The Boys in the Church

by Chris Culver

  When I got to my station, there were a pair of drunks shackled to chairs in the lobby. One snored, but the other was wide-eyed. He had a bruise on a cheek and a few drops of blood on his shirt. When he saw me, he smiled a crooked grin.

  I looked to Jason, our night dispatcher.

  “Somebody taking care of these two gentlemen?”

  “For the moment, I am,” he said, “but when she gets back, these are Alisa Maycock’s guests. They’ll be staying the night.”

  I nodded. “If she needs help, let me know.”

  Jason nodded and began to say something, but then one of the desk phones rang with an emergency call. I let Jason work and walked to my desk in the bullpen. Though I had seen most of the documents on Agent Lawson’s thumb drive, it had been a few days since I sat down with the paperwork.

  I spent the next several hours reading through reports. The FBI agents were meticulous, neat, and thorough. At a little after one in the morning, I stretched, grabbed some papers I had printed, and then waved goodbye to Jason on my way out the door. St. Augustine didn’t have too many clothing stores, but we had a Walmart that was open twenty-four hours a day. I bought some new underwear, some pajamas, and a new top, and then drove to the Wayfair Motel, a cheap motel by the interstate, where I rented a room for the evening.

  The moment I took off my pants, I fell into bed without bothering to put on the new pajamas. It was the first night in three or four days I had gone to bed sober, but I was so exhausted that it didn’t matter. My eyes closed as soon as my head hit the pillow. As I drifted to sleep, I prayed I’d forget my nightmares before I woke.

  24

  My cell phone woke me up at a little before nine the next morning. Muscles all over my body ached, but my head felt clear, and my stomach felt calm. It was nice to wake up without a hangover.

  I blinked heavy eyes and cleared my throat as my phone rang a third time.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, rolling over in bed. Before answering, I stretched my arms above my head and glanced at the caller ID. The caller had a St. Louis number, but I didn’t recognize it.

  “Yeah? This is Detective Joe Court,” I said, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. “What can I do for you?”

  “Ms. Court, thank you for answering. My name is Brenda Collins with Watkins, Marsh, and Willis. Lacey Rayner gave me your name and said I should call. Is this an okay time to talk?”

  I sighed and closed my eyes. “If Aunt Lacey gave you my name, that means you represent Erin Court.”

  “I represent her estate and the trust she created,” said the attorney. “Is this an okay time to talk?”

  I looked around me, hoping something in the room would inspire a believable excuse. The sun beat against the curtains over my room’s only window. People outside giggled. That could have been kids, or it could have been prostitutes coming home for the evening.

  The Wayfair Motel was a critical component of Vic Conroy’s golden triangle of businesses. The Sheriff’s Department didn’t know everything Conroy owned, but he ran the strip club across the street, the truck stop beside it, and the motel. Girls started by working the parking lot of the truck stop when they were fifteen or sixteen. An industrious girl could pull in five hundred or a thousand bucks a night servicing the long-haul truckers who came by to fill up.

  When those girls got old enough, they’d dance at the strip club and perform outcall services at the motel across the street. By the time the dancers turned thirty or thirty-five—too old to continue selling their bodies at the club or the motel—they could have earned Conroy a couple hundred thousand dollars each. At that point, they moved on or became maids at his motel.

  I hated patronizing a motel owned by a man who exploited young women for profit, but it was cheap and clean, and it had been open when I needed a room. One day, we’d arrest Conroy but not until we had enough to imprison him for life. I had bigger concerns at the moment.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m busy with a case at the moment,” I said. “Thank you for calling.”

  I pulled the phone from my ear.

  “When are you free? I can drive to your house and meet you in St. Augustine, or you can come to my office.”

  Evidently, she wasn’t going away. I groaned before answering.

  “I appreciate that Erin hired you, but I want nothing to do with my birth mother. She was a cancer. If you’ve got a box of personal mementos sitting in storage somewhere, just throw them away. If something has value, donate it to the Salvation Army.”

