The Devil Inside

by D. L. Hicks

  ‘Is there a pulse?’ Charlotte directed the question over her shoulder as she heard other members of the search party arriving in the clearing.

  ‘Nope – and she’s cold as ice,’ the officer replied.

  Charlotte ran her gloved hand along Alice’s upper torso, the coldness seeping through into her skin. A wave of nausea swelled inside her, and it took all of her strength to remove herself emotionally, to do her job and keep examining the body. The woman’s legs were slightly bent and apart, her knees jutting into the ground, her bottom was pointing upward, genitals exposed. Despite the inference from her position, there was nothing externally to suggest she had been sexually assaulted, although only the coroner’s examination could provide a definitive answer. It was clear the way she had been positioned was intentional though, like a mannequin on display.

  The blood on and around the body showed the severity of the attack. A large gash ran down the right side of the woman’s ribs almost to her hip, the unfolding skin exposing dark-red flesh beneath, a trail of blood dribbling around the arc of her body and out of sight. On her upper left thigh, another deep slash had been made, perhaps posthumously, the ragged laceration splitting open like a snag left too long on a searing hot plate. The exposed fatty tissue had an almost custard-like consistency, cranberry-stained and lumpy, and bruising the colour of eggplant peppered her body.

  From the moment Charlotte had laid eyes on Alice, she knew it was the work of the same guy. Not only was he getting more brazen in his choice of victim, but it appeared that the attacks were becoming more brutal. It also meant Charlotte now had to find the one thing that would confirm it was the same killer.

  She examined the scene as thoroughly as she could without disturbing the body, which would need to photographed in situ. As her eyes flickered over the grass, the victim’s toes, her fingers, the silence was eerie – nobody moved, all eyes fixed on Charlotte as she worked.

  Then she saw it. The killer had rolled the small piece of paper like a cigarette and placed it behind Alice’s left ear, sweeping her hair over it as though she were keeping it there for later.

  Sick bastard.

  Using her phone camera, Charlotte took a snap before carefully removing the paper, the victim’s golden hair flopping down to cover her face. Unrolling the note, she got to her feet and took a few steps backward, creating a bit of distance between herself and the revulsion of what had occurred.

  As the paper unfurled, the message was revealed, this time printed alongside a drawing of a dove in full flight, a twig in its beak:

  1 Corinthians 16:13: Be on your guard; Stand firm in the faith; Be men of courage; Be strong.

  In the bottom corner, half hidden under the curl of the paper, Charlotte could just read the final nail in the coffin.

  #3

  She stared at it for a few minutes, shaking her head in both sorrow and anger at what she should have been able to prevent. This was it; it was time she jolted the community out of its reverie and began to rattle a few cages. Somebody, somewhere, must know something. A brother acting strangely, a husband out too late, a friend withdrawing into alcohol; these were the signs people needed to look for, and the secrets Charlotte needed to be made aware of. They needed to flush this rat out of the system, and fast.

  After leaving instructions with the other members of the team to manage the crime scene, Charlotte trudged back through the shrubbery to the car park, her mind racing.

  What was she missing? It was approaching a fortnight since the first victim had been found and after this, Dash, the media and everyone else in the community with an opinion would be coming down on her and her team like a tonne of bricks. The small society in which she was embedded was already panicking and that would only get worse when the details of this latest murder came out.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket and Charlotte slid it out. A message from Jack. Normally she’d leave it for later, but right now she needed something to cheer her up, so she opened it.

  Hey babe. Just wanted to tell you what a great time I had last night, and I can’t wait to see you again. xxx. P.S. Checked the bank balance – no reward yet!

  A strange sensation washed over Charlotte. Here she was talking tough about people and their secrets, when the reality was, Jack had nudged her in the direction of a prime suspect that she had yet to properly investigate.

  Maybe she needed to start the ball rolling a bit closer to home.

  Maybe she needed to pay her brother a visit – in person this time.

  CHAPTER 19

  Right on lunchtime, Charlotte pulled into the driveway of the rectory. She switched off the engine and then sat for a moment, gathering her thoughts. She had already spoken to Joseph on the phone, and told him that another body had been found, again with a biblical quote. So at least he knew she had good reason to pick his brain.

  She sighed and scooped up the two salad rolls she had collected fresh from the bakery in one hand, two bottles of sarsaparilla clinking together in the other. It was one of their traditions, the medicinal bite of sarsaparilla something they had loved from childhood, and continued to enjoy as adults. The sweaty bottles left her hand moist, and she clung to them as she made her way up the back steps.

  ‘Oi, Father … I need to confess, I’m about to drop our lunch!’

  Joseph appeared at the flyscreen door, a grin plastered on his ruddy face. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said, holding the door open with his foot. She stumbled into the kitchen and dumped the food and drink on the table in an untidy heap.

  ‘Damn, that was close,’ Charlotte said, wiping her brow. ‘Warming up out there, huh?’

  ‘Nice and cool in here.’ Joseph waved her into the lounge room, where the air-con unit could be heard plugging away. ‘Have a seat, I’ll get the lunch sorted out.’

