The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3)

by Brian Shea

  "Okay. Take it slow. You saw somebody else in the church. Do you remember if they were standing or seated?"

  "I believe he was seated a few rows back from the front of the church. I can't exactly remember where. I do remember that as I passed by, something caught my eye. I really wasn't paying any attention. Not my business. I’m no busybody."

  Kelly held back from laughing out loud, knowing that in her job as a hairdresser and owner of a beauty salon, she was a master of gossip. “Okay. Well, what can you remember about the person? It was a male, you said guy."

  "I do remember that. He was definitely a TDH."

  Kelly shot a glance over at Barnes, who shrugged. "TDH?" Kelly asked.

  "Tall, Dark, and Handsome."

  Kelly fought the urge to roll his eyes. He had never heard the acronym before, but again, he was out of the loop when it came to that sort of thing. He was sure some type of emoji would go along with it if it were sent via text message. Another aspect of modern life that seemed to have slipped by him. "Okay, so tall, dark, and handsome. But you said he was seated, that you remember."

  "He was," Shoemaker answered. "But I could tell he was a tall man." She paused. "He didn't pay me any mind. He was kneeling in prayer."

  Kelly listened intently, allowing Shoemaker to revisit the images in her mind. Better for her to do it than for him to assist. If this case led to arrest and prosecution, Kelly didn't want a defense attorney to say he led the witness to describe the person. He sat patiently, letting her work it out on her own, as painful as the process was.

  "He looked fit, but it was hard to tell. He just had that look of a guy who likes to work out. Ya know—a strong jaw, kind of like an action hero, and dark hair, but short and clean-cut, like one of those military guys. Not too different from you."

  And then she stopped altogether and finished the last sip of coffee.

  "Anything else? Anything at all that you can remember?"

  Debbie rubbed her temples and closed her eyes, as if trying to visualize the man. "Glasses—I think he had glasses. I'm not sure. I want to say he had glasses."

  Kelly nodded, making a mental note.

  "That's all I can remember. I left right after that. I got the text from my sister about my aunt, and I rushed out. I guess I pretty much forgot it all until now. Strange. I really couldn't remember him at first. I didn't think I would be able to help at all, but I did. Right, Mike? What I told you helps?"

  She seemed eager to please him, excited at the prospect of potentially helping the case, maybe to put herself in Father Donny’s good graces.

  "You did great, Deb. Thank you so much for coming in." Kelly noted the interview’s end time in his notepad and looked up at the hair stylist who’d give Tammy Faye Bakker a run for her money in the liberal application of makeup. "I've got your number and you've got mine. Should anything else come to mind, please don't hesitate to reach out."

  She reached across the table unexpectedly and placed her hand on Kelly's, rubbing it gently and looking him in the eyes. "You can call me anytime, Michael Kelly. Any time."

  Kelly blushed red. He felt Barnes's knee jab his and knew he would never hear the end of this conversation.

  Kelly returned from escorting Shoemaker to the lobby to see Mainelli sitting at his desk. He looked at his watch. It was nearing 9:00. "Wow, Jimmy. Making good time today. You look like dog crap."

  Mainelli raised a glass mug in mock cheers. "Thanks so much, Mike. Always appreciate your kindness." He took a swig of coffee. "The wife put me on the couch last night. It's our rule. If I come home after midnight, there's no bed for me. I'm not going to lie to ya, sleep didn't come easy. Didn't even wake up when the kids got up."

  Imagining Jimmy Mainelli not waking up in his house was shocking and a testament to the man's obvious fatigue. Kelly had witnessed firsthand the war zone that was his children's daily norm.

  It didn't bode well for Mainelli's work output for the remainder of the day. Kelly had worked alongside the man long enough to know that once he was beleaguered by either hunger or fatigue, his investigative skillset dropped dramatically. On those days, Kelly typically assigned him alternative duties rather than the tip-of-the-spear work. Looking at his watch, he knew they had a little time to get across the city to meet with the medical examiner and go through Father Tomlin’s autopsy. Better to take Barnes. Mainelli could stand by and assist should any of the forensic evidence start to trickle in from Charles and Dawes's office. Kelly could focus on the primary responsibilities, especially since this was officially his case and everyone else on the team would be in a supporting role.

