“No idea.”
Yasiv lowered his flashlight and started scanning the floor. He could see a dark stain where he assumed Winston’s bladder and bowels let go.
“Officer Kramer,” Dunbar said matter-of-factly. “That’s who.”
Yasiv looked at his partner.
“Seriously?”
Dunbar nodded.
“Yeah, he was the first one on the scene, called the ME in. His report said it was a suicide, which was later confirmed by the ME.”
“Interesting,” he muttered under his breath. Officer Kramer was the one who’d pressed charges against Yasiv’s old friend and ex-NYPD Detective Damien Drake. “You find anything over there?”
Dunbar banged some pots.
“Nope—nothing.”
Yasiv shrugged. He wasn't really sure what he’d hoped to find.
A needle with left over midazolam in it, perhaps? Maybe a note from the murderer?
Yasiv scolded himself. Dunbar was the one who was grasping at straws, while he was supposed to be the level-headed of the two.
“Yeah, let’s just do a quick look in the bedroom and get out of here before—”
Yasiv stopped. The beam of his flashlight had illuminated something by the baseboard leading to the bedroom. It looked like a small section of yarn.
“What? You find something?”
Yasiv didn't answer right away. He bent down and picked up the thread, only it was longer than he expected. It ran beneath the door to a closet, and when he pulled hard, it got stuck.
“Not sure,” Yasiv said as he opened the closet. There, attached to the string with some sort of clothespin, was a photograph.
He dusted it off then focused his flashlight on it. Dunbar was suddenly behind him, peering over his shoulder.
“Holy shit, that’s Bentley Thomas.”
Yasiv nodded.
“That’s what I figured. The question is, what the hell is his picture doing in Winston Trent’s trailer?”
Chapter 43
Suzan and Beckett went for breakfast in the morning, and Beckett ordered the exact same thing he had the night before: fried chicken and waffles. He chased it with a Bloody Mary.
Suzan was more conservative, ordering a spinach omelette and a coffee. She looked worse for wear, which was to be expected; she’d drunk more than she usually did and lacked Beckett’s constitution.
“You’re going this afternoon, aren't you?”
Beckett didn’t need her to clarify what she was referring to.
“I gotta see this thing through.”
It was explanation enough for Suzan.
Until her third cup of coffee, that is.
“Why does this mean so much to you, anyway? You jealous or something?”
“Of who? Rev. Alister Cameron? I don't think so.”
“Then why? I haven't seen you this determined since… well, since those organs just randomly showed up on your desk.”
Why am I obsessed with this, you ask? Because there's something wrong with Rev. Alister Cameron. Suzan, when I peer into the face of a killer, I see something in their eyes, a dullness, like a bead that has been massaged with coarse grit sandpaper. How do I know that this means they’re a killer? It’s because I see the same thing in my own eyes when I stare in the mirror.
“What the man is doing is dangerous.”
Suzan made a face.
“How so? I mean, I don't believe any of this nonsense, but at least he’s giving these people hope.”
“Don’t mistake lying outright with giving someone hope. Sure, the people he’s ‘treating’ now are terminally ill, so there’s little damage that can be done. But what happens when then parents of a kid with something that’s completely curable, decide that instead of using conventional medicine, they want Rev. Douchebag Cameron to heal their child? What about the man who has a urinary tract infection, but rather than getting his dick checked, he comes to the good Reverend to get his head touched? Hmm? A week later, he develops sepsis and dies. What about—”
“All right, all right, I get it,” Suzan said. “Jesus, I’m eating.”
“What about the—”
Suzan rolled her eyes.
“I get it, Beckett. Man, you just don’t stop, do you? Sometimes I wonder how your residents deal with you.”
Beckett pictured the six residents wandering the halls blindfolded, desperately trying to find the bathroom.
He smiled.
“Oh, they put up with me because they have to. Because they want to learn from the best.”
Thoughts about his residents and the Bird Box Medical Challenge brought him full circle to Wayne Cravat.
The man who was currently rotting away in his basement.
Beckett grabbed his phone and opened the app for his thermostat. He lowered it a few more degrees.
“You almost done?” he asked. “Yeah? Let's get the bill then. Let's do some shopping before we have to go visit the Lord Almighty once more.”
Chapter 44
“No, there no fingerprints on it—except for yours, of course,” the CSU tech informed him.
Yasiv frowned. This didn’t make sense, either, but he'd come to expect as much. Nothing about Wayne or Brent or Winston made sense. If this was a souvenir, why weren’t Winston’s fingerprints all over the damn thing?
The week had started out simply enough—find a man who skipped out on his parole meeting—but had transgressed into a three-man pedophile ring with a staged suicide.
“Can you get anything else from the photo? Like where it came from?” Yasiv asked, grasping at straws now.
The man flipped the paper over and looked at the watermark on the back.
“Sure; it’s from the hospital.”
Yasiv stared at him.
“What? How do you know it’s from the hospital?”
He pointed at the gray watermark that looked like a random series of digits to Yasiv.
