by Tom Lowe
“I can’t believe you seriously think Christian hooked a supermodel on heroin.”
“Hooked her, sexually took advantage of her, and killed her.”
“Sean! Enough! I can’t allow you to ruin this man’s career on speculation.”
“Manerou was near Ocala silencing the last living witness that could tie him to Alexandria’s murder, the wife of the D.O.C. guard. The same guard that Manerou killed the day he murdered Spelling and Father Callahan.”
“No! I can’t believe this.”
“It’s true. If he hasn’t tossed it, look for a ski mask in his car. Go to his house. See if he owns an all black suit, something like a priest might wear. If it hasn’t been
cleaned, see if there’s any blood, hair, or fibers that will tie him to the three vics he killed in one night last week. Also, pull some hair out of a brush, get his damn toothbrush. I don’t care what you use just get—”
“Sean—”
“Was Manerou in the service? The military?”
“Army, I believe. Why?”
“Check his records. See if he went to sniper school.”
“Why?”
“Only somebody with an expert rating could have shot Spelling like he did.”
“Sean, you need to—”
“The name—Manerou—what’s that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nationally!”
“Probably French or Greek. Why?”
“Where was Manerou born?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you at a computer?”
“Yes, why?”
“Go in the FBI’s bio on its agents. Wherever it is you people keep that and see where he was born.” O’Brien paced inside his boat. Max watched him.
There was an audible exhalation and she said, “Give me a minute.”
O’Brien could hear her fingernails hitting the keys, then a long moment of silence. Lauren’s voice dropped to above a whisper. “He was born in Greece. On the island of Patmos…that’s the same place you mentioned, Sean…oh my God…”
EIGHTY-NINE
O’Brien called Detective Dan Grant. “Dan, FBI got a better read on part of the letter that Sam Spelling left behind. Spelling may have left the knife that killed Alexandria Cole at his mother’s house. Tranquility Trail, St. Augustine.”
“I’ll see if I can get a search warrant.”
“You don’t have time!”
“Judge Franklin will sign it. His house isn’t far from—”
“Dan, you don’t have time. An FBI agent, Christian Manerou, killed Alexandria. And he killed Sam Spelling, Johnson, Johnson’s wife, and Father Callahan. He knows Spelling’s mother’s address. You’re closer to St. Augustine than I am. Take back-up with you. Go!”
#
O’BRIEN CALLED TUCKER HOUSTON. “Tucker, FBI managed to pull an address from the sheet of paper under the letter Sam Spelling wrote. It’s his mother’s address in St. Augustine. The knife is probably there.”
“Excellent, Sean! CNN is using Six’s studio to do a live interview with me. I’m getting Charlie William’s name across the nation. It’s now in the hands of the nine justices, or the Governor of Florida. “
“Listen Tucker. I believe an FBI agent, Christian Manerou, killed Alexandria Cole. He had a secret affair going on with her. I suspect he’d cut a deal with Russo. Once Manerou had access to her, he got her strung out on heroin, and when things
became testy, he stabbed her and framed Charlie Williams. He’s gone on a killing spree eliminating anyone with a tie to his name.”
“Can you prove this?”
“We’ve collected possible DNA samples from three of the four crime scenes. It’s being processed now. All we need is a sample from Manerou.”
“Is he here in Miami?”
“He was. But one of the agents in the bureau shared Spelling’s mother’s address with Manerou before she knew he was the killer.”
Tucker was silent for a moment. “What are you going to do now?
“I’m going to get to Spelling’s mother’s place before Manerou does.”
“I can’t incriminate this Manerou until I have something solid. But Sean, you’ve given me a lot to throw at Governor Owens.”
“Throw a fast pitch because they strap Charlie to the gurney in eleven hours.”
NINETY
Dave Collins was about to open a bottle of wine when he looked out toward his cockpit and saw O’Brien walking fast with Max under his arm. Through the open sliding-glass doors, Dave said, “Come on in, Sean. Cracking a bottle of cab. A Foxen Canyon, ninety-nine vintage. A good year for Californian cabernet.”
