Cutting Edge

by Robert W. Walker

  “I've seen evidence of their resourcefulness, yes. So, they knew we were inside the church this morning?”

  “All right, I confess,” said Phil, his hands up in the air now. “After what occurred in South Dakota, I asked them to be extra watchful of you two fools. By the way, one of the men who attacked you and Dr. Sanger in South Dakota was located.”

  “Located?”

  “Dead, but located.”

  “Dead? Where?”

  “In the trunk of a rental at the airport in Rapid City. He had a hole in his head, execution-style killing, but he was also gut-shot. The bullet taken from his abdomen was from a Browning, most likely your slug.”

  “No ID, I suppose.”

  Lawrence shook his head as if the question were foolish. “We think we'll trace him straight back here to the church. As to knowing when and where you and Meredyth would exit, we couldn't know exactly what exit you'd come out of, so we had every exit covered.”

  “And you guys chose door number three and got lucky?”

  “I'd say you and Sanger were the lucky ones. Now, I'm going to hand this over to the coroner when he gets here.” Lawrence had held firmly to the skull. “You want to tell me precisely where inside you located it?”

  “An incinerator at the lower level.”

  “Were there signs of more incriminating evidence?”

  “A truckload, sir.”

  “Great, then we'll settle this damned business tonight, and one shitload of Cold Room files will have been cleared in one fell swoop, thanks to you, Lucas. It will look great on your record. The chief of division can't overlook results like that.” He indicated Bryce with a flutter of his eyebrows.

  Bryce had been asking after Meredyth's condition like a solicitous father. Lawrence followed Lucas's eyes to Meredyth, and Phil added, “Who knows, Stonecoat? Maybe you'll pull detective rank sooner than any of us expected.”

  It still sounded like a payoff, Lucas thought. “Only one problem, sir.”

  “Oh, what's that?” Lawrence's eyes flickered in the dim light.

  “Discovery, sir.”

  Bryce, as if wired to them, rankled at the word, homing in to its source, rejoining them. “What about discovery, Lucas?”

  “We made the discovery of the skull and bones, sir, while in an unlawful search, Commander.”

  “Damn, of course.” Bryce snatched Phil Lawrence away and the two men discussed this thorny problem between themselves, and it seemed Lawrence did all the talking. Lawrence then turned back to Lucas and Meredyth, and with Bryce looking on and nodding solemnly, said, “You two actually returned to ask Aguilar over there a few more questions tonight, didn't you?”

  “What?” asked Meredyth. “You returned to the monastery to put a few unanswered questions to bed. “Lucas knew from the tone of Lawrence's voice what he wanted to hear. “Yes, sir, we did.”

  “But Lucas,” she began.

  “Dr. Sanger,” interrupted Phil Lawrence, “do you want to stand in the way of justice served?”

  “Well, no, Captain, but—”

  'Then you two returned to seek answers to a handful more questions when Aguilar, knowing he was cornered, threatened you with death,” suggested Lawrence. Meredyth exchanged a look of indecision and incredulity with Lucas.

  Lawrence continued with his scenario. 'The both of you escaped, hid out in the incinerator room where you discovered all those missing parts we've been searching for for years, and then you made your escape. Pardee and Amelford, knowing your intentions, called for backup.”

  Lawrence studied their faces. “Is that understood?”

  Meredyth looked from Lawrence to Stonecoat.

  Commander Andrew Bryce stepped closer and awaited an answer.

  Lucas said, 'That's about the size of it, sir.”

  “Good, then it's settled,” replied Bryce. “Now, we have all the goddamned probable cause anyone can ask for. We don't need any damned court's permission to search this vile place. Aguilar has untied our hands. Good work, Dr. Sanger, Officer Stonecoat.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Lucas responded, while Meredyth said nothing.

  “Dr. Sanger?” asked Bryce. “Can you live with this version of events?”

  “I... I...” Lucas pinched her arm. “All right, I guess I can.”

  Still, Meredyth continued to stare at Lucas if he had betrayed her. She was wondering if he was simply thinking of promotion, a permanent escape from the Cold Room. She stormed off to rejoin Conrad, who once again enveloped her in his arms.

