by Alex Kava
“Maggie O’Dell,” she answered after swallowing a mouthful of food.
“Maggie, sorry to bother you so late.” It was Adam Bonzado. “Julia told me you were out of town and probably a couple of time zones behind us. I hope I’m not waking you.”
“Actually Nebraska is only one time zone behind you. But no, you’re not waking me. I just got in, winding down with some room service.” Room service which was her first and only meal of the day and which she was starving for. She licked barbecue sauce from her fingers. “What’s going on?”
“Julia will probably fill you in on everything, but I have something I thought I might fax you directly. If I fax it to Julia and she faxes it to you, we’ll lose too much detail.”
“Hold on a minute. Let me find the hotel’s fax number.” She crawled out of bed, careful not to spill her loaded tray. She had gone a bit overboard and ordered too much.
“So you’re not in bed yet?” He sounded disappointed. “I was hoping I’d catch you in your skivvies.”
“My what?”
“You know, your…your pj’s.”
She immediately felt her face flush, but she certainly couldn’t let him know that. “What makes you think I wear any pajamas?”
“I…ah…excuse me?”
She laughed, thinking neither one of them was very good at flirting. She’d let him off the hook this time. Before he could say anything more, she said, “So what’s the something you want to fax?”
She found the hotel’s service guide and started flipping the pages, waiting for him to get back on the business track.
“I was able to clean up the tattoo. There’s a lot more of it than we expected. Once I removed some of the epidermis, the colors started to pop. That’s usually the way it works with tattoos.”
“Instead of a fax, maybe it would be better if you e-mail a digital image of it to me. That way I can see the colors, too.”
“You’re right. That’s a better idea.”
There was an awkward silence.
“I don’t think I have your e-mail address,” he finally said.
She gave him an address he could use, but she didn’t want to wait. “Are you able to make out what it is?”
“The very bottom of it is missing, but there’s a tattoo parlor here in West Haven. When I called the guy who owns it, he recognized the design right away from my description. He faxed me the whole image. I’ll e-mail that to you, too. It’s a long-stem red rose intertwined around a pink-handled dagger.”
“A dagger? And this is what she had tattooed on the back of her neck?”
“More on the right side of her neck toward the back.”
“Is there a way to track what other tattoo parlors offer this design?”
“Good question. I’ll ask,” Bonzado said. “One thing the guy did tell me is that it’s been a popular design for him with what he called D and D chicks.”
“D and D?”
“Dungeons and Dragons. You remember that?”
“Yes, but I thought the game was sort of passé.”
“Actually some of the college kids around here have started playing the game again, only it’s a computerized version. I’ve heard some of my students talking about it, but they don’t call it Dungeons and Dragons anymore. There’re all sorts of versions and spin-offs, ones that they can pretty much design themselves, creating characters by using profiles of real-life people they know, people they’d like to knock off. I’ve heard that one of our English professors seems to be a popular target. You know, just for pretend, to blow off steam. I don’t know if that helps you, but I thought it was interesting.”
“One of the other victims was a Virginia Tech student,” Maggie told him. “That might explain how he meets them. May even explain why they might trust him enough to go someplace private with him.”
“Do you think the killer might be a student, too?”
“A student seems too young to pull off these murders. Although his rage certainly comes out of some part of him that he has no control over, as if he reverts to adolescence. But I’m thinking he has a maturity that kicks in when he needs to hide his slip-ups.”
“I’ll ask some of my students how they hook up to play. If it’s by invitation or if anyone can join in.”
“That’s a good idea. Hopefully you won’t find out there’s a character profile for a Professor Bonzado.”
“Nah, couldn’t be. My students adore me. I have them all under an ancient anthropological spell. Now if only I could do the same to a certain FBI profiler.”
She said good-night without a follow-up comment. Maybe he was better at this flirting thing than she was. As she clicked off her cell phone, she realized she was smiling.
CHAPTER 46
Venezuela
Father Michael Keller stared at the computer screen. With only two citronella oil lanterns lit, the computer screen reminded him of a beacon in the dark room, bringing to light answers he wasn’t sure he wanted. He had been knocked off the Internet connection several times and had long ago used up his allotted time. But like an addict, he signed on again and again, impatient and frustrated with the long dial-up and many interruptions.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to make the blur go away, trying to make the emotional sting go away. Why hadn’t he thought about it before? Why had he been so stupid, so naive? Why hadn’t he suspected something? Instead, he wanted so badly to have a friend, someone he could trust, that he ignored glaring signs. After all, who in the world uses such an e-mail name as The Sin Eater? And here he had simply thought it clever, taking a term from an arcane Catholic legend. He’d never felt threatened because his friend, or rather this person who lured him in pretending to be his friend, had never given him reason to feel suspicious, let alone threatened. No reason at all. Until now.
He had read the articles about the two murdered priests over and over again. Monsignor O’Sullivan was someone he had met briefly while he himself was a pastor at Saint Margaret’s in Platte City, Nebraska. Yet he didn’t understand the connection. Why had his friend e-mailed him these articles with the warning “You may be next”? Why did he believe Keller was in danger? Did his “friend” know about the Halloween mask? Was he the one who had sent it? Was it meant to be a warning as well and not a prank he’d hoped it to be?