  "Well, Jimmy, since you look so chipper this morning, how about you hang back? I'm going to grab Barnes and head over to see what we've got with Tomlin's body. Who knows? Maybe something will pop on the autopsy today."

  "You're not going to get an argument from me," Mainelli said, offering no resistance.

  "I'd like to tag along, if you don't mind." Gray poked his head out of the conference room, where he'd spent most of the morning.

  "I don’t see a problem with that. You been to many autopsies with the Bureau?"

  Gray shrugged nonchalantly. "I've been to my fair share."

  "Okay, then, let's head out. I don't want to keep the ME waiting."

  Kelly spoke with the receptionist, notifying her that Boston PD Homicide was there for Tomlin’s autopsy. The trio waited only a few minutes in the cool antiseptic lobby before the door opened.

  Luck be damned. Standing in the threshold was Ithaca Best. Kelly felt his heart sink at the awkwardness of seeing the forensic pathologist; they’d recently gone on a date, during which Kelly had to ditch her for a shooting. He had ended any potential of a romantic relationship without giving it much of a chance. Now, he stood next to Barnes, feeling completely out of place.

  Gray was oblivious to the tension as they strode up. Kelly made quick introductions, although Best knew Barnes already, having worked with her on prior cases. For Kelly, this was the first time he had attended an autopsy with Best since their failed attempt at a dating relationship. Although he had told her that it wasn't the right time, that he wasn't ready for a relationship, and she said she understood, upon seeing her face-to-face, he felt wholly wrong about his handling of it.

  "Ithaca, this is Sterling Gray. He's with the FBI, attached to Homicide on the Tomlin case,” Kelly said.

  She extended her hand. "Ithaca Best. Welcome to the dead zone." A quirky sense of humor was needed when you worked among the dead.

  "The pleasure's all mine," Gray said.

  Kelly noted that their handshake lingered a bit. Maybe she'd moved on from him as quickly as he had from her.

  "Well, let's get to it, shall we?" Best led them into the sterile hallway and down to the autopsy room where Father Tomlin was the guest of honor.

  His body was set on the cold metal tray, prepped and ready for the autopsy to begin. Two technicians were standing by to assist, for which Kelly was grateful. When the medical examiner was overloaded with bodies, he’d had to do some of the moving and manipulation during the course of an autopsy. He preferred to remain distant, maintaining his role as an observer and taking copious notes.

  A detective wasn't required to be on scene for an autopsy. They were recorded by audio and video, and extensive photographs were taken. Kelly always applied a layer of redundancy to his cases, and being physically present on a crime scene or autopsy was different from watching it on video.

  Best tapped the voice recorder on the stainless-steel tray nearby, indicating to the group the recording was about to begin. As was ritual, Best made her opening remarks.

  “Today is Monday, November twenty-fifth, two thousand nineteen. I, Doctor Ithaca Best, pathologist for the Massachusetts Office of the Medical Examiner, will be performing today’s autopsy of Benjamin Tomlin, age forty-six. Pathology Technicians Thomas Robichaud and Adrian Markus will be assisting. Detectives Michael Kelly and Kristen Barnes of Boston Police Department’s H
omicide Division are in attendance and will be observing the procedure. Also in attendance is Special Agent Sterling Gray of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Time on the clock reads 10:27 a.m.”

  Processing a body followed a similar pattern to working a crime scene. Best began by taking photographs, starting with overalls and then working her way down from the head toward the feet on the right side of the body. She moved in a clockwork fashion around Tomlin’s gray body, working her way back up on the left.

  Kelly and his team stood off to the side and watched, waiting patiently and hoping something in this initial part of the investigation would give them some evidentiary find that would propel things forward.

