by Paul Seiple
There was no way that Michael could be a killer. Or could he be? Confusion treated Bill like a volleying tennis ball. Bill was convinced that Michael knew more about Sunshine. It wasn't just a prank swept under the rug. It didn't add up. Bill wanted to have faith in his partner, but he was becoming a non-believer. He needed more proof before turning on Michael. The Twelfth was a loyal family. Without undeniable proof, throwing your partner to the lions in Internal Affairs was a mortal sin. If it turned out to be Bill's imagination authoring a tale of fiction, he would be labeled a snitch. And like Smiley said snitches get stomped, or in the case of the Twelfth, shunned until early retirement.
Bill needed to be sure. The carving on the table was a good starting point. It read as the ramblings of a madman, but behind the words of every madman are clues — hints of intentions yet to come.
"The lamb's death? What does it mean?" Bill asked himself walking on Reading Street towards Cup O' Joes. "Was Sunshine the lamb?" He stopped, as if he saw a ghost, at the Read It Now newsstand just a block from the coffee shop. On the end cap of books, right next to some trashy paper announcing that Jesus had been spotted in some bar in Texas was a row of Bibles. Revelations, he thought, going back to church as a young boy.
Bill wasn't much of a religious person, but growing up his grandmother used Revelations as a weapon. In Granny Ash's eyes, the fear of an apocalypse kept Bill in check. He picked up a copy. Dropped a ten on the counter and yelled to the kid working the stand to keep the change. The kid barely looked up from the comic he was reading. Bill tucked the copy of the New Testament under his arm and walked to the coffee shop.
"A little light reading?" Kat Nelson asked.
She didn't ask for his order. It was the same every day — coffee with cream and a mountain of sugar.
"A little research. So give me extra sugar today."
"Any more sugar and we may lose you to a diabetic coma." Kat smiled. "I never pegged you for a religious man, Uncle Bill."
"I'm not, but getting to know God can't hurt, right?" Bill winked at Kat, took his coffee and surveyed the shop for the quietest spot.
"Oh, I almost forget. I met your partner yesterday."
Bill turned around and sat his coffee on the table. "Mike?"
"Yeah, it's funny. I see him in here all the time. He never told me he was your partner until yesterday. Weird, huh?"
"You sure it was Mike? Tall guy. Skinny." Bill reached as high as he could trying to mimic Michaels's height. "He hates this place. No offense. But he doesn't believe in paying an arm and a leg for a cup of coffee."
"He said he was your partner. Tall and handsome. Dresses a lot nicer than you." Kat smiled. "No offense."
Bill smirked. "None taken." He picked up his coffee. "You're right, that is weird."
Bill found a seat near the back of the shop with a vantage point toward the door. He opened the Bible to Revelations and started to read. "He said the lamb was dead. That makes no sense," Bill mumbled, thumbing through Revelations 6:1. "The lamb opens the seal. Does he think by killing the homeless girl, he's opening some sort of seal?" Bill kept reading. A crown was given to him, and he came forth conquering… "The carving mentioned wearing a crown. Revelations is definitely the inspiration."
Bill took a sip of coffee and saw Michael walk through the door. He had an inclination to sit back and observe. A stake-out. But curiosity was too strong, Bill needed to know why Michael had started coming to the coffee shop he hated.
"Mike, over here." Bill waved the Bible.
Everyone in the shop looked at Bill. Everyone but the man that had just walked in. He completely ignored Bill. As he ordered, Kat pointed to Bill. "Didn't you hear your coffee-loving partner over there?"
"Pardon me?" The man spotted Bill, who was still waving the Bible. He chuckled. He thinks I'm Michael. How cute. The man waved back. "I'll have a coffee, extra sugar," he said to Kat before walking towards Bill. Let's have some fun.
"Nice suit. Going to a funeral?" Bill asked, pulling a chair out for his partner.
"Nice Bible. Finding God?"
