***
“Sgt. Henry Yasiv, NYPD. I was hoping to ask you a few questions about a man we’re looking for.”
The priest was old, in his mid-seventies at least, and walked incredibly slowly down the hall. But, for some reason, he insisted on continuing to move. It was as if the man believed that the second he stopped putting one leg in front of the other, his heart would take this as a cue to cease pumping.
“I'll help you in any way that I can, Sergeant. But I won't break the trust of any parishioners who have disclosed information to me during confession.”
“No, of course not,” Yasiv said. “Nor would we expect you to. We’re looking for someone, someone we think might be part of this parish. His name is Wayne Cravat.”
Yasiv pulled a photograph from his pocket and held it out to the man. He looked at it while continuing to walk.
“Yes, I know Wayne. He's been coming here for the last six months or so.”
Yasiv cast a glance over his shoulder at Dunbar, but the man seemed lost in his own world.
Yeah, a church is probably not the best place for a person who has been traumatized by a childhood rape.
He shook his head and tried to remain focused.
“And when is the last time you saw Wayne, Father?”
“Sunday, I believe. He came for a service. Is there something… something wrong?”
“No; we’re just trying to locate him, is all.”
The priest was entitled to his secrets, and so was he.
“And you haven’t heard from him since?”
“No. He’s usually here on Mondays, but I didn’t see him here this week.”
“And what exactly does Wayne do here at the church, Father? Does he interact with kids? Altar boys, that sort of thing?” Dunbar suddenly barked.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry, Father, I—”
“No, no, it’s fine,” the priest said, brushing off the comment. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time that someone had made a remark of this nature. “But I’m afraid that if you want to find out more about Wayne’s involvement in the church, you’re going to have to ask him.”
They’d arrived at a closed door and, at long last, the priest stopped walking.
“I do apologize, but I have an appointment,” he said with a leathery smile. “If you have any other questions, please come by after service tomorrow.”
Yasiv pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to the man.
“Thank you for your time, Father. If you do happen to see Wayne, would you please have him contact me?”
The priest took the card and nodded.
“Of course, now, if you’d excuse me…”
Yasiv turned and started back toward the entrance. He had to physically make sure that Dunbar joined him.
On the way out, he passed a bulletin board covered in random messages. Some were inspirational quotes, while others were offers to babysit or dog walk. But one sheet in particular, a blue piece of paper, caught his attention.
As Yasiv walked by, he reached and yanked it off the board and jammed it into his pocket without Dunbar even noticing.
Chapter 30
Beckett’s hangover wasn’t that bad considering the amount of alcohol he’d consumed the night before. Still, he was far from one hundred percent when he woke up the next morning. The good news was that he could finally attribute his headache to something tangible.
He and Suzan spent the morning walking around a small village they'd found, but his mind really wasn't into it. He kept thinking about Rev. Alister Cameron and how he’d expected to hate the man, given everything that he stood for and his pompous attitude on stage. But the opposite was actually true. Beckett almost liked the Reverend, despite not caring for what the man said, and believing even less of it.
The man also had some good scotch, which was always a plus.
Twice, Suzan had asked if he was okay and both times Beckett replied that he was fine. But in reality, he was just going through the motions, as unfair as that was. He couldn’t wait to head back to the church and finally prove the Reverend wrong.
Suzan knew, of course; she could read him like a book, which was disconcerting at times, given his extracurricular activities. She used the fact that he was distracted to her advantage and scored several expensive purses before he realized what was going on.
After choking down some greasy fries and a cheeseburger the size of his head, Beckett burped and proclaimed that he would have to go to confession after that meal.
“We’re only here a week, Beckett. No way is that enough time for you to confess to all your sins,” Suzan remarked with a smile.
After lunch, the crowd at the shopping center thinned and as they drove to the church, they realized why: everyone in the goddamn state seemed to be going to today’s sermon.
Beckett couldn’t imagine what the place would look like in a week, let alone a month from now. Given the half-dozen overflowing donation boxes that he passed on the way in, however, he assumed that the Reverend would have no problem producing the seed money for a much more ‘appropriate’ setting for his miracles.
Yet, despite the crowd, Beckett had no problem making his way to the front. These god-fearing parishioners were also tattoo-fearing parishioners, it seemed. They parted to allow him to pass as if his very touch would taint them.
Reverend Alister Cameron opened much like he had the day prior, only this time every aspect of his performance was amped up a notch or two. At one point, Beckett could have sworn that the man actually leaped into the air.
“So much for being humble in the eyes of the Lord,” Beckett whispered.
It was as if everyone was in a trance, drawn in by the man’s charisma. Shit, even Suzan seemed enthralled by him.
The stark reality was that, simply put, there were people in this world that had the ability to affect others, people who exuded confidence or pheromones or something that made them and what they represented almost irresistible.
And Rev. Cameron definitely had that special quality. He didn't have the ability to cure death, of course, but he had something.
Which was why Beckett decided to see how far he could push the man before he broke.
“Please, I need to be saved,” Beckett shouted.
