The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3)

by Brian Shea

  The recording devices, working on overdrive all times of the day and night, enabled investigators to backtrack in time and retrieve usable footage from quality cameras. Even though the network was comprehensive, it was costly and therefore not set up everywhere in the city. The intersection at Church and Adams, located three hundred feet from the church’s front doors, was covered, but unfortunately the camera was focused mostly on the intersection.

  “I’ve got a bigger concern,” Gray offered ominously. “I'm guessing the TPO didn't leave randomly. I think he knew about the camera there and purposely took the alternative route to avoid it." Gray tapped the top line on the dry erase board: ex-military/police. "He's eluded capture for fifteen years, which is increasingly more difficult with the exponential developments in technology. Our unsub has managed to be just a blip on the digital radar. Never picked up on a surveillance cam, no photos…nothing. The only plausible guess is that he knows how to avoid detection at a scary level."

  "Who are we dealing with here?" Mainelli fired back. "The boogeyman? This isn't some type of super soldier movie. This isn't a Jason Bourne novel."

  Kelly wanted to agree but couldn't help feeling they were dealing with an entirely different type of killer. While some murders went unsolved in the city, the majority of times it was due to lack of cooperation from a key witness or poor handling of case evidence. Rarely did somebody outwit the system, although Connor Walsh came to mind. He and his crew had ducked several cases. Kelly thought about the gun that had disappeared from evidence, a key piece of evidence that would’ve undoubtedly put the mob boss behind bars for a very long time. But The Penitent One was proving to operate at a whole different level.

  "I'm not sure where we go from here," Kelly said. For the first time in many months, he felt completely baffled by a case. His leads were fairly non-existent. The evidence they'd recovered from the scene was ambiguous at best. There were no DNA hits, no fingerprints left behind. The weapon used was a wide gamut of possible calibers, no shell casing or round recovered for comparison, no witnesses capable of clearly identifying the suspect, and no viable surveillance footage. An endless series of nos. Kelly felt defeated, just like he had when he tried to pick up where investigators left off in his partner's death. No matter how badly he wanted to find the person responsible, he came up empty-handed. It had become his pastime investigation, something he worked on in his spare moments between other assignments. Over the last eight years it had become his white whale, slowly eating away at him. The red card permanently affixed to the murder board at his desk served as a constant reminder of his failure.

  Eight years later, and even with the information provided by the FBI, he was no closer to finding the killer. Fifteen years of the killer eluding capture from the FBI’s quiet hunt made Kelly feel wholly disheartened at the prospects for this case’s resolution.

  Kelly's phone vibrated. He looked down to see Donny’s name, then stepped out of the room to answer.

  "Hey, Donny."

  "Mike. I got that stuff you asked me for, but I'd like you to come here and take a look."

  Kelly had been so absorbed in the case he’d forgotten what he asked his friend to get.

  "I'm sorry, come again?"

  "The information on Father Tomlin. You asked me to get his personnel file, remember?" Donny said.

  "It's been a crazy couple of days. Yes, you said you have something?"

  "I do. Can you come here and take a look?"

  "Sure thing. Just give me a few. I'm just wrapping something up here and then I'll head over."

  "See you then. I'll be in my office."

  Kelly hung up and popped his head back into the room. "Hey, guys, I'm going to cut out and pop over to see O'Brien. He's got Father Tomlin's personnel file."

  Kelly didn’t wait for any offers to join him, just walked to his desk, grabbed his windbreaker, and headed out the door, leaving the rest of his team to mull over the files in the endless brainstorming session.

  Kelly pulled into the lot behind the church and made his way in through the side access door before heading up the stairs to where Father Donovan O'Brien's pastoral office was located. Kelly knew it well from visiting many times in the past. He also knew that when Donny was there, he always left the side door open.

  Kelly knocked on the open door’s weathered wood frame.

  "Hey, Mike," O'Brien said, offering a smile.

