Nature of Darkness

by Robert W. Stephens

  The journal was the real reason she’d traveled to Rome. She’d lost count of how many times she’d checked to make sure she still had it. She’d even digitally scanned every page in case her bag was stolen in a tourist city well known for its share of pick pockets.

  She left the basilica and walked outside to St. Peter’s Square. It was filled with hundreds of tourists, most snapping photos of themselves in front of one of the two large fountains or the large Egyptian obelisk in the center of the square that jutted toward the sky.

  Renee left Vatican City and found a small sandwich shop a few blocks away. She ordered a Panino al Prosciutto, a simple cured ham sandwich, which everyone told her was a must-have in Rome. Despite being a tasty snack, she had a hard time getting it all down. Her nerves had finally gotten the better of her and she wasn’t sure she could go through with the meeting.

  “Come on, you can do this. You didn’t travel all of this way to back out now,” she said to herself.

  After her small meal, she walked back to Vatican City and sat on one of the many steps that surrounded St. Peter’s Square. The wind had picked up, and she had to frequently push her long, dark hair out of her face. She spent the next hour watching the people who’d come to this holy destination from all over the world. It was easy to guess where they’d traveled from. Their language, their clothing, the way they moved, it all spoke to their origins.

  People give away so much, she thought. They had no idea how that can be taken advantage of. The human body is so fragile, and it can be utterly destroyed with so little effort.

  She looked at her watch. It was time to head for the Pontifical North American College, an educational institution for priests from the United States and beyond. She’d arranged a meeting with Father Piero Greco, one of the world’s leading experts on ancient languages. She hadn’t been sure she’d be able to interest him, but her story of the journal written in the language of Christ had been too much of a temptation for the curious priest and professor.

  Renee had arranged to meet Father Greco at the entrance to the building where the professors’ offices were located. As she walked closer, she recognized the priest from the photograph she’d found online. He was a tall man, around six foot two. He had a thick head of gray hair and he wore thin, silver-framed glasses that hung a touch low on his nose. Renee guessed Father Greco’s age at around sixty.

  “Father Greco?”

  “Yes, you must be Ms. Rankin,” Father Greco said with a heavy Italian accent.

  “I am.”

  “Buongiorno, Ms. Rankin. How was your flight to Italy?”

  “It was fine. I actually arrived in Rome about a week ago.”

  “Ah, to take in the sights before our meeting?”

  “Yes. I’ve been all over the city. I even took a train to Florence and spent the day there.”

  “Florence is so beautiful,” Father Greco said. “Tell me, which did you prefer, Rome or Florence?”

  Renee laughed.

  “You offer me an impossible choice, Father Greco. How does one choose between two beautiful cities?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Father Greco said, and he leaned closer to Renee. “I prefer Florence, though. Much quieter and less motor scooters.”

  “There is that. It’s sometimes hard to avoid getting run over in Rome,” she said.

  The priest smiled.

  “Your English is superb, Father. I apologize that I don’t speak any Italian.”

  “No need to apologize. Come, let me take you to my office. We can talk more there.”

  Father Greco led Renee into the building and down a long hallway.

  “How long do you intend to stay in Rome?” he continued.

  “That depends on how our meeting goes.”

  “I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I admit that you have me intrigued.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

  Father Greco stopped outside a doorway and extended his hand for Renee to enter first.

  She walked inside the office, followed by Father Greco. It was much smaller than she expected it to be, especially for someone of the priest’s academic renown.

  “Please have a seat,” Father Greco said.

  Renee sat in a comfortable chair in front of Greco’s desk, while the priest walked to the other side and sat in a larger burgundy leather chair.

  “Please forgive me if I don’t address you correctly, Father. I was raised a protestant.”

  “No one is perfect,” Father Greco said, and he smiled.

  “Thank you again for agreeing to meet with me.”

  “Of course. It’s not every day someone contacts you about a text written in Aramaic. You told me in your email that you are writing a book, and this is part of your research. You were a bit secretive as to the topic of the book, though.”

  “Please forgive me. I was, and am, a bit concerned that the subject may scare you off.”

  “Do you have the journal with you?” he asked.

  Renee reached into her bag and removed the journal. She leaned forward and placed it on his desk. She watched as he studied the cover for a moment. Then he picked it up and opened it to the first page.

  “Yes, this is indeed Aramaic. The language, of course, is thousands of years old. This journal, though, appears in excellent shape.”

  “I estimate the journal is around seventy years old. The name of the printing company is inside the leather cover. It’s an Italian company and still in business. I contacted them and they told me the design of that particular journal dates to the 1940s.”

  Father Greco carefully turned the first few pages.

  “Now then,” he said without looking at Renee, “you told me that you would reveal the journal’s origins when we met in person. Where did you get this?”

