The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller))

by Tom Lowe

  The ME said, “You’re right. Let’s get the cuff off. We’ll get the body into the lab and opened him up.”

  The medical examiner and his two assistants left as the body was wheeled from the room. Three deputies were at the door and in the hall. Deputy Gleason and once CSI investigator were in the room.

  “Deputy Gleason,” O’Brien said, “you found Sam Spelling dead, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  O’Brien said nothing. He studied the man’s eyes.

  “I relieved the D.O.C guard. I’ve been posted here all night, sir.”

  “Besides the hospital staff, has anyone entered this room?” O’Brien could see the deputy’s pupils close slightly, a slight change in his stance, thumbs cocked in his gun belt.

  “Only person that entered the room was the priest.”

  “Father Callahan?” asked Grant

  “No, sir, not the priest you and I spoke to. Different one. I figured Father Callahan was off duty because another priest was making hospital rounds. Thought he was from the same church, St. Francis. He wanted to say a prayer for Spelling.”

  O’Brien said, “There is no other priest at St. Francis. How long after this man left was it before Detective Grant called and you found Spelling dead?”

  “About twenty minutes, give or take.”

  “What did this priest look like?”

  “About my height. Real black eyes. He wore a hat, so I couldn’t see his hair. Probably dark because he had a dark beard.”

  “He wore it to hide his identity. Probably fake. Anything else?”

  “No, sir.” The deputy paused. “It might be nothing…”

  “What is it?” asked O’Brien.

  “The priest had a bad wrist. Said he hurt it playing tennis. He asked me to open the door for him.”

  “That’s because he didn’t want to leave prints,” O’Brien said. “There’s a surveillance camera at that end of each hall. Call security. We need to see what that

  camera saw. Dan, let’s have them check any other security cameras—lobby, parking lot, entrances and exits before and right after Sam Spelling’s untimely death.”

  Grant turned to Gleason and said, “Get hospital security here immediately.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Grant looked at O’Brien and pointed toward a paper grocery bag. “That bag, Spelling told me the stuff in it was all he had left in the world. Then he looked up at me and said was all he needed. It’s like he was the happiest guy on the planet. Probably leftover endorphins from his near-death trip and confession to Father Callahan. Spelling seemed like the character in that old movie…you know—the one with Jimmy Stewart—”

  “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  O’Brien opened the paper bag. He emptied it on the unmade bed. The bag contained Spelling’s Department of Corrections-issued clothes—a pair of pants, blue button-down shirt, white socks, and a pair of lace-up black shoes. There was a small, brown Bible, pages worn. O’Brien opened it. An aged picture of a woman and little boy fell from the pages. In the faded image, the woman stood with flowers in one hand, holding the child with her other hand. Behind them was a statue of an angel and many trees. The picture looked to have been taken in a park.

  Grant said, “I’ll have the stuff and the room dusted in the morning.”

  O’Brien said nothing.

  “Sean, after I dropped the letter in the sack, they came in to treat and sedate him. The note, he’d folded best he could like a tried to seal it, could have been the written

  confession for the priest. That’s why I waited for him to go to sleep before I came back in to read it. Figured the priest visited and took it.”

  “Maybe Father Callahan did, but if this D.O.C. guard read it, then he knows the perp’s identity and whatever details Sam Spelling revealed about the killing. The guard could have taken it, copied it…could have given it to his superiors to contact the police…or he might have decided to blackmail the guy like Spelling originally did. Maybe he’s an honest guy who decided to do something very dumb.”

  “If he did, might as well have called his executioner.”

  O’Brien felt around and beneath the mattress. He pulled a yellow legal pad from behind the flattened pillows and bunched sheets. He lifted the top sheet of paper by the edge, turned on the bedside light and held the paper toward the light. He examined both sides. “This is the paper Spelling used, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Legal sized, lined.”

