Night Sins

by Tami Hoag

  Her hand was trembling so badly, she could barely insert the key in the lock of her office door. As it turned out, she didn't need to. The door was open, the office occupied.

  A man rose from her visitor's chair with a copy of Law and Order in one hand and a half-eaten glazed doughnut in the other. He looked about thirty, though he had the kind of face that would appear boyish long after thirty had passed him by. His eyes were wide, bright, and brown, and his nose was too short. His hair—a mop of brown curls—put Megan in mind of a cocker spaniel. She scowled at him for invading her territory.

  “Megan O'Malley,” she said, tossing her briefcase on her desk. She went on glaring at him as she hung her coat on the rack. “In case you were wondering whose office you'd barged into.”

  Spaniel Boy gave her a look of exaggerated sheepishness, fumbling with the magazine and the half-eaten doughnut, dumping them on her desk. He brushed his hand off on the leg of his navy chinos, leaving behind flakes of sugar glazing, then offered the hand to Megan.

  “Marty Wilhelm.”

  Megan ignored the show of manners. The message light on her phone was blinking like an angry red eye. “I assume you know you're all set up in the small room down by Evidence. The professor is chomping at the bit to get started.”

  “Ah . . . huh?”

  “The professor. The computers,” Megan said flatly. “Out the door. Hang a left. I'd say you need a key, but that didn't stop you from coming in here.”

  A crooked, embarrassed smile quirked his lips. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”

  “That depends on who you are.”

  “Agent Marty Wilhelm. Headquarters was supposed to notify you. Actually”—he lifted a finger to emphasize the point, still grinning—“Bruce DePalma said he would speak to you personally.”

  Megan's gaze shot to the blinking message light. A chill swept over her. She forced her eyes back to Marty with his puppy-dog enthusiasm and regimental-striped tie.

  “I'm sorry,” she said, amazed that she sounded perfectly normal when all internal systems were going haywire. “I'm afraid you have me at a loss. I haven't spoken with Bruce today.”

  “Oh, gee. This is awkward.” He cleared his throat and patted his chest, then raised both hands with fingers spread. “I'm your replacement. You've been temporarily suspended from active duty. You're off the case.”

  The internal alarm went off, too late to do any good. Marty Wilhelm. The Marty Wilhelm who had reportedly been in the running for this field post before affirmative action bumped him out. The Marty Wilhelm who was engaged to the daughter of Hank Welsh from Special Operations. The Marty Wilhelm who had evidently been standing in the wings, waiting for her to screw up.

  Megan's first impulse was to pull her Glock 9-mil and blow that silly fucking smirk off his face. Smarmy little weasel, playing dumb, stringing her along. She could imagine the only thing that would have made him happier was to have had an audience. It was a wonder he hadn't waited for her in the squad room so he could have made a fool of her in front of other cops.

  “I'll need to see some ID,” she said, biting down hard on her temper.

  Marty's brows shot up. But he dug his ID out and handed it over. Megan glanced at it, then dropped it like a hot rock on her desk—Spaniel Boy's desk. Her knees shook a little and she sat down on Leo Kozlowski's broken chair.

  “I'll need to make a couple of phone calls,” she announced.

  Marty eased back down into the visitor's chair and made a magnanimous gesture toward the phone.

  “And you will kindly get the hell out of this office while I do so,” she said through her teeth.

  “Now, Megan,” he began in a practiced patronizing tone. “You're really not in any position to order me around.”

  “No,” she said, “but I am in a position to generate headlines the likes of ‘Disgruntled Agent Goes on Shooting Spree.' You wouldn't want to be listed first in a story like that, would you, Marty?”

  His chuckle was forced and more than a little tense. He stood again and backed toward the door. “I'll just see if I can't straighten out this confusion about the computers and the professor.”

  “You do that.”

  “I'll stop back.”

  “Take your time.”

  He slipped out the door and closed it quietly. The sound was magnified in Megan's mind. The door slamming on her career, shutting her out.