“This number here? It’s an ascension number. All photographs printed at NYU Hospital have it. I think it’s used for billing purposes, not sure though. This one starts with a ‘P’, so its either from Pediatrics, Psychiatric, or Pathology.”
Yasiv was so confused that he could barely speak.
Someone printed these at the hospital?
“You sure?”
The man nodded.
“Yeah, my brother had this vascular problem and when they printed out his radiology results, it came on paper like this. That one started with an ‘R’, though.”
Yasiv thought about this for a moment, before taking the photograph back. He folded it along the pre-existing crease, then slipped into the evidence bag.
“Thanks, Tony. Think you can do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s just keep this to ourselves, for the time being, okay?”
“Sure, no problem. Anything else I can help you with?”
Yasiv needed a lot of help with this case, but there’s nothing that CSU tech could do to move things along.
“No, that's okay. Thanks again.”
As he was walking out of the lab, Yasiv’s phone buzzed and he quickly answered.
“Yeah?”
He expected Dunbar but was surprised when another man replied.
“Is this Sgt. Yasiv?”
“It is. Who’s this?”
“It's Detective Crumley from SVU. I managed to get that warrant you wanted. I can meet you at Wayne Cravat’s trailer in fifteen.”
Yasiv would have preferred to go in alone, or with only Dunbar, but the man sounded determined.
“Okay, sounds good. I’ll just collect Detective Dunbar and meet you there.”
Yasiv hung up and then he immediately dialed Dunbar's number.
“Dunbar? Where you at?”
“I'm staking out Brent Hopper's place with Officer McMahon.”
“You have your own car?”
“Yep.”
“Good; leave McMahon there and meet me at the station. Crumley came through with th
e warrant; we’re finally going to get into Wayne's Cravat’s trailer.”
Chapter 45
There was no pomp and circumstance this time. Rev. Alister Cameron simply invited Beckett over to his house for the second buccal swab. The first thing that he noticed upon entering the man’s house was that the budgie didn’t chirp to signal his arrival.
“What happened to the bird?” Beckett asked, noticing that the cage was no longer in the front room.
The Reverend looked at him strangely.
“Oh, that. It died last night. Anyways, it was Holly’s bird.”
Beckett was confused by the response but forgot all about it once Brittany entered the room. He had to give the Lord credit; the man worked quickly. Less than twenty-four hours ago, the girl had been leaking from her entire face. Now, she looked better. Not perfect, but better.
“As you can see, her body is already starting the healing process,” Rev. Cameron said.
Beckett approached Brittany cautiously.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked.
“Much. It’s still a little hard to breathe, but it’s getting better every hour.”
Beckett simply observed for a moment. He would have liked to give her a physical, performed some blood tests, but this clearly wasn’t the case.
“You don't mind if I swab your cheek again?”
“No, of course not.”
Beckett took out a fresh buccal swab, and Brittany opened wide this time. He repeated the procedure that he’d performed the day before.
He wanted to hang around and talk to her some more, but he also wanted to get the sample into the mail.
The Reverend made the decision easy for him.
“Brittany's tired and she needs her rest. Holly is going to take care of her while she continues to recover.”
A not-so-subtle hint that it was time for him to leave.
“I'll be doing an announcement tomorrow at the church if you care to join us. All I ask is that if you have your results by then, to be honest about what you’ve discovered. I’ve been nothing but fair to you, Dr. Campbell, I expect that you’ll be the same to me.”
Well, he is certainly doesn’t lack for confidence.
Beckett crossed himself.
“I swear to God I will.”
“And you look after that girl, too. Suzan, she's a good one. She's a keeper.”
Beckett made a face. He wasn't comfortable with any of this, let alone taking relationship advice from a priest who treated his wife like the hired help.
Beckett thanked them both then hurried back to his rental car. From there, he sped to the nearest FedEx office and shipped the sample via Same Day to Grant back in New York.
In less than twenty-four hours, just in time for the Reverend’s proclamation, I’ll have concrete evidence that he’s full of shit.
And Beckett couldn’t wait to rub the cocky man’s face all up in it.
But for now, he had to take Suzan out, because while the Reverend lied about a lot of things, he wasn’t lying when he’d referred to her as a keeper.
Chapter 46
“You again,” the manager croaked, smoke pouring out of her throat like some sort of geriatric dragon.
Sgt. Yasiv used the warrant to fan away the toxic air. The funny thing was, even as a smoker himself, he couldn’t for the life of him, stand the smell of second-hand smoke.
“Yeah, but this time I come bearing gifts. This here is Detective Crumley and you've already met Detective Dunbar,” he said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder to the two men standing in the doorway.
“What do you want?”
“This is a search warrant for Wayne Cravat's apartment trailer,” Yasiv informed her.
The woman frowned.
“I don't got a key.”
“That's all right, I've got a crowbar in my trunk. We won't be long, we just—”
The woman rose to her feet. It was like watching someone unfurl a leather belt that had been left out in the rain.
“Why don’t y’all just leave the man alone? Everyone picks on him ‘cuz he a little slow. It ain’t his fault. Ain’t none of this his fault.”
