Ceremony

by Paul Austin Ardoin

  “Faith is the strongest weapon that Anne Askew possessed,” Roundhouse said. “It allowed her the strength to go on even when her body was tortured and broken. And faith allowed Kymer Thompson to go on, even though the pull of worldly riches beckoned.”

  Thunk.

  No one jumped in their seat this time. Bernadette looked across the aisle to Annika Nakrivo. She stayed seated. A man in front of Bernadette leaned forward, temporarily blocking her view of Lightman.

  “More enemies I now have than hairs upon my head,” Roundhouse declared. “Let them not be depraved, but fight now in my stead.”

  “But fight now in my stead,” repeated the congregation, and Bernadette found herself chanting too—and then she looked up at Roundhouse.

  Who held a jeweled dagger over her own head.

  Two torches, one on either side of the pulpit, burst into flame.

  Where did those come from?

  Roundhouse let loose a scream.

  And the congregation screamed with her.

  “Make me a double-edged dagger of a cubit length,” Roundhouse screeched. The fire of the torches reflected in her eyes. “Gird it under a raiment upon my thigh.”

  The anchor dropped again with a louder thunk than before.

  “I have a secret errand unto thee, O King,” Roundhouse shouted. “Do not beseech me to keep silent.”

  “O King!” went up a yell from about twenty people in the pews.

  “And I did take the dagger from my thigh and thrust it into the King’s belly, and the haft went in after the blade, and the King could not draw the dagger from his stomach.”

  “And the dirt came out,” said Roundhouse with the congregation.

  The congregation kept chanting. “And the dirt came out. And the dirt came out. And the dirt came out.”

  The blood thundered in Bernadette’s ears, as if beating drums were assaulting her. The words reverberated in the small space.

  And the dirt came out.

  And the dirt came out.

  And the dirt came out.

  “I am not she that lists,” Roundhouse yelled above the cacophony, “My anchor to let fall!”

  The chant changed and grew in volume. “My anchor to let fall. My anchor to let fall.”

  Thunk.

  Roundhouse’s voice carried above the chant. “My brethren, remember Kymer Thompson. Remember his passion for seeking the truth. For being strong through the cruel spite of his fears. For now, he is meeting his God and delighting in His presence.”

  “My anchor to let fall. My anchor to let fall. My anchor to let fall.”

  “My anchor to let fall!” screamed Roundhouse, and with one last, ominous, grinding thunk, the anchor dropped to the last level.

  The torches went dark.

  Bernadette’s head whipped around to see where Annika was. The seat in the pew—

  —was empty.

  Bernadette jumped over the back of the pew and raced across the aisle, the chill shooting up her back. She whirled her head around, her eyes adjusting to the low light, but with all the people crammed into the chapel, she couldn’t find Annika.

  A scream from the front—and several people in the second pew rushed to their left, away from the side aisle as the lights in the chapel came up.

  In the seat next to the aisle, a tall, lanky bearded man with horn-rimmed glasses sat slumped. Bernadette rushed forward, and she saw the slumping man’s face.

  Nick LaSalle—eyes open and unseeing.

  Thirty minutes later, at the State Street administrative building, Bernadette leaned over Lesley Gill’s chair and stared at her screen. Kep sat in a guest chair against the wall a few feet behind her, while Maura sat on a tall stool on the other side of Lesley.

  “So you lost Annika?” Maura asked.

  “Yes,” Bernadette said, clenching and unclenching her fists.

  “Six police officers and two of my best investigators sitting in the chapel with her. And you lost her—and we have another dead body.”

  “It was unexpected,” Kep said. “Torches of fire as the only light source in the chapel, and loud noises as the anchor dropped. Both the leader and the congregation were chanting. The ceremony was intended to induce a trance-like state in the attendees.”

  Maura folded her arms. “Do you have a theory about who killed Nick LaSalle?”

  “CSI is onsite now,” Bernadette said, lowering her eyes. Another person murdered on my watch.

  “Do you know how he was killed?”

