The Damage Done

by P J Parrish

  Louis smoothed the stole over the reverend’s chest. “Did the ME estimate the time of death?” he asked.

  “Between seven and midnight last night.”

  Louis lifted the man’s wrist. He was still in partial rigor and cold to the touch. “It must have been closer to eight,” he said. “They had a service last night. He didn’t have time to change out of his robe afterward.”

  He looked around at the sanctuary. This seemed an odd place to confront a man and kill him. The location presented a high risk of being interrupted, especially in the early evening.

  “What time was the service over?” Louis asked.

  Emily stepped forward. “Seven. Afterwards, the janitorial crew did its usual cleanup in the sanctuary, the back offices, halls, and restrooms, and they were gone by two a.m. The reverend was found by the day janitor who came in this morning at six.”

  Louis nodded and rose. If the cleaners had been in the church until two a.m., and the reverend was already dead about six hours earlier, that meant his body had to have been hidden somewhere else, somewhere the cleaners didn’t routinely go. He had been moved out here after two a.m.

  Louis turned in a half-circle, looking down the three aisles that led off like arteries from the heart of the huge church. There were many rooms to examine to find the primary crime scene. And then there were the pivotal questions. Who had access to the church after two a.m.? And why move the body out here for display?

  “How much do you think he weighs?” Louis asked.

  Junia looked up. “Well, I’d guess around one-eighty alive.”

  “Alive?”

  She gave him a wry smile. “The soul weighs twenty-one grams so do the math.”

  Louis heard Cam chuckling but ignored him, looking back at the body. Even without his soul, Jonas Prince would have been hard to maneuver, even harder once rigor started to set in. Most likely, he had been dragged here.

  Louis looked down the center aisle to the nearest rear door, then across the floor. Except for the long runners of red carpet in the aisles and a few other patches of carpet near the steps to the altar, the floor was all white marble.

  He moved to the reverend’s feet. His shoes, beneath the cuffs of his blue, pinstriped dress trousers, were plain black leather lace-ups with solid-black heels. They were well cared for—the soles pristine and the heels still sharp—which meant the shoes were probably worn only here in church.

  Louis scanned the white marble nearby but saw no scuffmarks to indicate the body had been dragged. Maybe the killer had used a cart or one of those wheelchairs out in the foyer to transport him. Or maybe he was just strong enough to carry him.

  Louis pushed to his feet and again his eyes were drawn to the soaring windows then down to the crucifix.

  Again, the question was there. Why had the killer left the body here at the foot of the cross? It prompted questions Louis couldn’t begin to answer. His own exposure to churches had been too sporadic, and religion-driven killers were a breed he knew nothing about.

  He realized Emily was gone and, finally, he spotted her standing at the back of the altar, dwarfed by the wall of massive organ pipes. She was making notes in a binder. He picked up his briefcase and went to her.

  There was a soft slump to her posture that gave him the impression she would rather be anywhere but here. Maybe her mind was back with her cold case, the university suicides. He understood that. He wanted to be in Copper Harbor looking for the boys.

  “First impressions of the scene?” he asked.

  She looked back to the corpse. “I hate to even begin a profile without seeing where he was actually killed.”

  Louis wasn’t surprised that she had picked up on the same thing he had—that the body had been moved.

  “The body was obviously positioned here, but the unsub didn’t feel the need for ritual,” she said. “No candles, symbols, blood, or bizarre messages left near the body. No defilement of the body or church.”

  “Any messages in leaving him here in the sanctuary?”

  Emily nodded. “Understanding the importance of the dump site to the killer is one of the keys to understanding him. He left him in full sermon regalia, which he took the time to smooth and straighten after he laid him out here.”

  Louis thought back to the time of death. His first assumption had been that Jonas Prince had been murdered closer to eight because he was still dressed for his sermon. But what if the time of death had been later and the killer had felt compelled to redress him in his robe and stole?

  “So, he did this so the reverend would be dignified?” Louis asked.

  Emily nodded. “Even in death.”

  “Do you think the killer was religious?”

  “That’s not the right word,” she said. “More like reverential.”

  “That sounds like someone with a personal relationship,” Louis said.

  “Not necessarily. A stranger, a parishioner, could have done this. We have no idea about motive here.”

  “But asphyxiation is a personal way to kill.”

  Emily nodded. “I know. But that’s not enough for me to settle in on a family member or someone close just yet. Homicides like this . . .”

  She paused as if she had lost her thought. Louis gave her a moment and when she didn’t respond, he prompted her.

  “Are you okay?” Louis asked.

  “Yes . . . no. I don’t know. It’s just these kinds of murders—ones with religious undertones—they have a pathology all their own. And it’s always complicated and messy and hard to wrap your head around.”

  “Any other impressions?” he asked.

  She forced a small smile. “I can tell you this. Whoever killed Jonas Prince really, really wanted him dead.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “It takes a long time to strangle someone, up to four minutes. Four minutes when you have to keep your hands around someone’s neck, looking into their eyes. The unsub had all that time to think about what he was doing, and he didn’t stop.”

  “Sounds like a man with a purpose,” Louis said.

