Killer Winter

by Kay Bigelow

  After being admitted through the front gate, Leah and Peony were met at the front door by a priest.

  “Follow me, please.” He led them to an office near the back of the mansion.

  As they followed the priest down the long hallway, Leah and Peony removed their hoods and lowered their scarves from their faces. A caress of heat hit her, and Leah nearly sighed out loud at how good it felt.

  Leah was surprised when it seemed every room they passed was an office. She had thought the bishop’s mansion would be more home than office, but she was mistaken. Maybe his living quarters were on the second floor. Or maybe this was strictly for business and his home was somewhere else. If the latter was true, she wondered how they’d gotten around the zoning laws for this neighborhood.

  Focus. Stop wandering off on tangents. The zoning of this neighborhood has nothing to do with the bishop’s death. Focus on the case.

  At a door at the end of the hallway, the priest escorting them knocked twice. A voice inside the room called, “Enter.” The priest escorting them nodded politely at them, turned, and headed back toward the front of the mansion.

  Leah opened the door and they entered the office.

  “Hello, I’m Joseph Preata, special assistant to Bishop Cohane.”

  Joseph Preata was movie star handsome. His black hair was graying slightly at the temples, and he looked like he was a swimmer, with wide shoulders and a trim waist. His eyes were the blue of a summer sky. He was taller than Leah by about three inches, and that would put him right at six feet tall.

  “I’m Lieutenant Leah Samuels and this is Detective Peony Fong.”

  Leah had to lightly jab Peony in the ribs to get her out of her reverie about the priest.

  “What a beautiful name,” Preata told Peony with a smile, showing off his dimples. “You’re undoubtedly from Xing.”

  “Yes, I am,” Peony responded almost breathlessly.

  He turned back to Leah. “Lieutenant, your reputation precedes you. However, didn’t I read somewhere you were dead? Killed in one of the explosions that wiped out a police precinct, wasn’t it?”

  Leah was tempted to say something about having risen from the dead, but thought better of it considering who she was talking to. She didn’t want to offend him because she wanted information, and it would be unlikely he would be cooperative if she pissed him off.

  “The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated,” she said instead.

  “I’m glad to hear it. How can I help you today?”

  “I need to know the bishop’s itinerary for the evening he went missing.”

  “I wondered about that myself after he disappeared. I checked both the calendar I kept for him as well as his personal calendar, and he had nothing scheduled. The only thing I can think is he got a call that was so urgent he went out into the middle of the blizzard. I wanted to retrace his steps to see if his car was lying in a ditch somewhere but had no idea where to begin to look for him.”

  “Did he do that often?”

  “Go out in the middle of a blizzard at midnight? Or end up on the side of the road?” Preata asked with a trace of superiority on his face.

  “In the middle of a blizzard.”

  “As far as I knew, he’d never done that before, at least not while he’s been bishop here. But then, this is the first time he’s gone missing for this long. There have been times he’d be missing for a few hours at most, but he always turned up saying he’d gotten lost and wandered around until he found something or somewhere that looked familiar. That’s why we got him a driver.”

  “Where was the driver that night?” Leah asked, trying to figure out how the bishop had gotten to the field.

  “He was told to take the bishop home and then go home himself because of the storm coming to town,” Preata said.

  “But?” Leah asked.

  “But according to the driver, the bishop was insistent he be left at the cathedral. He told the driver he’d take a cab home.” Preata tilted his head slightly. “And when the bishop insists, one does as one is asked.”

  “What’s at the cathedral?”

  “In addition to his offices here at the mansion, he keeps a small office at the cathedral.”

  “The driver was okay with leaving the bishop at the cathedral when a blizzard was coming in?” Leah asked.

  “Not really, but the bishop could be very, shall we say, adamant. The driver knew the bishop would be safe in the cathedral and could sleep on the couch in his office, as he had upon occasion.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about that evening?”

  “I’d like to believe he told me everything, but that would be naïve,” Preata said. “There are always things that are on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Do you know if he had any dealings, either professionally or personally, with witches?”

  Obviously, the question surprised Preata because his perfect eyebrows shot up practically to his hairline.

  “I don’t know of any dealings he had with witches. Although I do know he was opposed to the resurgence of the establishment of the local covens.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Twice a year, the religious leaders throughout the world come together to discuss the state of religion in this country and the nearby occupied planets. One of the topics under discussion at the last meeting was the number of covens springing up. The bishop said, at the meeting, he was adamantly opposed to them.”

  “When was the meeting?”

  “I don’t know the exact date without looking at my calendar, but I believe it was about six months ago.”

  “Were all the religious leaders opposed?” Leah asked.

  “Not all, but certainly the majority of them,” Preata said.

  “Why? Did the witches pose some sort of threat to the bishop or to religion in general?”

  “Not to the bishop himself, but to the Church. We believe you should only worship God. Witches worship the devil,” Preata said.

  “That’s not true,” Peony blurted out, surprising both Leah and Preata.