  “Now call for the evidence techs and the coroner, Phil,” said Bryce. “I want everything done precisely by the book and no foul-ups. Nobody takes souvenirs and nobody takes evidence home overnight to sit in their coolers or refrigerators, you got that, Phil?”

  “Yes, sir, Commander.”

  “And if that means you're here all night to oversee this thing, then so be it. It's going to hit the papers in a matter of hours. I don't want us looking like fools.”

  “No, sir. Everything will be taken care of to the letter, boss.”

  Bryce nodded and started away, mumbling. “Good... good... good...”

  Phil Lawrence grinned over the bodies. “Don't worry, Lucas,” he said, “we'll clean this bloody church out for good and all. And we won't overlook Aguilar's computer logs.”

  I'm sure you won't, Lucas thought, still wondering just how deep into the mire Phil Lawrence was. He didn't believe in miraculous coincidence, not in fiction and not in the real world, especially.

  “If you're finished with the questions, Captain,” offered Lucas. “I think Dr. Sanger ought to be sent home.”

  Meredyth looked into Lucas's shimmering brown eyes and was pleased that he was thinking of her comfort.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Lawrence replied. “The both of you had best get some rest, and Lucas, you'd best get to the hospital. Go along with the paramedics; allow that shoulder to heal properly.”

  One of the paramedics, hearing this, added, “The doctors are going to want to open up the wound, remove the bone fragments. We saw some damage,” he finished.

  “I'm all right,” Lucas stubbornly countered.

  “Do as the captain says, you mule-headed fool,” Meredyth almost shouted. “And you stop worrying about me. I'm fine.”

  “You'll likely be inundated with press tomorrow,” warned Lawrence, “so be prepared, the both of you.”

  Lucas nodded, wishing he could get up and guide Meredyth away from all this horror, but as his eyes turned, he saw that this little chore was being taken care of by the dark-haired, blue-eyed Conrad McThuen. Lucas suddenly felt a failure, a clumsy football player, unintentionally fumbling and passing Meredyth off to the other man, who enveloped her in his arms and led her to his waiting car. As had happened so many times before, Lucas felt a fool for even giving the notion a thought. She was, after all, out of his reach.

  “You okay, Lucas?” asked a concerned Randy Oglesby. “Damn, but that was close.”

  THIRTY

  The case against Father Frank Aguilar was strong. Bones from Mootry, Little, Palmer, and the more recently deceased couple in South Dakota were all found in various incinerators around the monastery. One of the hooded four killed alongside Aguilar was a woman, and endless, tireless questioning and probing and threatening began to show that Aguilar and a small contingent of his most trusted followers had acted alone. The Mad Priest of the Church of the Sacred Sepulcher, as the press was now calling Aguilar, had also kept a room filled with ancient weaponry, a collection of weapons with a bloody history, including several crossbows. Of course the five dead, robed bodies in the alley that night had all had crossbows of modem design on them. Further damning information was unearthed on the Mad Priest's computer in the form of a diary detailing his actions and rambling on about a world that resembled and refracted the computer game, Helsinger's Pit. His diary entries named his coconspirators, Brother Lyle, Brother James, Brother Aaron, and Sister Inez. A fifth assassin was a
lso found, a Brother Paul Timmons, who matched the dead man found in South Dakota, stuffed in the trunk of a rental car. All the other brothers were in various stages of indoctrination.

  The motives expressed in Aguilar's diary pendulumed between madness and monetary gain. He claimed those selected to die were enemies of his church, vampires who conspired against him. He was obviously a religious fanatic. He described Whitaker, Palmer, Mootry and the others all as various aspects of the anti-Christ, men who worshipped the pleasures of the flesh, wealth, self-aggrandizement, and ultimately Satan. The only way to stop them from reforming and returning to this realm was to behead them, cut off their extremities and genitals and bum the parts, after staking them through the heart by the most modern and efficient method they could find, the crossbow.