  "We've got a single gunshot entry wound left temple, exit wound right side slightly above the temple region. Major damage to the brain. We'll know the extent once we remove the skull cap. No stippling except on the outside of the entry wound. We see debris embedded, appears to be bits of splintered wood, in and around the entrance wound."

  The gunshot was fired through the confessional screen. The round that traveled into the priest's skull would have carried with it bits and fragments of the handcrafted wood lathing screen divider.

  Ithaca continued her summation of the head wound. At her direction, the technicians rolled the body. The exit wound was measured, and the diameter of both entry and exit wounds was noted.

  Kelly took notes. "Any idea on potential caliber?" he asked, knowing from past experience that a specific caliber couldn't be generated, but a rough guesstimate could be made based on an entry and exit wound.

  “Given the approximate distance from where the weapon was fired, I'd say we're looking at a weapon no greater than .40 caliber. Looking at the exit wound, I would guess—and this is just a guess, mind you—we might be looking at a hollow point, something that would do some expanding on exit, based on the size and damage of the wound. When I remove the skull cap and take a closer look at the brain, I should be able to give you a better estimate. But I think we're safe to say that greater than a .22 and less than a .40 caliber."

  That really doesn't narrow things much, Kelly thought. A wide variety of weapons and calibers were capable of producing such a wound.

  Best continued her overalls. "I see the hands are bagged. I'll check for any type of defensive wounds or manipulation."

  Kelly interrupted, "There's a wound to his left hand, Ithaca. It's going to be at the webbing between the thumb and index finger. Could you take special care in noting that and documenting any potential findings for an instrument that would have left such a mark?"

  "Will do." She manipulated the bagged hand slightly, looking at it more carefully. "Some type of an X, a stamp of some sort," she said. "Possibly a Phillips head screwdriver."

  "Not an X, a cross," Gray said.

  "Huh," she said, not dismissing his comment but absorbing it. "Tell you what. When this is all done, I should have at least a potential workup of what could cause the wound. Who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky and be able to scrape something usable out of it. Anyway, that's going to take a bit of time and we're going to have to wait for the lab for analysis, but I'll put it on expedite."

  "Thanks," Kelly said.

  "Moving on."

  No truer statement, Kelly thought. He couldn't help but think of the list Gray had provided, and the killer who was somewhere on the loose within the city of Boston.

  10

  "What do we think?" Kelly asked.

  The group sat inside The Depot and stared at the board. The new information extending out from the suspect line detailed the description provided by the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s analysts, their bureau’s profilers. Added to it was the information gathered from Debbie Shoemaker’s potential eyewitness account of the killer.

  It was fascinating to see the parallels, the connections the analysis unit in Quantico had made to the descriptors, albeit limited in scope, to those Shoemaker had provided. They married up on several points, one being the suspect’s physical size.

  Height: 5’11” – 6’2”

  Build: Muscular

  Hand: Right

  Age: Mid to late 40s

  Glasses: (?)

  Education: College +

  But what haunted Kelly most was the top line: ex-military/police likely.

  What Shoemaker had given them did little in the way of providing a detailed-enough description to use with a sketch artist. At this point they had almost nothing in the way of any specific details they could disseminate to the public.

  TDH. Shoemaker described a tall, dark, and handsome man with rigid facial features and glasses, although she was less confident in her recollection of the eyewear. It was a more complete picture than when the investigation began, but still not enough to pursue any one particular person. Not by a longshot.

  "Why the left hand?" Barnes asked. "Why not the right?"

  "Well..." Gray had become the group’s go-to on the killer’s psyche. "There are several indications in the Bible that the left is the side for evil. The analysis team pulled together several passages that seem to fit the rationale in why a killer would be using the left hand to leave his mark." Gray rattled off three different passages, then provided the group with the religious significance of the markings on the victims’ left hands, citing several more biblical references to support the assertion, referencing verses from Matthew Chapter 25. "He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil.’" Gray’s summation was that judgment was passed for those who stood on Christ’s left, and salvation was reserved for those on his right. BAU asserted the killings were done as a passing of final judgment, and thus the moniker “The Penitent One” was born.