Despite the noise, the Reverend homed in on him, a smile on his wide face. Beckett expected the man to ignore him, but that just wasn’t in his nature.
Rev. Cameron hopped off the stage and made his way directly toward him.
Oookay…
“I need to be saved,” Beckett repeated.
Rev. Cameron shook his head.
“You don't need to be saved, my son,” he declared in a booming voice. “You need to be healed. Because you are ill, and I am the cure. I will—”
As he spoke, the Reverend reached out with one of his massive hands and gripped Beckett’s forehead.
No turning back now.
Beckett went all in, hamming it up as much as possible. He launched his hands into the air as if the Reverend’s very touch was electrifying. Suzan had to brace her body against his to prevent him from toppling.
“Beckett, what the hell?” she hissed.
But there was no turning back now.
Beckett’s tongue lolled out of his mouth and started flicking up and down as if performing cunnilingus on an apparition.
“LLl-l-l-ll-l-looooooll-ll-l-laahhhhhhhh,” he cried out, “Shihhfff al-l-l-ll loool-l-ll-l praisssssss-s-se a-ll-l-l-l-l-llllaaaaaaaaah ll-ll-l-lllllloooooll-l-lloolll-l-l.”
Others backed away as he continued speaking in tongues, but when his entire body broke into a grand mal seizure, people started to pray for him.
Beckett could barely keep a straight face. Rev. Cameron, however, was like a Stonehenge.
“You will be healed, my son. You will be cured of your ailment, which is death,” the man proclaimed in a loud voice.
This struck a chord with Beckett, because he was, if nothing else, a harbinger of de
ath.
“F—f-f-f-f—f-f-ffffffffoo-o-o-o-o-o-kkkkk-k-kkkk,” Beckett’s eyes rolled back. “Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-yooooooooooo-o-o-o-o-uuu—u-uuu-uu—”
All of a sudden, Rev. Alister Cameron squeezed his forehead. Not hard, but enough so that Beckett clearly noticed a change in pressure.
His tongue suddenly stopped wagging and his entire body became still.
And then he collapsed to the ground.
Beckett was unconscious before his head struck the floor.
Chapter 31
Yasiv was usually the first of the morning crew to arrive, but not today. The door to his office was open, and he was surprised to see the district attorney, Mark Trumbo, sitting in the chair behind his desk.
“Mark,” Yasiv said tentatively as he stepped into his office and removed his coat. “Did we have a meeting or something?”
Mark stood up. He was a large man, wearing an even larger suit and a tie that almost made it to his belt buckle. Everything about the man screamed authority; he was born to be either a district attorney or the head of a crime syndicate.
“I need an update on the Wayne Cravat case,” Mark said.
Yasiv frowned. He'd expected the man to visit, but what he hadn’t planned on was it happening this soon.
“I'm working on it. Nobody seems to know where he is, and those that might know something are refusing to talk.”
Mark's upper lip curled.
“I've got everyone breathing down on me, demanding that I put this to bed. It's bad enough that we’re out there looking for Mark Kruk and Damien Drake, but this child molester? We gotta get this under wraps. I need you to find Wayne Cravat.”
The fact that the man had mentioned Mark Kruk and Damien Drake in the same context caused Yasiv's blood pressure to rise, but he took a deep breath and calmed himself.
“I'm doing the best I can—we all are. Don't you have enough on your plate with the Steffani Loomis trial?”
Yasiv hadn’t meant to say that last part and immediately regretted the words once they’d left his mouth.
But Mark took the comment in stride.
“She cut a deal this morning. Fifteen years. The woman will serve two thirds, no less.”
Mark seemed proud of this, but Yasiv wasn’t impressed.
Steffani Loomis had been the last remaining board member of ANGUIS Holdings, the group that Drake had committed his life to tracking down.
Fifteen years… and she’ll only serve ten.
Yasiv supposed that this was a positive result, given the woman’s status and connections. It had been claimed that the United States Justice System is the best in the world, but that only held true if you had money and influence. And Steffani had lots of both.
And yet, fifteen years seemed like a paltry price to pay for the countless lives Steffani and her cohorts had ruined, the people she exploited, the deaths that were on her hands.
The DA suddenly walked over and squeezed his shoulder.
“I'm sure you won't let me down, Henry. I need you to find Wayne.” The man’s breath reeked of stale coffee.
It never stopped, it seemed; the favors, the back scratching, the outright collusion. Even after all the corruption that had taken place in the NYPD, the wheeling and dealing never stopped. It was as if it had become a hallmark of democracy itself.
Yasiv grumbled something unintelligible, but the DA was already gone. As he stood there, trying to collect himself, Yasiv pulled the blue sheet of paper he’d taken from the church out of his pocket and stared at it. It was an advertisement for a group meeting at the church, one that promised a safe place to talk about PTSD, abuse, pretty much everything under the sun. A meeting that met every night around ten.
The exact sort of thing that a man like Wayne Cravat might frequent.
Yasiv read the ad several times before an idea sprang to his mind.
He spun and left his office, corralling a tired-looking Detective Dunbar along the way.