  You blew it, O'Malley. You're screwed. They were waiting like wolves for you to stumble and now they're going to chew you up and spit you out. Way to go.

  The self-recriminations were like lashes from a whip. What was the matter with her? This was the job she'd been waiting for, and she'd ruined it—by compromising herself with Mitch Holt. And how many times had she warned herself to curb her tongue, to restrain her temper, just to turn around and blow up on live TV.

  Stupid. Careless.

  She tried to gather her composure. She wouldn't give up without a fight. She wouldn't be reduced to the kind of bawling, begging woman she despised.

  She reached for the telephone, her hand shaking like a palsy victim's as the migraine expanded in her head like a balloon. As she pressed the receiver to her ear, the dial tone sliced through her brain. Groaning, head swimming, she dropped the receiver and threw up in the wastebasket.

  7:42 A.M. -19° WINDCHILL FACTOR: -38°

  I saw Josh.”

  Father Tom slid into the pew beside Hannah. She had called him at the crack of dawn and asked to see him before morning Mass. The sun had been up barely an hour, sending pale fingers of light through the stained glass windows. Cubes and ovals of soft color flickered shyly on the drab flat carpet that ran down the center aisle. Tom had rolled out of bed and pulled on pants and a T-shirt and sweater. He hadn't bothered to shave. Absently, he combed his hair with his fingers, as unconcerned with his own appearance as he was concerned with Hannah's.

  She was pale and wan, her eyes fever-bright. He wondered when she had last eaten a meal or slept for more than an hour or two. Her golden hair was dull and she had swept it back into a careless ponytail. A bulky black cotton sweater disguised her thinness, but he could see the bones of her wrists and hands as she gripped them together in her lap, as delicate as ivory carvings, the skin almost translucent over them. He offered her his hand and she immediately took hold with both of hers.

  “What do you mean, you saw him?” he asked carefully.

  “Last night. It was like a dream, but not. Like a—a—vision. I know that sounds crazy,” she added hastily, “but that's what it was. It was so real, so three-dimensional. He was wearing pajamas I'd never seen before and he had a bandage—” She broke off, frustrated, impatient with herself. “I sound like a lunatic, but it happened and it was so real. You don't believe me, do you?”

  “Of course I believe you, Hannah,” he whispered. “I don't know what to make of it, but I believe you saw something. What do you think it was?”

  A vision. An out-of-body experience. A psychic something-or-other. No matter what she called it, it sounded like the desperate ravings of a desperate woman. “I don't know,” she said, sighing, shoulders slumping.

  Father Tom measured his words carefully, knowing he was treading a fine line through sensitive territory. “You're under tremendous stress, Hannah. You want to see Josh more than you want to breathe. It wouldn't be unusual for you to dream about him, for the dream to seem real—”

  “It wasn't a dream,” she said stubbornly.

  “What does Paul think?”

  “I didn't tell him.”

  She pulled her hands back and rested them on her thighs, staring at the rings Paul had placed on her finger to symbolize their love and their union. Was she betraying him with her doubt? Had he betrayed them all? The questions twisted in her stomach like battling snakes, venomous, hideous, creatures over which she had no control. She turned her gaze to the soaring arched ceiling of the church, to the intricate and towering glass mosaic window of Jesus with a lam
b in his arms. She stared at the ornately carved crucifix, Christ looking down at the high altar from his place on the cross. Empty, the church seemed a cavernous, cold place, and she felt small and powerless.

  “The police asked him to give his fingerprints yesterday,” she murmured in the hushed tone of confession.

  “I know.”

  “They're not saying it, but they think he's involved.”

  “What do you think?” Father Tom asked gently.

  She was silent as the snakes wrestled inside her. “I don't know.”

  She closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath. “I shouldn't doubt him. He's my husband. He's the one person I should trust. I used to think we were the luckiest people on earth,” she murmured. “We used to love each other. Trust. Respect. We made a family. We had priorities. Now I wonder if any of that was real or was it just a passing moment. I feel like maybe our lives were set to run on the same plane for just that time and now we've gone in such different directions, we can't even communicate. And I feel so cheated and so stupid. And I don't know what to do.”