  “I’ve already taken care of her personal items,” said Ms. Collins. “At the time of her death, your mother rented an apartment on Kingshighway Boulevard. At Erin’s request, we donated her clothes to a shelter for battered women years ago. We sold her furniture, kitchen appliances, and various household items at auction for nine hundred and forty-four dollars.”

  I nodded and forced a smile to my face, hoping it would come through my voice.

  “That’s great. I’m glad. Donate that money to the same women’s shelter you took her clothes to. I’m sure they can use it.”

  The attorney paused. “I can do that, but we need to talk about your mother’s other financial assets.”

  “My mother was a prostitute and a drug addict. When she had money, she spent it on drugs.”

  Again, Ms. Collins paused. “Before dying, your mother created a living, irrevocable trust, of which you’re a beneficiary. At the time of her death, that trust had two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Over the past eleven years, that trust fund has earned an average annual return of just over nine percent in a low-cost mutual fund. With interest, it is now worth well over six hundred thousand dollars. It’s your money. I can’t donate it without violating the rules of the trust.”

  My breath caught in my throat.

  “Are you still there, Detective?” asked Ms. Collins after a pause.

  I nodded but then realized she couldn’t see me. Then I cleared my throat.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” I said. I hesitated. “Erin couldn’t even get her life together long enough to visit me after my foster father raped me. How did she have that kind of money?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s a sizeable inheritance. I’d suggest you talk to a wealth advisor to help you invest and manage it. If you’d like, I can make a few recommendations.”

  I shook my head and then drew in another breath. All my life, I had fought for, scrimped, and saved every dollar I had. Erin had never given me a thing. Even when I was a kid, she had brought me from restaurant to restaurant at closing time to beg the managers for food they would otherwise throw out. That was how Erin did her grocery shopping. How the hell did she get a quarter of a million dollars?

  Part of me wanted to drive to that lawyer’s office and interrogate her until she told me everything I wanted to know. Another part of me, though—a big part of me—didn’t care.

  “What happens if I don’t want the money?”

  The lawyer paused. “Nothing. If you don’t want the money, you don’t have to take it. I—or someone from my firm—will continue to act as trustee until your death. Then, the trust will be dissolved, and the trustee will donate the remaining funds to the St. Louis County food bank. It’s the charity your mother designated.”

  “She wasn’t my mother,” I said.

  “It’s the charity Erin designated,” said Ms. Collins. “You don’t have to decide now, but I can’t dissolve the trust and give the assets away. The trust exists until your death.”

  Six hundred thousand dollars was more money than I had ever seen in my life. That would let me fix up my house, buy a new truck, and fund my entire retirement without worry. I could stop living paycheck to paycheck. But I didn’t want it. Erin didn’t get that money legally. If I took it, I’d be as bad as her.

  “Did Erin leave a note or anything to explain this?”

  “No,” said Ms. Collins. “Sorry.”

  I raised my eyebrows and shook my head.

  “Okay,” I said. “Than
ks for your call. I’m working a murder, so I don’t have time to deal with this. For now, can you sit on it?”

  “I will,” she said. “The money is in a low-fee index fund. It will be fine there.”

  I thanked her and hung up but didn’t get out of bed. It had been almost ten years since Erin died and at least fourteen years since I last saw her. Our last visit had been in St. Louis University Hospital. She had overdosed on heroin, and the attending physicians wanted to keep her for a few days to make sure she didn’t overdose again. Even then, she had been a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, the ugliness of her addiction had shone through everything she did.

  Once the doctors left, she had begged me to go to her dealer and buy dope for her. When I told her no, she slapped me and told me to leave. I cried big, ugly tears in my social worker’s car. I never forgot that moment because that was the moment I realized I’d be alone for the rest of my life.

