"Stop calling me that, you drug addict," James says. It's hard to tell with James. Is he poking fun at Callie? Or really trying to skewer her?
Callie takes it in stride.
"Touche, Priscilla. Now get those ruby slippers in gear and let's go to work."
They head out the door insulting each other.
"He seems to be adjusting to Callie harassing him about being gay," Alan observes.
"I think he'd be more disturbed if she didn't. This way he knows she really couldn't care less. Besides, he knows she'd never do it around anyone but us."
"Yeah. You going to run those other errands?"
"Give me fifteen minutes and I'll meet you in the lobby."
17
"NOTHING'S HIT THE NEWS YET ON LISA REID," AD JONES tells me.
"I'm impressed. Even without the fact of her being a congressman's kid, murder mid-flight should have gotten someone's attention."
"Director Rathbun knows how to handle the press. It won't last forever, though. Where are we at?"
I fill him in on everything that's happened since we last spoke, including the various theories that we're batting around.
"What's your feeling on this?" he asks me when I'm done. AD Jones got where he is by working his way up the ranks. He's done the work, put in the time. He'll never be a "suit." When he asks a question like this, he asks it because he respects my views and he wants the unvarnished truth.
"I think we're going to hit a dead end very soon unless we find a new lead or . . ."
"He kills someone else," AD Jones finishes for me. There it is again, that pause in the earth's rotation. The killer is out there, and he's hunting. Maybe a woman died last night while I was sleeping. Maybe a woman died this morning while I drank my coffee and joked with Callie.
I force these thoughts from my head.
"Yes, sir. This is a very methodical individual. He's confident and a risk taker, but he's not crazy. He's not fighting sexual urges or hearing voices. He's pursuing a course in the direction of a known goal. Exactly what that goal is, we haven't figured out yet."
He leans back in the brown leather chair that he's had since I've known him. It is worn and cracked in places. He's been told on more than one occasion to get rid of it, orders he's ignored. He can be stubborn like that. He gets away with it because he's good at what he does.
"Okay," he says, "then what's left? What's the plan of attack?"
"Callie and James are dealing with the trace. Perhaps we'll get a break there."
"But you don't think so."
"No, sir, but . . ." I shrug. "Assume making an ass of u and me and all that."
"And? What else?"
"Alan and I are returning to Father Yates. We're going to interview all of Rosemary's known associates and see where that takes us."
He taps his fingers on the desk. Nods. "I'll fill in the Director. Keep me in the loop."
"Yes, sir."
"And call Rosario Reid, Smoky. Keeping her in the loop and on our side is a good idea."
"That was the very next thing, sir."
"NOTHING NEW? NOTHING AT ALL?"
Rosario's voice sounds far away. I don't hear the strength I'd seen in her car that night.
"No, I'm sorry. But it's early, Rosario, very early. Sometimes this is how it goes."
"And that other poor girl he murdered? Does she have a family too?"
"Not that we've found. She did have her church, though."
Silence.
"Lisa's funeral is tomorrow."
I hear the edge in her voice, the desire to crack warring with her own control.
"I'm sorry."
"Can I ask you something, Smoky?"
"Anything you like."
"How was it? Burying your Alexa?"
The question has scalpel precision; it cuts through my defenses in a blink.
How was it? The memory is as vivid now as then. I buried them at the same time, Matt and Alexa, my world. I remember that the day was beautiful. California sun lit up the coffins till the metal on them gleamed. The sky was cloudless and blue. I heard nothing, felt nothing, said nothing. I marveled at the sun and watched as my life was put into the ground, forever.
"It was like a horror movie that wouldn't end," I tell her.
"But it did end, didn't it?"
"Yes."
"And that was even worse, wasn't it? That it ended."
"That was the worst of all."
I promised her truth, always, and I have no qualms about delivering it. Rosario Reid and I are sisters in spirit. We don't really have it in us to take our own lives in despair, or to turn into raging alcoholics. We're built to grieve and scream and then, when it's over, to carry on. Changed and heavier, but alive. She wants to know what is going to happen; I'm telling her. I can't save her from it, I can only prepare her for it.