  “If we’re lucky, we might get something from it. Even with the naked eye, I can see where he made an imprint on this sheet, especially the first paragraph or so. He was either angry when he was writing it or his strength was better when he began. See, it’s more pronounced on the first third of the page? And if he mentioned the killer’s name there, we might have him.”

  Grant looked at the page. “I’ll have to get it to the state crime lab on this.”

  “We don’t have time, Dan. I have a FBI contact. She’ll help. But first, I’m going to see Charlie Williams.”

  Grant grinned. “Our man on death row. Bet he’ll be real happy to see you.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The hospital security center was on the first floor, hidden through a labyrinth of corridors. Two security technicians sat in front of forty monitors, all taking live video feeds from every floor in the hospital—lobby, cafeteria, parking lots, and rooftops.

  O’Brien looked at the identifying locations superimposed on the bottom of each monitor. “Why monitor the roof?” he asked.

  The man at the console said, “To spot jumpers. We had two guys do swan dives to the street the last couple of years. I’m glad they double-locked the door to the roof.”

  “What do you have on our elusive priest between seven and eight p.m.?”

  “I cued it up for you. All digital. Stored in some pretty hefty hard drives. Archived and erased at the end of ten day cycles. It’s done automatically unless we tell the computers to store it. Camera nine caught a priest.”

  The man pressed four buttons and the time of day appeared at the bottom of the screen. It was calculated in military time, down to the second. O’Brien, Grant and the other two security officers watched in silence. On the screen, they saw nurses making their rounds, a custodian pushing a mop, a family huddled at the far end of the hall, and a man dressed as a priest walking toward Deputy Tim Gleason.

  O’Brien leaned in toward the monitor, his eyes searching every facet. Although the images were in color, the shot was too wide to see much detail. The man wore a fedora hat, collar, dark church-issued suit, and black shoes.

  O’Brien studied the man’s body language. He wasn’t animated. Movements more conciliatory. Brotherly love. Head nodding. He moved a Bible from his left hand to his right and reached out to touch the deputy on the shoulder. “Can you back it up about fifteen feet before he approaches the deputy?” O’Brien asked

  “Sure.”

  “There, that’s fine. Play it. Can you get any closer?”

  “Some. Cameras don’t have high resolution. You’ll see some loss of quality when I push in.” The security tech zoomed in closer on the image. “Look,” O’Brien said, pointing. “See that, Dan?”

  “See what?”

  “The perp knows there’s a camera, and it’s not an easy camera to spot. He looked toward it just a half second. That’s why he turned profile. He moves the Bible from his left hand to his right—the right hand is supposed to be hurt, remember? He scratches his left cheek while he’s talking. Doesn’t want his lips read. Can you go in any closer?”

  “Just a notch,” said the technician. “Pixels in the picture start to come apart.”

  “That’s good. See that, Dan?”

  “I see his hand.”

  “Look closer. I don’t know many priests who are married.”

  Dan Grant leaned in toward the monitor. “Wow, he’s wearing a gold ring.”

  “I wonder if the lady of the
house knows she’s sleeping with a killer.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  By the time O’Brien got back to the marina it was a few minutes after 3:00 a.m. As he walked down the dock to his boat, he could see a mist rising over the estuaries, moving with an eerie crawl across the water. The humid night air carried the scent of mangroves, salt water, barnacles and fish. Nothing moved. The silence could be felt. It was one of the rare times O’Brien could hear the punch of waves breaking a quarter mile away. The tide was rising.

  Jupiter groaned against the ropes in a gentle tug-of-war with the incoming tide. O’Brien stepped over the transom and onto the cockpit. The floor was damp, wet from a heavy dew. He unlocked the salon door, kicked his shoes off, and entered.

  Max sat up from her bed on the salon couch. Her tail thumped against the leather. She whimpered and coughed a slight bark as O’Brien stepped inside the salon.

  “Hey, Max. You been holding down the fort? I bet Dave fed you like a princess before he had to go fix a broken moat, right? I missed you today. Want a snack?”

