by Aiden Bates
Ray shrugged. "It wasn't as bad as it could have been. They don't ticket cops, you know?"
Chris shook his head and laughed. "I'd be pissed, but we all know that I'm going to expense it anyway.
Doug grinned. "True. Listen. We all agree, whatever our opinion is on my dad, that there's another killer out there, right?"
Chris nodded, and Ray leaned a little closer to the table. "Well, yeah." Ray swallowed. "I think it's pretty obvious. The only problem is figuring out who they are."
"Right. And we all want him—it's usually a 'him,' if I understand things correctly—brought in. So, I thought it might be a good idea if we pooled our thoughts and came up with a suspect list. I'm sure that Chris has some good thoughts. He usually does. Ray, I know that you and the rest of your team have been working on nothing else ever since this retrial process started. You've probably got some thoughts on the subject too.
"And I'm from the area. Between whatever kernels of thought you guys come up with, I should be able to come up with at least a few people to narrow down your suspect pool. It's a town of only ten thousand people. The chances that I won't have known someone, or have known someone who knew someone, are pretty small.
Chris leaned back in his chair. "Makes sense, if you think about it," he said. "Sometimes you don't realize what you know until someone jogs your memory."
Ray wrapped his foot around Doug's. They would get away with a display of affection as minor as that; no one would see it. "It lets us build on ideas from different sources, too." Ray snapped his fingers. "I like it. I have to admit, though, we've all been kind of stumped. We don't know where to start. Ten thousand people is kind of a lot."
Chris shook his head. "Not if you think about it the right way." He got up and went to the whiteboard. Doug tossed him a marker, and he scrawled, "Traits" in the upper left-hand corner. "Seriously?" he asked, waving the marker at Doug.
Doug blushed. "They have a way of wandering off around here. All of the attorneys keep their own, under lock and key. Moving on. We know that our guy can pass for my dad."
Ray leaned against him for just a moment. "That's right. So we're dealing with a middle-aged, Caucasian male. He'd be getting on in years, because he's been able to keep pace with how your dad looks for a while now."
"Right." Chris wrote the age in that column. Underneath that, he wrote, "Dislikes Women."
Ray waved a hand. "We don't know that that's true, actually. We know he's got an issue with women between thirty-five and forty-five. Maybe we should take a look at the victims. That's a really specific range of ages; most serials who get that specific have some other issues too. Getting at what the victims have in common will probably help us get a clearer picture of who our guy is and how he met them."
"That's another important piece of the puzzle." Doug chewed on his lip for a moment. "I mean there are plenty of guys my dad's age in Lakeville, but not all of them would have had access to all of these women. I think that we can exclude Ms. Soto from the set; our killer shifted outside of the local area to get her thanks to my father's arrest." His stomach turned just thinking about it, or maybe it was morning sickness. He couldn't know for sure.
"Yeah. Let's line the victims up, first to last, and see what picture we get." Ray toyed with the buttons on his cuffs. "Are you going to be okay with that, Doug?"
Doug gave his mate a soft smile. "I've had time to adjust, and like I've told you before. We were never close." He cleared his throat. The first name is Emiliana Morrison. Death was in 1998. She worked part time at the church as an admin." He could remember dropping her off at the church on cold days, with Dad, so she didn't have to park far away from the rectory. "She spent most of her free time at the church too. She was very religious."
Ray looked away. Of course he looked away. He still thought Larry had killed her. "Second victim was Yvette Leveque, in 2000. She worked for the school district, at the grade school. She was a parishioner at the same parish where Mrs. Morrison attended, but they weren't close or anything. She was a member of the choir."
Chris wrote down the necessary characteristics and waited for Doug to move on to the next victim, Orna McBride. She'd been a sweet lady. She'd been devout, but not in a hateful way. On the contrary, she'd gone out of her way to show that her god was a god of love. Everything that she did was geared toward sharing what she had and making sure that others were well taken care of.
They poured through that list, and then they stood back from it. "Okay." Ray rubbed his eyes. "Other than the obvious facts that we already knew, I can see two very important things that the victims had in common."
Doug sat down in a nearby chair. "The school and the church. All of the deceased had some kind of connection with the school system, and all of them went to my mother's church."
Chris sighed. "That doesn't exactly narrow it down, but yeah. They've all got that going for them."
Doug pursed his lips. He hadn't known all of the victims, but he'd known some of them. He had read all of the witness statements about them, too. "They were also all women with very strong personalities. Mrs. Baldovini—she was something else, all right. She was always on the lookout for bullies, and she wouldn't take even a little bit of grief from a bunch of little boys. Orna McBride? She wouldn't hesitate to call someone on their crap. Not even the priest." He chuckled. "I remember one time she told the bishop to 'go soak his head in the font until he learned some charity,' and how scandalized my mother was by it."
"Yikes." Ray sniggered behind his hand. "I wish I'd known her."