"Thank you for keeping me up-to-date, Smoky." A pause. "I know, you know, that finding him is not going to make it better. It's not going to bring her back to me."
"But that's not the point, Rosario. I understand, believe me. He has to pay."
He has to pay for what he did, not because it will bring Lisa back, not even because it will diminish any of the pain her death leaves behind, but because he killed Rosario's child. No other reason is needed, it stands alone. Eat a mother's children and pay the price, a law of the universe that must be enforced.
"Yes. Good-bye."
"Good-bye, Rosario."
I realize, after we hang up, that I had been lucky, in a way. I got to kill the man who killed my child. It changed nothing. My Alexa was still dead. But . . . when I think of him, dying at my hand, a lioness purrs inside me, satisfied and terrible. That blood on her whiskers always tastes divine.
18
THE SUMMER DIES HARD HERE, HOLDING ON TO SUNLIGHT with its last gasp. The air this morning had been crisp, cool but not cold, and now the temperature is heading into the high sixties. The traffic is not bad. Alan is able to keep the speedometer above seventy-five. This can be a minor miracle on the 405 freeway any time of day. You're never lonely on the 405, no matter when you drive. I watch as Los Angeles proper morphs into the San Fernando Valley. It's a subtle change but a change nonetheless. If Los Angeles were an apple, it would be rotting from the inside out, with downtown as its core. The Valley is blighted as well, but flowers still grow through the cracks in places. There is just a little bit more space, just a little less dirt.
We pull into the parking lot of the Holy Redeemer.
"Not much to look at, is it?" Alan observes.
I hadn't gotten a good look at the church last night; it was dark and I'd been tired. Alan is right. It's small, probably poorly funded. No rich parishioners to keep Father Yates in real butter, here. This place is strictly margarine. Water from a tap, not a bottle.
"I trust it more this way," I say.
Alan smiles. "I know what you mean."
We learn, in our line of work, that clothes don't make the man. You can kill in a T-shirt or a three-piece suit, you can be rich and kill or poor and kill. A knife is a knife is a knife. I don't trust any church completely, but I trust the gold and gilded ones the least of all. Piety, in my opinion, is an ascetic activity.
"I called ahead," Alan says. "He's expecting us."
I GET TO SEE THE interior of the church with new eyes as well. And a new nose; I smell bleach. The pews are wooden and well worn. The floor is concrete, not marble. The altar at the front is small. Christ hangs in his usual position looking down on us all. Our savior needs a paint job, he's flaked in places.
His image still makes me quiver inside. I don't know if I believe in Him anymore, but I believed in Him once. Him and the Virgin Mary. I prayed to them, begged them to cure my mother's cancer. Mom died anyway. That betrayal was the end of my relationship with God. How could He forgive me for my sins when I'd never forgiven Him for His?
Father Yates sees us and comes toward us with a smile.
"Agent Barrett, Agent Washingto
n."
"Hello, Father," I say. "It's pretty empty in here. Slow day?"
I wince inside. I seem helpless to censor my own bitterness in this place. Alan looks at me strangely. Father Yates takes it in stride.
"Every day is a slow day at the Reedeemer, Agent Barrett. We're not saving souls by the bucketful here. One at a time."
"Sorry, Father. That was uncalled for."
He waves a hand. "You're mad at God, I understand. If He can take it--and I think He can--then so can I. Now, I have someone I'd like you to meet. Agent Washington told me why you've come, and the woman I'm about to introduce you to is the only person I could think of. So far as I know, she was Rosemary's only friend. Rosemary had no living family. But perhaps this person will be helpful."
"Why?"
"Because she used to be a police officer. A detective, in fact. In Ohio."
"Really?"
"Cross my heart." He smiles. Priest humor. "She's waiting for you in the sacristy."