  “CSI hasn’t said yet, but I didn’t see a wound. I told the crime scene tech to check for a needle prick and ibogaine.” Bernadette rubbed her forehead. “So it follows that whoever killed Nick LaSalle also murdered Kymer Thompson and Curtis.”

  Maura hopped off the stool and paced behind Lesley. “We’ve been thinking of Annika Nakrivo as a victim all this time. Sounds to me we need to put her on the suspect list.”

  Kep rested his chin in his palm, his elbow on the arm of the guest chair. “Given her proximity to Nick LaSalle’s dead body, I can’t disagree.”

  “Were you able to assess the murder scene, Dr. Woodhead?”

  “I stood close to Mr. LaSalle’s body.” Kep dropped his eyes to the floor. “I detected ibogaine, likely on the corpse, though I wasn’t able to determine the exact location.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, I identified too many conflicting scents in the chapel and near the body. I can suggest no additional areas of inquiry for us.”

  Bernadette looked at the floor. “Based on our suspicions, it’s possible that LaSalle tried to get to Annika and she turned the tables on him.” She closed her eyes. “But it also could be that she’s behind everything.” She rested her hand on the back of Lesley’s chair. “Once CSI arrived, I came back here so we could find Annika Nakrivo. If she’s the new prime suspect, she might be on the run. And if she’s still being victimized by the killer, we still have to locate her. That’s my top priority.”

  “I agree,” Maura said.

  “Uniforms report that she’s not at her dorm or at the Freshie,” Bernadette replied. “I thought we could dig through her past and that might give us a clue. Lesley, can you bring up Annika Nakrivo’s records from Miami?”

  “As soon as I heard what happened at the chapel, I began to pull her information.” Lesley pointed to the screen. “Annika Nakrivo was only in Miami for two years. She didn’t grow up there. I can find no trace of her in Miami after October of last year.”

  “You already told us you suspected she was on a chartered jet when she left Miami.”

  “That’s correct—Miami to Cleveland.”

  “Where Parr Medical is headquartered,” Maura said.

  Bernadette scratched her temple. “We’re assuming Annika’s plane was chartered by Parr Medical?”

  Lesley clicked on another screen, then squinted and shook her head. “I haven’t found proof yet. I’m following a couple different money trails.” She clicked another window. “I also found something else.”

  “What?”

  “The photo of Annika Nakrivo on the escort website isn’t the way she looks now.”

  “Right—I saw it.”

  “That got me thinking. I started searching medical records—plastic surgeries in October with missing insurance codes, or that had been scheduled with less than two weeks’ notice.” She tapped her keyboard and another screen popped up. “And here’s what I found. Dr. Jeffrey Watermaker. Rhinoplasty, collagen, botox. Unnamed female patient, twenty-eight years old, two days after Nakrivo’s plane landed in Cleveland.”

  “Wait—did you say twenty-eight?” Bernadette asked. “She said she was nineteen. She looks like she’s nineteen!”

  Lesley nodded. “I assume that’s the plastic surgery.” She tapped again, and another screen appeared. “Parr Medical has a contract with the Erie Fairfax Circle Hotel, two blocks away from their campus, and there’s a guest who checked in the same night Nakrivo’s plane landed in Cleveland, and who stayed for almost two months. Name on
the room is Parr Medical Guest.”

  Bernadette stood up straight, her back cracking loudly.

  Lesley glanced up. “Do you want a chair?”

  “I need to stand and think. So—you’ve got a rough timeline from the financial information you’ve uncovered?”

  “Emphasis on the rough,” Lesley replied. “But I’ll go over it. First, in mid-August, Parr Medical made a verbal offer to Eddie Taysatch to lure him away from the Freshie project. But he said no.”

  “Right.”

  “The next week, a keylogger program appeared on Kymer Thompson’s computer.”

  Bernadette and Kep both nodded in agreement.

  “And after the Labor Day weekend, we know the keylogger is on his home machine too.”

  “Oh—I didn’t tell you,” Maura said. “We found fan letters from Kymer Thompson on his home computer.”