  He looked genuinely pleased to see Kelly, a far cry from his appearance the other day shortly after he discovered Benjamin Tomlin’s body. It was good to see that his friend was able to get back to a working norm so quickly, but it didn't surprise Kelly. Donny had a natural way of putting things in perspective, of clearing his mind from the things he'd heard and witnessed as a priest while ministering to some of the most shattered families in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.

  O’Brien had built a layer of Teflon on the outside of his heart similar to Kelly’s, protecting himself from exposure to the tragedies of his congregation.

  Kelly pulled up a seat across from his friend. A dark oak desk, stacked with a poorly organized pile of papers, separated the two. The room was small, not much bigger than a walk-in closet. There was barely enough room for a desk, a lamp, and a couple of chairs. Definitely not a space for a large group meeting, but good enough for a couple of people to discuss religious affairs. The bookshelves were loaded with a variety of old texts. A large Bible sat on a small podium next to a globe in the corner. The air was musty.

  "Donny, you said you had Tomlin’s paperwork. Why the need for secrecy?"

  "Here." O'Brien slid a manila file across the desk and tapped it. "Take a look yourself."

  Kelly opened the file and saw that it was sparsely filled, not more than three pages. "This is all you found?"

  "Yeah, not that I expected a ton more, but it looks like he's got no other religious experience prior to coming here a few months ago. I can't find any of the other parishes that he's worked at in our in-house filing system. So I made a call to the archdiocese to see if there was a master file somewhere with more detail and they said no."

  "What did the archdiocese say?"

  "They told me not to worry about it. That it's being taken care of and that they'd be in contact with the authorities themselves. To be honest, they seemed a little put off by me asking."

  "Who did you speak to over there?" Kelly asked. "Has this ever happened before? Are they normally this secretive about such inquiries?"

  "I couldn’t say. I've never really dug into another priest’s personnel file before. But something about it felt off. Maybe I’m still just shook up. Does it sound strange to you?”

  Kelly gave a shrug. “Not sure. Depends. I’ll check to see if they ever sent something over to us. It could’ve gotten lost in the shuffle. I’ll check with Sutherland, make sure that somebody at the archdiocese hasn’t already forwarded the file over. You know how things get, maybe he just forgot to give it to me.”

  “It wasn’t just the phone call. I remember having a conversation with Father Tomlin, back when he first arrived. He said he had done some work at Saint Mary's in Alexandria, Virginia, prior to coming here to Saint Peter’s. I found it strange there was no record of it in his file here. I was going to call over there, but after getting shut down by the archdiocese, I didn't want to ruffle any feathers by overstepping my bounds and figured I would just leave it to you."

  "No worries, I’ll check it out."

  "Do you think there's something to it, Mike? Do you think there's something going on here I should be worried about?"

  "I don't know. Could be nothing. I’ll keep you posted. I'll take a look at it and place a call over to that church, see what they can tell me."

  "Okay." Donny seemed relieved at hearing this. His mind had obviously run a little wild, and understandably so under the circumstances. Finding a fellow priest murdered would unravel the best of minds. Entertaining a conspiracy theory or two would only be natural.

&nb
sp; But that wasn't Kelly's way. Kelly was a fact man. He believed in the tangible, and only when all else failed did he give any credence to wild conjecture. He hoped this wasn't going to be the case now. Although, with Gray's enlightening information, it made the leap to conspiracy theory much easier.

  "How are you holding up, Donny? You personally?"

  "I'm good. Been a rough week, but I’m doing better. Tough to put the image of Tomlin out of my mind. Thanksgiving seems less festive. I'm going to hopefully take some time to myself and decompress."

  "If you need anything, you know I'm just a phone call away." Kelly got up, taking Father Tomlin’s thin personnel file with him. "You don't mind if I take this, right?"

  "No, that's your copy." Donny switched gears. "Got any big plans for Thanksgiving, Mike?"

  "Going to have Barnes over for a little dessert this year."