  Max danced in a circle on the couch before jumping off and following O’Brien down two steps into the galley. In the refrigerator, he grabbed one of the last two bottles of Corona from a six-pack he’d shared two weeks ago with Nick Cronus.

  O’Brien tossed two aspirins in the back of his mouth and took a long pull from the bottle. He tried to remember the last time he had eaten. He broke off a piece of cheese, sliced an onion, wrapped the cheese and onion in pita bread and laced it with hot mustard. He handed a nibble of cheese to Max.

  O’Brien sat down at the small table in the galley. He was physically exhausted, almost too tired to eat. But his mind kept playing back the events that unfolded after he received Father Callahan’s call. Sam Spelling killed in his hospital bed with an armed guard outside. Father Callahan killed in his church with God inside. O’Brien thought about the message on the bloody floor. He looked at the image from a picture he’d snapped on his cell phone.

  What does it mean?

  He bit into his sandwich, gave Max a piece, opened his laptop computer and typed in Omega and clicked on a link that took him the web page, Religions of the World. In reference to the Greek letter Omega, it read: Omega, the last letter in the Greek alphabet. Often meaning the end, something final. The opposite is the first letter in the Greek alphabet ›, Alpha. Jesus used these two symbols, the Alpha and Omega to say: “I am the beginning and I am the end.

  O’Brien rubbed the back of his hand over his chin. The stubble felt like sandpaper. He keyed in 666.

  “Two million pages. That narrows it down.” He sipped his beer and started reading, his eyes scanning the first few pages. He stopped and re-read a sentence: 666, often referred to as the mark of the beast. First attributed to Saint John in his description of the Apocalypse, as seen in a vision from God when Saint John lived in exile.

  Okay, he thought, popping the second beer. He mulled over the information, trying to see a connection. ‘…and I am the end.’ One half of a Jesus parable…and some guy called Pat…or the initials, P...A…T.

  ‘Saint John lived in exile.’ O’Brien stared at the sentence. Reverse the spelling of lived and we have…devil…devil in exile.

  “Father Callahan, what were you trying to tell me?” O’Brien’s voice sounded hoarse. His eyes were heavy, and he was nodding off. He looked at his watch, too tired to calculate the hours left in Charlie William’s life.

  He tried to think back eleven years ago, searching his memory for scraps that might have fallen between the cracks—the smallest pieces of information that he might have missed at the time. Who would want Alexandria Cole dead? And why was the killer resurfacing a few days before Charlie William’s date with death? O’Brien thought about the odds, the time it normally takes in a typical murder investigation. Then he thought about the time left to prove Charlie William’s innocence. What would he tell Williams? What could he say? How could he ever right the wrong? “If I don’t sleep, Max, maybe I can track this bastard down. Want some fresh air?”

  She wagged her tail. He turned off the laptop and headed for the salon door, Max following him to the cockpit. O’Brien picked her up. She licked his face as he held her and climbed the steps up to the fly bridge. He unzipped the isinglass window, sat in the captain’s chair, propped his feet up on the control console, and finished his beer. Max jumped in his lap. He scratched her behind the ears, eyes half closing.

  “Max, what would I do without you, little lady?” She kept her eyes closed as O’Brien spoke. “There’s a bad man out there. Human life means nothing to him. I’ve got to find him, and I’m running out of time. I have to try to save another man’s life. It’s

  my responsibility. I’ll be leaving soon…you be good, and don’t let Nick pour any beer in your bowl, okay?”

  O’Brien watched the fog rolled off the Halifax River, blanketing the mangrove islands and hanging over the marina like clouds descending. He could see a shaft of light from the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse rotating every minute, its beam giving the fog a momentary illusion of dimension, the figment of ghosts swirling over the sailboat masts as if dancing albino marionettes were pulled by unseen hands.

  Soon the ghosts faded and the real nightmares began. In his dreams, O’Brien saw the dead body of Alexandria Cole. She was lying on her bed, seven stab wounds in her sternum and breasts. Her eyes staring at the ceiling.

