by Jim Laughter
“Not yet, sir,” Benjamin answered. “Right now I’m working in fraud tracing fraudulent check writers.”
“Paper hangers?” Morris asked. “You trace paper hangers and you think you can step in here and tell me how to do my damn job?”
“No sir. Sorry, sir.” Benjamin turned to leave but Keller grabbed his elbow again.
“Shut up, Dunc!” she snapped. “You said yourself that you haven’t been able to make any sense of this case. Give the kid a chance. If he’s full of crap, we’ll throw him out the window together.”
Benjamin looked back and forth between the two veteran agents. Morris broke into a big smile and winked at Keller. “I like it when you get frisky.”
“Okay, kid,” Morris said. “What’cha got?”
“Get your ass up out of that chair and let the kid see the damn files,” Keller said, steering Benjamin around behind Morris’ desk. Morris reluctantly stood up and stepped away from his chair.
“You want my coffee too, kid?”
“No sir. Thanks, but I never drink it.”
“Oh my God!” Morris exclaimed. “Kid don’t drink coffee!”
“Don’t pay him any mind, George,” Keller admonished.
“And I’ll bet he don’t smoke, drink, cuss, or chase women either, do you kid?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”
“Kid’s probably never been laid either,” Morris said. Benjamin didn’t answer. “We got us a virgin agent in more ways than one.”
Benjamin stared back at Morris then thought he saw a twinkle in the agent’s eye. He’s yanking my chain. “Oh, I’ve been laid,” Benjamin said. “I just prefer it be with human females.”
Keller and Morris were surprised at the young agent’s impertinence then they both started laughing. Morris slapped Benjamin hard on his shoulder and pushed him down into his chair. “That’s a good one, kid. I’ll have to remember that one.”
Benjamin flipped through the file folders spread out on Morris’ desk. He’d seen pictures of murder victims before and had even visited a murder scene as part of his academy field training. But these pictures were bizarre. He didn’t say anything while he turned from one file to the next.
“Well Sherlock, you solved the case yet?” Morris asked.
Keller rolled her eyes at Morris and whispered for him to shut up and let the kid think. “Well sir,” Benjamin answered without looking up. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Maybe. Maybe not. Is there a connection between the victims or not?”
Without acknowledging Morris, Benjamin reached into his inside jacket pocket and extracted a long, thin book. He laid the book on the desk among the file folders.
“What the hell is that?” Morris asked.
“New Testament, sir.” Benjamin opened the Bible and thumbed the pages until he found the passage of scripture he was searching for. After reading a few lines, he seemed satisfied so he closed the book and returned it to his jacket pocket.
Morris and Keller exchanged wary glances. Neither of them could ever remember an FBI agent using a Bible to work a case. “You a preacher?” Morris asked. “You gonna sing us a song, say a prayer, and hope the killer feels guilty and turns himself in?”
“No sir, I’m not a preacher. At least, not anymore,” Benjamin answered but didn’t expand his reply.
“Then what the hell ...”
Keller laid her hand on Morris’ arm. Benjamin continued to study the file folders, turning an occasional page, comparing one file with another.
“George?” Keller said. “Do you see a link in the files that we don’t see?”
“Yes ma’am. Well, at least I think I do,” Benjamin answered. “It would take more study, and I’d need to verify a few details, but I see a possible link.”
By this time Morris was livid. “I don’t believe this crap!”
“Shut up, Dunc!” Keller snapped again. “If the kid sees a connection, he’s a thousand miles ahead of where we’ve gotten.”
Benjamin was thankful that at least one of the senior agents wasn’t writing him off as a fool. Keller laid her hand on Benjamin’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure the kid had any better idea about the case than she or Morris, but any help was better than no help at all.
“Show us what you see in the files that has alluded us,” Keller prompted. She leaned down close to him, hoping to give him moral support. God I hope he has something. If not, Morris is gonna blow a fuse.