  “What?” Preata asked. “That witches worship the devil?”

  Leah didn’t want to go off on a tangent. She gave Peony a look that told the detective not to go there.

  “Did the bishop have any enemies?” she asked.

  “He was beloved by all,” Preata said. “No death threats, no hate mail.”

  Before Leah could ask another question, Preata asked, “Are you close to finding the bishop?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.” Leah watched closely to gauge his reaction.

  Preata didn’t seem pleased with the news but seemed equally unsure what to say next.

  “I understand you’re being sent to the Vatican,” Leah said, changing tactics.

  “That’s right,” Preata said, and just barely kept his dislike of either the assignment or the Vatican out of his eyes, but not before Leah had seen the slight narrowing and a hardness appear that hadn’t been there before.

  “Is that something you wanted?”

  “It is an honor to serve in the Vatican.”

  She smiled. “Yes, but did you want the honor?”

  “I go where I can best serve God and the Church.”

  Leah knew Preata wasn’t answering her question but also knew it didn’t matter. She had picked up on the fact that while he gave voice to the party line, he wasn’t pleased with being sent away.

  “I know you’ve been a priest for fifteen years, and if the bishop is dead, would you be considered to take over his position?”

  “I believe I would.”

  “So you stand to gain from his death.” Again, Leah paid close attention to his expression, but he seemed to have gotten himself under control and didn’t give anything away.

  “Why, yes, I guess I do,” Preata said as if it only then occurred to him he would be gaining a great deal by the death of the bishop.

  “When will you know whether you’ll be going to the Vatican or beco
ming a bishop?”

  “When the Vatican announces it.”

  Leah knew she wasn’t going to get anything helpful, so she stood up. “Thank you for your time,” Leah said.

  “You’re welcome. If I can answer any other questions, please let me know. I hope you find the bishop very soon, and he’s healthy and well.”

  The priest dismissed them at the door to the bishop’s office that he obviously now thought of as his own.

  As she and Peony neared the front door, Leah veered into the first office where there was an occupant. It was a young man, who couldn’t be a day over twenty, with sandy hair, gentle brown eyes, and a desk covered with papers. He wore the traditional cassock. Leah idly wondered if cassocks were making a comeback.

  Leah showed him her badge.

  “Can I ask you a few questions?”

  “Were you talking to Father Preata?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Then I guess it’s okay for me to talk to you as well.”

  “Did the bishop and Father Preata get along?”

  “At first they did. But in the last few months, not so much.”

  “Why was that?”

  “The bishop asked that Father Preata be transferred.”

  “Do you know why?”

  The young priest looked around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. Leah noticed Peony had stationed herself at the door to see if Preata was headed their way. Well done.

  When he was satisfied no one was listening to their conversation, the priest said, almost whispering, “The bishop thought the Father needed to learn humility and thought the Vatican would be the place for that.”

  “What was the Father’s reaction to being transferred?”

  “He was angry. I think he had ambitions to replace the bishop when he retired next year.”

  Peony cleared her throat to let Leah know someone, most likely Preata, was approaching.

  “Well, thank you for the directions. I would have gotten so lost without your help,” Leah said in a louder voice.

  At first, the priest was confused by the sudden change in the direction of their conversation. His face was flooded with relief when Preata stepped into the room.

  “Still here?” Preata asked with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “I asked this young man for directions. I’m afraid I haven’t spent much time in your area of the city and realized I had no idea how to return to police headquarters.” Leah pulled the hood of her coat over her head.

  “Ah. Well, have a safe trip,” Preata said, obviously wanting them gone.

  “Thank you,” Leah said, her voice muffled by her scarf.

  After passing through the gate leading to the street, Leah turned left and headed for the van.

  “What did you think of Preata?” Leah asked.

  “I’ve only met a couple of priests and they were kind, gentle men. This priest is anything but. I think he’s arrogant and cold. He’d be hard to trust if he were my priest.”

  “Do you think he told us everything he knows about the bishop’s disappearance?”

  “I don’t think so, but why would he hold something back? Does he not want us to find his boss?”

  “Good questions. We need to find everything we can about him,” Leah said. Something about the priest reminded her of a professional poker player—closed off, secretive, and wanting to win at all costs. “The question we need to answer is whether he’s ambitious enough to set the bishop up to be murdered. What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure he’d do the deed himself, but he wouldn’t have any qualms about having someone else do it for him.”

  “Good. My thinking is he wouldn’t be the trigger man unless the bishop made Preata angry, then he’d gladly pull the trigger. When we get back to the condo, find out if Frank Martin is a member of Preata’s church.”

  The trip to the condo was without incident; no one tailed them, and the roads were cleared of most of the snow that had fallen the night before. Leah wondered if it was an omen that things might become clearer. If only.

