Corinne Davies. “I can make some calls,” Anthony suggested. “Someone in the church might feel more comfortable talking to me than the police.”
Skye didn’t say anything for a moment, and Anthony wondered if she was going to tell him to stay out of the investigation. Instead, she surprised him and said, “I’d appreciate that. Anything about her history, complaints, background. She has a daughter, Lisa, but there’s no father in the picture. I don’t even have his name.”
She’d taken a step toward trusting him. Anthony was elated.
“What happened to the journal, Anthony? How did”— she paused—“the killer erase all those pages?”
She couldn’t say demon. But asking for his advice was a huge step. “I think Rafe used blessed ink.”
“Excuse me?”
“When the demon touched it, the ink disappeared.”
“Disappearing ink.”
By her cool tone, he was losing her. He changed tactics, using a cop’s logic. “Rafe must have written something the killer doesn’t want us to know,” Anthony suggested. “Maybe evidence of who had been drugging the priests.”
“Why wouldn’t he have just called the police?”
“Maybe he didn’t have proof. Maybe he didn’t think you’d believe him.” But Rafe had suspected something super-natural, that’s why he’d called Anthony in the first place.
In light of the evidence of the men being drugged, everything made sense. Their odd behavior. Rafe’s unease, but unable to explain why. Why hadn’t Anthony seen it? He hadn’t expected the trio of humans. He’d been looking at demons only, not at the ritual of summoning one. He’d bypassed the process of elimination and looked only at the obvious. Had his personal arrogance jeopardized Rafe and killed the others?
Whatever Rafe had sensed that spurred his call to Anthony was the beginning of the ritual to bring Ianax from Hell. And perhaps, in light of the long-term drugging, one of the priests had been concerned and asked Rafe to come to the mission in the first place.
“Why did he write it in Latin?” she asked. “To keep the information from the priests?”
“They all knew Latin,” Anthony said. “The only reason to write in that language would be to keep the information from laypeople. Those who have reason to be at the mission. Repairmen, housekeepers, deliverymen.”
Skye asked, “Do you know a Dr. Wicker?”
Anthony couldn’t lie. “Yes.”
“And?”
“What do you want to know?”
“You want to help, right?”
“You know I do.”
“Then why were all these priests seeing a shrink?”
“I explained that to you. They’ve all witnessed evil.” Anthony remembered the conversation he’d had with Rafe right before he left Italy.
He thinks one of my men is communicating with a spirit. But he doesn’t know who.
“The bishop implied they were all mentally unbalanced.”
“Dr. Wicker is a psychiatrist specializing in helping those who have witnessed the worst man can do to man,” Anthony responded. He didn’t tell Skye about what Rafe had said. She wouldn’t believe him, and right now keeping her trust was his highest priority.
Skye frowned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Juan was supposed to call me after talking with Wicker.” She flipped open her cell phone. “No missed calls.”
Had he missed something? Was the rest of Skye’s team in danger? “Have you spoken to him?”
“Not since we saw the bishop yesterday, but that was late.”
“Call him.”
“Why?” she asked.
“This case is dangerous.”
“Well, if all you need is faith then he’s fine,” she snapped. “Juan’s the most devout Catholic I know.”
Anthony winced at the derision in Skye’s voice. He’d thought they’d been closer to a real understanding.
Skye said into her cell phone, “Hey, Juan, call me when you get this message. I’m on my way down to the morgue. Meet me there.”
She hung up, concern clouding her eyes. Before Anthony could say anything, she was justifying Juan’s inaccessibility. “He’s probably in the shower. It’s still early.”
“He’s married, call his wife.”
“How do you know he’s married?”
“He wore a wedding ring, did he not?”
Skye mumbled something, dialed. “Hi, Beth. It’s Skye McPherson. Has Juan left yet?” She frowned as she listened to the wife speak. “No, I’m sure everything’s fine. He’s investigating a difficult case right now. I’ll make sure he calls, I’m meeting him in thirty minutes. Right. Give the girls big kisses for me.”
She slowly closed her phone. “He didn’t come home last night. He called Beth after I talked to him about the fire and said he was working late and would sleep at the station.”
She called headquarters. “Detective Martinez, please.” A minute later, she hung up. “He’s not there.”
Anthony couldn’t placate her. His fear for the detective had grown almost as much as his fear for Skye. Whoever was responsible for Ianax roaming the earth had piqued Martinez’s interest.
“First things first,” he said. “We need to find out what Dr. Fielding learned. Maybe it will help us find your detective.”
She nodded. “Remember, you’re not a cop. I shouldn’t be bringing you in at all, except—” She stopped.
“Except you don’t trust me,” he said as he pulled into the police department parking lot and turned off the ignition.
She shook her head. “No.” She looked him in the eye and he saw how conflicted she was. “I trust you, Anthony,” she said softly. “I trust that you believe something supernatural killed those men. I don’t, but I think you can help me figure out what happened at the mission. You have insight and experience. And you’re not as, um, wacky as I first thought. Okay?”
It was a start. And it kept him by Skye’s side, where he needed to be when the demon came calling.