  “It was given to me by a good friend. She passed several years ago. She was one of the lead investigators on a case that drew national attention. That journal was left by the killer at one of the crime scenes.”

  “Was this man apprehended?”

  “Yes, but there’s still some mystery as to where he got the journal. He’s incapable of writing in Aramaic. I also had the ink analyzed. It’s older than he is, so the journal was written many years before he was born.”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  “I tried my best.”

  “Have you asked him where he got it?”

  “No, he’s not in a position to answer that question, although I doubt that he would if he could,” Renee said.

  “Shouldn’t this be in the hands of law enforcement?”

  “In all honesty, yes. Then again, the case is closed. If they still had it, it would be sitting in a cardboard box collecting dust in some police storage room.”

  “Am I the first person you’ve asked to translate this?”

  “The journal was translated years ago during the original criminal investigation, but that work was lost in a fire. Fortunately, the journal was kept safe in another building.”

  Renee reached into her bag and removed a few loose pages.

  “Only the last chapter of that translation survived. Here’s a photocopy of that work,” she continued.

  She placed the copy on the desk, but the priest didn’t reach for it.

  “Do you know who did that translation?” he asked.

  “His name was Anthony Hutchins. He was a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.”

  “Yes, I knew Anthony. We met at a conference almost twenty years ago. I’d heard he was killed but I didn’t learn any of the details. I just assumed it was an accident of some kind.”

  “Unfortunately, Professor Hutchins was one of the victims of the case I referred to a moment ago. I was told his work on the journal is what got him murdered.”

  “That is terrible,” the priest said, and he made the sign of the cross.

  “In full disclosure, Father Greco, there is another reason I flew to Rome,” Renee said, and she nodded toward the
photocopy on the desk. “The last chapter gives the name of the man who wrote the journal. His name was David Lombardi. According to the journal, he was a priest here at Vatican City. Granted, that was a long time ago, just after World War II.”

  Father Greco looked at the first page of the leather book again.

  He translated it out loud, “Journal Entry: Rome, September 13, 1948. ‘The loneliness must be unbearable,’ I heard the voice say as I drifted into sleep. I thought it was the beginning of a dream. I was wrong.”

  The priest looked across the desk to Renee.

  “I know you don’t read Aramaic, but you have some idea as to what is in this journal, don’t you?”

  “I believe it chronicles a series of murders that started here at the Vatican and eventually continued in the United States.”

  “Why do you believe that?”

  “Because of what I read in the translated last chapter. The writer refers to leaving the Vatican for America. He also references the terrible things he’s done.”

  “I’ve lived in Rome for a long time. I have never heard of a series of murders that took place at the Holy City.”

  “I understand.”

  “Just because someone wrote this, it doesn’t make it true.”

  “I also understand that point, but ten years ago a man left a pile of bodies in Virginia. That wasn’t some act of fiction. It really happened and I want to find out why.”

  “Forgive me, if I am being too forward. But did you lose a loved one to this criminal?” the priest asked.

  “I lost a dear friend, yes.”

  “And you hope this journal will help you explain why? There is often no satisfying explanation for the horrors that mankind commits. Evil does exist, and that is the answer to your question.”

  Renee paused a moment.

  Then she asked, “Will you translate the journal for me?”

  Father Greco didn’t immediately answer her. Instead, he looked at the same pages he’d turned to a moment ago.

  “Even in a holy place like this, there are very few people who can read and write in the language of Christ. Who is to say how many people could have done so when this journal was created?”

  “You’re still intrigued?” Renee asked.

  “Very much so. It seems we have a mystery on our hands.”

  4

  Three Letters

  It had been a few months since Penfield had actually spoken with his best friend, which wasn’t necessarily odd given McMahon’s profession as a profiler for the FBI. McMahon was also a genius with computers and Penfield had used that expertise to help him crack open more than one investigation. It seemed he was always in McMahon’s debt, but his friend never bothered to call in the favors.

  “Hey, Doug. It’s been way too long. How are you doing?”

  Doug was silent on the other end.

  “Doug, are you there?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I was trying to figure out an answer to your question.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s this new case. A Savannah, Georgia woman went missing a few weeks ago. We found her last known location by tracking her cell phone. Her home address was several miles away, so we figured she was visiting someone. The neighborhood had three rentals, all Airbnbs. Two of them were rented by couples with no criminal records.”

  “And the third?”

  “Rented by a single man, eighty years old, at least that was the profile used to set up the account.”

  “The guy had his identity stolen?” Penfield asked.

  “And his credit card information, which paid for the rental.”

  “Here’s the million-dollar question. What does the FBI have to do with this?”

  “About a week ago, a man in Florence, South Carolina was taking his dog for a walk through the woods – the Florence Trailhead to be exact. The dog pulled him in a certain direction. The guy let the dog go and it found the remains of Elizabeth Daniels.”

  “Your missing person, I assume.”