"But I think that's what we're seeing here. We're seeing a man who has a real problem with strong women. I mean there are plenty of women in that age range who have some kind of connection to the church and school. That's not a problem, but he chose these women. And he tore them, quite literally, apart." Doug stood up again. "I think that's the connection. There are about five guys who might have been able to do it."
Chris grabbed a legal pad and a pen, and passed them to Doug. Doug accepted them and started writing. He had to stretch his mind back across a significant span to do it. "Some of these names might not be exact," he said as he scribbled. "I didn't know all of these people well. Father D'Cruze, that name I know well. He was the priest at the church. I don't know if he's still there or not, but he was there at the time. He was about my dad's age, and within an inch or two of his height."
Ray put a hand on his arm. "What would be his motivation, though? I mean the guy worked with these women every day."
"He did. But he also had a special hate-on for my father. I can see him wanting to make him take the fall for something he didn't do, because Dad wouldn't surrender me to the State like he wanted." A fresh wave of grief washed over Doug, and he had to pause for a moment. Would someone really have killed twenty-four women just to get digs in at his father, because of him?
Ray put a hand on his back, and Doug took a deep breath. To attack unrelated women because Larry hadn't followed the priest's orders would be just a tad too far. It was possible, Doug had seen worse, but it wasn't likely. "I'm not saying that it's the most likely prospect, just that it's a possibility. It's a pretty big leap from spitting on the ground every time I pass by to killing strange women."
"We'll look him up." Chris nodded. "What about this next guy?"
Doug looked at the list. "Dick Tolbert. Ugh. The guy was creepy. He lived on our block. Even though he had no kids, he was always in the religious ed classes, talking to the boys about 'being a man' and how to treat women. Apparently women need a firm hand, or else they'll get the devil into them." Doug rolled his eyes and curled his lip. "It was the first time I heard that crap. Not the last, I'm afraid to say. But he hated women, obviously, and really hated women who had minds of their own. I remember one time that he came up to Yolanda Mata—that's victim two from 2003. And he got right up into her face, because her husband had mentioned that she'd left dinner for him and the kids in the microwave the night before."
"Sounds lik
e a winner." Ray squeezed his hand. "Funny, the things you remember about a guy after all these years, right?"
"It's just weird." Doug chuckled. "No one wants to remember being fifteen, I don't think. But things stand out, you know? Anyway, the third guy. Nick Madeira. He never openly had problems with any of these women, not that I could see, but he followed my dad around an awful lot."
Chris nodded. "Okay. That's a little creepy, and we'll take a look and see what we can find out about him. I take it that he fits the description?"
Doug wanted to snap, but he held his temper. He wasn't used to being on this side of the witness experience. "Yeah. He's my dad's height, about his weight before Dad went to jail. He's darker skinned, but that wouldn't be quite so apparent in the dark I guess." He grimaced at the next name on the list. "Next one is Mr. Gagne, my English teacher from ninth grade."
"Seriously?" Ray raised an eyebrow. "Tell me you're not bringing old grudges into this."
"He was always on about my dad's clothes. Had to know exactly where he got every outfit. I mean the answer was Sears. The answer was always Sears, you know? But he had to keep talking about it." He rolled his eyes. "I never saw him around women if he could avoid it. The girls at school said he graded them pretty harshly and that he was kind of a jerk to them, but I never saw him speaking to women teachers."
"Was he involved with the church at all?" Ray tapped a finger on the table, eyes far away.
"I don't remember him being at the church when we were there, but I wasn't a big fan of going even when I was a little kid, before we knew that I'm an omega." Doug chuckled. "I knew that the priest was there, because he was the one talking. And I knew Sister Cecilia was there, because she would sneak me a coloring book when I was little and then a real book when I got older. Beyond that? Nah, I don't remember much from any one service." He hung his head. "Sorry."
Ray put a hand on his. "Hey. You don't have anything to be sorry for, okay? It's okay that you don't remember. That would be a lot for any little kid to remember, and you stopped going when you were ten. It's okay."
Doug ran his tongue against his teeth and tried to rein in his emotions. He focused on the last name. "Oh yeah. Quentin Lucas. There was a guy. He was another one. He liked very strict gender roles. Men should be men, women should be servants, and omegas should go die in a ditch or something. He was very involved with the church, with that weird Order of Lot that Father D'Cruze was so into." He spread his hands wide. "These guys all fit the general description, and they all had a way to meet these women through the school or church. Sometimes both."
"So the women would have known them," Ray added, picking up the list. "Even if some of the behaviors were creepy, they wouldn't have thought twice about getting into a car with these guys. They were people that they knew."
"Exactly." Chris grinned. "Look, this was a fantastic idea, Doug. I mean we would have taken months, to come up with this on our own. Bringing our heads together like this was brilliant."
Doug forced a grin. Straining his head to remember all of those people had been like trying to force his mind through a fine mesh strainer. "Let's see if any of these leads pan out. Here's hoping that they do."
Ray grabbed his hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. It was all that they could do here at the office, but it was enough.
