Atonement

by Winter Austin

  Nic’s head came up, and she blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  He smiled and roughed Cadno’s fur. “This guy was the one who found you last night. And when he did, he stood over your body to make sure raccoons wouldn’t attack you.”

  “Raccoons don’t normally attack humans unless they’re rabid.”

  Con shrugged. “Cadno seemed to think so.”

  With his tongue hanging out of his mouth, Cadno winked at Nic. His actions were rewarded with her laugh.

  “Apparently my hero needs a medal for his valor.”

  “I know for a fact he prefers his steaks rare.”

  More laughter rang out. The sound of it filled Con with warmth. He reached out and took her hand. She stilled but didn’t resist.

  “Let me show you that Cadno’s not the only one.”

  “What I said in the hospital wasn’t a ploy to make you leave, Con. I’m going to keep fighting back. It’s in my nature, I was conditioned to do it, and it’s hard to stop.”

  “I haven’t given up yet.”

  She sighed. “Maybe not, but what about when it gets dangerous and tough?”

  Standing, Con pulled her upright but didn’t wrap her in an embrace. “We’ll face that situation when it presents itself.”

  “It might come sooner than you think.”

  “And like I said, we’ll face it then. Right now, I’m starving, and I believe there’s still half a package of bacon left from yesterday.”

  “What about work?”

  “You’ve been banned from coming in until the sheriff and the chief can sort out how to handle the fallout from yesterday’s events. And the good doc has restricted you to house rest pending another exam tomorrow or the day after.”

  “There’s still a killer out there.”

  Con flicked her shoulder. “Nothing says we can’t work from home. After all, your dining room table is loaded with the case files.”

  “Well, when you put it like that … Let’s eat, then go to my place. Your house is too small to lug all of those cases over here.”

  “I should be offended that you think my home is small.”

  Another smile appeared. It was getting so that he thought this wasn’t the real Nic Rivers. “It’s fine, for its purpose.” She gave him a peck on the lips, then entered the house with Cadno hot on her heels.

  “Kissing me like that will get you everywhere,” he called after her.

  “Who said we had to stop at kissing?”

  • • •

  Nic managed to convince Con to let her come to the church alone. He put up a good fight, but her begging—a tactic she hadn’t used since she was a child—seemed to take him unaware and gave her the foothold to change his mind. She had to do this on the sly or Sheriff Hamilton would have her hide in a sling. So here she sat in her sister’s car—because no one would recognize her in something other than her Jeep—staring at the stone and brick building, trying to gather the fortitude to enter.

  A few people had come and gone, keeping their heads low and speed-walking to and from their vehicles. Doug Walker’s public death had sent the town into a tailspin. People were clinging to their beliefs and their prejudices.

  The midmorning newscast on the car radio focused on the shooting. Tension coiled through Nic as she listened to the vile things the eyewitnesses spewed at the police for their inaction. Who the hell cared that the person who killed himself in front of the children was a cop, or that he held a child hostage? These eyewitnesses claimed that “Doug Walker just wasn’t capable of such a heinous act.”

  Bullshit!

  One woman claimed that maybe the sheriff’s department should look at their female deputy. After all, hadn’t she killed Dusty Walker?

  Even though Nic hadn’t pulled the trigger or killed Doug, they still found a way to place the blame on her for all of this upheaval, whether saying it outright or implying.

  Damn them and their narrow-mindedness.

  Nic gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white and throbbed. What a bunch of pricks. Soon as she put a cap on this Priest case, she was out of here. The people of Eider could take their self-righteous attitudes and shove them up their …

  Sniffing, Nic closed her eyes. Tears spilled over her eyelashes and trickled down her cheek. For days, she’d tried not to let their intolerance get to her, tried to look past it and still care for them, but she couldn’t take the weight any longer.

  Rubbing away her tears, she turned off the battery and then vacated the car. After locking it, she crammed the keys into her pocket and, with head bowed, made the trek into the church. With each step she shoved her emotions into a secret place in her mind and dragged out the numbness that had gotten her through her sniper training and all the missions thereafter. The same sense of unease she’d experienced the last time she stepped into St. Mary’s fell over her again. Like she belonged with the unclean instead of the holy ones. She drew in a deep breath and let it out. No sense of guilt would make her run. She did what she could do. That didn’t make her a murderer.

  A door on the right side of the altar opened, and Father Evans emerged from a little room. He gaped at Nic for a brief moment before plastering a horrible attempt at a welcoming smile on his face and came to greet her. “Deputy Rivers, what a surprise.”

  “I’m sure it is.” She pointed at the room he vacated. “Is that your office?”

  He peered back at the door and shook his head. “No, that is a small waiting room the parishioners use to enter and leave the confessional if they prefer privacy.”

  She noticed the small boxed room off to the right of the door. “Does it have a back exit?”

  “Yes, it leads behind the alter to a door that opens outside, or they can take a hallway that leads into the kitchen in our fellowship hall.”

  How convenient for the guilty to come and go without detection from their fellow congregants and to avoid the gossip sure to follow.