  “Yes. She worked as a high-priced escort. Clients booked her through one of those new dating apps.”

  “How was she killed?” Penfield asked.

  “Her throat was slit. A clean cut, no hesitation marks. And it was deep, severed the carotid artery. She probably bled out in seconds.”

  “I’m guessing she wasn’t murdered at the rental house.”

  “No, not a trace of blood anywhere. The guy did a good job of wiping the place clean,” McMahon said.

  “Not to mention the challenge of all the prints that would normally be in a rental.”

  “True. The M.E. found traces of scopolamine in her body.”

  “Makes sense,” Penfield said. “The guy drugged her at the rental house, then took her somewhere else for the kill.”

  “We didn’t find any blood at the hiking trail where he dumped her. No blood on her body either. He stripped off her clothing, cleaned her, and then left her where she’d be found.”

  McMahon paused and Penfield thought this was the point where he was going to reveal the true reason for his call.

  “There’s something else,” McMahon continued. “The flesh of her face was removed.” McMahon paused again. Then he said. “The letters MAI were carved into her stomach.”

  Penfield said nothing. In the few seconds since McMahon had uttered the letters, MAI, a flood of dark memories washed over him. Close to ten years ago, he’d been part of a large task force hunting a serial killer. The man had murdered several people, mostly prostitutes. He’d removed their faces with surgical precision and had carved the letters MAI into their flesh.

  Penfield had never learned the true meaning of the letters, nor had he known the motive of the man who was eventually arrested for the brutal crimes. Marcus Carter had been one of the two lead detectives on the case and he’d shot his partner, Angela Darden. She’d later ended her own life through suicide.

  Penfield hadn’t been best friends with Marcus, but he still knew the man well. He’d been stunned by the revelation that Marcus was the killer and it had taken Penfield a long time to fully accept that he was guilty.

  “Yesterday the FBI got a phone call on our crime tip hotline. The caller used a burner phone and one of those voice modulation apps.”

  “What did he say?” Penfield asked.

  “He won’t stop. I can’t make him stop.”

  Penfield thought back to the previous investigation. The MAI killer had left that same message with the body of one of his final victims.

  “After this body appeared, we went through recent missing persons cases. There are five women who fit the pattern who were reported missing in the last few months. All prostitutes and they all lived in cities along the I-95 corridor.”

  I-95 was the main north-to-south interstate on the east coast. It would be fairly easy to pick someone up and then make a quick and easy getaway.

  “Not all of the victims before were prostitutes,” Penfield said, remembering that Marcus Carter had ultimately targeted people very close to him, including his partner, Angela Darden, and her family.

  “I know, but that’s all we can go on right now.”

  “You said these disappearances happened in the last few months. Is there a time pattern to them?”

  “No, not yet. Some happened a few days apart. Some a month apart. We don’t even know for sure that they’re connected to this new victim. You know how many people go missing every day.”

  “They are connected, though.”

  “That’s what my gut tells me.”

  “Do you have any leads? Any witnesses or surveillance videos from where the women might have been abducted?”

  “We’ve made some progress with the backgrounds on the missing women. Four of the missing five women used similar dating apps to find their clients, at least according to their friends. We reached out to the companies that make those apps and got into the women’s accounts. The men whose profiles they last interacted with all had their identities stole
n.”

  “You said there were five women missing who fit the profile. What about the fifth one?”

  “She didn’t use one of those apps, but she worked out of a strip club in Jacksonville, Florida. She disappeared one night after her shift.”

  “And no one saw anything?”

  “No. I sent two agents there. They went through surveillance video of the woman’s last shift. She left the club alone, just never got home.”

  “And the woman’s co-workers at the club?” Penfield asked.

  “They saw nothing, but you know how witnesses are. Most of them are either too damn scared or too indifferent to say anything.”

  “How is it you think I can help?”

  McMahon paused a long moment.

  Then he asked, “Do you remember that theory about Marcus having an accomplice?”

  Penfield did. There were some on the task force that didn’t believe one man could carry out the sheer number of killings on his own. That theory even persisted after Marcus had been arrested.

  Penfield hadn’t bought it, though. Marcus Carter was a brilliant man, one of the best homicide detectives he’d ever worked beside. Although Penfield hadn’t been able to comprehend Marcus’ actions, he had no trouble believing that he’d been able to evade the police for as long as he did. After all, it had only been Marcus’ own self-destructing psyche that had allowed the truth to finally come out.

  “You think the recent phone call to the FBI is proof that Marcus had help?” Penfield asked.

  “I don’t see another way to explain it. The notes left on some of the bodies were never reported.”

  “It could have been a member of the task force who leaked it.”

  “I thought of that. But if they leaked it, it would almost certainly have been to someone in the media. We’ve searched every article we can find about MAI. There’s no references to those two specific sentences,” McMahon said.

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”