Bill laughed and put the book next to his coffee. "Just a little light reading. Where's that sense of humor been? But speaking of the Bible, you know much about it?"
"Just what my father taught me."
"Your father was a good man," Bill said.
George smirked, "You can say that again."
"What do you know about Revelations?" Bill asked.
"That's where the world ends, right?" George winked.
Before Bill could respond, Kat screamed, "Coffee for Bill's partner."
"Gotta run, Bill. Doctor's appointment," George said.
"Finally getting that insomnia checked out?"
"Something like that."
George grabbed his coffee and ran out the door, playing the part of someone late for a meeting. Once outside, he crossed the street and went to a payphone to call his father.
"Hello."
"I ran into Bill."
"You did what?" Art's voice vibrated the earpiece against George's ear.
"Calm down, Dad. He thinks I'm Michael."
"You can't be a loose cannon, George. There is a plan."
"At some point this was bound to happen. I just took a shortcut to get here faster. Relax. It looks like it's going to be a good night to catch some fireflies. Talk to you after number three."
George hung up the phone. Sipped the coffee and walked away.
Bill watched through the coffee shop's door. "What have you gotten yourself into, Mike?"
Fourteen
Under the mounds of paper, the corner of the manila envelope peeked out. The blood report. Bill's gut told him that this test wouldn't come back animal blood. He took a deep breath and balanced the Bible on a stack of reports. He slid the envelope out from beneath the paperwork without disturbing the clutter. A trick that would make magicians grin with approval.
The blood, O positive, belonged to Maggie Hover. Positive identification only made the waves of uneasiness crest higher. There were no clues, no fingerprints, and no leads. Just a description of a perp that favored his partner. All dead ends led to Michael, who happened to be uncharacteristically late for work. Although he was making a habit of it.
Michael's desk was the polar opposite of Bill's. The OCD had kicked into overdrive and Michael had found godliness through cleanliness again. The wood grain top was visible with only a row of folders neatly stacked on one corner. Bill had looked at the desk countless times over the last few months, never giving a thought to the obvious compulsive behavior. Now, he viewed it differently. He was profiling Michael.
"He wouldn't keep anything here. I need to get in his house."
A crash startled Bill. He flinched. His knee hit the underside of his desk and shook the papers like a rumbling volcano. The coffee cup tipped over, spilling black lava over his desk.
"Shit."
Fifteen
I tripped over a cord and nearly face-planted. I was late. I used to never be late. My clumsiness announced my tardiness to the entire Twelfth. I tossed my raincoat across the back of my chair, pretending to be on time.
"Any news?"
Bill shook a folder over his trashcan. Coffee dripped, disappearing into a pile of junk food wrappers. He tossed the folder onto his desk, not caring if it caused another avalanche of paperwork to litter the floor. "It's the missing girl's blood."
I fell back into my chair and placed my hands on my knees out of exhaustion. I should have acted more surprised about the blood being Maggie Hoover's.
"No other leads come in?"
"Not on my end. You heard anything?" Bill asked, shaking another folder over the trash can.
Bill had an intense glare. He was studying my body language. A trick he taught me when I first joined homicide. Micro-expressions — facial expressions that last just a few seconds, dead giveaways of lies.
"Nothing yet," I said, stone-faced as though I had gazed at Medusa.
Bill wrote so
mething down. Did I make eye contact? The scrutiny was probably only in my head, but it was making me look guilty of something. Bill was a pro at interrogating. Was he keeping a mental checklist of everything I did that screamed "liar"?
"You know, it just doesn't make sense to me. We haven't had anything like this happen since that Holten boy kidnapped his girlfriend and her sister a few years ago. This Hoover girl didn't have a boyfriend. Didn't have any family here. Why her?" Bill asked.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, but caught myself before scratching the back of my neck. More signs of lying. Bill was definitely watching. "Sometimes there is no method to madness."