“A bad year for Charlie Williams. But now I know who did do it.”
“Who?”
“An FBI agent. Name’s Christian Manerou.”
“Good Lord, Sean. Every crime talk show in America’s running stories about the case. You must have just spoken with Tucker Houston. With his Texas tie and slight southern drawl, he’s become the darling of CNN. He was just saying how a new development in the case would definitely point towards a killer who used his position to shield the truth. He called it a ‘legal, moral and ethical obligation to seek the truth in William’s case.’ An FBI agent. Who would have thought?”
“It explains why I jumped to conclusions during the original investigation. I wasn’t following a sloppy trail left by Charlie Williams, I was following a well-thought-out trail laid by a man who knows forensics. He probably used a Ziploc bag to collect a few drops of Alexandria’s blood after he killed her. Sprinkled them into the front seat of William’s truck…it was a trail that made it a slam dunk in Charlie William’s face.”
O’Brien told the story as Dave sipped from a glass of cabernet. O’Brien concluded by saying, “If we can find the knife he used, the one that Spelling found and
hid, we might find something on it to connect Manerou. The location of Sam Spelling’s written statement lies in the bloody message, or code, Father Callahan left behind.”
Dave sat back in his chair and looked at the fog drifting over the docks like smoke from a smoldering fire. He said, “The name Christian Manerou. Sounds French, could be Greek, and you said he was born on the island of Patmos in the Greek Isles. The same place depicted in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting—St. John on Patmos.” Dave paused, sipped some wine and said, “If we go back to Father Callahan’s hieroglyphics, if we look at them now in light of what we’ve discovered about Bosch, the painting, Omega, and Patmos…that leaves us with one thing…”
“The six-six-six,” said O’Brien.
“Precisely. Can we connect our latest eye-opener, Manerou, to these numbers?”
“You mean is Christian the devil? As oxymoronic as those terms sound…”
Dave wrote Christian Manerou’s name in large block letters on a piece of white paper. He said, “Since we’re talking numbers here…the ancient Greeks used numerology a lot in connection to their alphabet. They gave letters a numerical value. In the case of Omega, the last latter, it had the greatest value, eight hundred. You mentioned an oxymoron, well as we said the other night, today our scientists give Omega the value of one in trying to find the equation to the fate of the universe, but two thousand years ago, the Greeks gave Omega the princely weight of eight hundred.”
O’Brien said, “Alpha was the value of one.”
“Absolutely.” Dave sipped and smiled, his teeth purplish from the dark wine, his eyes alive with discovery. He said, “I’ll go online to find the numerical value of the twenty four letters in the Greek alphabet.” Dave typed, and the Greek alphabet and the
story of Greek numerology appeared. “Take a look at this, Sean.” Dave positioned the laptop screen so O’Brien could get a better view.
alpha = 1 (A)
beta = 2 (B)
gama = 3 (G)
delta = 4 (D)
epsilon = 5 (E)
zeta = 6 (Z)
eta = 8 (H)
theta = 9 (Q)
iota = 10 (I)
kappa = 20 (K)
lamba = 30 (L)
mu = 40 (M)
nu = 50 (N)
xi = 60 (X)
omnicron = 70 (O)
pi = 80 (P)
rho = 100 (R)
sigma 200 = (S)
tau = 300 (T)
upsilon = 400 (Y, U)
phi = 500 (Ph)
chi = 600 (Ch)
psi = 700 (Ps)
omega = 800
Dave stared at the screen, his brow furrowing, the light playing off his eyes. He picked up his pencil and began writing. “The numerical value of your first name, Sean, could be S at 200, plus E at 5, plus A at 1, plus N at 50 equals 256. There was always a lot of ancient mysticism with numerology. Some alleged it could be tied with fortune telling, as in Omega, it can be connected to the universe. A Greek philosopher named Pythagoras was convinced the entire cosmos could be expressed with numbers...which brings us to the elusive number six-six-six.” Dave wrote the numbers on the paper. He said, “To this day, many people often those even found high up in the Catholic church, believe six-six-six is synonymous with a guy who killed a lot of Christians—Nero. Nero alone won’t equal six-six-six in value. But the ancient Greek spelling of Nero was Neron. If memory of Greek numerology serves me well, if you add Neron and Caesar together, they total six-six-six.”
