“Could be the writing was in Arabic,” he said, stroking his short beard in thought. “Or Urdu. Or Hebrew. Or even Aramaic. And that’s just naming a few, but if the person responsible for these crimes is the type to use biblical imagery in staging the crime scenes, I’d bet on the last two.”
“Can you speak it?”
“Back in the seventies, we had the option to learn Hebrew and Aramaic while in seminary. I could still recognize it if I saw it, but I can only speak the basics. Lord’s Prayer and the like.”
“What does it sound like?”
The priest shifted in his seat momentarily before clearing his throat. “Well, let me think here for a second. In Aramaic I think it goes: Abwûn d’bwaschmâja Nethkâdasch schmach . . .”
Father Patrick’s voice faded, but his lips continued to move, as he closed his eyes. It seemed to Maureen that he was searching his memory and trying to speak the prayer to himself before continuing out loud. After a moment he gave up and uttered a defeated laugh.
“I’m afraid I don’t remember much of the middle,” he said, “though I remember the last. Metol dilachie malkutha wahaila wateschbuchta l’ahlâm almîn. Amên.”
His last words hung in the air as Maureen felt her stomach sour. A lump formed in her throat. She looked away for a moment to hide her gulp. She realized, now that they had been said out loud, that she had heard those words before.
“Are you all right?” She heard Father Patrick’s voice at her shoulder.
“Yeah, sure,” she replied, smoothing her face and turning to face him with a halfhearted smile. “It was pretty.”
“Many of the ancient languages are,” he said.
“Do you speak any others?” she asked, hoping to distance them from the subject at hand.
“Ancient languages? No. Not Really.”
“How about just regular languages?”
Father Patrick looked as if he was about to answer, but before he could, Father Preston and Detective Benitez appeared at the entrance to the nave. Maureen and Father Patrick stood up and walked over to meet them.
“I hope you found everything in order,” said the old priest as he came up to stand beside the detective.
“Yes, Father,” he replied. “Your associate was very helpful. I think we’ve got what we came for. Thank you for your assistance, Father Preston.”
The younger priest bowed his head slightly and quietly excused himself, slowly making his way out of sight. The remaining three walked to the door where the detective turned around and stuck his hand out to the priest.
“Thank you as well, Father Patrick,” he said as the old priest grasped his hand and shook. “I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
“I’ll keep you in my prayers, Detective,” the priest replied, smiling warmly, before turning to Maureen. “And you as well, Ms. Allen.”
The notion of a Catholic priest offering her his prayers left her with a disquieting feeling, but she nodded her head just the same. The detective began the descent down the stairs toward Main Street. Maureen stayed where she was.
“I think I’ll take you up on dinner,” she said quietly, as soon as she was sure that the detective was out of earshot.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, beaming his wide smile. “How about tonight?”
That was too soon for her. A good part of her truly wanted to sit down for a meal with the old man. “How about a week from today? Next Wednesday. Around eight?” Maureen wanted to make sure she could back out if the case was cleared and she could get herself back on the road.
“A little later than I usually eat,” he said with a laugh, “but I can accommodate. I’ll put it on my calendar. Wait here for just a moment.” Father Patrick retreated back inside the church.
Maureen turned her head to meet the detective’s gaze. He stood with his hands out, mouthing for her to come along with him. Maureen shushed him, imploring him to wait. Detective Benitez rolled his eyes, but kept his feet on the sidewalk, crossing his arms and making a show of tapping his right foot. Maureen stuck her tongue out at him.
After a few moments, Father Patrick returned to the doorway. He held a folded piece of paper out to her. “The address for the rectory,” he explained.
Maureen took the paper and stuffed it into her back pocket. She nodded thanks to him, turned, and headed down to the sidewalk.
“What was that about?” the detective asked as she walked up beside him.
“Nothing,” she said quietly, staring ahead down Main Street. “Just something between me and Father Patrick.”
Detective Benitez didn’t respond.
“What did you find in the books?” Maureen asked, deciding to break the uncomfortable silence.
“Nothing of any interest,” he replied. “The inventory of holy oil and all the other Eucharist supplies are all in order. Nothing has gone missing that I can see.”
Their conversation was cut short as a black sedan pulled up to the curb just ahead of them. Agent Layton stepped out and stood in their path. Maureen and Detective Benitez stopped and stared at him.
“Detective,” he greeted with a nod.
The detective nodded back, but the rest of his body stayed still. Maureen could feel the tension radiating off of him.
“Would you and your companion come with me, please?” The agent took a few steps to the car, keeping his eyes on the two of them, and opened the rear door.
TWENTY-FIVE
Manny felt Maureen’s eyes look over at him. He turned to her and shrugged his shoulders. It was obviously not the moment to defy the FBI. They approached the sedan and got into the back seat. The agent shut the door behind them, took his place in the passenger’s seat, and nodded to Agent Lorenzo in the driver’s seat. Agent Lorenzo pulled away from the curb and began to drive.
“I haven’t heard from you since Monday,” Agent Layton began, speaking toward the windshield and not to Manny directly. “Did you get my little present?”