  "Huh,” Donnie said, breaking into a grin. "Imagine that.”

  “Don't give me any grief. I’m catching enough of it from Embry as it is."

  "I'm happy for you. It's about time you got your personal life back."

  "Thanks."

  Kelly headed to his car, still warm from the drive over. He sat for a moment before turning the ignition and grabbing his cell phone. He did a quick Google search, finding only one Saint Mary's in Alexandria, Virginia, and decided to make a quick call.

  After a few rings, the call connected. "Hello, Saint Mary's Parish. This is Alice. How may I help you?"

  "Hi, Alice, this is Detective Michael Kelly. I'm calling from Boston Police Department's Homicide Unit. I'm investigating the murder of a priest here in Boston, and in doing some research—"

  "Oh dear," she interrupted.

  "Sorry to be so frank,” Kelly said, realizing how shocking his opening remark would have been to an unsuspecting ear. “I’ve just been working hard on this the past couple of days and forget myself."

  "Anything we can do, Detective, please." Her voice reset to its initial pleasant tone.

  "Well, digging around in his personnel file didn't have much to offer, and we're trying to get as much background information as we can."

  "Sure, understandable." The woman spoke softly, sweetly.

  "The decedent told one of the parish’s priests that he worked at Saint Mary's before coming here to Boston, but we couldn't find anything supporting that in his personnel record. Is there any way you could take a look for me?"

  "Sure, yes. No problem. What is the priest's name?"

  "Benjamin Tomlin."

  "Okay, Tomlin. T-O-M-L-I-N?"

  "Correct." Kelly could hear her typing on the computer keyboard.

  “Strange,” Alice mumbled.

  "Were you able to find anything?"

  "No. Not at all. We don't have any record of a Father Benjamin Tomlin. Not anywhere in our system.”

  “Is it possible it was misfiled?”

  “We've recently computerized our records. We used to have an old file system, but I was the one who updated it, put every name into our database,” she said, pride emanating from the receiver.

  "And there's nothing?"

  "No. The database is archived back to the very first priest who presided over our church. There’s no history of a Father Tomlin. Nobody by the name Benjamin Tomlin anywhere in our system."

  "Strange," Kelly said, repeating the woman’s words.

  "Sorry I couldn't be of more help, Detective," Alice said kindly.

  "You've been plenty of help.” Just before ending the call, Kelly asked, “And there's no other Saint Mary's in or around Alexandria that you know of?"

  "We’re the only one."

  "Okay then. Maybe I just got my facts crossed. Does happen," Kelly said, attempting to minimize any worry his inquiry might’ve caused.

  "I hope you find whatever you’re looking for, and I hope you find whoever did this."

  "Me too," Kelly said, and hung up. Although he felt further away from that possibility with every passing second.

  11

  The next couple of days proved uneventful in moving the case forward. The additions made to the board all fell into the negative column of things not found or puzzle pieces left uncollected. And for the first time since Kelly's arrival to Homicide, he’d slammed into an investigative brick wall. The internal pressure he placed on himself trumped any hounding by his supervisor or the media, who were still in a frenzied, ravenous quest for an update on a suspect identification. Kelly and his team were no closer to offering one than when they had first briefed the community Sunday evening.

  Frustration had set in, etched clearly on the faces of the three men and one woman seated at the oval table staring blankly at the whiteboard. Hoping that by some miracle the answer would appear. While the BAU analysis had been beneficial in painting a clear picture of their potential suspect, it brought them no closer to identifying the actual person responsible. It only served to heighten Kelly's awareness that the likelihood of developing a suspect was diminishing rapidly, if not already completely gone. Sutherland was currently in a closed-door meeting with his immediate supervisors and Superintendent Acevedo, who rarely if ever frequented the actual investigative spaces of headquarters, sticking normally to the command staff level.

  Acevedo’s presence here today told Kelly the heat was being turned up. He’d given his boss little to offer in the way of case progression, so the meeting was going to be wholly one-sided.