*
*
*
LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS church, the sacristy is small but clean. Simple shelving provides a place for the chalice to rest when not in use. I can see the wine and the bag containing the host wafers.
"They're made by nuns," my mother had told me when I asked. I was not a fan of nuns at the time, but I had to admit that I liked the wafers even less. They should have been a reward for surviving the endurance test of Mass, but they tasted like Styrofoam. I see a closet with no doors, wood painted white. Father Yates's vestments hang inside.
There is no desk in this small room, just a window and three battered wooden chairs. A woman sits in one of the chairs, waiting.
"This is Andrea," Father Yates tells us. "Andrea, this is Agent Smoky Barrett and Agent Alan Washington."
She nods but does not speak.
"I'll leave you alone for now," the priest says, and takes his exit. I examine Andrea. She's not a small woman but not big either, about five-four and maybe a hundred thirty pounds. Her face would be average if not for her eyes and her hair. The hair is long and shiny and so black that it's almost blue. Her eyes are large and limpid and darker than the hair.
They are intelligent eyes. I can see the hint of cop in them. Her gaze is frank, direct, guarded, that mix of contradictions only found in law-enforcement professionals and hardened criminals. She takes in my scars without a perceptible reaction.
She's wearing a yellow T-shirt that's maybe a half size too big for her and a pair of faded blue jeans and tennis shoes. I hold out a hand.
"Pleased to meet you, Andrea," I say.
Her grip is firm and stronger than I expected. Her palms are dry. I manage to cover my own surprise at the scars I see on her wrist and arm. Two cuts, one horizontal, one vertical. The mark of the truly dedicated suicide.
"Likewise." Her voice is low and throaty, the voice of a phone-sex operator. "And yeah, I tried to kill myself once." She turns up her other wrist, and I see more scars. "They're a matching set."
"Been close myself," I say, though I'm not sure why. She gives me a mild look, and nods for us to take a seat.
"Why does Rosemary's murder rate the attention of the Feds?" she asks.
Right to the point. I try out the standard answer.
"I'm not at liberty to say."
She gives me the most mirthless smile I've ever seen, followed by a chuckle that says we're funny if we think she's going to be that easy.
"Then I'm not at liberty to help you. Put up or shut up."
I glance at Alan. He shrugs.
"Fine," I say. "Rosemary is not this killer's only victim. If you need to know more, then we're done."
"Nope, that makes sense. And I'm glad to hear it."
"That he's killed others?"
"Of course. Multiple murders are easier to solve than single instance homicides."
She has no concern for the bigger picture. If the death of others will help solve the murder of her friend, so be it.
"You want to tell us about it?" Alan asks.
I glance at him. He's entirely focused on Andrea. Alan is possibly the most gifted interrogator I know, so I keep my mouth shut and take a moment to study her.
It takes me longer to see it than he had, but I catch on. It's in her eyes, in her face, in everything about her. She's sad. It's not the shortterm sadness of someone having a bad day. It's not despair. This is something in between, a weariness that carries weight. Andrea is someone with a story to tell, a bad one, and you have to let her tell it before you can ask her what you really want to know. Andrea doesn't respond right away. She continues to assess me with those big, dark eyes for a few moments before turning them onto Alan.
"I used to be a cop," she begins. "Back in Ohio."
Alan nods. "Father Yates told us."
"I was a good cop. I had the gift. I could smell the lies a mile away, and I could make connections where others couldn't. I ended up in homicide five years in."
"Fast track," Alan notes. "All ability, or did you have a rabbi?"
Someone higher up who shepherded her career, he is asking.
"Both. I was good, real good. But my dad had been a cop too, so I had people looking out for me. It's the way of things there."
"Here too," he says. "I was in LAPD homicide for ten years. Ability wasn't always enough."
"Yeah. Well, I managed to juggle it all pretty good. I got promoted fast, married a great guy--not a cop--and had a baby. A beautiful boy named Jared. Life was good. Then things changed."
She stops talking. Stares off into the distance.
"What things?" Alan prods her.