“Like I told you last time, lady, we’re just trying to find Wayne,” Yasiv said. “We don’t—”
His eyes drifted up to the Fourth of July photograph again.
“Was it Winston Trent? Was he the one picking on Wayne?”
The woman took a massive haul of her cigarette.
“Him and the other kid. I didn’t like neither them boys. They no good. But Wayne different.”
Yasiv quickly turned to Dunbar and told him to get his phone out.
“You have a photograph of Brent?”
Instead of answering, Dunbar flipped through his pictures until he found what he was looking for. Then he held it out to the manager.
“Is this the other guy you’re talking about?”
The woman put her glasses on her beak-like nose and leaned forward.
Then she crossed her arms over her chest.
“I dunno.”
Yasiv had his fill of people not wanting to talk to them.
“Would you just fucking tell me if that’s the guy? Gimme a fucking break here.”
The woman startled and then nodded.
“Yeah, that's him. Him and Winston they treated Wayne like shit. Tell him to do stuff he don't want to do. Wayne a good kid.”
“Yeah, you said that already.” Then to Crumley and Dunbar, he added, “Let’s go, let’s get out of here.”
“Don't you go messin’ up that trailer, now. Wayne paid up ‘til the end of the year, but that's it. If you mess it up I won’t…”
Yasiv didn’t even bother listening to the old hag. Her usefulness had long since run out.
Chapter 47
“You're not even paying attention at all, are you?” Suzan asked.
Beckett glanced up from his cell phone.
“What did you say?”
She reached over and socked him on the arm.
“Just kidding, I am paying attention. You were talking about your menstrual cycle or something.”
“No, you're not, you’re like a kid on Christmas morning, waiting to open his gifts. This means that much to you, doesn't it? Proving this asshole wrong?”
Beckett grinned.
“Yep, and I’m not afraid to admit it.”
And then, as if Santa Claus himself had been listening, his phone suddenly buzzed. He answered before the first ring had even completed, still grinning at Suzan seated across from him.
“Doogie, tell me what you got.”
“Ah, Dr. Campbell? It's Grant McEwing.”
Beckett sighed.
“Yeah, I know who it is, dork, your name shows up on the call display. Tell me the good news. Tell me you ran the samples I sent you.”
“I did… but there must be some sort of mistake. They’re not from the same person.”
“What? What do you mean?” Beckett stopped smiling.
“I ran the tests like you asked, checking for the most common mutations in Cystic Fibrosis, including F508del, N1303K, I148T—”
“Fuck, just get to the point, Grant, Jesus.”
“Well, the first sample was positive for a mutation in F508del. The second swab was negative. It was completely normal. The samples had to be from different people.”
Beckett's eyes bulged.
“You okay?” Suzan asked.
Beckett rocketed to his feet so fast that he almost knocked his chair over in the process.
“You’re shitting me. You’re joking, right?”
“Dr. Campbell, I thought you'd say that, so I ran the samples twice. Same result: first, positive for CF. The second, negative.”
Beckett shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around what Grant was telling him. His first instinct was that it was just a mistake. But Grant McEwing didn’t make mistakes; the man just simply didn't. He was a walking savant, the only person in the world with a photographic memory as an ad
ult.
And yet, what he was saying was impossible.
“They switched it,” Beckett nearly gasped. “The fucking Reverend tracked down the FedEx guy and switched the samples. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Grant cleared his throat.
“I'm not really sure what—”
“Don't argue with me, boy! The FedEx guy is working for Rev. Cameron.”
“Calm down, Beckett,” Suzan said.
“I can't calm down; he's done something, that damn Reverend has hacked the results.”
“Can I go now, Beckett?”
“Yeah, you can go, Grant. Thanks for doing this for me. Oh, wait, one more question.”
“Yes?” Grant asked.
“Are you still wearing your blindfold?”
Before the man could answer, Beckett hung up the phone and then stared at Suzan.
“I don't understand it,” he said. “Seriously, I have no idea what the hell happened. Grant told me that the first sample came back positive for genetic markers for CF, but the second was negative. Suzan, I took the swab myself. The kits were brand new, still sealed. What the hell's going on?”
Suzan seemed to be enjoying this, which just frustrated and annoyed Beckett even further.
“You think this is funny?”
She stifled a laugh.
“Yeah, I do. You just can’t take it; the Reverend beat you. Shit, he beat death.”
“No, he didn't beat me, Suzan. I don't know what he did or how, but somehow he managed to fool the damn buccal swabs.”
Suzan crossed her arms.
“I doubt it. Maybe the Reverend just called your buddy Grant and convinced him to lie to you.”
“Grant is incapable of lying, he's a robot sent back from the future.”
But despite his claim, this struck a chord with Beckett. He fired off a quick text, asking for Grant to take a picture of the genetic results. Almost immediately, he had screenshots of both. And they confirmed what Grant had told him over the phone.
“Well, Grant lied, and he manufactured these genetic results. No, that's not it. I don't know how the hell he did it. But the Reverend did something.”
Suzan stood up, still chuckling.
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