He squeezed her hand. “Okay.”
• • •
The morgue was in the basement of the hospital down the street from the police station. The coroner, a small wiry man in his late sixties named Rich Willem, who’d been here since before Skye was born, was preparing the first body for autopsy when they arrived. Dr. Willem, who never appeared happy, looked particularly sour. Skye would be, too, if she had to face twelve butchered men on the slab.
Rod was agitated and excited at the same time. He barely gave Anthony a second glance. “Look at this.” He shoved a printed report into Skye’s hands.
She’d seen tox reports before, but she didn’t want to take the time to decipher the shorthand. “What does it say?”
“The three men I tested all had evidence of being drugged with a heavy metal, up until two weeks ago.”
“Mercury,” Anthony said.
Rod shot him a look. “How did you know?” He glanced at Skye. “Is that why you asked me about mercury?”
Skye nodded, handing Rod a box that contained her coffee maker, coffee, a sample of her water, sugar bowl, and the remainder of the coffee she had brewed this morning. “My coffee was poisoned this morning. If Anthony hadn’t—”
Anthony could tell how uncomfortable she was. “I came by early this morning to ask about the investigation and found Skye out of sorts.”
“I’ll test it immediately.”
“Whoever poisoned my coffee also destroyed the journal.” Skye explained how she had found Rafe Cooper’s journal at the mission before the fire.
“I’m more concerned about you. The effects of mercury poisoning can be severe: death, suicidal depression, or extreme aggression,” Rod said. “And that would be consistent with my theory.”
“I thought you only believed in facts, not theories,” Skye said, irritable. Her headache was returning.
“Our crime scene is destroyed. The fire chief said it started in the sacristy. Nearly everything
is gone except for the courtyard.”
Where Anthony and I were.
Anthony asked, “What do you think happened, Doctor?”
“I think these men killed one another.”
“Why on earth would you think that?” Skye exclaimed.
Rod led the way into the main morgue. Dr. Willem gave them a perfunctory nod, continuing about his business without comment. Three bodies were displayed, and on the far wall Rod had put up photographs of the bodies as found. “I asked Dr. Willem to start with these three because they were found here, close together, and they tell a story.”
He used a metal pointer and tapped the picture of what used to be a tall, physically fit young man. He lay across the floor. “He killed himself. When we X-rayed the bodies, we found the tip of a knife in his abdomen. From the angle, he stabbed himself and bled out. Took less than five minutes, but he was unconscious most of it. The same knife nearly decapitated this man.” Rod tapped the photo of the man lying on the stone floor, his head almost completely severed from his body. “And it was used on this man, who was stabbed in the chest fourteen times. We tested the blood—the decapitation occurred first. Other than external blood spatter, no foreign blood was found in his wound. He was also, I believe, the first to die based on other blood evidence.”
“Are you saying that Father Jordan killed this old priest?” Anthony said, his voice shaking in the first sign of stress Skye had seen.
“I can’t prove it, but it holds with the evidence. There is blood from this priest in the stab wounds on the second man’s chest. The striation marks are the same. Absolutely the same knife.”
“So you think that Father Jordan killed first this man, then this one, then committed suicide?”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t another attacker have killed him? Where is the knife?” Skye asked.
“That’s your domain, but the angle suggests that it was self-inflicted and—look at his hands.” He gestured toward the body on the table. “These cuts are consistent with an attacker blindly wielding a weapon, not defensive wounds. In virtually every knife attack, the attacker nicks himself.”
“Someone else was in the room. Someone collected all the weapons,” Anthony said.
Rod nodded. “Someone had to, and it wasn’t Father Jordan. The knife was lodged in his rib. That’s why it broke. Someone had to really tug to remove it. Father Jordan was dead for at least thirty minutes before the knife was removed.”
“Maybe he had an accomplice. He killed himself out of guilt,” Skye suggested.
“I don’t know why, all I can tell you is that my theory is consistent. Dr. Willem and I are going to piece together the blood evidence on the victims and determine how many weapons were used. I have the lab working on the other collected evidence. I think we can put together exactly what happened, given enough time.”
“How much time?” Skye asked.
Rod shrugged. “We’re working on this twenty-four/seven. Three days for a preliminary report. Some tests will take a little longer.”
“If the mercury poisoning stopped two weeks ago, why did they turn violent now?” Skye asked. “What about their stomach contents?”
“We’re working on that. The tox screens I originally did were on blood and hair samples. I haven’t received the blood tests back yet. That would show if they were drugged more recently. The hair samples are for long-term poisoning.”
“Rush it, Ron.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” he said.
“There were no footprints,” Anthony interjected. “How did the killer remove the weapons?”
“That’s where I think the killer—or the accomplice—messed up. There were footprints, and that’s why I think they burned the mission. At least that’s the most obvious reason. Let’s go to my office.”
“Have you talked to Juan Martinez today?” Skye asked as they walked.
“No. I assumed he was working with the arson investigator up at the mission.”
“I haven’t been able to reach him.”
Skye pulled out her cell phone and dialed dispatch. “Milt, can you plug in to Martinez’s GPS and give me his whereabouts?”