He had sent back an e-mail asking his so-called friend just that:
WHY DO YOU BELIEVE I MAY BE NEXT?
He hadn’t received an answer until this evening. And the answer had hit him like a bullet through his heart.
I KNOW BECAUSE I EXECUTED EACH OF THEM. AND YOU’RE ON THE LIST.
The e-mail came with an attachment, the list, and yes, his name was there, just under Monsignor William O’Sullivan’s.
He had to wait until the shock and betrayal finally diminished to an ache instead of the debilitating throbbing in his temple. Then he could begin his defense the only way he knew how: know thy enemy. He started with a mad search, looking up and reading anything and everything he could find on the ancient practice of sin eating, finding only bits and pieces. At one Web site, he read: “Traditionally, each village maintained its own sin eater who lived a reclusive life on the outskirts of the village.”
At another Web site he found a description of the sin eater’s duties: “The sin eater came after nightfall, after all had left the dead one’s side. He would eat the bread left on the chest of the dead one, thus removing the sins of the dead and consuming their sins, taking them into his own soul.” The early Catholic Church called it an “illicit practice” especially when used to provide absolution to those who had “committed crimes the church considered unforgivable,” crimes such as “suicide or the assassination of church officials.”
So this sin eater had taken on a double role. How clever. As an assassin he was not only killing church officials, but he was also eating, or rather consuming, the sins of those he was killing for. He had become a mediator of sorts.
Father Keller wiped his sweaty face with th
e sleeve of his white shirt. When that wasn’t enough, he yanked out the shirttails and pulled them up to wipe again. Yet the sweat seemed to keep pouring out of him. And the throbbing in his temples would not go away. It banged against his skull until he wanted to rip out the pain with this fingers when rubbing wasn’t enough anymore.
He was exhausted. The panic had drained him. Even the tea, the wonderfully comforting tea, continued to make him nauseous. Then it hit him and he stared at the cup of steaming tea as if for the first time seeing it for the Judas cup that it might be. Was it possible? Had his friend—no, not a friend at all. Had his enemy sent him a wonderful gift of lovely teas and cookies that were actually poisoned?
He tried to remember when he had started feeling sick. Did it coincide with the receipt of the gift? Was that the plan? To poison him? Or was it simply to weaken him so that he couldn’t leave, couldn’t escape and would be helpless when The Sin Eater came to finish him off?
He shoved the cup away, knocking it off the rickety wooden table and watching it splatter against the wall. That was the final betrayal. His so-called friend wanted to play games. Well, he could play as well.
He pulled his chair up to the computer and typed:
YOU POISONED THE TEA.
He clicked on Send and sat back.
Usually it took hours for a response, but it was as if The Sin Eater was sitting and waiting, expecting Keller. An e-mail came back within minutes:
YES, WITH MONKSHOOD. SINCE I CAN’T BE THERE TO KILL YOU MYSELF I WANTED YOU TO DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH.
Why? How could he? The panic started to eat away at his insides. Or was it the poison? Could it already have caused irreparable damage? Could it already be too late?
He left the e-mail site and started clicking on news links, trying to find any new information on the slain priests. There had to be something, anything, he could use. Someone had put him on a hit list. He would find out who it was. Who could possibly know? There wasn’t anyone he could think of.
This Sin Eater, this assassin, had sent him things. Surely there was DNA on the envelopes. And what about all the e-mails? Maybe someone could track them. A new AP story was posted, one he hadn’t seen. It must have been posted late, expecting to hit the morning wires and newscasts. He clicked it open. Before he read a single word, he stared at the accompanying photo. He should have been alarmed, but instead he was pleased that he recognized one of the investigators. Because that’s when the idea came to him. And that’s when Keller knew exactly what he would do. It would work. It had to work. He had no other choice.
The only question was what price would Special Agent Maggie O’Dell be willing to pay to catch this killer?
CHAPTER 47
Tuesday, July 6
Blackwater Bay Campground
South of Bagdad, Florida
Corey Lee ignored his stepdad’s yelling and kept walking. He rolled his eyes at his best friend, Kevin Potter.
“Shouldn’t we wait for him to catch up?” Kevin asked.
Corey shook his head. “He won’t come this way. He’s taking the road. It’ll take forever.”
Besides, Corey didn’t want to wait. They were almost to the boat ramp. And it was stupid to turn back now. Corey knew this shortcut. He and Kevin had taken it the last time the troop used this campground. It was a straight shot to the ramp, which was just on the other side of these trees. Yeah, the brush was thick and the no-see-ums came at you in swarms, but wasn’t that what camping was supposed to be all about?
His stepdad didn’t want them taking the shortcut. It wasn’t safe, or so he’d said. He thought warning them about water moccasins and alligators would stop them, instead it only made Corey and Kevin more excited to take the shortcut. Ever since the dweeb took the position as a Scout leader he thought he knew everything about the outdoors. He already thought he knew everything about everything else. But Corey had been a Boy Scout for three years. He grew up around these wetlands. He didn’t need his mom’s latest “special friend” telling him what to do.
