of effort guiding his former high school classmate back to the purpose of their conversation. The interview was not to reminisce on times past or a social catch-up, but designed for a specific recounting of any particulars from yesterday, when she had attended church at Saint Peter's and potentially witnessed the would-be killer, whether she knew it or not.

  For the seventh time in the last few minutes, Kelly had to cut off Shoemaker's long-winded dissertation and guide her back on track.

  "Listen, Debbie, it's been great catching up, seriously. I'm glad for you. Good to hear things are going well in your life, but I think you're forgetting why we're talking here today. Take me back to yesterday morning, the point where you were at church. Walk me through the time from when you entered the church, where you sat, and anything you may have noticed when you left."

  "Well, like I said, I attend church every Sunday. I thoroughly enjoy Father Donny's sermons. They seem to speak to me." She winked at Kelly, and he knew the underlying meaning of her words, so obviously stated.

  The wink was added for his benefit. Barnes noticed and nudged him under the table. Kelly tried to ignore the contact.

  "I like to sit up front so I can be close to really hear what he has to say," Shoemaker said, pausing for effect. "I don't remember seeing anybody that stuck out. How am I supposed to know what a killer looks like?"

  Kelly knew this was true. This was the same conversation that he’d had with O'Brien. There was no way to pinpoint or identify a killer by looks alone.

  Historically, in the early stages of criminology, eighteenth-century French physician Franz Josef Gall believed human behavior could be directly linked to physiological traits; in particular, he believed the shape of the skull served as a predictive trait. Certain measurements of the cranial cavity, known as phrenology, stated the size and shape would dictate a person's propensity for violence and criminal activity. It had been proven over the years to be an inaccurate scientific approach and debunked, although movies and television still exacerbated the theory that a person could spot a bad guy by looks alone. Kelly knew this was not true, but it was important he ask anyway, to see if anything caught her eye.

  He believed people had an innate ability to perceive threats in a subconscious manner, like an animal who knew it was prey and scurried away. That feeling, the tingle at the back of the neck, was where thousands of years of evolution and survival instinct kicked in.

  The subconscious brain perceived threats at different levels, but whether the person brought it to the forefront, recognized, and reacted to it was another story. These mental walk-throughs, slow and paced, were designed to call to the forefront of a witness’s mind things their conscious had dismissed.

  As far as Debbie Shoemaker’s recall of anything usa
ble, they were batting zero.

  "Like I said, Mikey, I don't remember anybody that stood out from the crowd except, of course, Father Donny. Now if you’d been there in the crowd, I would have noticed." She gave a coy smile and batted her eyelashes.

  It was like being stuck in a bad movie with a B actress overplaying her flirtations. Worsened by the fact that Barnes, sitting to his left, was thoroughly enjoying every single second of it. She hadn't interjected once, leaving Kelly to fend for himself against the outlandish comments.

  The banter, the back-and-forth between Shoemaker and Kelly, and Kelly's uncomfortable responses seemed to amuse Barnes to no end. He knew that when this interview was over, she would not hesitate to bring it up endlessly.

  "All right. So nothing during the service that stood out, or when you went in, or people around you. How about afterward? Am I correct in assuming that you stayed to go to confession?"

  She took a sip of her coffee and chortled a scratchy, raspy version of a school-girl giggle. "I don't stay to confess my sins, Mike. I hit the confessional every once in a while in the hopes that I'll get a little private time with Father Donny. Much to my disappointment"—her brow furrowed—"he wasn't there. It was Father Tomlin."

  "And how did you know? Isn’t there a screen vent between the two rooms that obscures you from seeing each other?"

  "I knew as soon as I heard Tomlin's voice. As soon as I realized this priest was expecting me to confess my deep, dark sins, I apologized, made the sign of the cross, and left."

  "And that was it, you left? Was there anybody else in the church when you departed?"

  Shoemaker started to shake her head no, and then stopped herself. "Yeah, come to think of it. I don't know why I didn't remember this before. There was a guy..."

  For the first time since meeting with Shoemaker, Kelly was fully interested in what was going to come out of her mouth next. She made a smacking sound as she continued to chew the gum, even though she had already started drinking her coffee, now lukewarm if not cold. A disgusting combination that Kelly tried to ignore. Her incessant gum chewing became more erratic and noticeably louder. The nervousness was obviously setting in.