by Alex Kava
“He has a conference in the District next month,” Maggie offered.
“Oh?”
“So maybe we’ll get together for dinner.”
“Good.”
“Have you heard from Tully since he left for vacation?” Maggie asked, very matter-of-fact, as if it was the most natural progression of the conversation.
Gwen felt a sudden knot in her stomach. Had she opened a can of worms by asking Maggie about Bonzado? Now it was supposed to be her turn to share about Tully. Despite confiding in Maggie about her feelings for R. J. Tully, Gwen still wasn’t sure she wanted those feelings validated or confirmed. Not just yet. Nor did she want to admit she had missed him.
“Couldn’t Cunningham send Tully to Nebraska when he gets back?”
“Gwen?” Maggie laughed. “Tully’s gone for another week. Besides, I thought you’d be anxious to see him.”
“Of course, it’ll be good to see him. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that I don’t understand how Cunningham can send you out on another case when you only got started on the one here. And it sounds like you made some major progress yesterday.”
“I faxed over my preliminary report to Cunningham this morning,” Maggie said as she pulled out her watch to check the time, which Gwen knew meant that she needed to get in line for security soon.
“You were able to come up with a profile that quickly?”
“A preliminary one. When we know more about the victims I’ll learn more about the killer. Racine and Stan have an ID on Jane Doe number three. That’ll help.”
“They know who she is?” Gwen asked.
“Dentals matched a Virginia Tech college student. Her name is Libby Hopper. She’s been missing since early last week.”
“Missing? How did she go missing?” Gwen tried, but couldn’t remember where the university was. What would Nash be doing cruising college campuses? But, of course, easy prey.
“She was supposed to be staying with relatives here in the District between summer sessions. Her car was found in the parking lot of a nightclub in Richmond.”
“Why would he risk bringing her back here?”
“Actually he may not have brought her back here,” Maggie explained.
“What do you mean? Of course he did. You found her head on the banks of the Potomac.”
“He might not have killed her here,” Maggie said, lowering her voice, and Gwen thought it was unnecessary. No one could overhear with the speaker system blasting every other minute about leaving unattended luggage. “He may have killed her somewhere between Richmond and here. That could explain why we haven’t found any torsos. It’s less of a risk to carry around the head.”
“So if Racine gave you all this information about Libby Hopper, does that mean you’re still on this case?” She tried to sound curious, not desperate.
“I’m sure Racine will want me to stay involved.”
“Of course, she’d be crazy to not keep you involved.” She wasn’t sure she could guide Racine as easily as she had hoped to guide Maggie.
“I’ll keep you posted,” Maggie said as she stood. “Gotta go.” And she opened her arms, waiting for Gwen to stand so she could give her a hug. “Thanks for taking care of Harvey.”
“Harvey and I have a good time. He takes me for nice long walks in Rock Creek Park. I find so many more interesting things with him along.” Gwen tried not to think of the scribbled map that had led them to the second skull on one of the park’s trails. Instead, she hugged Maggie, then stepped back and smiled. “Hey, I forgot to ask what the case was about in Nebraska.”
“Ironically, it’s priests getting killed instead of doing the killing.”
“Really?” Gwen knew Maggie well enough to recognize that this feeble attempt at morbid humor was only to disguise her own anxiety. She had been too wrapped up in her own mess to even consider what Maggie might be going through. Her friend avoided eye contact as if expecting Gwen’s next question, “Are you okay about going back there?”
Maggie frowned at her like it was a silly question. Another failed disguise, because Gwen could see the lie even before Maggie said, “Of course I’m okay. That was what, four years ago?”
“Some scars take longer than four years to heal,” Gwen told her, this time meeting and holding her eyes. “Especially when there’s unfinished business.”
Maggie just shrugged then reached out and gave Gwen’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry about me. You’re the one who looks tired. Get some rest. I’ll call you tonight.”
And then she was off, down the long ramp with that confident stride that she used to fool everyone. Almost everyone. But Gwen wasn’t fooled. This time she’d let Maggie get away with it only because it allowed her to disguise her own secrets. Selfishly she was relieved that Maggie didn’t seem to have a clue about the knots twisting in her stomach, or even suspect the mental time bomb wreaking havoc with her conscience.
CHAPTER 35
Our Lady of Sorrow High School
Omaha, Nebraska
Nick Morrelli hoped his sister, Christine, didn’t make him sorry he had come along for the ride. It was Timmy’s first day of the Summer Explorers’ Program at what would be his new high school in the fall. The school was just one of the changes resulting from Christine’s divorce and recent move from Platte City to Omaha.
She said Timmy was excited about the new school, although Nick couldn’t help thinking that it might just be Christine putting her positive spin on it. Just the other night she had complained about Timmy spending too much time in his room on his computer and not out with his friends. Nick wasn’t sure that sounded like a fourteen-almost-fifteen-year-old boy excited about much of anything.
