Before He Sins

by Blake Pierce

  While there had been ample excitement in the Third District station, Mackenzie and Ellington returned to FBI headquarters just before nine in the morning. Ellington had grilled Simmons on his knowledge of the crime scenes and Mackenzie had enjoyed plenty of time to dig through his files and align them with information that both the detective and Harrison had managed to get for her.

  She had all of the information in front of her now as she sat across from McGrath at the small oak table in the back of his office. Ellington sat by her side, fully ready to support the gathered information and her theories.

  “So what are your takeaways on Simmons?” McGrath asked.

  “I think it’s very convenient,” Mackenzie said. “I had a gut feeling in the interrogation room that he wasn’t our guy. And with information we’ve gathered this morning—some that just came to us within the last five minutes or so—I can tell you that I don’t think Joseph Simmons is our guy.”

  “You just can’t take a win the easy way, can you, White?” McGrath said.

  “Follow me here, sir. We’ll start with his history. He was a runaway. And even if things at home are terrible, psychiatrists believe that runaways, at their core, are crying out for love and attention. Before today, Simmons has confessed to two horrendous crimes. One of those crimes, the murder of a juror in a case from eight years ago, he was clearly innocent of. So why try to turn himself in for something like that?

  “The prostitute beating checks out. It was him. But the details of the case also indicate that he was timid. He beat her badly but in a way that ensured he would not kill her. And now here he is again, confessing to a string of murders that is starting to get air time on the television. So I’m calling his bluff. If he wants jail time for some reason, he can get it for interfering in this case, but it sure as hell won’t be for murder.”

  “What about the intimate details he knew about the crime scenes?” McGrath asked.

  “I can answer that,” Ellington said. “Agent Harrison got confirmation that up until about six months ago, Simmons attended St. Peter’s church. He wasn’t a regular by any means and he never actually joined the church, but people had seen him around enough to learn his name and be friendly with him. He even helped with a children’s Bible school two summers ago. That’s how he knew about the beams in the basement, right down to the bolts and grooves in the center of them.

  “And honestly, the only other scene he knew anything about was the one at Living Word. And as of about two o’clock this morning, an article on CNN.com was reporting some pretty detailed descriptions of the scene that haven’t made it to other news outlets yet. So if he was up on his studying of the cases, that’s the ticket right there. There was nothing he knew about the Living Word scene that was not in this fresh CNN article.”

  “And then there’s one last thing,” Mackenzie said. “When I was talking to him, I intentionally tried to trip him up by throwing in fake information. I asked Simmons why he had set the stuff at the foot of Coyle’s cross. I listed those items as his wallet, his clothes, and the jelly beans. Because the jelly beans was such an off-the-wall item that no one is going to think to even make up, Simmons jumped on it. Made jokes about jelly beans and how he’d even had one when he put the stuff at the foot of the cross.”

  “And it was Lifesavers, wasn’t it?” McGrath asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Shit.”

  McGrath sat back in his chair, looking at the collected documents on the table in front of Mackenzie and Ellington.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” McGrath said. “We’re going to hold Simmons for as long as we can. It’ll shut the media up and it will calm down some of these nervous politicians and religious leaders. We won’t give a name. But I can’t hold that up for too long. So that means I need an actual suspect. So tell me…what next?”

  Mackenzie knew what was next but she was reluctant to say anything because she hadn’t even discussed it with Ellington yet.

  “With your permission sir, I’m heading to Alexandria this evening.”

  “I told you,” McGrath said. “Don’t bother with my permission. Just get out there and find this fucking guy. What is out in Alexandria, though?”

  “A recovery group for people who have been victims of sexual abuse. From what I’ve been told by Father Ronald Mitchell, the vast majority of the group meeting tonight has been involved in some sort of abuse at the hands of church leaders. I’m thinking I might be able to find some kind of thread through their stories and history.”

  “Then get going,” he said. “But I’d prefer that Ellington stay here and help Yardley and Harrison.”

  “One more thing,” Mackenzie said. “I need a list of people that the bureau has relied on in the past for information pertaining to religion or Biblical studies.”

  “I’ll have it emailed to you within half an hour,” McGrath said. “Anything else?”

  Mackenzie wasn’t quite sure how to handle the fact that McGrath was offering her pretty much anything. She felt that whatever she needed in that moment, he’d make sure to get it for her.

  There was one thing on her tongue, one thing that begged to leap off and be spoken but she bit it back. Still, the thought echoed like thunder in her head.

  When this case is done, I want full unhindered access to my father’s case.

  With that wish unspoken, she said: “No, sir.”

  With one final glance at Ellington, Mackenzie exited the office with the overwhelming sense that she was running a race that she was simply not going to win.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  She didn’t make it to the meeting in Alexandria before it started, so she had to enter as quietly as she could. The gathering was held in a small community center in the downtown area, the kind of place that smelled like stale coffee and dust. She found the room at the end of a long hallway and when she opened the door as quietly as she could and entered the room, only a few of the people noticed her. She got a few nasty looks as she found a lone metal folding chair in the back of the room and took a seat.