“Two secs.”
Why hadn’t she done this before, when she knew he hadn’t gone home last night? She pinched the bridge of her nose. The headache was still there, taunting her. A hand rested on her back. Anthony.
Milt said, “He’s stationary on Highway 1, one-point-three miles south of Arroyo Grande.”
“What the hell is he doing all the way up there?” That was halfway to San Luis Obispo.
“His radio is off.”
“Off?” That was against regulations. “Keep trying to reach him on both radio and cell phone. I’m heading up there.” Juan wouldn’t have gone off half-cocked. He was a by-the-book cop, one she trusted implicitly.
“I gotta go. Juan’s in trouble. I feel it.” She was about to leave, then asked, “What about those footprints?”
“We took hundreds of photos. No one involved in the carnage left the chapel. But someone came in after the fact, walked over to several of the bodies, and left.”
“Rafe Cooper,” Skye said.
“But he didn’t leave, and the prints don’t match his. Cooper was barefoot when he came into the chapel. I easily traced his path. He came in through the side door, the one closest to his bedroom, walked halfway around the room, then ran up the center aisle and fell.”
Rod continued. “I think one of the killers was still on the premises when you arrived, Mr. Zaccardi.”
“Why do you think that?” he asked, his voice tight.
“You wear a size-twelve shoe, we matched your prints earlier. Someone intentionally slid their feet to make it impossible to match. But the individual crossed over your prints, Mr. Zaccardi, and the only way they could have done that was if they left after you.”
“Which would explain how the mission was locked from the inside when Zaccardi arrived,” Skye said. “And if these men killed one another, then perhaps only one person needed to be involved. But it still doesn’t explain how. If they hadn’t been drugged for nearly two weeks, why now?”
“Perhaps the killer tainted their food supply,” Anthony suggested. “Gave them a larger dose. There must have been a purpose to the slow poisoning, and when it stopped—when the housekeeper was fired—the killer panicked.”
“That certainly points to the housekeeper. I need to talk to her, dammit.” Skye turned to Rod. “Please tell me you cleaned out the kitchen.”
Frowning, he shook his head. “There was no reason to do so. I would have done it today, after getting the tox screen results, but—”
“The fire. Dammit.”
Skye tried to piece together the facts. “The priests were all drugged for several months, up until two weeks ago. But why did they all go crazy two nights ago? If they were being drugged, why was that night any different?”
“Perhaps they were given a larger dose,” Rod suggested.
Skye frowned. “This is what I don’t get. Why were they killed? What is the motive?”
Anthony spoke up. “They were killed for their eternal souls.”
Not now, Anthony. Skye couldn’t accept that as a motive to kill. She said to Rod, “I need to find Juan. Call me as soon as you have something definitive.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
THE PATROL SKYE SENT to Juan’s location came up with nothing: his car was there, he wasn’t, and there was no sign of a struggle.
“I’m going to talk to the Davieses,” Skye said to Anthony as she slid behind the steering wheel of her Bronco. “I have some more questions.”
“If this Ms. Davies has anything to do with Ianax, she’s dangerous,” Anthony said.
“You said the demon needs three humans,” Skye said, exasperated. She really wasn’t in the mood to listen to Anthony’s religious garbage right now. Juan was missing. “If she poisoned those men, she’s just as guilty for their deaths as if she s
tabbed them herself.”
Based on the evidence—something Anthony Zaccardi seemed to be ignoring—the twelve priests had committed a mass murder-suicide. Coupled with the poison, at least it proved that human beings—not some fictitious “demon”—had been responsible for the deaths. That gave her a modicum of peace. Murder, she understood. Supernatural forces? She’d leave that to Hollywood.
On the way to the Davies’ cottage, Skye called Dr. Wicker. It was after nine in the morning and he was in his office. “Dr. Wicker? Sheriff Skye McPherson in Santa Louisa.”
“You’re calling about Santa Louisa Mission.”
“Yes. It’s my understanding that you served as psychiatrist to the mission priests.”
“I did.”
“Have you spoken to Detective Juan Martinez regarding this case?”
“He left a message after hours last night on my answering machine stating he would be coming by first thing this morning, but he hasn’t arrived yet.”
She’d assumed that Juan had been traveling to SLO, but he could have also been heading farther north, to Santa Clara, to speak with Wicker. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be in touch.”
Anthony held out his hand. “May I?”
She handed over her cell phone.
Anthony said, “Charles, it’s Anthony Zaccardi.”
“Anthony? When did you arrive?”
“Yesterday morning. I was too late. Rafe told me he talked with you about the strange behavior at the mission.”
“Rafe is safe?”
“He’s in a coma.”
“Someone betrayed him. Someone betrayed all of them.”
“The housekeeper, Corinne Davies?”
“Rafe believed she was partly responsible, but he didn’t know how. And even after he fired her, the men weren’t right. He was looking internally.”
One of the priests? Anthony didn’t want to believe it, but he’d witnessed worse betrayals. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know. They all passed every test I know. But one of those twelve—Anthony, one of them was communicating with demons. I know it, it’s the only explanation for the fear.”
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