  She sounded so lost. As capable and intelligent as she was, Hannah was ill-prepared to face this kind of catastrophe in her life. She had lived the kind of life most people dreamed of. She came from a loving family, had been given advantages, had achieved and excelled, married a handsome man and started a nice family. She had never developed the tools to deal with pain and adversity. To him now, she looked stunned and defenseless, and he caught himself cursing God for being so cruel.

  “Oh, Hannah,” he murmured. He didn't try to stop himself from brushing a lock of hair back from her cheek. He was well-schooled in the art of compassion, but if he had ever held any wisdom, it deserted him with this woman. There was nothing he could offer her that was more than empty words . . . except himself.

  She turned to him, put her head on his shoulder. Her tears soaked into his sweater. Her muffled words tore at him.

  “I just don't understand! I'm trying so hard!”

  To deal with something that should never have touched her life.

  Tom folded his arms around her and held her protectively, tenderly. He looked around his empty church at the votives—small tongues of flame in cobalt glass, symbols of hope that flickered out and died unanswered. The fear that yawned inside him made him tighten his arms around Hannah, and Hannah's arms stole around him, her fingers curling into the soft wool of his sweater. He rubbed a hand up and down her back, up into the fine hair at the base of her skull. He breathed in the clean, sweet scent of her, and ached with a longing he had never known. A longing to connect with the kind of love men and women had shared since the dawn of time.

  He didn't ask why. Why Hannah. Why now. The questions and recriminations could wait. The need could not. He held her tight, held his breath, prayed for time to stand still for just a moment, because he knew this couldn't last. He brushed a kiss to her temple, and tasted her tears, salty and warm.

  “Sinners!”

  The charge came like thunder from heaven. But the bellow was not from God; it was from Albert Fletcher. The deacon descended on them from behind the screen that hid the door to the sacristy. He flew down the steps, a wraith in black, his eyes wild, his mouth tearing open, a large stoneware bowl in his hands. At the same time, the doors of the narthex at the back of the church were pulled open. The morning faithful wandered in to be struck dumb by the bizarre tableau in front of them.

  Father Tom surged to his feet. Hannah twisted around to face Fletcher. He bore down on her, a madman shrieking like something from a nightmare.

  “Sinners burn!” he screamed as he flung the contents of the bowl.

  The holy water hit Hannah like a wall and splashed Father Tom. An elderly woman at the back of the church let out a shriek.

  “Albert!” Tom yelled.

  “The wages of sin is death!”

  He was beyond hearing, certainly beyond listening to anything Father Tom had to say.

  “Wicked daughter of Eve!”

  Fletcher hurled the stoneware bowl at Hannah. She screamed, trying to dive out of the way and ward off the blow at the same time. Tom lunged in front of her, grunting as the missile glanced off his right hip. It clattered down onto the seat of the pew in front of him and bounced onto the floor, shattering with a loud crack! Ignoring the pain, Tom launched himself into the aisle, grabbing for Fletcher. The deacon jumped back, just out of reach.

  “The wages of sin is death!” he screamed again, backing up the steps toward the altar.

  “Albert, stop it!” Tom demanded, moving toward him aggressively. “Listen to me! You're out of control. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you saw. Now, calm down and we'll discuss it.”

  Fletcher moved continually backward, up another step, onto the level of the altar. His narrowed eyes never left Father Tom.

  “‘Beware of false prophets who come in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves,' ” he quoted in a low monotone. He backed into the altar, his hands behind him, fingers searching. His face was waxy white and filmed with sweat, the muscles drawn against the bone as tight as a drumhead, twitching spasmodically.

  Father Tom eased up onto the last step, reaching out slowly. Should he have seen this coming? Should he have done something sooner to prevent it? He had always thought of Albert Fletcher as obsessive, not insane. There were worse obsessions than God. But madness was madness. He reached out with the intention of pulling his parishioner back across that line.

  “You don't understand, Albert,” he said quietly. “Come with me and give me a chance to explain.”