  Erin didn’t deserve to die for the things she had done, but it didn’t surprise me that someone had murdered her. That she had a quarter million dollars shocked me. Erin may have given me birth, but I didn’t know her at all. What’s more, I no longer wanted to know her.

  I stayed in bed for another few moments, thinking. That didn’t get me anywhere, so I threw the covers down and rolled over so I could grab my pants from the ground. I showered and dressed in the clothes I had purchased at Walmart the day before. Then I sat on the edge of my bed and called Detective Blatch.

  “Matthias,” I said. “It’s Joe Court. Are you still working the murder of Erin Court?”

  “Officially, no. I’ve closed it again. Why?”

  “I just found out she left me almost a quarter million dollars when she died. It’s in a trust fund managed by an attorney named Brenda Collins.”

  He paused. “Do you remember Erin ever having that kind of money?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Which is why I’m calling you.”

  He paused again. “That’s interesting. I’ll call the lawyer and see what I can find. Do you want me to call you if anything pops up?”

  “Nope,” I said again. “I’ve got enough on my plate already.”

  “I gotcha,” he said. He paused. “Everything okay? You sound tired.”

  Normally I didn’t like it when people asked me questions like that. It usually felt patronizing, but for some reason, I didn’t mind that Blatch was concerned about me. I almost smiled.

  “I’m good, but thank you. You slept since I last talked to you?”

  He laughed just a little. “Barely, but that’s life when you’re the low man on the totem pole.”

  “I hear you,” I said, tucking a stray hair behind my ear. “Good luck getting more sleep, and thanks.”

  “And good luck on your case.”

  I hung up a second later and got my stuff together before heading out.

  I didn’t bother going by my house that morning. Even if the FBI had finished processing the scene, they would have put a seal over my door to prevent anyone else from going inside and to maintain the chain of custody on evidence they might not have known to collect. That’s what I would have done, at least, and Agent Lawson was at least as smart as I was.

  Instead, I drove straight to work. As usual, Trisha sat at the front desk, but she stood and leafed through some papers the moment she saw me.

  “Hey, Joe,” she said. “You’re still looking for Trinity Foster and Thad Stevens, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. No luck so far, though.”

  “A driver found Thad’s car this morning at the bottom of a hill way out in the country,” she said. “Looks like they went too fast around a curve, slid, and then rolled down an embankment. Both kids were inside and DOA. It doesn’t look like they were wearing seatbelts.”

  “Well, damn,” I said, sighing. I scratched the back of my head, giving me time to think. “Where are they?”

  “Out on County Road 10. Middle of nowhere. Highway Patrol is out there now. Because two people died, they’ll investigate, but it looks like an accident.”

  I knew County Road 10 very well, unfortunately. A hunter had found Paige Maxwell’s car deep in the woods about half a mile off the road. Then, while we searched for evidence, a tornado ripped through the area. It flattened a cabinet shop nearby and killed a couple of civilians. It nearly killed me and the coroner’s assistant, too.

  “Thanks for the update. Is Agent Lawson upstairs?”

  Trisha nodded. “Conference room. The sheriff’s out and about, so you won’t run into him.”

  “Thank the Lord for small favors,” I said. Trisha smiled and wished me luck. I thanked her once more and bounded upstairs to the conference room, where I found Agent Lawson talking to somebody on the phone while two other members of his team read through documents. Lawson nodded when he saw me and pointed to a chair. I sat down to wait. Once he finished his call, he walked toward me.

  “Morning, Detective,” he said. “You find somewhere to stay last night?”

  “The Wayfair Motel. It’s by the interstate.”

  “I’m familiar,” said Lawson, nodding. “My team and I stayed there for a night before the proprietor kicked us out. He said we were bad for business.”

  “He is a pimp,” I said, tilting my head to the side.

  Lawson smiled for a moment, but then his lips straightened once more.

  “We searched through your house and found four sets of prints. One was yours, another belonged to your mother, a third belonged to Harry Grainger, and the fourth belonged to your neighbor, Susanne Pennington. She’s a nice lady. She made us coffee and asked me to make sure you were eating well.”