O’Brien stared at the name, Christian Manerou, and said, “Dave, look at this.” He wrote out MANEROU in block letters and underlined four letters. “There’s your Nero today: MANEROU.”
Interesting,” said Dave. Let’s add them up to see of it gets even more interesting.
M = 40
A = 1
N = 50
E = 5
R = 100
O = 70
U = 400
666
NINETY-ONE
Nick Cronus stepped onto Gibraltar with three Greek sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil. He carried a six-pack of Bud, one of the six MIA. His dark hair feathered out from a baseball cap, his red swimsuit faded the color of salmon. No shoes. He said, “I smell no spaghetti comin’ from your boat, so I say to myself, tonight would be a good night for grouper, lettuce, tomatoes, feta cheese, Nick’s special sauce, all folded in a warm pita bread sandwiches.”
“Big, fat Greek sandwiches,” said Dave. “Very nice!”
Nick said, “Hot dog, I save some fish for you, too.” Nick had a small piece of grouper wrapped in foil for Max. “Sean, you want a beer. Look to me like you need one, man.” As Nick ripped off a can of beer, O’Brien’s cell rang. It was Detective Dan Grant.
“Did you reach Spelling’s mother?” asked O’Brien.
“Fed’s may have read the imprint, but somehow they missed the message.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Tranquility Trail. It’s not a house. It’s a freakin’ cemetery.”
“What?”
“Maybe Spelling’s mother is buried there. Evidence could be buried with her.”
“Sean, I might have blown off a judge’s signature for a search warrant. But to start diggin’ a coffin out of the ground we need a court order to get it exhumed. I know we’re under the gun for Charlie Williams. The death penalty crowds are already
gathering at Starke, those for and against. But I’m not about to start diggin’ up graves to find something I don’t even know is buried in one of them.”
O’Brien said nothing.
Dan said, “Keep in mind, that’s a damn old graveyard. Goes back to the Spaniards and French Huguenots settling Florida. Finding her grave at this hour—with a storm coming through—would be like a needle in a haystack thing.”
“I’ll call you back, Dan.” He disconneted. “Nick, you said you were on Patmos as a child.”
“Yeah, man. It’s a religious experience. I feel the need sometimes to return.”
“The Bosch painting—Saint John on Patmos—looked like John was taking notes. The Virgin descending, an angel pointing to her, a ship burning in the harbor.”
Nick took a long pull for his beer. He said, “Rome kicked the holy man out. He lived on Patmos. God told him, either mankind—we get our shit together and learn to get along, or face the end—Omega. Apocalypse. It’s all there in the book of Revelation.”
“That’s it!” O’Brien said, his fingers flying on the computer keyboard.
Nick said, “Sean, relax. You need to go to Patmos, learn to find you inner peace.”
“Right now I’d rather find Sam Spelling’s letter. I know where it is!”
“Where?” Dave asked. He and Nick looked at the computer screen.
“It’s where Father Callahan hid it. He left a direct key to the last book in the Bible: Revelation. Father Callahan somehow knew Manerou was born in Patmos. Look at the screen.” O’Brien pointed to a passage from the Book of Revelation. He said, “In Revelation 13:18 it says: ‘Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred
threescore and six.’ Manerou’s name totals six-six-six in Greek numerology. Father Callahan, an art expert, drew a symbol from Bosch’s painting as he lay dying. Saint John on Patmos. He tried to write Patmos, getting out the first three letters before he died.”
Nick said, “I’m going to mass. This is spooky stuff, man.”