“I did,” said Manny. “I found it very helpful.”
“And yet . . . ,”
“I wanted to make sure I had enough to give you,” he said as coolly as he could, looking out the window and trying to hide his irritation. “You know, not waste your time with a thin theory or stunted research.”
“I have every confidence in your investigatory skills, Detective,” the agent replied. “What did you come up with?”
He was skeptical about the praise being genuine, but decided that being skeptical was good. A skeptical mind was a sharp one.
“The financial information that was gathered on both Tom Lowes and Sandra Locke seems to indicate some kind of malfeasance,” Manny said carefully. “There is evidence that during the sale of the county buildings in Glenbrook last fall, there was quite a bit of superficial work done to the properties. The county paid well over one hundred fifty thousand dollars for the work, but it definitely looks as though there was not nearly enough work done to justify that amount. I had a quick look through some of the invoices, and to me it looks like material costs were inflated by as much as a factor of six and labor costs were at least doubled.”
“Indicating what?”
“Embezzlement and laundering.”
“Is that a guess?”
“Agent, not to be rude,” Manny said as diplomatically as his frustration would allow, “but if you’re just messing with me, I find it very unprofessional.”
“I would consider it unprofessional to question a superior officer,” Layton replied, though with little, if any, venom in his voice. “I can tell you that we are looking at this transaction as a laundering case, but I want to know why you think embezzlement as well.”
“It’s what connects the two families. Sandra Locke was in massive debt due to her son’s medical procedures. She took out a high-rate second mortgage on her house that she used to pay o
ff his surgeries, but her late husband’s life insurance was cashed and her savings was also completely tapped months ago. The bank had begun foreclosure proceedings. Then, after the sale of the county buildings, she suddenly paid off her mortgage in full. Seventy-five thousand dollars just like that. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“Very impressive,” the agent said, turning around in his seat to look Manny in the eyes. “Now go further. Let’s hear some theories about how the money scheme played out.”
“I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Humor me.”
“Okay,” said Manny, taking a deep breath and running back through all that he’d read in the last two days. “Well, Sandra had to know what was going on. She was crucial to the plan working because she controls the county ledger. She’s the money. So I would guess that in exchange for helping the laundering activity go through, she got the seventy-five grand as a payoff. So it wasn’t two separate crimes, it was all part of the same crime. That would mean that she and Tom were working together. As for Lowes, it seems strange to me that he’d do something like this. He’s a very successful and respected pillar of the community. Engaging in money laundering is usually an indication of desperation. So maybe he’s not doing as well as he advertises. Maybe he got into some trouble, got in bed with some unsavory characters, and was forced to launder as part of his debt to them. Could be that the money they pocketed wasn’t supposed to be taken, and they sent someone after their sons as a message. But there’s just something about all this that doesn’t scream professional hit.”
“And that is?”
“The vomit at the first crime scene,” Manny said. “I’ve been thinking that whoever killed Jacob Lowes had never killed before. I didn’t see much of the report on the second crime scene, but I’m assuming that the CI team didn’t find any vomit in the field?”
“No, they didn’t,” the agent answered.
“That says to me that he’s starting to get more comfortable with killing. And in just the space of a couple days? It could indicate extreme sociopathic tendencies, though I don’t know if you could call him a true psychopath, due to the initial physical reaction to the first murder. All we can say is that he’s learned to suppress his empathetic side.”
“Not bad, Detective,” Agent Layton said, staring steadily at him and nodding his head. “Not too bad at all.”
The agent turned back around and faced out of the windshield again. Several awkward minutes passed. Manny looked at Maureen as they drove along. She had her legs drawn up to her chest with her feet on the car seat, staring out at the passing buildings of the town. Her face was flushed and tense, and he could see her pulse thumping in her neck.
“Lorenzo, pull over,” Agent Layton said.
As the car rolled to a stop, Manny saw that they had returned to Main Street, no less than twenty feet from where they had been picked up. Agent Layton opened his door and stepped out onto the curb. Manny took it as a cue and did the same. Maureen followed suit. The three stood on the sidewalk, with Maureen a few paces away from the two men. Agent Layton, for the first time, seemed to ignore Manny and concentrate on her.
“Ms. Allen,” he said, “could you excuse us for just a moment?”
She said nothing and looked at Manny.
He pulled his keys out of his pocket and handed them to her. “Why don’t you turn on the radio. I’ll be there in a second.”
Maureen took the keys from him and slowly backed away, turning her eyes back to the agent. Manny watched as she crossed the street and hopped into the passenger’s seat of his truck and sat, watching the two men. He tried to push her gaze away and focus on the agent, curious on what he wanted to talk about that would necessitate sending Maureen out of hearing.
“So, I’m told you and Ms. Allen shook down the lab assistant at the County Coroner’s Office yesterday,” Agent Layton said, pulling a pack of gum out of his pocket and offering Manny a stick.
“Who told you that?” Manny asked, turning down the gum.
“Dr. Winherst,” the agent said casually.
Of course. “Am I in trouble now?” Manny asked. He was ready if that was the case.