  He saw a young Charlie Williams, the expression of disbelief in his eyes when the jury read the guilty verdict. The chilling echoes of his pleas as two deputies led him out of the courtroom, his mother weeping in a back row, her eyes hot and lost.

  O’Brien saw Father Callahan lying facedown on the cold marble of the sanctuary. His three fingers extended, touching the very edge of a postscript written in blood. His eyes locked on art in stained glass, paintings of salvation backlit by the fractured pulse of lightning. Images of deliverance cast in a dramatic tragedy, flickering, like a silent movie, off the wide pupils of Father John Callahan’s unmoving eyes.

  THIRTY

  Max heard the throaty sound of the twin diesels first. She cocked her head around the bridge console, peeked through the open isinglass, and barked once.

  “Hey, hot dog!” came the voice, coated with a Greek accent thick as olive oil.

  O’Brien opened his eyes. He steadied himself in the captain’s chair, now regretting he had fallen asleep on the bridge. His back ached, the muscles constricting between his shoulder blades, his foot tingling from the lack of circulation.

  Max wagged her tail, jumped on O’Brien’s lap, and licked his whiskered chin. “Max, thanks for the wake up kiss,” he said, smiling.” He rubbed her head and set her on the bridge floor.

  She looked at him through wide, excited brown eyes, trotting to the steps leading down to the cockpit.

  O’Brien stood, squinting in the morning sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean. He looked at his watch. 7:39 A.M.

  A little more than seventy hours remaining.

  “Hey, Sean,” came the Greek accent. “Got plenty of grouper and snapper.”

  O’Brien waved toward Nick Cronus who eased his 48-foot fishing boat, St. Michael, into the marina with the skill of an Argonaut. Cronus stood in the wheelhouse of the St. Michael, a boat built from a saltwater pedigree going back two thousand years. He wore dark sunglasses, his skin the color of creosote, a mop of curly black hair styled

  by the wind, bushy black mustache, and forearms like sides of ham. A life at sea, pulling nets, anchor ropes, diving for sponges and riding out storms had sculpted a man of steel. And at age forty-three, Nick Cronus showed no signs of slowing down. He worked hard. Played harder. He smiled with his eyes. O’Brien had once saved Nick’s life, a debt Nick said he would honor forever.

  O’Brien lifted Max under his arm and carried her down the steps to the cockpit. He headed toward Nick’s slip, which was on the opposite side of Dave Collin’s boat.

  Nick backed the St. Michael into the slip
as easy as a New York cab driver can parallel park. He cut the diesels and brought twenty tons of boat to a gentle stop.

  O’Brien helped tie the boat to a second piling. Max scampered up and down the dock, her eyes darting with excitement, the tip of her small tongue showing as she panted in the morning humidity.

  Nick pushed his sunglasses up on the top of his head. “Sean, you look like hell.”

  “And good morning to you, too.”

  “Somebody roll you? Take your money or what, man?”

  “No, Nick. Nothing like that.”

  “You tie one on without ol’ Nicky to join you, huh?” Nick looked at O’Brien, eyes playful, eyebrows arched and a toothpick in one corner of his mouth. He knelt down to pick up Max. “Hot dog, I miss you when I go to sea almost as much as I miss the ladies on two legs. And even when I’m here, I don’t see you enough. Tell your papa, Sean, to bring you to the docks more, yeeaah.”

  Max wagged her tail and licked Nick’s salt and pepper stubble. “I pick you up now ‘cause I know you won’t pee on me. Sean, remember that time I held hot dog up

  over my head? We were on your boat, I did a Greek dance with her and she peed all the way down my arm.”

  “And if you don’t want a repeat, don’t pick her up. She hasn’t hit the grass yet.”

  Nick laughed. “She made me jump in the bay. I didn’t know what’s cleaner—the marina or little Max’s pee pee.” He sat Max back on the dock. “Let’s eat. You couldn’t have no breakfast lookin’ the way you do.”