"There was this guy. He killed families. Wholesale. He'd come into a suburban neighborhood and recon until he found the right family. His requisites were: multiple children aged ten or above, preferably with some boys and girls in their teens, and at least one parent. Single moms were the best, but he always wanted a boy as a part of the equation, whether it was the dad or a son, brother, whatever.
"He'd come at them when it got dark. He'd make them all strip and then he'd spend the night doing his thing. He'd force them to have sex with each other. Sisters to sisters, Mom to son, dads to daughters. You get the picture. Then he'd fuck his favorite or a few of his favorites. When he was done, he'd leave all of them alive except for one that he would strangle while the others watched."
She swallows, remembering all of this.
"A task force was put together. I was on it as second in command. I was hot for it too. Something about this one got to me. Still don't know why. It was bad, sure, but I'd already seen gruesome."
"Sometimes it's easier to deal with dead victims than living ones,"
I offer.
She looks at me with renewed interest. "Funny you should mention that. These families were permanently fucked up. Most ended in divorce. Some of the fathers and kids killed themselves. None of the mothers, though. Still not sure why."
"For the kids," Alan murmurs.
"What?" she asks.
"The mothers didn't kill themselves because they needed to be there for the kids."
She stares at Alan for a moment, then continues.
"The ruin of those poor people is what he got off on. That was his real fix. Once I understood that, I knew that's why he kept them alive. He wanted to go back and watch them be miserable. We posted surveillance around his victims' homes and, sure enough, the fucker showed up. Ohio has the death penalty so he sucked down cyanide gas a few years ago."
"That's good work," I say.
"We caught him," she agrees, "but it didn't help me. I couldn't get the victims' stories out of my head. The things he made them do. How it affected them. I started to have trouble sleeping and in true cop fashion, I kept it all to myself and turned to the same therapist my dad had always used in rough times. Dr. Johnnie Walker." Another one of those mirthless smiles. "Dr. Walker was cheap, he could keep a secret, and he always went down clean."
"Seen him myself," Alan sa
ys.
"Really?" she asks.
"Sure. Lots of cops have."
Bitterness spasms across her face. "The thing is, he's not really cheap. He starts out low, but that back end is a bitch."
"Almost cost me my marriage," Alan replies. "What did it cost you?"
Those eyes close once and open again and turn to me and then Alan and then the ceiling. I see a storm in them, wind and rain and thunder, pain and rage and something more terrible but undefined.
"Everything," she says. "It cost me everything." Her voice is a monotone. "Maybe if I'd reached out, asked for help, I could've changed things. But cops aren't too big on that anyway, and I had the added pressure of being a woman. Someone was always waiting for me to show weakness. I kept it to myself, and I hid it good. One thing a cop can do, man, is lie." She looks at Alan. "I drove drunk with Jared in the car. We crashed, he died."
Silence. She's not looking at us now.
I have a bitter taste in my mouth, like blood. This is just one more terrible story to add to my catalogue of useless and terrible stories. What happened to her did not happen because she was a bad person or a bad cop or a bad mother. Something about that case got to her where others hadn't and drove her to the bottle. One day she was in the car with her son and the bottle made her zig instead of zag. That was the end of her, at least for a little while. The fact that she'd caught the monster didn't matter. She was his last victim.
"I tried to kill myself twice. Once with pills, the other time with a razor. I got put on disability from the force. My husband left me. I was about to give suicide a third whirl when I realized the truth: death was too good for me. What I needed to do was suffer." She's still talking in that laconic monotone. "So I moved to LA and I became a whore."
I flinch at this revelation.
"Why?" I ask.
The large eyes find me, pin me. "Penance. I killed my son. I de served to suffer. I figured letting myself get fucked by strangers for four or five years for money would be a good start." She barks a laugh.
"The capper? A guy I had arrested in Ohio had gotten out and moved to LA. Fate sent him my way. He really got off on having the female cop who busted him down on her knees sucking his cock."
I am aghast. I can't find the words.
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