  Randy Oglesby had been prophetically correct. The cult members had taken as their model of destruction the computer game Helsinger's Pit, and they'd been led to believe, thanks in great part to the FBI Vampire List, that their victims lived lives of extraordinary, supernatural powers from the dark side; by the same token, the vampire stalkers weren't above partaking in a devil's plunder, amassing as much funds as possible from the so-called anti-Christ before dispatching him again and again.

  Father Aguilar's diary entries to this end clearly marked him and his followers as religious maniacs. Furthermore, it turned out that there were numerous women among the “brothers” of the Sepulcher, and many of these women were pregnant with Aguilar's offspring.

  The good father was simply doing his part to cleanse the earth of the filth and vermin that had proliferated over generations, and he wasn't above taking the ill-gotten demonic wealth in the bargain, to put the ill-gotten money to a pure and holy use. He was also amassing an army of followers who would willingly assassinate the anti-Christ in his name.

  From Aguilar's diary came the truth about the assassinations of John Covey behind bars and the Shirleys in South Dakota, who'd been pawns in Aguilar's distorted, aberrant game of who lives and who dies for the greater glory of his fringe religion. He had indeed selected the Shirleys at random, calling them martyrs to his cause.

  The Houston Star and Chronicle ate up the sensational story, and every newscast was full of the sordid details. The Order of the Sacred Sepulcher and its cathedral church, monastery, and soup kitchen were closed, the members, some of whom remained behind bars for further questioning and disposition, disbanded, but not without an outcry from civil rights organizations and the NRA, who likened the situation to Waco and Koresh.

  Phil Lawrence came to see Lucas in the bowels of the precinct, in the Cold Room, where he'd continued to report since the mass arrests had been made. He had been involved in the interrogation of prisoners; few men in the precinct hadn't interrogated one or more of Father Aguilar's followers. However, the precinct house was slowly coming back around to a semblance of normalcy, and Lucas had been given his orders by Sergeant Kelton that he was to return to the damp little hole where the dead files awaited his attention. Meanwhile, in the newspapers, he and Sanger were being touted as heroes in this hero less story.

  He felt like the successful artist whose work was being admired by people walking through the Guggenheim Museum in New York City while the artist stood in the unemployment line, filling out a form that might allow him a subsistence living. He questioned the neat little package, too, of how Father Aguilar masterminded the series of killings, and how the widespread murders, crossing so many boundaries and state lines, could be carried out by Aguilar's monastic brothers alone. What troubled him most was how easily it had all fallen into place after he and Meredyth had stepped into Frank Aguilar's domain—like a house of cards, like someone had pulled out the one card holding everything together, but that card remained elusive, unreturned.

  That was the glum mood three days after his release from the hospital, his arm still in a sling, when Captain Phillip Lawrence joined Lucas in the Cold Room. Lucas offered his captain a seat, wary of the other man.

  Lawrence began by asking him how he was doing, how he was adjusting after all the excitement, and how his wounded shoulder was healing. Lucas punched himself in the shoulder harness, saying, “It's a piece of cake, compared to what I've grown accustomed to.”

  Lawrence laughed lightly. “I'll give you that much, Stonecoat. You're as tough as your name. I'm glad to have you on my team. Wish I had a squad of men as good as you.”

  “What's all this leading up to, sir?”

  “Well, no easy way to say this, Lucas.”

  “Then say it straight out, Captain.”

  He gritted his teeth. “They've denied your promotion request to detective status.”

  Lucas dropped his gaze. “No big surprise, sir.”

  “It's just a little soon, having just Finished basic. They all know how heroically you performed in the Aguilar affair, but this isn't exactly a business here, you know. We are a paramilitary operation, and that, Lucas, that means—”

  “Rank comes only with time; I know. I've heard it before, sir. So what will be my duties, Captain?”

  “Well, son, you sorta painted yourself into a... a hole here.” Lawrence looked around the dungeon, self-consciously cleaning his hands on his pants legs.

  Lucas stirred the dust on the floor as he shot to his feet, swearing, “Damn, damn it to hell. You mean I'm stuck with the Cold Room duty, don't you?”