"New shirt?" Bill asked.
"Huh?"
Bill grabbed the collar of his shirt. "I see you scratching at the collar. That happens to me with new shirts."
"New detergent." I pointed to the Bible on Bill's desk. "When did you start reading the Bible?"
I scratched the back of my neck more freely now that detergent was to blame.
Bill squinted and squinched his nose. "Just doing a little reading. What do you know about Revelations?"
Revelations? Why would Bill ask me about the end of the world? The way he looked at me, he wasn't buying anything I was selling. Bill joined the force while I was in grade school. There wasn't much he hadn't seen. He could spot the liars. Smell the criminals. I'm sure I reeked of deceit. He was a bloodhound on my trail. The best thing for me to do was to confide in him. Tell him the truth. Maybe he would believe me. He knows I'm not a killer. Who am I kidding? I'm not even sure I'm not the killer.
"It's about the apocalypse," I said.
Bill raised his brow. "Scary stuff, if you believe in it? Personally, I don't put much faith into a God that I can't see. Religious kooks are some of the scariest out there. One day someone will see Jesus in a burnt piece of toast. Mark my words."
All this time and faith was never a subject of conversation between Bill and me. I guess when you see humanity at its worst like we do, faith can seem to be a myth. I never really thought about it. Sure, I visited Father Abraham every week, but not to become closer to God. I wanted reassurance that I wasn't a serial killer. The good Father never gave it to me. Maybe Bill was right about faith. "So, why read the Bible if you don't believe in it?" I asked.
Bill chuckled. "In case I'm wrong. I know, it doesn't happen often. But there are some things you just can't afford to be wrong about. Know what I mean?"
I didn't and yet I did. The way Bill looked at me; he was trying to figure out if he was wrong about me. Did he think I took those girls? I was pretty good at reading body language too. Bill's trust in me was cracking.
"So, hey, whatever happened to those kids that were pranking you?"
I turned my head away, toward my desk. "I had a talk with them." Shit! I avoided eye contact with him. He had to have seen that.
"And how did it go down?"
"They copped to it. Apologized."
Bill smirked. "So, you had a 'Come to Jesus' meeting with them?"
"Something like that. Let's just say they won't be pranking me again."
Did that sound like a threat? Did I just put off psychopathic vibes? I was so paranoid that Bill was judging my every movement. My every word.
"You know I wonder what Jesus would say to me if I saw him in a piece of toast," Bill said.
"He'd probably tell you to buy a new shirt. The coffee stains are spreading like moles. You're a detective at the Twelfth, for Christ's sake."
I hoped that my shot at humor would throw Bill off my scent. It seemed to work. His deep bellow echoed off the wood-paneled walls, drawing the attention of everyone at the station. "Either that or he would tell me that I shouldn't have stolen the neighbor's porn stash when I was fourteen. It's funny how the bad things we do come back to haunt us. Can you imagine that? Not getting into heaven because of raging hormones and a penchant for hairy bush." Bill laughed again. This one was forced. I knew the bad things comment was a dig at me. A way to try to get a reaction. I played it cool.
"See, that's your problem right there. You should have been learning about the burning bush not hairy bush. How in the world did you get those things mixed up?"
Bill smirked. "Trust me, Mike, you could never get those two mixed up. If you run into a burning bush, you want to get away as fast as you can. Run so fast, it's like walking on water." A look of pride came across Bill's face. I think his quick wit surprised him. "I guess the letters stopped too," Bill said.
"Letters? Yeah, the letters stopped. I haven't received another one."
Bill jotted something onto a piece of paper on his desk. I thought I was convincing. No hitch in my voice. He looked up at me.
"Oh, I almost forgot. How'd it go at the doctor's office?"
"Doctor's office?" I asked.
"You had an appointment, remember?"