  There was a woman sitting at the head of a semicircle of chairs—a woman named Barbara Francis. Mackenzie had called her and spoken with her on the way to Alexandria. Barbara headed up these meetings and although she had no history of abuse at the hands of the church herself, she did have a career in social work and psychiatry in the field of sexual abuse to make her a viable candidate to lead the group.

  Because no one made a fuss or asked questions when she entered the room, Mackenzie assumed that Barbara had already told those in attendance that she would be stopping by to pay a visit. Mackenzie could not begin to imagine what the lives of these people must be like, having lived through such a trauma. She did her best to remain quiet and attentive, listening to each person who took the time to share.

  What struck her the most was that there seemed to be no real age limit to the victims. There was a girl with her mother, the girl having been abused sometime last year at the age of thirteen. There was an older man who had just celebrated his sixtieth birthday who had been molested and abused between the ages of nine and twenty-five, told by his priest that if he told his family and caused any trauma to his mother and father, surely God would make sure he went to Hell when he died.

  Mackenzie was spared the gory details of any single story but got to see glimpses of the pain and torment that some of these people went through. There were fourteen of them in all and no one effect seemed to be the same. For some it was a daily fear of physical contact from anyone, even loved ones. For others it was periodic nightmares that would stick with them for days. But through it all there was the sense of injustice—of how the men who had abused them had seen some form of punishment but nothing even close to matching the severity of their crimes.

  She couldn’t help but feel a bit like a voyeur as she sat in the back of the room. She almost felt bad for being there and started to wonder if coming here had been a mistake.

  The meeting br
oke up an hour later. When everyone got up from their seats, Barbara nodded back toward Mackenzie.

  “I’m sure some of you noticed our visitor,” Barbara said. “And I appreciate you allowing her to sit in with us today. This is Agent Mackenzie White, with the FBI. She’s currently working a case that deals with some of the pain that most of you have all been through. She has a few questions, so if you’d be willing to help, it would be appreciated.”

  Again, Mackenzie got irate glances. It was clear that no one in this room trusted her.

  “I’ll keep it short and sweet,” she said. “Has anyone here ever had any sort of friendship or acquaintance with Father Henry Costas of Blessed Heart Catholic Church in Washington, DC?”

  She got a few blank stares and shakes of the head. Two people had decided that they weren’t sticking around for this line of questioning and walked right by her, straight out the door. She asked a few more questions, hoping to get some kind of lead. But assuming those in attendance were being truthful, no one at this meeting had ever met with any of the victims, nor had they ever heard of any of their friends or loved ones being abused or harassed by the victims in any way.

  When it was clear that this meeting had essentially been a dead end, Mackenzie went quiet again, waiting for a moment to speak with Barbara Francis.

  A few of those in attendance took a moment to speak with Barbara afterward. Others left right away, as if they couldn’t wait to get out of the room and the forced reminder of what had happened to them. A few of them looked at Mackenzie, clearly not happy that she had been sitting in.

  Mackenzie continued to hang back, wanting to speak with Barbara Francis. She had gotten a much better understanding of what those who suffered at the hands of religious leaders went through, but she had yet to find anything new that might help her to uncover the identity of a killer. She figured a woman with Barbara’s background and education might help her to find some of those missing pieces.

  As it turned out, it was Barbara who came to her when the room was mostly cleared. And she did not come alone. There was a woman of about thirty-five or so by her side. She was a naturally pretty woman but she wore her hair down over her face and she walked like someone who was expecting to fall in a hole at any moment. She also stayed very close to Barbara Francis as they came to where Mackenzie was still sitting against the back wall.

  “Agent White,” Barbara said. “First of all, thank you for not being a distraction during the meeting.”

  “Of course,” Mackenzie said. “Thank you for allowing me to sit in and to ask my questions. I know it’s a topic that the people who gather here hold as a very private matter.”

  “They do,” Barbara said. “But, without giving them any details about your case, I was able to communicate to them that you were here to help—that you were working towards helping others. With all of that said, I think some are still very closed off and defensive when it comes to sharing their stories around people they don’t know. All of that aside, though…I’d like you to meet Lindsay.”

  The bashful-looking woman nodded to her. She only glanced at Mackenzie for a moment, through, before her eyes returned to Barbara.

  “Lindsay has given me permission to tell you why she is here. She isn’t quite able to do it herself just yet. Lindsay, are you sure you wouldn’t like to try to get it out?”

  “I’m sure,” Lindsay said quietly. “But you can go ahead.”

  “Lindsay’s son was abused by a preacher that their family had been going to all of their life,” Barbara said. “As far back as Lindsay’s mother and father, her family has always attended this church and saw the preacher as a man that they loved and trusted. A man that would never hurt them or anyone else, for that matter.

  “So you can imagine her surprise when her thirteen-year-old son came to her with a confession: that their seventy-two-year-old preacher engaged in some very explicit and pornographic acts with him. It was a demoralizing and—”

  “That’s too light,” Lindsay said, apparently deciding that Barbara was being too lenient. “The bastard made my son…he made my son perform oral sex on him. And he filmed it.”