  The victims didn’t fit a specific pattern, which was why the FBI had difficulty tracking him. The three Boston victims had no apparent connection. A cop, a rapist, and a priest. It sounded like the start of a really bad joke.

  “Why the religious markings? Why the cross?" Mainelli said aloud, apparently not making the connection.

  Gray took the floor and, turning to the group, said, "It's been theorized that our doer, our unsub, The Penitent One or TPO, was most likely raised Catholic. From all indications, and from the actions he's taken coupled with the significance of leaving behind a religious marker, his teachings had to have been intense, to say the least."

  Kelly thought about his own upbringing in the Roman Catholic Church in South Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. He knew families who were extremely devout and followed the doctrine and teachings of the church to a T. Accepting the FBI’s assessment was a challenge for him. Why commit one of the most cardinal sins—murder? It just seemed off.

  "If he was raised in the religion, it seems backward that he would use it as a means to convey some type of message," Kelly said.

  "Well, maybe it has a negative connotation in his mind,” Gray offered. “This is what the profilers believe. The TPO’s religious upbringing was in the strictest of fashions, and more likely than not, religion was presented in a punitive form, making it difficult for us to relate. They further theorized that as he grew older, a deep-rooted resentment resurfaced in the form of an insatiable rage.

  “A love-hate relationship. The TPO is conflicted. He was raised to believe in the teachings of God, especially under the Roman Catholic discipline, but he was physically punished by the same hand who had taught him. The markings seem to be both a statement of his devotion and his hatred for those who instilled it."

  "Great," Barnes muttered. "We’ve got a religious fanatic who kills people at will. A ghost managing to elude capture from both local authorities and the federal government for at least, what...fifteen years?"

  "Fifteen years is a long time," Mainelli blurted out. "We're going against a killer who has managed to maintain his anonymity for more than a decade. Not a single photograph or piece of DNA linking him to any case. You ba
sically have nothing on him.”

  He was blunt to a fault. Kelly noted Mainelli was more alert today, a change from his recent norm. His sleep situation must have improved overnight, a sign that the man would be a more useful member of the group today.

  "It’s true, he's been a ghost," Gray said. "Trust me—since this case was handed off to me a few years back, I've spent countless hours going over the old files, looking at connections, trying to find the pieces that fit…only to come up empty-handed every time. And you're right. As of right now, we have no photographic evidence. He's been impeccably meticulous, leaving no evidence behind. The only thing connecting the cases right now is the mark on the left hand. The one saving grace is we’ve managed to keep that aspect from the public. Right now, it’s our only link."

  Kelly understood the significance of that. Holding back that evidence in the countless murders that had happened in the time since TPO had first come on the radar must've been a monumental task for the FBI. They had to make sure their slim hope of identifying him didn't dissipate into the ether. Had they released the information about a cross-like mark on the victims’ left hands, the killer would surely catch wind of it. They would run the risk of him changing his calling card and therefore being nearly impossible to connect to future cases.

  Historically, some killers continued their pattern even after it was identified by the media. The compulsion, an internal drive mechanism forcing them to leave their calling card or token, was innate and extremely hard to change.

  "It'd be nice if one of those surveillance cameras would have picked something up," Mainelli said. His voice was loud, almost a shout.

  "Well, I wasn't holding out hope," Kelly said. “Nothing came up on the department intel camera set up at Church Street.”

  The BPD Intelligence and Analysis Unit had worked hard in recent years to bring the criminal intelligence division into the digital age by setting up a network of surveillance cameras at many of the city’s major intersecting street corners. The cameras were monitored in real time as a way to spotlight crime as it happened and had been used with much success in proactive enforcement and police resource allocation.