  Emily glanced over Louis’s shoulder. “Yes, and here comes another one.”

  Louis turned. Steele was heading their way, carrying his leather binder and the rolled blueprints. He stopped in front of Cam, handed him the blue prints, said something, then continued toward Louis and Emily.

  Louis knew Steele had been up since before dawn but everything—his trench coat, suit, hair, and even his step—was crisp. His brown eyes snapped with a wire-tight kind of excitement that Louis knew came from the moment. This wasn’t some old stale cold case. This was fresh and, given the victim, high profile. Steele’s baby was taking its first steps, and it would be in front of the attorney general, the TV cameras and—in this case, Louis thought—maybe even God.

  What wasn’t clear was why this case had landed on Steele’s cold case desk.

  The other team members gathered around.

  “This will be the interview process,” Steele said. “Six employees made it in this morning before we were able to shut down entry. They are secured in separate rooms and Cam and Junia will be conducting those interviews.”

  Steele opened his binder. “Reverend Jonas Prince, age eighty, was a widower,” he said. “His wife, Reeta, died in 1961. He has one son, Anthony, aged forty-five. He’s the general manager of the church. He’s in his office on the second floor waiting for you.”

  “Me or Louis, sir?” Emily asked.

  “Both of you,” Steele said. “I like double-team interviews. What one misses, the other should pick up on. One antagonizes, the other connects and so forth.”

  Steele started to walk away then stopped. When he turned back to them, it was as if something in Steele had slipped away for a second, leaving him exposed and without the armor of command. It was so completely out of character, Louis wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

  “I know in our business, we look first to family members,” Steele said. “But don’t get t
unnel vision. Anthony Prince is not a man we can afford to be wrong about.”

  Steele slapped his binder closed and walked away. Louis watched him as he made his rounds, stopping to talk to a newly arrived police photographer and a uniformed cop whom he directed to the front doors.

  Finally, Steele stopped about halfway down the middle aisle and turned back toward the altar. Then, in a barely discernable movement of his hand, he crossed himself.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The executive offices were on the second floor. The corridor was long, carpeted in royal blue and adorned with framed photographs that ran the length of the hall.

  Emily headed straight to Anthony Prince’s office at the far end, but Louis walked slowly, taking in the photographs. He expected to see a gallery of images honoring the ministers who had come and gone over the years. But apparently, the Beacon Light Cathedral had always been a one-man show, starring the Reverend Jonas Prince.

  The photographs included Jonas Prince on the steps of the state capitol with former governors George Romney and William Milliken. Others showed Prince in a lavish garden with William Clay Ford and posed on the veranda of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island with Bob Dole and Pat Robertson.

  As Louis continued down the hall, the portraits of Jonas Prince continued, but the reverend grew younger and the faces of the men posing with him grew less familiar. And while Jonas Prince was always in a robe and stole, giving him a sense of timelessness, the wide lapel suits and long sideburns on the other men offered a journey back in time through the seventies and eighties.

  Then came a photograph unlike the others, and it stopped Louis in his tracks.

  Sepia-toned and still bearing the cracks and imperfections of the original, it was of Jonas Prince with a woman, probably his wife Reeta. She was seated at an organ, her hands clasped in the folds of a long skirt, her dark hair drawn into a severe bun. Jonas Prince stood behind his wife, hand on her shoulder. He appeared to be in his forties, dressed in a simple, dark suit and stiff-collared shirt. Behind them, Louis could make out the edge of a scarred wooden pew and the corner of a small, stained-glass window.

  The humble beginnings, Louis thought. From chapel to cathedral in thirty years.

  “Louis!” Emily called.

  Louis looked down the hall. Emily was standing at an open door about twenty feet down the hall. He followed her in to Anthony Prince’s office. An empty secretary’s desk sat in a reception area. The door to Anthony Prince’s office was open.

  The inner office was also empty, but then Louis heard the flush of a toilet behind a closed door. Emily wandered over to the bookshelves, and Louis suspected she was profiling Anthony Prince’s reading tastes and what the large montage of plaques and awards might reveal.

  Louis looked around the office. The walls and plush carpet were beige. There was a huge floor-to-ceiling window, framed by beige sheers, that overlooked distant, black trees. The furnishings were sleek, all chrome and glass with black leather chairs. Anthony Prince’s glass desk was neat—not one smudge mark that Louis could see—with a black leather blotter, a Rolodex, an in-box with papers, and telephone. To the left of the blotter sat a small silver tray, holding a carafe, a silver creamer and sugar set, a teaspoon, and one white coffee cup rimmed in gold. To the right of the blotter was a carefully-folded copy of that morning’s Grand Rapids Press. The only other things on the desk were three gold pens positioned above the blotter and perfectly spaced.

  “You’re detectives, I presume.”

  Louis turned toward the voice. Anthony Prince was standing at the door to the bathroom, holding a white towel. He was about five-ten and stocky, but not in a sloppy, gone-to-pot way. He stood stiffly, almost like a fighter waiting for the first punch. He wore a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled and open at the collar with his striped tie hanging loose. His face was doughy, and Louis had the thought that the son had inherited Reeta’s roundness rather than Jonas’s sharp angles. His hair was wispy light-brown. The only memorable thing about Anthony Prince was his gray eyes—narrow and deeply hooded. Eyes that seemed to say I am in control. Or would have, if they weren’t bloodshot from crying.