He still couldn’t believe she actually married this one. Which meant Corey was stuck with him hanging around the house, but it wasn’t fair that he thought he could invade Corey’s escapes, too. When he complained to his mom, she told him to stop “being a baby” about it. She said that Ethan wanted this to be a bonding experience between them. Corey didn’t tell her that bonding with the major dweeb was the last thing he wanted to do.
“Sounds like he’s following us,” Kevin said.
Both of them looked over their shoulders as they kept walking. Corey could hear Ethan, but he couldn’t see him. The brush was thick, but he could hear something snapping the branches and swishing through the tall grass.
“Maybe he’s not such a dweeb. Maybe you should cut him a break,” Kevin said, but Corey shook his head again.
“He doesn’t want us showing him up. You know, proving him wrong. Geez! Something sure stinks,” Corey said and then he tripped.
Before he could catch himself he was falling, knocking into Kevin and bringing him down, too. He slammed his shoulder into a tree trunk and felt his elbow scrape against the bark. Kevin went facedown. Corey could hear the marshy slosh underneath the pine needles. Immediately his jeans were soaked. And geez! It smelled bad, like rotting garbage.
Suddenly Corey jumped up, quickly forgetting any pain. He saw worms crawling up his pant legs, fat little worms. He brushed and hit at them. Kevin watched until he saw them on his arm, then Kevin was back up on his feet, too, doing a dance to get them off.
They were so frantic getting the worms off that it took them a few minutes before they looked to see what had tripped them. Corey glanced back first. It looked like a pile of debris, dirty black rags covered with mud and leaves. There was a lot of household crap left over from Hurricane Ivan that had gotten caught up in the trees and brush.
“What the hell is that?” Kevin said, grabbing Corey’s arm.
“What’s going on?” Ethan shoved his way through some branches. “I told you boys—” He stopped when he saw the pile that had tripped them. “Jesus Christ! Is that a dead body?”
“Is it?” Corey asked. And now he could see what was left of a face under a moving swarm of white and brown worms.
“Wow! That is so gross,” Corey heard Kevin say, and they both moved in for a closer look. He had never seen a dead body before except on TV or in Newsweek. He wondered if they’d be able to see any of the guts.
“Get away from there, boys,” Ethan told them, but then he started gagging and wretching.
Kevin looked over at Corey. This time he rolled his eyes. “You’re right. He is a dweeb.”
CHAPTER 48
Our Lady of Sorrow High School
Omaha, Nebraska
Nick Morrelli slammed the door of the rented Oldsmobile, taking out his anger on the car when he really wanted to smack some sense into Tony. It was bad enough that he and Jill had to stay at separate places while they were in town. She had to stay at her mother’s while he stayed at Christine’s. It was ridiculous. They were adults, not a couple of teenagers. What made it worse was that’s how Jill liked it. She seemed to prefer spending time with her mother and her girlfriends, which Nick couldn’t really complain about. He was secretly grateful that they hadn’t included him in dress shopping and cake tasting. But their first full week of vacation together that was supposed to include some wedding planning had turned into mega-planning with little vacation.
Then the one night they managed to have together—this after cooking up the lame excuse that they needed to check out the downtown Embassy Suites for their out-of-town wedding guests—even that ended up being interrupted. It was getting a little frustrating, to say the least.
This morning when he rolled over to answer his cell phone while in that nice warm, king-size bed with Jill curved up next to him only to hear Tony’s frantic voice, he wanted to tell his old buddy to screw off. He wanted to remind him that he had warned him this would happe
n. What did he expect? He couldn’t just fuck around with police detectives even if he did supposedly have God on his side.
But instead, he had agreed to meet Tony at the school in an hour, instructing him to tell the detectives to do the same while he half crawled, half fell out of the comfy hotel bed.
“Tell them that unless they have a warrant for your arrest, you shouldn’t need to go down to the police station,” Nick had told Tony. “They want to talk to you, then they can come to you.”
He hadn’t realized he was yelling until Jill had rolled over and thrown a pillow at him. At the time it didn’t stop him. He had simply readjusted his cell phone between his chin and shoulder while he put on his other shoe.
Damn it!
He wished he had time to stop at Christine’s and change into something other than blue jeans and Nikes. But it was more important that he get there early, beat the cops in case he still had to drill it into Tony’s thick skull that he was skating on thin ice. Whatever it was Tony thought he knew and thought he had an obligation to hide, it wasn’t worth being hassled by the cops. Not cops looking for a murder suspect.
“Tell them that you can’t be leaving the school,” Nick had continued, “especially now that the summer session has begun. You can’t be running downtown whenever they have another question they forgot to ask. Tell them to come to you. Tell them if they want to ask you any more questions we’ll meet at your office…in an hour.”
Now as he walked up the sidewalk to Our Lady of Sorrow High School, he wondered what other questions they could possibly have for Tony. He found him alone in his second-floor office. Thank goodness. This morning Tony wore his black trousers, black shirt and white priest collar.