  “Susanne is a friend,” I said, smiling. “When can I get back in?”

  “Give us another day,” said Lawson. “I talked to Paige and Jude this morning. They’ve amended their statements.”

  “Oh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “This time, Agent Costa and I spoke to them without their parents in the room. They didn’t want to worry their mothers, so they had held back a few details.”

  “Okay,” I said, crossing my arms. “What kind of details?”

  “The Apostate starved them so he could control them,” said Lawson. “Paige lost almost thirty-five pounds. Jude lost almost fifty.”

  “Jeez,” I said, shaking my head as that sunk in. “It makes sense in a really sick way, I guess. It would make them weaker.”

  Lawson closed his eyes and nodded. “Weakness may have been part of it, but he tried to use food to get them to do what he wanted. He offered Jude a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if he’d rape Paige. The Apostate didn’t want to watch. He just wanted Jude to do it. He called Jude a sinner.”

  I screwed up my face. “That’s awful.”

  “It gets worse,” said Lawson. “After Jude pretended to rape Paige, the Apostate offered to let him go on the condition that Paige stay in the basement so other men could assault her. If he didn’t want other men to rape her, he had to drown her in a bucket.”

  I leaned against the table, closed my eyes, and shook my head.

  “Why is he doing this?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense. What could he possibly get out of it?”

  Lawson smiled a little, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “If you could answer that, I’d question your mental health. In this business, we don’t answer the why questions. We just put the crazies in jail.”

  I couldn’t disagree with that, so I took a deep breath.

  “What do you need from me, then?”

  “At the moment, we’ve got this handled,” said Lawson. “The best thing for you is to focus on your own duties. Sheriff Delgado will be glad to have you.”

  I thought to the car accident Trisha had told me about and nodded.

  “Delgado won’t be glad to have me, but I have work to do. Call me if you need me.”

  “Will do, Detective,” he said. “Oh, and hey, before you go, we released Gallen Marshall this morning. He resisted arrest and
shot two of my men, but he was innocent of the crime we were arresting him for. It’d get really ugly if we charged him. He also agreed not to sue us for tasing him.”

  “Did you ever figure out how you found his prints in the Apostate’s church?”

  Lawson sighed and looked to the ground. “He was a photographer, and he liked to take pictures of abandoned buildings, including churches. He’s published two coffee-table books full of his pictures. One is called Abandoned Missouri. The church was on the cover. We should have found that before we went to his house.”

  “Are the men he shot okay?”

  “Yeah. One of them’s already back at work. The other guy took a week off,” said Lawson, nodding. He lowered his voice. “Good luck out there, Detective.”

  “You, too.”

  I didn’t know what to think about the Apostate. It took a truly sick person to starve another person, let alone to coerce a young man into hurting someone he loved. The world would be a better place without him in it. I couldn’t focus on the Apostate, though. That case was in good hands. I had a car accident to investigate.

  25

  Glenn didn’t know how his sister stayed so composed in this heat. While sweat poured down his back and face, Helen looked content sitting on a barstool in the garage. An oscillating fan blew her dress in the breeze and gave welcome relief to the stifling heat and humidity, but it didn’t improve her foul mood one bit.

  “What’d you do with Detective Court’s underwear?”

  Glenn set his pliers down and then gripped the edge of his worktable to steady himself. Then he met his sister’s glare with one of his own. His head pounded, and the world spun around him as if he had just stepped off a roller coaster. Worse than that, things weren’t where his eyes told him they were. He had tried to slap Helen earlier, and his hand had just passed right through her as if she were nothing at all.

  “I threw them away,” he said. “She won’t miss them. I’ve ordered her a dozen pairs that are more to my taste.”

  “If you really think she’ll wear those clothes you ordered and parade herself around for you, you’re a moron,” said Helen, shaking her head. “We’re wasting our time here.”