“Not at all,” the agent replied, chewing his gum. “I told you to investigate. I’m just curious what made you come to that church this morning.”
Manny looked down the block at St. Mary’s. “You’ve been following us,” he smiled, certain that his guess was correct.
“Only this morning,” the agent replied. “I was willing to give you your space. But I was curious to find out what made you go to the lab last night, so I put a detail on you today.”
“I wanted to find out what the accelerant was,” Manny told him.
“And?”
“It was balsam and olive oil,” he said. “It’s what they use to make holy oil. I decided to talk to Father Patrick at St. Mary’s and discuss their supply of holy oil and the two families.”
“Why St. Mary’s?”
“Both Tom Lowes and Sandra Locke are devout Catholics and members of St. Mary’s. I was just running down a connection.”
“What did you find?”
“Father Patrick’s junior priest took me into the sacristy and we went over their inventory books. Everything is in order. Somehow, I still think the killer is connected to St. Mary’s, though.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The crime scenes are staged like an Old Testament sacrificial altar. We think the killer is also uber-religious, in a twisted kind of way.”
“It’s ‘we’ now? Detective, I think you need to be careful about your association with Ms. Allen. I have some serious reservations about her having inside access to your investigation.”
“You should know that holy oil isn’t the only thing I discovered at the lab. Her DNA doesn’t match that found at the crime scene, which proves she’s innocent.”
“Innocent in this case, maybe,” Agent Layton said. “Look, I’m just saying that you should be careful with her. Maureen Allen might not be exactly who you think she is.”
Before Manny could ask him what he meant by that, the agent turned away and got back into the black sedan. Manny watched as the car drove away before heading across the street and getting into his truck. His keys were already in the ignition, and the radio was playing quietly. Manny started the truck.
“What was that all about?” Maureen asked.
“The agent just wanted to ask some follow up questions. No big deal.” He looked over at her and smiled.
She returned it with her own small grin, laid her head on the window, and closed her eyes. The sun shone off her hair and created a halo of light around her. She looked beautiful. Manny pulled away from the curb and headed back to his place. He hadn’t figured out their next move yet, but he did know one thing.
No matter what the agent said, he knew exactly who Maureen was.
TWENTY-SIX
Slowly, the candlelit room came into focus. She felt the knees on a hard surface. It might have been stone. In front of her was a miniature altar, covered in linen, with a small ornate crucifix. Wherever she was, she felt a certain sense of enclosure, as though the walls on either side were very close. The familiar sound of a low voice droning from the throat hit her ears. The language was unknown to her, and yet somehow, she seemed to understand exactly what was being said.
“We pray thee, Oh Christ,” it intoned, “be now our guide as we strive to shape the world in your holy image. Grant us strength as soldiers in your army to continue in your name on to victory. As your perfect blood delivered us from the sin of Adam, so now shall the blood of the unblemished serve to cleanse all wickedness from this place. Receive these sacrifices as a sign of our unending devotion to you, Lord and Savior. Amen.”
She watched through the eyes as the hands delicately fingered the fringes of the cloth covering the altar, tracing each intri
cately stitched design. She had a bizarre feeling filling her, yet she struggled to put words to it. Lust, maybe? Could a person lust for a holy object? Whatever it was, the feeling unsettled her own mind enough to begin to pull away from the trappings of the dream. The scene began to fade into inky blackness, but she did hear one last sound: the sound of a telephone ringing somewhere overhead.
Maureen’s eyes flew open, and she sat bolt upright on the detective’s couch, searching all around for any sign of him or his phone. When none could be found, she realized that the ringing was coming from her dream and cursed herself for pulling away when she did. If she could have stared through the killer’s eyes for longer, it was possible that she could have listened in on his conversation and gotten his identity.
“Of course it couldn’t be that easy,” she mumbled to herself as she clambered off the couch and slunk down the hall toward the bathroom. She rubbed the fog out of her eyes as she went, tiptoeing as softly as she could so as not to wake the detective. His bedroom door was closed as she passed it. She stopped briefly, listening for any sound of him sleeping; maybe he was a snorer. His room was as silent as the hall that surrounded her.
Maureen began to wonder if he’d gone out, maybe on some errand for the FBI. She eased the bedroom door open and crept inside, overcome by a strange curiosity. She’d been in the room before to change, of course, but she had never done any proper snooping. The idea of finding something that would help her know him better—or make fun of him—was too tantalizing to resist.
The bed was empty, the sheets were mussed up, and the pillows were strewn about. The outfit the detective wore the previous day was lying on the floor near the corner, next to the hamper, which was nearly full itself. Aside from that, the detective’s room was relatively tidy.
Maureen carefully walked over to the dresser opposite the bed. She slowly opened the top drawer. It was full of neatly folded T-shirts, some printed with sports teams and some embroidered with raised designs that looked like the tattoos she’d seen on the arms of juiced-up meatheads at the gym. She could picture the detective wearing the shirts as a college student, doing bicep curls in front of a mirror. He looked like an idiot in her mind, and the faces she imagined him making made her laugh out loud.
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