  They'd gone over the case facts a million times. Even Kelly was feeling the tedium of it, although nobody in the room matched the disgusted frustration Jimmy Mainelli wore on his face. He'd complained as soon as he walked in this morning, saying they should have been given the day off seeing that it was Thanksgiving and his wife had a large group coming over.

  Death didn’t care about holidays. Everybody in the room knew that, even Mainelli.

  The meeting ended, and Sutherland trailed after Acevedo and his entourage as they left. A hushed silence fell over the detectives working in the common space as the Criminal Investigation’s commanding officer made his way across the bureau floor.

  The superintendent stopped briefly at one cluster of desks where his son Tony was seated. A brief exchange between father and son, held out of Kelly and his crew’s earshot, could only be about one thing. As the younger Acevedo looked past his father and made eye contact with Kelly, the curl of his thin lips made it obvious that Kelly was the brunt of the joke.

  Less than a minute later, the Homicide unit’s volume returned to its usual hum as the door closed behind the superintendent leaving with his minions in tow.

  Sutherland made his way over to the team. Kelly noticed the sergeant's limp was more pronounced after meeting with the command staff. Dale Sutherland made a point of showing the lameness in his leg when in the presence of his supervisors, not in the hopes of gaining sympathy but in gaining traction with his disability claim.

  Sutherland staggered into the opening and leaned against the door frame. The team stared back at him expectantly, the unspoken question, "And what was that all about?" hanging in the air.

  "I gave them what we’ve got so far, which at this point isn't much more than we've had since the start. The case looks like it's stalling out and losing steam." Sutherland said this to the group but focused his stare on Kelly.

  "The guy is a ghost, Sarge," Mainelli chirped up. "I don't know what else you want us to do. We've flipped every snitch we could find, pulled every possible surveillance camera in the area. Forensics hasn’t put anything useful in our hands. And, no offense to the FBI, but they’ve given us a fancy list that amounts to nothing more than telling us we're up against somebody who's eluded them for over fifteen years. I don't know what you expect."

  "I expect results," Sutherland fired back. "That's what my unit does. We solve the unsolvable cases."

  Kelly knew the man was right and was angry at himself for not having more to offer. He wanted nothing more than to counterbalance Mainelli's despondent attitude, but after plo
wing through all of the case files, comparing every fact and the limited usable evidence, it all circled back to a big fat goose egg.

  "Doing the best we can, boss," Kelly muttered.

  Sutherland paused at Kelly's comment, and maybe because of the holiday, his gruff exterior softened a bit. "Listen, we've been racking our brains for the past few days on this thing, putting forth extraordinary effort. I know each and every one of you—even you, Mainelli—have given your all. Sometimes an investigation just comes up short.”

  Kelly slumped in his chair.

  “Why don't you guys take the rest of the day, clear your heads, get some good old family time? You've been living in the office, and from the smell of this room, maybe some of you are long overdue for a shower." Sutherland laughed at his own joke. Levity replaced the initial moments since his tongue lashing, delivered by Acevedo.

  Nobody moved.

  "What’re you all still sitting around here for? This is an official order from me to you. Close your case files, lock down The Depot, and head home to your families for the day. We'll pick this thing back up tomorrow. Maybe we look at it with fresh eyes and find something we overlooked. I don't want you to take anything home with you. Leave it all here. Go enjoy your Turkey Day."

  Mainelli was already out of his seat.

  Kelly hesitated for a moment, hanging back with Barnes, who was the second to last to get out of her seat and move toward the door.

  "See you tonight," he whispered out of the rest of the crew’s earshot.

  "Wouldn't miss it for the world," she said softly.

  The excitement Kelly first had on Sunday, when he began his preparations for this Thanksgiving meal and the arrival of his guest of honor, filtered back. It momentarily washed away his defeat at not having moved the case forward. His mind quickly focused on the things he needed to do to prepare for tonight's meal, and he felt suddenly grateful for the distraction.