  She scrunched her nose at the errant thought. The person aiding the victims in their suicides knew about their sins. Had he been using the confessional to gather his intel and then hold it against them? “Is there a way for you to get inside from this back passageway without anyone seeing you?”

  Father Evans mimicked her screwed-up facial features. “Actually, yes. I don’t use it, but there is a back door to my side of the confessional that leads to the same hallway.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Of course.” He turned and beckoned for her to follow.

  She fell into step behind him. For a middle-aged man Father Evans moved smoothly, but he had the gait of a man who’d spent too much time on his knees.

  “Am I to assume that yesterday’s events have brought you here?” Father Evans asked as he opened a side panel that hid in the wall.

  “Something like that.”

  She followed him into the passageway, which was wide enough for one person to move through. To the left a door led outside, and to the right she spotted an opening leading into what he’d said was the kitchen. This is probably where the sound of a closing door came from the last time she was here.

  “Is there a special sign outside to let another parishioner know someone is using the confessional?”

  “Uh, yes. Each person is supposed to flip it when they come and go.” Father Evans pointed toward the kitchen. “We don’t have that route set up this way, because not many people use it.”

  Nic backed out of the hall and waited for him to join her. “Have you caught anyone back here at inappropriate times?”

  “How do you mean?” Suspicion tinged his question.

  “I mean, have you seen anyone using the confessional when they’re not supposed to?”

  “I don’t think I care for what you’re implying, Deputy Rivers. The church is open at all times for those in need.”

  Licking her lips, Nic suppressed the urge to give him a feral smile. Back him in a corner and make him squirm. Con might think she was ou
t of line to push people until their tempers popped, but she’d found it a good tactic when dealing with the uncooperative.

  “Like today? I sat out in the parking lot and watched a lot of people come and go. How many of them used your secret passageway to confess their sins? Or better yet, who slipped into your side of the confessional and pretended to be you?”

  “That’s preposterous.” Red blotches appeared on his face. “The people who came here did so because they needed comfort and answers for what happened yesterday. My members would never defile the sanctity of the confessional by pretending to be me.” For a member of the clergy, he had a short fuse, something she hadn’t picked up on the last time she was around him. And a problem that could land him as a suspect.

  “Father Evans, how long have you been pastoring this church?”

  “Sixteen years.”

  Too long for what Agent Hunt had suggested was the killer’s time frame. Father Evans had removed himself from the list, but there still remained the question of how the killer knew what his victims’ sins were. And the confessional made perfect sense.

  “Father, you see, there have been some things that have popped up since I last spoke with you. And more than just Deputy Walker committing suicide for all to see.”

  Losing his stern posture and red face, Father Evans rocked back on his heels. “I see.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “You’ll have to forgive me for my momentary ire at your questioning. I’ve been dealing with the tragic fallout over that incident with most of the townspeople. The clergy of Eider have created a crisis group to help with the mental and physical well-being of the folks after situations like this. I’m somewhat out of sorts.”

  “No more than I am for being the one to watch him do it, and there was nothing I could have done to stop it.” Now, how to ask Father Evans her next question without making her sound like a lunatic? “You know Doug Walker was spouting religious things before he died. But we’ve learned that Dusty, Seth Moore, and Giselle Tomberlin had done the same.”

  “Religious things such as atonement?”

  “Atonement. Commandments. Sins. It’s why they killed themselves. They broke a commandment like adultery, and they needed to atone for their sin. All things I would suspect were confessed in private to someone like ... yourself.”

  “Ahh, but these are things I didn’t hear from any of them. Quite honestly, Deputy, the only one who ever came to speak with me, and he did so not in the confessional, was Dusty Walker, as I told you in our previous conversation. None of the others dared set foot inside the confessional.”

  “Not even Giselle Tomberlin when she was younger?”

  He shook his head. “She was a dear thing, but I could see that she didn’t get along with her family. It came as no surprise to me that she left the church as soon as she was old enough.” Stroking his chin, he pursed lips together.

  Silence hovered over them for a moment. Nic didn’t push it, waiting to see where his thoughts were going.

  “And you say they felt death was the atonement?”

  “Apparently.”

  “How horrific,” he said from behind his hand. “How horribly horrific. Where would they come up with such a thing?”

  Nic couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or the good father was a great actor. Should she reveal to him what they knew about someone assisting in the suicides? He was a clergyman, one sworn to keep a confidence, but in her experience, that meant jack squat at times.

  “Deputy Rivers, you must understand, this is not something the church finds appropriate.”

  “Someone in the congregation seems to, whether the church agrees with it or not.”

  Once again, his expression turned to one of suspicion. “What are you not telling me?”

  In a way, she’d ruled him out as a suspect. What the hell, she could drop the bomb on him. “We suspect someone is assisting these people, talking them into committing suicide. And it’s my belief he’s using the church to find his victims.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “My brain hurts.”

  Con paused in his reading at Nic’s groan. He watched her as she buried her fingers in her hair and bent over the piles of scattered papers all over the table.