  When they were inside the condo, Leah went to the living room window and stared out her window. She started running over what they knew for sure. They knew… Phuc. They still didn’t know anything for sure. They had a theory that the father of one of the victims in the field may have killed not only his daughter but twelve other young women because he hated his daughter and by extension the others in her coven. They didn’t really know why or have any proof of that yet. They thought he might have used a wood chipper to what? Kill them? Or did he kill them some other way and then feed them to the chipper? God, she hoped the latter was true. What else do we think we know? The bishop was also a victim of the wood chipper–wielding madman. She needed just one hard piece of evidence. Maybe the search warrant would provide the piece of the puzzle that would allow them to put all the other pieces in place.

  “It’s a pretty day out there, isn’t it?” Peony asked as she came to stand next to Leah in front of the living room window. “Too bad it’s twenty below zero.”

  “It is a pretty day. It’ll start to warm up in a few months.” Leah hoped it was true and said it as much for herself as for Peony.

  “To what? Zero?”

  Leah laughed. “You’ll be surprised how warm zero will feel after dealing with thirty below for several months.”

  Maybe I’ll take a vacation after this is over to somewhere warm and just lie in the sun for a week or five. She wanted to let go of the fear and the worry about her case and her marriage, if only for a little while.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What did you find out about Frank Martin?” Leah asked an hour later when Peony returned to the living room.

  “He and his family attend St. Martin’s. It’s Preata’s assigned church. The Martins drive forty minutes in order to attend services there.” Peony sipped a hot drink after she relayed her information.

  “Probably because of the name connection,” Leah said. “It would be something a man like Martin would do.”

  “Okay, so we have a disgruntled priest who believes he should be the next bishop of the New America Diocese, attending the same church as a bully named Frank Martin. What does it get us?” Peony asked.

  “A step closer to solving this case,” Leah said.

  “How?”

  “Assuming Martin is our killer, how would he get the bishop to an empty field in the middle of the night during a blizzard?”

  “I doubt he could,” Peony said.

  “Me, too. So why would the bishop be there?”

  “Because his personal assistant convinced him to be there or promised to meet him there?”

  “Good. Now, what could the priest use to persuade the bishop to be there?”

  “The coven,” Peony said.

  “And how would a priest know about the coven?”

  “If someone who had knowledge of the coven told him.”

  “There you have it. One more nail in this case’s coffin. I couldn’t figure out those two things—how Martin could get the bishop there and how Preata knew about the coven—until we talked to Preata. Then it all fell into place. The fact the two men attend the same church was the clincher. Preata might have taken Martin’s confession, and Martin mentioned the coven to his confessor. Maybe Martin told the priest his daughter was involved with witches. In any case, somehow, the priest used Martin to get rid of the bishop,” Leah said.

  “So the bishop wasn’t simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was there because his assistant told him about the coven and undoubtedly suggested the bishop should put an end to it by showing up.”

  “I wonder if Preata thought the coven would kill the bishop. Or did he know what Martin planned to do and got the bishop there because of it?”

  “Will we ever know the answer to that?” Peony asked.

  Leah smiled wryly at the question. She could still remember that feeling of hopelessness on a difficult case when she’d been a newly mint
ed detective. “Maybe not. Hopefully, though, one of them will give the other up and we’ll get our answer then. First, though, we need to get a search warrant to see if Frank’s chipper was used in these murders.”

  “I’ll go back to seeing if I can dig anything up on Martin and Preata’s connection,” Peony said.

  After Peony left the room, Leah called Scotty.

  “Scotty, I need a machine processed as soon as you can do it,” Leah said without any preliminaries.

  “Good afternoon to you, too,” Scotty said.

  “Yeah, all that stuff,” Leah said with a smile.

  “How big a machine?”

  “Do you know what a wood chipper is?”

  “Isn’t that what the parks people use to grind up tree limbs and trees?”

  “That would be it,” Leah said.

  “You want me to process one of those things? They’re huge.”

  “The one I’m interested in, Scotty, was probably used in the killing field murders. I need you to prove it.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Where in the world am I supposed to process it? Even the old lab couldn’t have held that behemoth.”

  “While I’m getting the search warrant, why don’t you figure it out, and let me know where to get it delivered” Leah asked.

  “Uh, Leah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do we trust anyone yet?”

  He sounded downbeat, and she wished she could help. “Not yet.”

  “So wherever I find to process this machine, it shouldn’t be in one of the police labs, right?”

  “That would be best. But we also need your findings to hold up in court. So wherever you go, make sure the evidence isn’t tainted. I wanted this solidly tied up.”

  “Got it. I’ll call when I’ve got a place.”

  “Thanks. Oh, and, Scotty? Any ideas on who we trust to serve a search warrant without alerting the world that’s what we’re doing?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Because you’re supposed to be dead and dead people can’t serve warrants. Got it. As far as I’m concerned, the biggest problem isn’t serving the warrant but getting the chipper to my lab. I’ve got a guy on the transport team I think can keep his mouth closed. I’ll give him a heads-up he may be needed once I find a space,” Scotty said, sounding a little more positive. “He’d serve it for you.”