Yet when they arrived, Timmy left them behind, racing up the steps, knowing exactly where he needed to be. Maybe he really was excited, though Nick suspected that Timmy might not want his new classmates seeing him with his mother. It didn’t take long and Nick was wishing he had kept up with Timmy. At the bottom of the stairs Christine pointed to an office door with Monsignor O’Sullivan’s nameplate. He nodded and kept walking, hoping she’d follow. She didn’t.
Nick was halfway up the stairs when he heard her confronting someone inside the office. She started a full-blown interrogation and by the time Nick made it to the doorway the tall, pale man dressed in black was explaining—or rather it sounded more like an announcement—that he was Brother Sebastian, assistant to Archbishop Armstrong and that he had been sent to collect monsignor’s personal effects.
Christine was asking if the Omaha Police Department knew Brother Sebastian was contaminating what she insisted could be valuable evidence in an ongoing investigation. She was threatening to call the OPD just as Nick grabbed her arm and coaxed her out of the office and up the staircase. She was still ranting about the nerve of the archbishop when they found the classroom for the Explorers’ Program.
It wasn’t until she introduced Nick to Sister Kate Rosetti, Timmy’s new history teacher, and the head of the Explorers’ Program, that she seemed to forget Brother Sebastian and remember why they were there. Christine even embarrassed the nun by including in her introduction a brief résumé of Sister Kate’s international and national conferences and presentations.
“We’re very lucky to have her in Omaha, let alone right here at Our Lady of Sorrow,” Christine had said, revealing the news reporter in her.
It didn’t surprise Nick. Christine had told him the Explorers’ Program cost five hundred dollars, which meant she’d researched anything and everything about the program and Sister Kate to make sure it was well worth it.
“Sounds like you’re keeping busy this summer,” Nick had said.
“Yes, but mostly short weekend conferences especially now that the Explorers’ Program has started,” Sister Kate had explained with a shrug of her shoulders as if downplaying her notoriety. “I was in Saint Louis yesterday.”
Then shortly after the introductions, Christine did surprise Nick by suggesting
he stay and check out Sister Kate’s classroom. Not only did Christine do her research, but his sister had a good memory. She had to know that Nick would jump at such an invitation. It wasn’t just those preteen summers of digging for treasure in the backyard. As a history major in college he loved studying ancient cultures, their tools and weapons, especially the kinds of stuff Sister Kate obviously enjoyed collecting. Just from the door he could see medieval swords and pieces of armor behind the locked glass cabinets. The room looked like an explorer’s heaven.
So maybe he didn’t mind Christine trying to get rid of him. Of course, she was trying to get rid of him. She wanted to nose around some more.
Chances were, Christine was headed back down to Monsignor O’Sullivan’s office, making good on her threat and calling the OPD. Nick wondered if Christine was really concerned about justice and legalities or if she was simply frustrated the guy had gotten to the office before she could.
“Mr. Morrelli,” Sister Kate said, suddenly appearing beside him. “Your sister said you might like to join the class for the first hour this morning.”
“You sure I won’t be in the way?”
“Not at all. I’m letting the kids get comfortable, check out the classroom and introduce themselves. We’ll be ready to start in a few minutes.”
“It’s quite a classroom.” Nick hoped he didn’t sound like a starstruck fifteen-year-old.
She smiled, and Nick couldn’t help thinking she didn’t look like any of the nuns he’d had in grade school. For one thing, he didn’t remember any of them wearing makeup, let alone lipstick. Although Sister Kate wore soft colors, she didn’t really need makeup, with her short but full and silky hair, creamy smooth skin and warm blue eyes.
“If you don’t mind my asking, where…or how did you get some of this stuff?”
“It’s amazing the things people want to give me when they discover what I do,” she said. “Many of these pieces started out as loaners and became permanent donations. Some I’ve found myself in out-of-the-way places, antique stores, flea markets, even on eBay, believe it or not. There are so many people who don’t recognize what they have sitting in their closets, especially if it’s something that was left to them by an ancestor. Take this braquemard,” she told him while lifting a flat-bladed sword from the counter. “I’m going to show this to the students today. It’s from the 1400s.”
“You can’t tell me this was sitting in someone’s closet collecting dust?”
“No, I accidentally found it in a butcher’s shop outside a little French village called Machecoal. Someone had given it to the owner’s father, but it originally belonged to a wealthy baron, a soldier who fought alongside Joan of Arc. See the engravings?”
She held it up for him, and he ran an index finger over the worn engraved stamp above the hilt. There wasn’t much left, but it was some kind of archaic symbol, no initials like one would expect. He could smell the metallic, acrid cleaner on his finger. Sister Kate took good care of her artifacts.
“Amazingly it had not traveled far in almost six hundred years,” she told him.
“Joan of Arc, huh? I guess it makes sense that you’d like to collect pieces that belonged to saints and heroes.”
“Oh, Gilles de Rais, the baron, was hardly either, though many believed him to be. He led what you might say was a secret double life.” She set the sword down now with what Nick would call almost a reverence. She gently rubbed her fingertips over the wide flat blade that was pointed and sharp on both edges. “It’s believed that he used this very horseman’s sword to slice open the bellies of over a hundred and forty boys, sometimes beheading them, too. That is, after he choked and hanged them and masturbated over them. No, he was hardly a saint or a hero.”