  “Hurts how?” he demanded. Since she’d returned from her talk with Father Evans, Con refused to leave her side, per Doc Drummond’s insistence that he keep an eye on her for any repercussions to her concussion. For the most part she appeared to be okay while they scoured the case files for any clue as to who their killer was. Her complaint of a hurting head raised Con’s panic. Was he going to have to rush her back to the hospital?

  “It’s not the concussion. I’m tired of reading the same thing over and over. Father Evans couldn’t give me anything new, except our killer must have used the confessional to gather his information. And Agent Asshole”—she chucked a pencil at Hunt—“hasn’t come through on his promise for the tox screens.”

  “I can’t make them move any faster than I already did. Frankly, I seriously resent you calling me that, Deputy Rivers,” Hunt snarled from his corner. He’d joined them because he had spent the better part of the last thirty-eight hours with Sheriff Hamilton and the police chief, so he could fill in what the departments’ combined efforts had learned about Walker’s suicide. Which was zilch.

  “If the shoe fits,” Cassy muttered from her position on the other side of Nic.

  “Darlin’, you don’t get to agree with her,” Hunt retorted.

  “Says who? I’m the perfect person to agree. I’m the one you screwed over.”

  Con was mid-drink on his cooling coffee, and he choked at Cassy’s blunt retort. Nic’s sister had a pair. And by the flabbergasted expression on Agent Hunt’s face, he hadn’t expected her retort.

  Ever the peacemaker, Con interjected, “Children, let’s play nice.”

  Both Hunt and Cassy looked like they wanted to tell him to suck a rotten egg, but neither spoke.

  “What are we missing?” Nic pointed at the long sheet of paper she’d tacked to her dining room wall that they all were using as a case board.

  Going the length of the paper, separated in columns, were the victim’s names and the information that went with each of their cases. At the end was a big, fat question mark for the victims’ suicide assistant and what little their quartet knew about him. They’d thrown out every speculation they could come up with, and rejected each scenario.

  “This reference to The Priest bothers me,” Cassy said.

  “Maybe it was a moniker Sheila Walker used in her emails with Seth Moore.”

  “Or it was the way the killer referred to himself,” Con said and pushed out of his chair. He skirted the table, grabbed the marker, then circled the bullet point: a newcomer to Eider. “I think we’re looking in the wrong place.” He jotted “The Priest” in quotes under the question mark. “Who do we know who’s new to Eider?”

  “That’s going to have to be all you and Nic,” Cassy said. “Boyce and I aren’t familiar with the people around here.”

  Nic shoved the files away from her spot and grabbed a notepad. “We rule out the visitors for the Fall Festival. Some come every year, but they’re not here long enough to establish personal relationships to the point they can convince someone to kill themselves.”

  Twenty minutes later, after rejecting dozens of citizens who didn’t fit the time frame of living in Eider in the last year or two, Con had a list of four names.

  “Why do we even have Seth Moore on that list?” Cassy asked. “He’s dead.”

  Hunt tapped his chin with a pen. “Could be he started it and had a friend help him out until Moore crossed the line with his adultery with Sheila Walker.”

  “That sounds too far-fetched. And what makes you think your junior deputy is capable of pulling off something like this?” Cassy pressed.

  “Adam Jennings’s arrival in Eider fits in our time frame. I hate to think he’s the mastermind behind all of this, but the kid has the capabi
lity to pull it off. And he’s been the one feeding us the information from the computers and such,” Nic said.

  Con drummed the marker against the tabletop. “The junior deputy is too wet behind the ears. He trips over his words and can’t hold his own in a fight.” He pointed at Nic. “You had to haul Doug off of him when they found out Sheila was cheating on Dusty.”

  “We’re talking about someone who can act and sweet-talk anyone into doing the unthinkable. Don’t you think that Jennings could be pulling off the greatest show of his career?” Nic insisted.

  “Someone that young?” Con shook his head. “I just can’t see it.”

  “Nic could be onto something. Age doesn’t know any bounds, Detective. I’ve encountered cold-blooded teenagers who’d as soon shoot you as look at you.”

  Cassy sighed. “Boyce is right, Con. I’ve arrested college students for some heinous things.”

  “We’re looking for someone who had close contact with all of these victims. Possibly using the church to get to them.” Nic jotted on her notepad as she spoke. “Jennings worked with Walker, who was a cousin to Dusty, so they could’ve met through Walker. Jennings could have spotted Sheila with Seth and put two and two together. He’s a single guy who probably needed to let off some steam. Strip bar, Giselle, you get my drift, which leads back to Doug, who was there a lot.”

  “Pleóid air! We’re forgetting someone.”

  “Who?”

  He looked her right in the eye. “Patrick Keegan.”

  “That, I find highly unlikely,” Nic said.

  “The waiter who works for your mom at the Killdeer Pub?” Hunt asked.

  With a nod, Con added Patrick’s name to their list of newcomers. “He fits the demographic, Nic, and he’s had close contact with all these people. And he’s an avid visitor to the church. He wanted Sundays off for that very reason.”

  “I’ve spent time with Patrick; he wouldn’t hurt a flea,” Cassy said.

  Nic scowled at her sister. “When have you spent time with Patrick?”

  “The day before the festival started. He showed me around.”