“Don't bother taking off your coat,” he instructed.
Dunbar gave him a look but followed Yasiv to the front doors of 62nd precinct.
“We gonna hit the road?”
Yasiv nodded.
“Yeah, there’s a couple of things I think we need to do. First and foremost? Find this fucking Wayne Cravat guy.”
Chapter 32
Beckett startled awake and immediately tried to sit up. Some sort of cable connected to the back of his hand pulled him back down again.
“What the fuck?”
A familiar face suddenly hovered over him.
“You're back,” Suzan said.
Beckett recoiled.
“Are you… are you okay?” he asked.
“What? Am I okay? Are you okay?”
Beckett looked around quickly before answering. He was lying in a hospital bed, and the cable connected to his hand was an IV drip. Without hesitating, he yanked it out.
“Amazing,” he muttered. “I've just been cured. I… I can’t die.”
“Jesus, be serious for once, Beckett. You just collapsed out of the blue. You were messing around, talking in tongues, then you just dropped. The doctors are going to do some tests, but I think—”
Beckett tried to sit up, but he got dizzy and slumped back down.
“No, no tests.”
“What do you mean, no tests? You just passed out, fell to the ground. At first, I thought it was just part of your stupid act—super clever by the way—but when you didn't wake up…”
Beckett finally managed to sit up and he swung his leg over the side of the bed.
“No tests,” he said more assertively. He used the metal railing to rise to his feet. Someone had replaced his rocker T and jeans with a hospital gown, which meant they’d probably already probed and prodded him.
“I'm just hungover and dehydrated. I'll be fine,” he said, unsure of whether this was for his benefit or for Suzan's.
A doctor suddenly barged into the room, his head buried in a file.
“Beckett Campbell?” he said without looking up. “I see here that you have elevated—”
“Keep it to yourself, Doc.”
The man raised his gaze and then removed his glasses and put them in his pocket.
“I see that you are standing.”
“Did you need a medical degree to tell me that?”
“Beckett, please,” Suzan implored, touching his shoulder. He pulled away.
“Who gave you permission to run tests on me? Because I certainly didn't.”
The doctor was confused by this interaction and looked over at Suzan for guidance. She simply shrugged.
“We did some blood tests; it's procedure.”
Beckett growled and started to slip on his shoes before realizing that he had to get out of his dress and put on his clothes first.
“Yeah, trust me, I know the procedure, I probably wrote them. But I didn’t ask for ‘em, and I don’t want ‘em.”
The doctor slowly and deliberately tucked the folder under his arm and then stared at Beckett with an annoying sheepish expression.
“You collapsed, Beckett. And your girlfriend here has been telling me that you’ve been suffering from headaches for quite some time.”
“You're giving me a headache. Look, I don't mean to be a dick—okay, maybe I do—but I have to get out of here. The good Reverend told me to run some genetic tests on—”
“Rev. Cameron?” the doctor’s voice lifted.
“Is there another Reverend around these parts who can heal death?”
The man opened his mouth to reply, but Beckett shook his head.
“Don't answer that. Yeah, I mean Reverend Cameron. Do you know him?”
The doctor nodded.
“Of course, he came to me with some pretty, how should I put this, amazing claims.”
Beckett changed his mind; he could spare a minute for this purveyor of the medical arts.
“Do continue.”
“Hmm, well, the Reverend came to me claiming tha
t he’d cured several people of genetic conditions that are often fatal. He said that he would be doubted and that he needed proof to back up his claims. He wanted me to run some genetic tests on his… uh… patients before and after he… uh… treated them.”
Beckett held his hands out.
“And?”
“So, I did what he asked.”
Beckett shook his head. The man’s story was incredibly painful to listen to. It was like pulling teeth, like—
“Wait, are you Dr. Blankenship?” Beckett asked, suddenly remembering the name on the patient files that the Reverend had shown him last night.
“Yes, that's me.”
“So, you did the testing, you did the buccal swabs yourself?”
“I did,” the doctor confirmed.
“Before and after?”
The man sighed.
“I took both the before and after buccal swabs and I personally sent them out for DNA testing to an accredited lab. I don't know what to tell you, Beckett, but the results were not faked. I was skeptical at first, too, but I can assure you the man is no fraud.”
For close to a minute, Beckett just stared at the doctor, expecting him to flinch.
This had to be a scam.
“Did you get that white coat and stethoscope from a Brazzers movie set? What the hell are you talking about? You can’t cure Werner Syndrome or hereditary Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, you know that, right?”
The doctor cocked his head to one side.
“Before the Reverend, I would have agreed with you. In fact, we had another patient with Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome not long before the Reverend healed Stacey Winnegar. Come to think of it, we had a patient with Werner Syndrome, as well.”
Beckett did some quick mental math. Both conditions were exceedingly rare, but having two people with each in the same small community? What were the odds?
“Were the patients related?”
Dr. Blankenship shook his head.
“No.”
It seemed impossible that this was just a coincidence.
“What happened to the people that Alister didn't heal? The ones that the Lord didn't take pity on?”
Injecting Faith Page 10