CHAPTER 36
Reagan National Airport
Washington, D.C.
Maggie had barely settled into her newly assigned first-class seat when the flight attendant named Cassy brought her the Diet Pepsi she had requested. She included a glass of ice and several bags of “premium” mixed nuts. They were giving her the royal treatment. Earlier Cassy had tapped her on the shoulder and whispered that the captain had insisted she be moved to first class, upgrading her from her coach window seat almost at the back of the plane.
Well, Maggie wasn’t going to argue. Coach was full, first class half-empty. She knew it was because somewhere on the passenger docket the captain had discovered he had an FBI agent on board and wanted her close to his cockpit door. Her weapon had been confiscated for the flight, but she didn’t blame them for wanting as many reinforcements as was available and close by. These unexpected upgrades had happened to her several times on other flights since 9/11. And each time she avoided telling them that she might be worthless at thirty-eight thousand feet. She hated flying. Each time was an effort just to get on the plane.
As soon as she was able to, she’d bring out anything and everything that might distract her. This time she pulled out both tray tables—since the first-class seat next to her was unoccupied—and began sorting through files and notes, including those Cunningham, her boss, had e-mailed her early that morning. One of his e-mail attachments had an assortment of crime scene and autopsy photos. She kept those in a folder even when she looked at them. No sense in tipping off anyone else about what she did for a living. The photos were not quite as disturbing as the decapitation ones. In fact, other than a single stab wound to each of the bodies there appeared to be no other injuries. No mutilation. No grotesque display of the dead bodies. No bite marks. No signs of torture.
There were supposedly three cases: two priests, one former priest, all stabbed to death in very public places. Maggie’s job was to figure out if the cases were related, to determine if they were the work of one killer, or perhaps two working together, and then to come up with a profile.
She found the police report and scanned the details on the case in Omaha. Fifty-seven-year-old Monsignor William O’Sullivan had been stabbed once in the chest while using an airport restroom on a busy Friday afternoon. Not only a busy Friday afternoon, but a holiday weekend. There were no witnesses with the exception of a Scott Linquist who allegedly may have bumped into the killer on his way into the restroom. Linquist’s description was brief: a young man in a baseball cap. He mentioned no weapon, no blood.
The autopsy report presented little evidence, as did the toxicology and the crime lab reports. Maggie stopped and flipped back to something that caught her attention in the autopsy report. This was interesting. The weapon, according to the M.E., was a double-edged, nine-to ten-inch blade that appeared to have been wider in the center and thin at the edges, with an unusually large hilt that may include possible engravings. The M.E. had drawn a sketch in the margin of what looked like an antique dagger.
A dagger. The last time Maggie was in Nebraska, a fillet knife had been the weapon of choice for the killer. She could still remember every detail of that case: the small white underpants, the Halloween mask, the ritualistic oil on the forehead. But mostly when she thought about it—and in recent months, she tried not to—she remembered the bitter cold, the snow and ice chunks in the Platte River. And no matter how she tried, she could never forget the image of those little blue-gray bodies abandoned along the muddy riverbanks, each one with crude, raw X carved on the chest. Only, later, they discovered it wasn’t an X at all, but a cross.
Two men were serving life sentences, but Maggie had always been convinced that the real killer had gotten away. For months afterward she had tried to track him, unsuccessfully, of course. She had no jurisdiction in South America and no cooperation and no official support. Moreover, Platte City, the community he had ravaged and betrayed, seemed eager to move on, unwilling to accept that a young, charismatic Catholic priest could do such things. No one wanted to believe that evil could lurk within a man who had been ordained to do good. Yet Maggie wondered if, even in his own twisted mind, Father Michael Keller believed he had been doing the work of the Lord. Why else would he have bothered
to give each of his young victims the last rites?
She had told Gwen that she was fine returning to Nebraska. After all, she was going to Omaha this time, not the small rural Platte City thirty miles to the south. She wouldn’t be close to any of the crime scene sites. And instead of a small-town, inexperienced sheriff like Nick Morrelli, she’d be working with a veteran detective of a metropolitan police department. So there should be no similarities, no reasons to be reminded of or even haunted by that case that had been closed for almost four years. Now if only she could close it in her mind. It was difficult to just forget such things or even put them out of her mind when every day she had to look at the scar on her side where the killer, the real killer had cut her…with a fillet knife.
Yes, Gwen was right. Some scars took longer to heal.
The nightmare didn’t come as often anymore, but when it did, it was as real and palpable as ever. She was back in that dark, damp tunnel under the cemetery. Dirt crumbled down into her hair. The smell of decay filled her nostrils. The darkness pushed against her from all sides. She could hear his steps crunch closer and closer. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. And this time when he sliced her, he didn’t stop at her side but continued to carve the sign of the cross deep into her flesh.