“Well ma’am,” Benjamin began, “from what I can tell from these files, the one thing all these people have in common are their names.”
Keller stood straight up, shocked that Benjamin could say such a thing. Morris’ face began to redden and Keller could tell her partner was about to lose it. Benjamin just sat at the desk, unaware that what he’d said made no sense at all to the two senior agents.
“Get your ass up out’ta my chair!”Morris yelled. “Of all the hair-brained, dumb-ass crap I’ve ever heard, boy you take the cake!”
“Hold on a minute, Dunc,” Keller said, holding Benjamin down in Morris’ chair. She didn’t want to take the chance of Morris physically removing the young agent from the room. “Give the kid a chance,” she whispered to Morris. “Let him explain himself.” This better be good. She looked around just to make sure their third story window was closed.
“Explain himself?” Morris exclaimed. “Did you hear what this boy just said? He said the vics share the same name!”
Morris grabbed two of the file folders from off the desk and held them out to Keller. “There’s not two names the same in any of these files. How the hell do the names create a link between two brothers killed by crucifixion in New York and Georgia, two men with their heads cut off in Kentucky, and a kid stabbed to death in Texas?” Morris threw the files back onto his desk, scattering loose papers onto the floor.
Without acknowledging Morris’ outrage, Benjamin removed his cell phone from a clip on his belt. Keller and Morris watched the young agent speed dial a number then lean back in Morris’ chair, apparently unconcerned with Morris’ outburst.
“What the hell is this?” Morris shouted. “Is this kid callin’ out for pizza or what?”
Keller didn’t know what to say. She was as confused as Morris.
“Hello, Dad?” Benjamin said, his voice calm when his call connected.
Morris and Keller just stared at each other. What could this kid be thinking?
“Yes sir, I’m fine. No sir, nothing’s wrong. Yes sir, she’s alright too. No sir, no baby yet.”
Keller and Morris watched Benjamin listen to his father on the cell phone.
“I don’t know if I’ll make it home for Thanksgiving or not, Dad. Yes sir, I’m sure the government can run without me for a few days.” He looked up at Keller and shrugged his shoulders.
Morris threw his hands up in the air. “For the love of God!”
“Dad, I need to ask you a question. It’s important but I can’t tell you why I need to ask it.”
Keller watched Benjamin flip open the case file on Thomas Waverly, the boy found dead in Texas.
“Dad, do you recall where and how the Apostle Thomas was killed?”
Again Morris and Keller exchanged confused glances. “Uh-huh,” they heard Benjamin say. “In India, right?”
Benjamin scribbled a few notes on a loose piece of paper on Morris’ desk.
“Thanks, Dad. That’s what I thought but I just wanted to be sure.”
Morris sat down heavily in a chair against the wall. He was confused and frustrated by this rookie that had interjected himself into his investigation.
“India?” he said. “What the hell can India have to do with a kid killed in Texas?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” Benjamin said again, apparently answering his father’s question about coming home for the holidays. “I’ll call you back when I have more time, okay? Tell mom I love her. Yes sir, I’ll take care of myself. Call you soon.”
Benjamin ended
his call and placed his cell phone back onto the clip on his belt. He studied his notes again before turning to Keller and Morris.
“What the hell was that all about?” Morris asked, pushing up from the chair and walking back to the desk. “You called your father for information on a case?”
Benjamin nodded. “Yes sir. My dad is a Doctor of Divinity at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is one of the world’s foremost authorities on early church history. I just wanted to verify a hunch before telling you my theory and you telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Lynn Keller could see the frustration on the faces of both Morris and Benjamin. No two agents could be any more opposite, yet she felt there was a definite spark of connection between the two men.
“You say you had a hunch and your father verified it?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“He had a hunch,” Morris grumbled. “Kid had a hunch so he called his daddy. Now I’ve heard everything.”