  “I'm sorry, Lucas. I want you to know I went to bat for you, for all the good it did.”

  Lucas thought of saying nothing, unsure of Lawrence's sincerity, but seeing the older man squirm where he sat, he replied, 'Thanks for your support, Captain.”

  “Don't give up on us, Stonecoat, and we... we won't give up on you. I promise you that.”

  Phil Lawrence stood, extended his hand, taking Lucas's firmly and shaking it for some moments before leaving the room.

  The meeting added to the insufferable gloom of the place he found himself in. He hadn't seen or spoken to Meredyth since the early days of the mass arrests, which were now turning into mass releases. It did appear that Father Aguilar's clique was small and insulated from his larger flock of followers, by all accounts.

  And yet there continued the nagging feeling that Father Aguilar and the four killed with him and the one who'd died in South Dakota had not acted alone. But now the investigation was effectively dismantled, all questions put aside.

  Lucas kicked about the confining room, about to run out screaming when his phone rang. He lifted the receiver to the melodic voice of Meredyth Sanger. “How's my favorite Native American detective?”

  “Cop,” he corrected her. “Just another cop, Doctor. There was no promotion in this for me. I'm still Officer Stonecoat, still here in the Cold Room.”

  He only heard the mutterings, imagining that she'd cupped her hand over the mouthpiece as she swore. Then she said, “Well, it can only be a matter of time. I gave you an excellent report. Lawrence has to. Your jacket will be stuffed to brimming in no time, and—”

  “I think they like me just where I am, Mere, the cold file wrangler. But enough about me. How've you been?” He wanted to say that he'd missed her, but he suppressed the words, instead asking her, “Have you missed me?”

  “We made a good team, Lucas, and we'll work together again. I just know it,” she countered, sidestepping the issue. “And how's Conrad?”

  “He's gotten a bit more used to things, accepting of them.”

  “Yeah, he looked pretty shaken the other night.”

  She laughed lightly at this. “I was holding him up.”

  “He seems a good man.”

  “Yeah... yeah, he is...”

  “Meredyth,” he began.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you satisfied that Aguilar and his little clique acted alone?”

  There was a long silence before she said, “No...”

  He breathed in deeply, feeling some relief that he was not alone in his belief. “Why?”

  “I can't quite say why.”<
br />
  “Has Randy Oglesby any qualms about how things turned out?”

  “Randy's been... well, quiet on the subject.”

  “Quiet?”

  “If I broach the subject, he turns it away. Makes light of my... doubts.”

  Lucas considered this. “It does seem odd that Pardee and Amelford were so closely tailing us. Have you heard anything from Bullock and Price at the FBI?”

  “Only a congratulations call. You?”

  “I'm sure they likely assumed you'd forward their regards down here to me.”

  “How are you getting on with Lawrence?”

  “Okay, a bit shaky ground between us, but okay.”

  “Do you still harbor suspicions about him?”

  He considered this. “I'm unable not to.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Do you want to get together? Talk about it?”

  “Strangely enough, I feel like... well, that I'm being watched lately, she confessed.”

  “Join the crowd. Remember me? Mr. Paranoia?”

  “And I think someone's got to Randy, someone's frightened him,” she added.

  “Threatened his life?”

  “I can't be sure, but, yes, I think so.”

  “Who do we trust? Who do we take this to?”

  “FBI,” she suggested.

  “Ring Bullock and Price. See if they'll meet with us. But do it from a secure phone.”

  “Will do.”

  They set up a time and a place to secretly meet the following day. Lucas, on hanging up, began to feel some of the old creeping fear coming over him. They could easily let it be; the killers—any remaining—must be smart enough to end their kill spree at this juncture. But if Meredyth and he continued investigating, they ran the risk of being eliminated like Father Aguilar and his henchmen.

  There was no waiting until tomorrow to make a move. He must do something tonight.

  Lucas found Randy Oglesby extremely wary of him. He didn't much relish the idea of allowing Lucas into his apartment, and for good reason. He had a girl with him, Darlene Muentes, who looked up at Lucas from the sofa, smiling, her teeth shiny, her body slim.