  Lindsay sounded like she might gag on the words as they came out. Barbara nodded, placing an arm around Lindsay. Mackenzie could tell that Lindsay wanted to cry but seemed almost unable to do so.

  “So when her son came to her with this story,” Barbara went on, “Lindsay and her husband scolded him, assuming he was making it up. When he became insistent and refused to go to church, they grounded him. After that, their son became distant and started acting out. He would start fights with his friends. He even took a swing at his father. And then, six months ago, her son committed suicide. It wasn’t until then that Lindsay and her husband took their son’s story seriously. They went to the police and after a brief investigation, they discovered more than twenty video clips saved to a portable hard drive. The preacher had done similar things with at least eight other children. There were also Polaroids in his closet, taken of pre-teens and children from as far back as the early eighties.”

  Mackenzie felt sick. And she could tell by the look on Barbara’s face that the story wasn’t over.

  “The suicide was too much for the family,” Barbara went on. “Lindsay’s husband left her shortly afterwards. The preacher is in prison and a lot of the congregation blames Lindsay and her family.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because he was beloved,” Lindsay spat. “The evidence is there, and they see it but they refuse to believe it. He even sent a note of apology to the church, which one of the deacons read out loud during a service.”

  “Agent White,” Barbara said, “would you excuse me for a moment?”

  “Sure.”

  Barbara slowly led Lindsay away, out of the room and into the hallway Mackenzie had come down about an hour ago. Mackenzie walked to the center of the room, needing to pace, needing to expel some of her nervous energy. She wasn’t sure she had ever felt so sickened by a case before. Lindsay’s story had made it significantly worse and it made Mackenzie feel almost helpless.

  All of these stories of abuse only lead me deeper into the corruption and hidden sin within church organizations, she thought. In the end, there’s not even any guarantee that it’s going to help me find the killer.

  She sat down in one of the chairs, feeling tired and weak.

  And angry.

  A few moments later, Barbara came back into the room. She was alone this time as she sat down beside Mackenzie.

  “Did you find anything you were looking for?” Barbara asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, during the entire meeting, I had this thought in the back of my mind,” Barbara said. “After I spoke with you about sitting in with us today, Lindsay’s story came to mind and it stayed there pretty firmly. And it wasn’t just because of the severity of the story, though it is a tragic one.”

  “Yeah, I’ll say.”

  “I walked Lindsay out because the last part of the story is, for some reason, the hardest for her to hear. But I think you need to hear it. If you’re looking for someone who is killing religious leaders of all denominations, I think it might tie in.”

  “How’s that?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Lindsay mentioned a letter that the preacher wrote. One of the deacons read it to the congregation the Sunday after the preacher went to prison. It was a short letter, but there was a comment in it that never really sat well with me. It seemed…I don’t know. Odd, I guess.”

  “How did you hear it?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Oh, I didn’t. But someone in the church recorded it on their cell phone. I was sent a copy once I started to have weekly meetings with Lindsay. The letter talks all about sins of the flesh and repentance and sins. But near the end, he makes the comment about how he was glorifying the wrong things. Verbatim, he said, I lost my love for Jesus at some point and started seeking something else. These poor children became my Jesus and I glorified them
. And, as the Bible warns, when we place anything above our Lord, the repercussion is sin.”

  “So…he was what?” Mackenzie asked. “Sexually abusing them because he hated them? Because they were taking the place of God for him?”

  “Perhaps,” Barbara said. “There’s so much to uncover there. The man is clearly mentally unstable. But yes…as far as I’m concerned, he was projecting abuse on these kids as a form of some sort of skewed worship. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the news stories about the case you’re working on and that letter from the preacher came to me a few times. Especially the bit I just quoted you.”

  Mackenzie still felt ill beyond all comprehension but the theory did make a certain kind of sense.

  “Let me ask you,” Mackenzie said. “Do the people you work with ever manage to overcome the abuse?”

  “Some do,” she said. “It depends on the character of those abused and, of course, the extent of the abuse. I take it you’ve never dealt with a case in this arena?”

  “Not to this extent, no.”

  Barbara nodded solemnly. “A word of warning,” she said. “Don’t let it get to you. Before you know it, you can become wrapped up in it. The stories are heartbreaking. And the fact that you can’t fix them…it tears you up.”

  Mackenzie thought she was already getting a taste of that but said nothing. Certainly her few days of hearing a few stories was nothing in comparison to what Barbara had seen and heard.

  “Thank you again for your willingness to let me attend,” Mackenzie said.

  “Of course,” Barbara said. “I just hoped it helped.”

  She thought of the line from the preacher’s letter that Barbara had just quoted and began to pick it apart.

  These poor children became my Jesus and I glorified them. And, as the Bible warns, when we place anything above our Lord, the repercussion is sin.

  “You know,” she said. “I think it helped more than I thought it would.”

  He’s not a victim, she thought. What if he’s not targeting these leaders out of revenge or hatred? What if he loves them? What if he’s glorifying them through these mock crucifixions? What if he thinks they deserve the same death as Christ as a way to praise and worship them?