Morris stalked around to the front of the desk and looked suspiciously at Benjamin. “You’re not related to that black professor clown over at Cambridge that raised all that racial discrimination crap back in ‘09 with the police when his white neighbor reported someone breakin’ into his house, are you?”
Benjamin stood up from Morris’ chair and stacked the files on the corner of the desk. Let this fool figure it out for himself. “I’ve got to get back to my office.”
“What the hell do you mean you’ve got to get back to your office?” Morris shouted. “What the hell was this hunch of yours?”
Benjamin just shook his head. “It won’t do any good for me to tell you, sir. I’m sure you’ll figure it out in time.”
“Won’t do no good? Why the hell not?”
Benjamin turned and faced the senior agent. Keller didn’t like the anger in Benjamin’s eyes. She’d seen it before when Morris had pushed other agents over the line of tolerance. “Well sir, for one thing, it’s very complicated and you probably wouldn’t understand it.”
“And, secondly?” Morris asked suspiciously.
“And, secondly,” Benjamin said coldly, not expressing any outward emotion even though his stomach was turning somersaults, “you have your head stuck so far up your ass you wouldn’t hear me if I shouted it through a bullhorn.”
Keller and Morris stood staring at each other, both agents stunned by Benjamin’s display of insubordination. They couldn’t believe what they just heard, especially from a seemingly mild-mannered rookie agent right out of the academy.
Then Morris started to laugh. He laughed so hard that tears flowed down his face. Keller also started to laugh while Benjamin just stood and watched his two superiors laugh themselves silly.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Morris was finally able to say through bouts of laughter. “This kid has a set of balls the size of coconuts!”
Confused and dumbfounded, Benjamin didn’t know how to respond. He’d expected Morris and Keller to lash out at him. Instead, they seemed genuinely amused by his answer.
“Ooooo, I like this kid,” Morris said. After another minute, Morris told Benjamin to sit back down at the desk.
“I really need to get back to my desk before my supervisor comes looking for me,” Benjamin said.
“Sit down, kid. You don’t work there no more.”
“Duncan!” Keller exclaimed. “You can’t...”
“Can’t what?”
“You can’t just pull an agent from another department on a whim.”
“It’s not a whim—it’s a hunch.” Morris winked at Benjamin who had sat dumbfounded back down in Morris’ chair.
“But the chief has to approve all transfers,” Keller protested. “And besides, he’s a rookie.”
“I don’t give a shit if he’s the Avon lady if it will help me solve this case.”
Keller turned to Benjamin and leaned in close to his ear. “You damn well better know what you’re talking about, Benjamin,” she whispered. She hadn’t seen Morris this adamant in years. She waved her hand over the files. “Go ahead, George. Tell us about this hunch of yours.”
All of a sudden Benjamin found himself in deeper water than he cared to tread. He resigned himself to the possibility that he had either made the biggest blunder of his life, or an unbelievable door of opportunity had just opened to him.
“Well, ma’am,” he said, not feeling quite as boisterous as he’d been only a few minutes ago. “It’s the calamine lotion on the body of the victim in Texas.”
“The lotion?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I don’t understand how lotion...”
“It’s not so much the lotion as it is the kind of lotion,” Benjamin answered Keller’s unfinished question.
“The kind?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Benjamin opened the file folder showing Thomas Waverly’s dead body which lay on the ground with a lance thrust through the heart. Pink lotion covered the body.
“I called my dad,” Benjamin began, “to verify where and how the Apostle Thomas was killed.” He pointed to a line on the report that explained the weapon used to kill Thomas Waverly.
Keller read the line. “So he was killed with a spear.”
“No ma’am, he wasn’t,” Benjamin corrected her. “He was killed with a lance. An Indian lance.”
“I don’t see the difference,” Keller admitted.
“There’s not much difference, ma’am,” Benjamin said. “A spear is a weapon that you throw at a target or enemy from a distance. But a lance is used in hand-to-hand combat. It doesn’t have the proper balance for throwing. Whoever killed Thomas Waverly did it up-close and personal. This kid wasn’t a target–he was a sacrifice, or to be more exact, he was a martyr.”