  “Detective Louis Kincaid,” Louis said. “This is Detective Farentino.”

  She gave a nod from her position by the bookshelf.

  Anthony ignored her. He set the towel on the desk and started to roll his shirt sleeves down.

  “Sir, before you do that, can you show me your arms, please?” Louis said.

  Anthony stared at him. “Why?”

  Normally this would be done later, but Anthony had forced the issue. “I have to examine you for scratches, scrapes or bruises.”

  “You think I murdered my father?” he asked softly.

  “It’s just routine, sir.”

  Anthony thrust out his arms, turning them over and back, revealing nothing but smooth pale, almost hairless skin.

  Anthony jerked down his sleeves. “This is unbearable,” he said. “I have been locked up like a prisoner since I arrived this morning. No one has told me anything except my father has been murdered. I haven’t even been allowed in the sanctuary to see him.”

  “We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” Emily said.

  Anthony looked at her. “Inconvenience? I just lost my father.”

  Louis knew he couldn’t piss Anthony off or they would get nothing from him.

  “My apologies for the lack of communication, Mr. Prince,” he said.

  Anthony stared at him. “It’s Reverend Prince.” He started to his black leather chair but decided to remain standing. “All right,” he said, his voice more conciliatory. “I am aware that, as a family member, you must look at me as a suspect. So, can we please get on with your questions? I have parishioners who need consoling and media people to talk to.”

  “And a father to see downstairs,” Emily added.

  Anthony blinked rapidly. “Of course,” he said softly.

  Louis opened his binder and drew a pen from his pocket. “Where were you last night from the time the service ended until let’s say, two a.m.?”

  “I left almost immediately and went to dinner downtown at the Chop House. After dinner, I went home.”

  “Was anyone with you at dinner?”

  “No. I went alone.”

  “What time did you get home?” Louis asked.

  “Ten-thirty-five.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  “My wife. Her name is Violet. She’s at home now. I called her to tell her what happened, and as you can imagine she’s very upset. So please be considerate when you talk to her.”

  “Was she at the service last night?” Louis asked.

  “No, she never attends the Wednesday service.”

  “Why not?”

  “Violet comes on Sunday. To both services.”

  Anthony’s eyes shifted, and Louis realized he was now watching Emily, who was wandering around the office. She picked up a crystal obelisk from a credenza, peering at the engraved plate.

  “Would you put that down, please?” Anthony said.

  Emily looked at him, then set the crystal down.

  “Why didn’t your wife go to dinner with you?” Louis asked.

  “She never comes to dinner with me. I use the time to think and meditate.”

  “Is there anything going on right now in your life that needs meditating over?” Louis asked.

  Anthony was still watching Emily closely. She came back to the desk, picked up one of the gold pens and began to examine it closely. Louis wondered what she was doing but then he noticed Anthony’s expression. It had gone stony.

  “Reverend Prince?” Louis prodded.

  Anthony couldn’t take his eyes off Emily. She looked up at him, gave the pen a twirl between her fingers and set it back on the desk. Anthony reached down and realigned it with the other two pens.

  “Reverend Prince, is there anything in your life that needs mediating over?” Louis asked again.

  “One does not need
a crisis in order to meditate.”

  Anthony moved to the credenza and picked up a water pitcher. As he poured himself a glass, his hand shook. He set the glass down and looked back at Louis.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “This whole thing with my father . . .” His eyes welled with tears and he looked around the office, finally settling on the towel on his desk. He picked it up and dabbed at his eyes. “I suppose you’ll find this out when you talk to the church council,” he said. “My father and I were at slight odds about whether to accept a television offer to broadcast our services.”

  “Aren’t you already on TV?” Emily asked.

  Anthony turned back, wiping his eyes. “Yes, but right now we broadcast only on Sundays and only here in the Grand Rapids market. Recently, we were offered a contract by Glory Days Broadcasting to take our services nationwide on Wednesday nights.”

  “You wanted to accept and your father didn’t?” Louis asked.

  “That’s correct.”

  “How much money was the deal worth?” Louis asked.

  “It wasn’t about the money.”

  “Humor me,” Louis said. “How much?”

  “Six million.”

  “Why didn’t your father want to accept the offer?” Emily asked.

  “He felt we were losing touch with our congregation,” Anthony said. “He was already distressed at the amount of time it took to prepare for the local broadcasts. My father was a simple man. He didn’t like dealing with the production people, the noise, all the activity. He used to say it was like turning the word of God into a game show.”

  “Then why go on TV at all?” Emily asked.

  “My father’s mission was always to reach as many people as possible with God’s message,” Anthony said. “When we were originally asked to broadcast locally, I was able to convince him that it was a way to reach thousands of new people, people who were ill or confined to their homes. I also told him that we could use the money to support our charitable causes. Eventually, he saw the benefit and agreed. But he didn’t want to expand. He thought we were already successful.”

  “Seems so,” Emily said.