  Charlotte dropped into a plaid armchair, more out of breath than she should have been from the short walk from the car, while Joseph busied himself in the kitchen, clanking plates and slamming cupboards and drawers. He reappeared with everything arranged neatly – the rolls plated up, the drinks poured into glasses, ice tinkling.

  ‘That’s what you get from living alone all your life,’ Charlotte said, always keen to have a dig at her celibate brother. ‘A man who actually knows what a kitchen is, and how to use the things inside it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call putting rolls on a plate and pouring drinks into glasses worthy of a Michelin star, but I’ll take the compliment – even if it was delivered with a better backhand than Rod Laver.’

  ‘Rod who? He must’ve been before my time.’

  They settled into their banter easily, like always. Even though Joseph was a priest, he was still her brother, and she would always treat him as such: her brother first, a minister second. And she had stuck by that rule … until now.

  ‘So,’ Joseph said through a mouthful of bread and lettuce, ‘you’ve found another one, have you?’

  ‘Yeah, this morning. Pretty much the same as the others: young woman, attractive, fit and healthy. Her name is Alice Tremonti.’ Charlotte paused, and took a long sip from her drink, before looking Joseph in the eye, watching his expression as she continued. ‘When I had to notify her parents, I discovered that they also attend your church on a regular basis, just like the first two victims. That takes it to three, Joe. Our victims all have at least an indirect link to your congregation, which is more than a coincidence, and something I can’t ignore.’

  Joseph’s voice was full of concern. ‘Everyone wants this monster caught, I can promise you that. But I’m getting worried now – whoever is doing this seems to be targeting my parishioners. Should I warn them? Was there a quote left again this time? The last one I put out was from the Corinthians – about being strong, being men of courage. I thought that was an apt selection for the congregation given the circumstances. Useful for the whole community actually.’ He stopped and looked at her.

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ A small part of Charlotte had hoped against hope tha
t the quote hadn’t been from Joe’s church – that the killer had changed tack. But no – her brother was now well and truly stuck in the middle of this whether he liked it or not, and she was starting to feel a little nervous.

  ‘Holy crap,’ Joseph said. ‘I guess we’re under the gun then – any other clues that might help us?’

  ‘Not a lot to go on at this stage.’ As she said it, the frustration built again inside Charlotte and she swallowed it down. ‘I’ll be honest, that’s actually why I decided to come and see you. Have you though any more about putting cameras in?’

  ‘I thought about it, but like I said before, the Church isn’t going to agree to anything even like that. And I don’t really see what it would do except give you a list of the hundreds of people who took the newsletter that week. It’s true I have more female parishioners than men, which narrows the field, but even so, identifying this exact person would be like finding that proverbial needle. And I can’t just go around providing you with people’s details, so it’s a tricky situation. But I’m happy for some of your guys to sit in a white van with blacked-out windows or whatever and take pictures.’

  Charlotte considered that idea for a moment. ‘Yeah, we might take you up on that – I’ll see what the boss thinks. Have you noticed anyone in your congregation acting out of character, doing things they wouldn’t normally do? Anyone you’ve been keeping a bit of an extra eye on?’

  Joseph paused for a moment while Charlotte studied him. When he spoke again, she was positive he had been about to say something before thinking better of it. ‘Nothing that springs to mind, but you’ll be the first to know if I notice anything.’

  They were silent for a while, finishing off their lunch and washing it down with the classic sarsaparilla tang.

  ‘Ah, that’s good stuff,’ Joseph said, wiping his face and clunking the plate down on the coffee table. There was a moment of strangely awkward silence that she’d never experienced before with her brother, and Charlotte’s heartbeat rose just a little faster. It was now or never. Joseph must have noticed the shift in the room. ‘You seem preoccupied,’ he said. If there was one thing her brother was good at, it was reading people who wanted to talk. ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’

  Shifting her eyes from his face to her hands, Charlotte started playing with the gold band on the ring finger of her right hand, spinning it one way, then the other. She knew she needed to, but she couldn’t bring herself to look her brother in the eye as she built up the courage to say what she had come to say. ‘I’m a detective, right,’ she began, ‘and a pretty good one too. What makes me good is that I’m not afraid to ask the hard questions, to go where people might not want me to. That’s how crimes get solved a lot of the time, and that’s what I get paid to do.’ She glanced up to see Joseph nodding, a quizzical look on his face, before continuing. ‘So that’s part of the reason why I’m here – not just to speak to you about any suspicions you might have, but to erase some suspicions I might have.’ Taking another quick look up, she could see that the penny still hadn’t dropped; he wasn’t going to make this any easier, so she was going to have to spell it out for him. She inhaled, finding bravery in her expanding lungs. ‘Where were you last night, Joe?’

  The silence in the room was deafening. Charlotte kept her head down, could feel her face burning up, her brother’s eyes boring into her as the shock and indignation at what she was suggesting dawned on him at last.

  ‘Are … you … serious? You actually came here to question me as a suspect?’

  Charlotte leant back in her chair, her eyes now focused on the ceiling. There were two reasons why she wasn’t game to look at Joseph. The first was because of the way she knew he would be looking back at her, the hurt and betrayal he would be feeling. The second was even more frightening – in case she saw that look in his eye she had come to recognise in suspects over the years as guilt.