Now both Keller and Morris looked over Benjamin’s shoulder at the report. “So what has that got to do with calamine lotion,” Morris asked the young agent, this time in a more civil, less intimidating tone of voice.
“According to early church history, the Apostle Thomas was martyred in India, killed by a lance in the town or province of Calamine.”
“Is that it?” Keller asked.
“No ma’am,” Benjamin answered. “If the killer is following the pattern set forth in Matthew 10 of the New Testament and killing his victims in the same order as the original apostles appear in the New Testament, and if Thomas Waverly is indeed his last victim, then we’re missing three victims.”
Chapter Four
“Grandpa! Grandpa!” Soon to be sixteen-year-old Abigail Preston threw her arms around her grandfather’s neck when he stepped out of his motorhome onto the driveway of his son’s home in Denver, Colorado. “You made it home for my birthday party!”
Preach hugged his only granddaughter, almost sixteen and already as tall as him, maybe an inch taller now that he stepped back and took a closer look at her. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said, pulling his favorite girl close to him again.
“Did you bring me anything for my birthday?” Abigail queried her grandpa. “A new car maybe?”
“A new car? You think I’m made of money?”
“Sure you are, Grandpa. You’re loaded! How about the little car you pull around behind the RV? Could you give me that one?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, but you might check the front of the RV,” Preach answered. “I think I hit a biker a while back. The bicycle might still be stuck on the bumper.”
“Oh Grandpa!” Abigail squealed. “You’re so funny.”
Abigail hooked her left arm around her grandfather’s crooked right arm. Some people found his disfigured arm grotesque but not Abigail. She reasoned that it was probably the only one like it in the whole world and was unique. It was nothing to be ashamed of.
“Is your mom and dad home?” Preach asked.
“Nope, they’re at the church getting ready for tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night? What’s going on tomorrow night?”
“We’re
having a concert at the church!” Abigail answered, excited at the news. “Skillet’s going to be here!”
“Skillet? What kind’a name is Skillet?”
“They’re a Christian rock band! They’re really cool.”
“Do they cook bacon and eggs while they play?” Preach teased his granddaughter. “And do they beat on pots and pans? I’ll bet the bass player thumps a wash tub.”
“No silly. They sing really cool songs.”
“And I’ll bet they’re loud and have long hair, huh?”
Abigail took her grandfather’s hand in hers. “You can be so provincial sometimes, Grandpa.”
“The word is old-fashioned and I like it that way,” Preach laughed. “If it ain’t southern gospel, it ain’t worth listening to.”
“Oh, you’re just still stuck in the twentieth century when Christian music was played on an accordion, snare drum, and a banjo,” Abigail teased. “I’ll fly away, oh Glory,” she sang, putting on her best southern drawl.
“Now you’re singin’, kid,” Preach laughed. “But the question is, when the roll is called up yonder, will you be there?”
Preach and Abigail sat around his son’s living room for a while before he drifted off to sleep in the Lay-Z-Boy recliner. He was awakened by the sound of his grandson’s voice calling “Grandpa, Grandpa” through the house.
Robert, or Robbie for short, his eight-year-old grandson, bound through the house until he found his grandfather sitting in the recliner. He jumped full force up onto Preach’s lap and threw his arms around his neck. “Grandpa, I’m so happy you’re home!”
“Me too, son,” Preach smiled.
“Did you bring me anything, Grandpa?”
“What is it with you and your sister? Am I supposed to bring you something every time I come home from a trip?”
“Sure you are, Grandpa,” the boy answered. “That’s what grandpas are for.”
Simon Preston, Preach’s son, entered the living room and crossed the floor to where his dad rose from the chair to meet him, setting the boy aside. “Good trip, Dad?” Preston asked, shaking his father’s hand.
“Good as could be expected, I suppose. Long trip though. Nothing is like it used to be.”