  “To Mariska Sikmo?” Bernadette asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Typical gross stalker stuff?”

  Maura grimaced. “Religious discussion, actually. Talking about the meaning of Anne Askew’s writings, almost as if he believed Mariska Sikmo had written her own lines in Six Wives.”

  Bernadette tapped her chin. “So we think the keylogger continuously reported all of Thompson’s keystrokes to Parr Medical?”

  “Again—no proof,” Lesley said. “It’s all being transmitted to a server address, but that’s where the trail goes cold.”

  “When were the fan letters sent?”

  “The first was September nineteenth. A few had been saved, but not sent.”

  “And what about the spreadsheets on the lampreys?”

  “Transmitted starting September seventh, from the work PC.”

  Maura clicked her tongue. “How does the motive of corporate espionage look?”

  “Lucrative,” Lesley said. “I ran the numbers in a couple of different simulations. If Parr is able to sell their cancer treatment without competition—”

  “Competition funded by Eponymous Pharmaceutical,” Maura interrupted.

  “—it’s worth over thirty-five billion dollars,” Lesley continued. “That’s billion with a B. We’re talking about making most of the major shareholders obscenely wealthy.”

  “Did one of your simulations include Eponymous beating them to the market?”

  “Yes,” Lesley said, “and they were still profitable. But prices would have been lower to be more competitive. Parr’s medication would be prescribed less often—and since they wouldn’t have first-mover advantage, they couldn’t price themselves at the top of the market. Maybe sixty million over the course of the next three years after release. Like I said, still profitable for the company. But not an obscene amount of money for any of the stakeholders.”

  Maura took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead. “How long before Vivian Roundhouse is processed?”

  “Dunn said it would be a couple of hours.” Bernadette folded her arms.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The optics,” Bernadette said. “Nick LaSalle was dead in his seat, and the woman who led the service was arrested the second the ceremony concluded. Everyone in the church knew the reverend hadn’t done it.”

  Maura sat up straight on the stool. “I don’t care. If she planned or coordinated these killings, we need her in custody. If Milwaukee’s finest get bad press out of it, they can blame us. Everyone already thinks the Feds are heartless assholes.” She pointed at Lesley’s screen. “Besides, we have evidence that Vivian Roundhouse was involved with the murders—it was her van, she has a weak alibi, and she had motive to eliminate the mass-produced ibogaine.”

  “But nothing that connects Roundhouse to Parr Medical’s activity.” Bernadette shook her head. “And no evidence that she was anywhere near the Freshie the night—” Bernadette hesitated. “The night the lampreys were all killed.”

  “And LaSalle is the one who had the knowledge to disconnect the alarms in the aquarium. The theory makes sense if the two of them were working together.” Maura hopped off the stool and leaned forward to look at the spreadsheet on Lesley’s screen. “I can’t believe that it’s a coincidence that a corporation trying to protect thirty-five billion dollars isn’t connected to the murderer of Kymer Thompson and Eddie Taysatch.”

  Bernadette glanced over at Kep, who was staring at the floor.

  “We must have some footage of Vivian Roundhouse,” Maura said, her voice cracking slightly.

  “The security cameras at the dorm had been tampered with and the recordings were missing,” Lesley said.

  “Nick LaSalle had the know-how to turn those off,” Kep mused. “The camera and alarm systems are all administered by computer systems that he could access. We should check LaSalle’s logs—if he used his key cards in that building, or his login information for the aquarium control unit in the laboratory.”

  “I believe that’s the connection,” Maura said. “Nick LaSalle was working for both Parr Medical and Vivian Roundhouse.”

  “That’s a big leap.” Bernadette rubbed her eyes. The pieces weren’t falling into place yet. “They were certainly working toward the same goal, I suppose, but who got him to do what? And how does Annika fit into all this? If we suspect Nick LaSalle was working for Parr Medical based on the payoff of his student loans, we must suspect that Annika works for them too.”

  “Or works for Roundhouse,” Maura said. “Remember, Annika said the reverend stopped by her dorm the night Thompson was killed.”