O’Brien pointed to the screen. “The sign of Omega that Father Callahan drew, it’s right there in Revelation 22:13. ‘I am Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. The first and last.’ Again, Revelation—the end of the Bible. Omega—the end. I was looking everywhere but there. I bet that Father Callahan hid Sam Spelling’s letter in the Revelation—in a Bible on the sanctuary dais. Less than fifteen feet from his body.”
Dave said, “Maybe Father Callahan didn’t write out the location because he thought the killer might return. He put a lot of stock in you, Sean, to figure this out.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“But you did it, man!” Nick said, tossing a piece of pita bread to Max.
“Charlie Williams as very little time left. I have to go.”
Dave said, “Sean, the riddle of the Sphinx was less of a challenge. But you, my friend, had to travel through all nine circles of Dante’s hell to get to the Elysian Fields.”
“I’m not there yet,” said O’Brien, getting up to leave.
Nick said, “Man, it’s eleven thirty—where you gonna go this hour?”
“To church.”
NINETY-TWO
It was almost midnight when O’Brien parked his Jeep in the back lot at St. Francis Church. The fog had cleared and its wake a cold front was building, the smell of rain coming across the sea of urban sprawl. He took a small flashlight and a leather pouch out of his glove box. O’Brien searched the exterior of the building, found the electric breaker box, and shut off the power.
At the back door, he held the flashlight in his teeth, took a pick from the leather pouch, and worked the lock. There was an audible click, and he opened the door. The inside of the church smelled like candles, incense, and old books. He shined the flashlight on the marble floor, the area he’d found Father Callahan’s body. The bloodstain was gone but the memory was there. Father Callahan dying in front of a podium where he had stood for sixteen years. Stood and spoke of the love of God. Spoke about the line between good and evil. The temptation to cross the line—the will not to, the bridge to come back. The bridge over the river Styx, thought O’Brien.
He stepped up on the platform, and stood behind the large Bible; its pages lying opened and turned to Psalms 23. O’Brien flipped the pages to the end of the Bible, to the Book of Revelation. He turned to Revelation 13:13.
The letter wasn’t there.
Lightning flashed through the skylights, and thunder rolled in the distance. O’Brien found Revelation 22:23. There on the opposite side page from the verse, on a
single sheet of folded legal paper, was a letter. O’Brien opene
d the paper and read Sam Spelling’s words:
To Father John and God -
My name is Sam Spelling. I am real sorry for my sins. I wish to ask God for forgiveness…..and I know now I done some bad things in my life. I hope to make amends. On the night of June 18th, 1999, I was working a deal, trying to score some cocaine at the Mystic Islands condos near Miami, Florida. I was supposed to meet a dealer there. It was the same night Alexandria Cole was stabbed to death. I was sitting in a car in the condo lot waiting for the dealer to show when I seen a man come out of Miss Cole’s condo. But before I go any further, I want to say where the knife can be found in case I get too tired to finish this letter…
It’s in the town of St. Augustine. Tranquility Trail - my mother’s grave is there. She always loved that old cemetery and wanted to be buried there. I put the knife in a plastic Tupperware box and buried it right across the road from her grave.. It’s about one foot directly in front of a statue of an angel with wings. I buried it under a rock.
The angel is next to a pond in the cemetery. The angel is pointing with her right hand. Back to what I was saying. I was sitting in a car in the condo lot, waiting for the dealer to show when I seen a man come out of Miss Cole’s condo. He didn’t see me on account I was hunkered down in the car. I could tell he was drunk, almost fell a few times walking toward a truck I figured was his at the far end of the parking lot. I was curious as to what he was doing, and I got out of my car to see what was going on. The man looked like he was getting something out of the truck then he walked across the street to the Whales Tale Tavern. I didn’t think much about it. Went back to my car and I seen another man go into Miss Cole’s place. Wasn’t but a short while before I heard a scream. I saw the man running from her condo. He ran and stopped behind a breezeway, then I watched him go on down to the truck, the same one the other feller opened earlier. Looked to me like the second dude put something in the truck. I got back in my car and followed him as he left.