I called my visits to Father Abraham doctor's appointments. I never felt comfortable telling Bill that I confided in a priest. Bill always put off an atheist vibe. I didn't want him to use it as ammo in our little verbal barrages. After this latest conversation, I felt that I made the right choice. All talk of revelations, I just had one. I'd been lying to my partner all along. If you're a cop, the faith you put in your partner has to be unwavering. There was that word again — faith. Did Bill know that I had been lying to him all along? I hadn't mentioned a doctor's appointment to him in months. Was he trying to trip me up? Did he think doctor's appointment was a code word for murder? "Everything checked out fine," I said, scratching my neck again.
Sixteen
Bill wrote on the back of the coffee-stained napkin.
Doesn't remember talking to me this morning
Awkward body language
Failure to make eye contact
Answering questions with my own words
He's lying
Guilty?
Seventeen
At age twenty, George Staley learned his true purpose. It wasn't to save the world. It was to destroy it. A role George embraced wholeheartedly. On his twentieth birthday, he had a dream. Different from anything his father had told him. George wasn't saving people from Armageddon. He was murdering them to bring it on. George was the antichrist. And his father — the Devil.
In the dream, George stood on a mountain watching the world below burn in flames. Screams from the innocent rang in his ears like a soothing lullaby. Power raced through his veins like heroin. His father stood by his side, vindicated, righting the wrongs that were imposed on him so many years ago.
Art knew that the years of deceit wouldn't bring a wedge between him and George. After all George was born to the Father of Lies. Art also knew that George had to be mature enough to handle the truth. The dream meant that George was ready to embrace his destiny.
"I've been waiting for this day since you came into this world through that whore's womb."
"My mother was a whore?"
"Your mother isn't important in the grand scheme of things."
"I take it that I'm not adopted either."
"I had to make you feel hate for this world, son. It had to be instilled in you at an early age."
George sat on the steps of the front porch staring at a deer feeding in a field next to the house. "And the deer?"
"The deer was practice. I had to make sure you had it in you to kill," Art said, swaying back and forth in a rocking chair, sipping tea from a mason jar. "People are vastly different than innocent animals. People are scum. But when I watched you slit that deer's throat, I knew you were the one. If you could do that to an animal, you would have no trouble killing filthy angels."
"What about the Bible?" George asked.
Art laughed; the deep guttural sound scared the deer away. "The book is full of lies. Some might even argue that I wrote it. At the very least I should get royalties."
George grinned and drank lemonade from a mason jar of his own.
"The Bible is stories told by people who persuade you to follow their ideology.
Nothing more. Sheep indeed." Art took another swallow of tea. "Revelations is the biggest joke of all. The only true thing in that damn book is that God banished me. And for that I want revenge. What better way to get it than to destroy a world created by God in a manner that uses words inspired by God. 'After a thousand years, I shall be loosed out of my prison.'" Art laughed again. "My prison is this shithole." He pointed to the endless trees around him. "I've been stuck here for too goddamn long."
"So, what's next?"
"Next son, we kill the filthy, little angels. With each one, you'll grow stronger. And then, we build our army."
Eighteen
George watched from his car as Kat Nelson tucked a black apron under her arm and told her goodbyes to the coffee shop. It was Wednesday. She would leave work, stop by the pet store for dog food, and then hit up the grocery store for a few necessities, usually cookies and ice cream. The routine never changed. Before leaving the grocery store, she would go out of her way to walk by the deli counter to see if the cute guy was working. Kat had a crush on the guy, but never let her feelings be known.
George no longer followed her into the store. He knew her every move. This was just the beginning of the cat-and-mouse game. He wouldn't take her until dark when she left yoga class. It would be just as easy to snatch his prey in the crowded parking lot. He knew the future. He wouldn't be caught. But the killing had been prophesied. It had to be at night, just as in the dreams. George's father would want it that way, and he wanted to make Art proud.
Kat walked to her car with a small bag of groceries, the corner of a carton of Butter Pecan ice cream spilled over the side of the bag.