  ‘I’m only trying to do my job,’ she said, hearing how pathetic that sounded but knowing it was true. ‘I’m sorry, Joseph – truly, I am – but I need to do this. The only clues we have to go on tie our victims to this church, and they’re Bible quotes that you compiled. I just need to officially cross your name off the list so we can move on.’

  Finally bringing her eyes down to his, Charlotte saw the disappointment etched on Joseph’s face, hurt evident in every crease. What she failed to see – thankfully – was guilt, but she knew she still had to force herself to reserve judgement.

  ‘Are you saying you don’t know me well enough – not just as your brother, but as a man of the cloth – to know there’s no way I had anything to do with this? After everything we’ve been though as siblings, you’re telling me that there’s a part of you that thinks I might be responsible for murdering those poor girls? You’ve got to be joking.’

  He was as angry as Charlotte had ever seen him, his face bright red, fit to burst as he ran his hands over his bald head again and again, trying to regain his composure.

  ‘It’s no joke,’ she said. She had to make him understand the gravity of what was happening. ‘It’s just procedure, I—’

  ‘Don’t give me that procedure bullshit,’ Joseph shot back at her, venom in his eyes. ‘I’m your brother, Charlotte. Surely that counts for something? But apparently not.’ His breathing was heavy now. ‘Okay, I’ll play your little game, and then you can leave. Where was I last night? Right here, preparing for this weekend’s mass, like I do every bloody night. That’s the lot of a priest, you see – I have to be here for people who need me, when they need me. Is that good enough for you or not?’

  ‘Joseph, please, it doesn’t have to be like this.’ Charlotte’s heart ached, her throat tight. ‘Of course I never thought you did it, but you must know I had to ask. I have to tick every box, so that when we catch this bastard and it goes to trial, I can stand in front of the judge and tell him I investigated this fully and professionally. The defence barrister would have a field day if I hadn’t even questioned you about anything. I’m sorry, Joseph, but sometimes I have to do things that aren’t nice in order to get results. If that upsets you, then that saddens me, but that’s your problem not mine.’

  With that, Joseph stood and walked to the front door. He pulled it open and gestured for her to leave. Without a word, Charlotte got to her feet and walked over. She paused in front of him, standing on tiptoes to kiss him softly on his cheek, feeling the burn of his shame on her lips.

  Then she stepped out the door into the glare of the midday sun. The altercation had gone pretty much as she’d anticipated – she’d known Joseph would be outraged, but she had achieved what she needed to. At least now she was steadfast in the belief that her brother had nothing to hide. Either that or he was an incredible liar – which she knew he wasn’t.

  In the glow of the sun, a cool breeze on her face, Charlotte was unexpectedly content. Joseph would come around – he was a smart man and would see reason once the heat went out of the situation. He was one person who knew what it meant to be ‘just doing your job’.

  She strolled out into the car park, passing Joseph’s vehicle on the way to her own. Without even intending to, she glanced at his car, her vision taken past the glare on the rear driver’s side window to something sitting on the back seat. She took two or three more steps before she realised what it was – or, at least, what her brain was telling her it was.

  ‘No way …’ she heard her voice say, but her mind seemed no longer connected to her body. Retreating a few paces, Charlotte found herself back at the car window, her hands pressed up against it, forming a makeshift barrier against the shimmering sunlight.

  She could hardly believe her eyes.

  Nestled on the back seat, protruding from under a street directory, was a spool of rope. Bright-green rope, put together in a twirl. The exact same rope she had seen only a few hours earlier, lying at Simon’s feet.

  CHAPTER 20

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me …’

  Charlotte
was frozen, rooted to the ground like a one-hundred-year-old oak. She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. All her training and years of criminal investigation told her not to do what she was about to do, but she felt no longer in control. The car was unlocked – the way Joseph always left it, despite her protestations. She slipped her hand into the bottom of her T-shirt to form a makeshift glove then prised open the back door, hearing it squeak as it stretched wide.

  Extending her body over the back seat, Charlotte lifted the street directory and stared at the coil of rope beneath. Resting against it was the blade of a bright-yellow Stanley knife. The end of the rope was frayed where it had been cut.

  It was rope – it could be bought anywhere, right?

  The rest of the back seat was empty, but as she moved back out of the vehicle she noticed a rectangular lump in the pocket behind the driver’s seat. Stretching the top of the beige pocket out towards her, Charlotte peered inside, but could only really make out a black shape, about the size of a glasses case. Curiosity got the better of her and she reached in expecting to find a pair of sunglasses.

  She realised straight away it wasn’t a case of any kind, but a purse. A black, intricately patterned leather purse. Charlotte’s heart skipped a beat. What the hell? Does Joseph have a girlfriend?

  She popped open the purse and found a small amount of coins and notes in the money section, before she turned to study the cards and personal papers.

  What she saw made her drop the purse as if it had scorched her skin.

  In the plastic display section was a driver’s licence belonging to a woman. The other section was stuffed full of an assortment of cards all belonging to that same woman.

  The name on that licence and those cards was Alice Tremonti.