  “False prophet! Son of Satan!” He swung his arm and caught Father Tom hard in the side of the head with the heavy base end of a fat brass candlestick.

  Stunned, Tom fell to his knees on the steps and couldn't stop himself from veering backward, sideways, down. He had no control of arms or legs. What senses hadn't been knocked out entirely were a hopeless jumble in his pounding head. He tried to speak but couldn't, tried to point as people rushed up to surround him, gaping at him in astonishment. Albert Fletcher fled out a side door.

  CHAPTER 32

  * * *

  DAY 10

  8:14 A.M. -19° WINDCHILL FACTOR: -38°

  Lonnie, Pat, check the garage. Noogie, you're with me; we'll take the house.”

  They stood beside a pair of squad cars in front of Albert Fletcher's house, the cold pressing in on them, penetrating the layers of Thinsulate and Thermax and goose down and wool as if they were gossamer chiffon. None of the neighbors seemed curious enough about the presence of police to step outside into the cold. Mitch caught the flick of a drape in the rambler across the street. A wrinkled face peered out at them from the window of the Cape Cod next door to Fletcher's house.

  “Don't look like he's home,” Dietz said, rubbing his gloved hands against each other. The black fake-fur hat perched on his head looked like some synthetic creature trying to mate with his wig.

  “He just assaulted a priest,” Mitch drawled. “I don't think he'd be inclined to roll out the welcome mat.”

  Assault with what intent? he wondered. With what motive? Father Tom had explained as much as he could in the Deer Lake Community Hospital ER while Dr. Lomax poked at the gash in the side of his head and made grave doctor faces. Fletcher had seen him with his arms around Hannah and misunderstood the embrace.

  An innocent hug hardly seemed enough to catapult a man over the edge of sanity.

  Mitch had looked to Hannah for confirmation as she paced the width of the small white room. She was shaking—with cold or with shock or both. Shaking hard.

  “I don't know what he was thinking,” she muttered, eyes downcast. “The whole world has gone insane.”

  Amen, Mitch thought as he started up the walk to Fletcher's front door. Noogie went around to the back in case Fletcher was home and would try to make a break for it. Wherever the deacon had gone, he had gone on foot. His Toyota sat in the parking lot beside St. E
's.

  Mitch had assigned half a dozen officers to search the neighborhood on foot and in cruisers. Every other cop in town and the county was on the lookout. He doubted Fletcher had come home, but that might depend on just how far Albert had gone off the deep end. In any event, they had a search warrant. If they didn't get Fletcher, they would at least get a look around.

  He pulled open the storm door and knocked hard on the inner door.

  “Mr. Fletcher?” he called. “Police! We have a search warrant!”

  He waited a slow ten count. Megan would have his hide for doing this without her, but she hadn't been in her office when the call came in, and he couldn't wait. He raised the two-way radio and buzzed Noga.

  “Do your thing, Noogie.”

  “Ten-four, Chief.”

  Mitch figured he was too damn old to be busting exterior doors in with any part of his anatomy. They had a battering ram in the trunk of Dietz's cruiser, but they had something bigger and better in Noga. After the demise of his college football career due to a bum knee, Noga was always happy to crash into something or someone.

  The sharp crack! of splintering wood cut through the crisp morning air. Seconds later, Noga pulled the front door open from the inside. “Whatever you're selling, I don't want any.”

  Mitch stepped into the small foyer. “Really? I'm running a two-for-one special on excessive force this month. Anyone giving me shit gets his ass busted twice.”

  Noga's thick eyebrows reared up like a pair of woolly caterpillars. He stepped back into the living room, waving Mitch inside. “You want the upstairs or the downstairs?”

  “Up. Be sure to check the basement.”

  Mitch took the stairs slowly, knowing he was vulnerable if Fletcher was perched up there waiting for him with a candlestick or an Uzi. There was no predicting what Fletcher might feel driven to do. There was no telling what he might already have done. He may have lost his marbles years ago, but managed to keep a lid on his madness until now. Until he had seen Hannah in the arms of his priest.