***
Ray and Nenci looked up at the rectory. Nenci wrinkled his nose at it. "The whole place looks kind of surreal if you ask me. Not like a real church, you know? It looks too clean, too shiny. Like something from a science fiction magazine."
Ray couldn't argue. "A lot of American Catholic buildings from that era tend to look the same way." He tried to tell himself that the chill that ran up his back was just from the cool November wind. "Okay. Are you ready to do this?"
"I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Are you?" Nenci looked up at him.
"What do you mean?" Ray tried to keep a neutral face.
"I mean this priest and your omega have history, and it's not good. Are you going to be able to sit there and listen to him say nasty crap about him?"
Ray considered. The question was valid, after all. "That's why you're here, Nenci. You'll have no compunctions about taking me out if you have to."
Nenci shook his head and headed up the walkway. "I should've known that getting you laid would be a bad thing." He rang the doorbell.
A woman answered. She was probably in her sixties, with short hair and just enough makeup to show that she was trying. "Welcome to Saint Gonsalo, how can I help you?"
The two troopers flashed their badges. "I'm Detective Langer, this is Detective Nenci. We're from the Cold Case Squad. We're here to speak to Father D'Cruze about a former parishioner, if he's available."
The woman's eyes widened, and her mouth narrowed into a little round "o." "I'll go tell the Father that you're here. Please, come in out of the cold." She ushered them into the rectory and showed them into a waiting room that was dominated by a beautiful portrait of a dark-skinned Franciscan monk and an exceptionally gruesome crucifix.
The priest came into the room only moments later. "I'm Father D'Cruze." He stood at medium height, with an olive-toned complexion made pale by too much time indoors. He still had most of his hair, although the hairline had receded, and that hair had an iron gray color. "Please, follow me. We can talk privately in one of the sitting rooms upstairs. No one will bother us if we close the door."
Ray raised his eyebrows. He'd always imagined the rectories to be normal houses, but as he walked through the building he could see offices and files took up that most of the space. "How many priests live here, Father?"
"Three, counting myself." The priest gave a little smile. "I think that the builders might have been a little ambitious when the place went up, myself. There are sleeping quarters for seven. But God works His ways, gentlemen." He led them up a staircase and into a brightly lit room.
He closed the door behind them and gestured to the table. "Please, gentlemen. Have a seat. I suppose that I can guess which parishioner you're here about."
Ray let himself grin, just a little bit. He knew what D'Cruze's views on people like him were. At the same time, he couldn't help but like the guy. He was personable and welcoming, given that he didn't know Ray. "If you're guessing Larry Morrison, you're correct."
D'Cruze bowed his head for a moment. Then he looked out the window and sighed. "Such a tragedy. If he had only listened to reason—if he had only been a little less arrogant, a little more amenable to the counsel of the good Lord, I think all of this could have been avoided."
Maybe Ray didn't like the guy so much after all. "What counsel would that be, Father?"
D'Cruze fell silent for a moment. "Obviously, I can't break the seal of the confessional. What I can tell you is that the Morrison marriage was troubled, deeply troubled. Emiliana was devout. She wasn't just devout, she had a strong interest in a religious order to which I belong, the Order of Lot."
Nenci nodded, writing the priest's words down. "We've heard this before, but we'd certainly like to get your perspective. Please, go on."
"The Order of Lot seeks to preserve humanity as God intended, and is laid out in the Book of Genesis. Emiliana had married a man who was much more secular than she was. The more devout she became, the more he turned away from God, and the more their marriage broke down. I counseled that they should probably have a child, since children generally bring families together.
"Emiliana loved her son, of course, with the time that she could spare from her devotions. I encouraged her to focus more on her family, but there just wasn't much at home for her. You understand this, correct?" D'Cruze met Ray's eyes, and then Nenci's. "They would have fallen apart if they were both as devout as saints. She clung to faith to distract her from her unsuitable marriage. He clung to their son."
Ray tried to imagine a child growing up in such an environment. "Which do you think would be healthier?"
"Under normal circumstances, I'd say the latter. I mean th
ey agreed to raise their son in the Church, and it's important to raise children in faith, but it's also important to let children know that they're loved and safe." D'Cruze pressed his lips together. "The only problem is that the boy's tests came back—the genetic tests, I mean."
Ray's mouth went dry. He couldn't speak, so Nenci spoke for him. "You're referring to the fact that Morrison's son showed up as an omega on his tests."
D'Cruze's lip curled. "Exactly. I don't know how the devil allows such things to occur, but the Father is very clear on such things. There's no room in the Church for such an abomination. I counseled that the thing must be cut off, put aside, or the parents would be in a state of grave sin." He looked away. "Emiliana was willing. Emiliana was very willing." He squirmed a little. "The father, on the other hand, used language that I wouldn't recommend using in front of one's wife and that was the end of it. His son was his son, no matter what, and if I called him an abomination again I would get a chance to ask Satan any kind of burning theological questions I might have."