  “I can keep digging in Annika’s financials,” Lesley said.

  “Can we get to financial information from the other side?” Bernadette asked. “Can we get the records from Parr Medical?”

  Maura shook her head. “Not yet. We’ve started the process, but their lawyers are fighting it. We’ll sort it out. It’s a bundle of red tape.” Maura walked around the table. “I know it’s late, but you’re right, Bernadette. Top priority is finding Annika Nakrivo—and figuring out if she’s a suspect or a victim.”

  Kep closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “We must move her to our suspect list.”

  Maura hesitated. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Whether she’s a victim or a suspect, we need to find her. The last thing we need is another dead body.”

  Another dead body. Yes, the torches and the anchor and the chanting had distracted her, but Bernadette was supposed to be a professional. She should have seen LaSalle. She should have been closer—even though Annika made it clear she wanted to be left alone.

  Maybe it would have been better if she’d been fired after the holiday party. If Maura hadn’t given her one last chance.

  Losing her job would have made it hard for everyone, especially Sophie—oh, who was she kidding? Sophie would have been fine. Bernadette would have been the devastated one. Her money situation would have been horrible, and she wouldn’t have been able to afford a divorce lawyer. Barlow could use her job loss against her for custody. She shut her eyes tight—she had to think positively. She still had time to find Annika. She still had time to solve this case. And if she did, maybe the demotion to case analyst could work out. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

  She straightened up.

  In disguise.

  Everything clicked into place. Annika Nakrivo wasn’t a victim at all. She was the murderer. And Bernadette could prove it.

  “Lesley,” she said, “did CSAB give you access to all the files and footage we went through?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can you pull up the footage from Monday night? The recording from the security camera at the gym across the street from the Freshie?”

  “Um—yeah, I think so. Give me a minute.” She began clicking the mouse and typing on the keyboard.

  “What are you thinking?” Maura said.

  “Annika gave us an alibi for Monday night—she’d said Roundhouse visited her, but she was so reluctant to tell us about it that we didn’t question it. But Roundhouse was never there. No footage or witne
sses back up Annika’s statement.”

  Maura grimaced. “You’re right. You’re saying she fooled us?”

  “And that’s not the only trick she pulled. She’s already shown that with a fake beauty mark and a little plastic surgery, she could transform herself into a Mariska Sikmo lookalike. She’d have to do more than look like Mariska; she’d have to act like her, move like her, talk like her. And she pulled it off—well enough to become Kymer Thompson’s girlfriend.” She glanced up at Maura. “So what other disguises could she pull off?”

  Maura’s shoulders slumped. “She’s our prime suspect now.”

  “She’s also got the knowledge of the Agios Delphi ceremony,” Bernadette continued. “I saw how muscular she is in the hospital—she’d have enough strength to—” Bernadette shook her head, trying to avoid Maura’s eyes. “We’ve been taking what she’s said as evidence, but all she’s done is throw blame on Vivian Roundhouse and Nick LaSalle.”

  Lesley turned from her computer screen to look at Bernadette. “Are you saying she staged her own kidnapping?”

  Kep gave a short, derisive laugh. “She absolutely did.”

  Bernadette tilted her head and looked at Kep.

  “That’s what was bothering me about the smell in the car. The scent of Annika’s perfume was stronger in the front seat, particularly on the driver’s side.”

  Bernadette set her mouth in a line. “Annika was driving the university’s Camry.” She glanced at Maura. “It would also explain why nothing was broken in her dorm room and why she had one arm free when we found her.”

  Maura looked up at the ceiling, eyes losing focus, and exhaled long and low. “It’s a nice story. It might even be true. But we have very little hard evidence.”

  “Not if I’m right about the footage from Monday night,” Bernadette said.

  “There’s no one on this recording but Rhonda with her shopping cart,” Lesley said as the footage unspooled on the monitor in front of her.

  Bernadette leaned forward. “Zoom in.”

  “On what? Her shopping cart?”

  “Her face.”

  Maura squinted. “It’s dark, Bernadette. I can’t make much out.”