Fine Blue Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 4)

by Alex P. Berg

  Quinto snickered. “That Hurly Boys novel must be pretty engaging.”

  The series, which had about four hundred iterations, was aimed at teenagers, so it was mildly amusing to see someone of Goodman’s caliber reading one.

  “Can it, Gaptooth,” said the guardsman. “For your information, I ran out of quality reading material ages ago, so I’ve been relegated to this fluff to keep my brain from melting. If only more mystery writers cranked books out on a more predictable schedule…”

  “Amen to that,” I said. “But on a more important note, we need to get into the vault.”

  “No problem.” Goodman reached under the lip of his desk and produced a key. “I’m headed out, though, so you know the drill. Lock the key in the safe when you’re done.”

  “You got it.”

  I took the key, slid it into the record vault gate’s lock, and cranked on it. The metal contraption responded with a clunk, and I slid it to the side.

  Shay stepped through the portal, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “So. This is the famed records vault. Smells…musty.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never been here before,” I said.

  “Oh, I’ve come down,” said Shay. “I had to introduce myself to Goodman—”

  “Of course you did,” I said.

  “—but I’ve never been in the vault proper,” continued Shay. “Never had a need to until now.”

  I shook my head. “See? This is how I know this place is going to pot. Back in my day, we didn’t have interns whose jobs it was ferry files back and forth to the vault. We did it ourselves. In the snow. Uphill. Both ways.”

  “Daggers, you still work here,” said Steele. “And I don’t even know how to respond to the rest of that.”

  “Are you two coming or not?” Quinto’s voice echoed off the makeshift walls of cardboard boxes and steel shelving that filled the vault. A flickering light created a halo around his massive frame as he descended into the depths, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for Goodman. Hopefully the old guy would be able to limp his way out without his trusty lantern.

  I rushed after Quinto, past stacks and stacks of dull brown file boxes, each marked with a department and a range of dates. By the time I made it to the homicide files, Quinto had already pulled out the box with the date range encompassing Tabitha’s investigation. He’d set it on the floor, and he thumbed through the contents with his sausage-like fingers.

  “Here it is.” He yanked a manila folder from its entourage, one with ‘T. Vo’ and the date on the tab. He flipped it open and held its contents up to the flickering lantern light.

  Because of the big guy’s positioning, I couldn’t see what the file contained. “So? What does it say?”

  “Give me a sec,” said Quinto. “I’m not a speed reader. Ok, let’s see… Elmswood did, in fact, rule Tabitha’s death a suicide.”

  “And how’d she die?” I asked.

  Quinto flipped a page. “Well, uh…” He grimaced. “Ooh. She jumped out a window. At the Church of the Holy Oblivion. And unless I’m mistaken, she jumped out the window in Cornelius Vo’s office. The same one we saw today that had been busted up.”

  “Was Vo a suspect in her death?” asked Shay.

  Quinto’s eyes scanned across the page. “Yes. But…Elmswood couldn’t place him at the scene.”

  “And no one suspected any foul play?” I asked.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that,” said Quinto. “But from what’s recorded here, it does seem likely she killed herself. Elmswood and company did some thorough digging into her past. Interviewed Vo as well as a number of her friends and acquaintances. They all said pretty much the same thing—that she’d been extremely depressed and distant leading up to her death. ‘Conflicted’ is a word that pops up multiple times in the report. Apparently, Elmswood thought her conversion to the Church of the Holy Oblivion was the nail in her coffin, so to speak. Given how few cheery, upbeat individuals convert to the religion, that action helped prop up the story of her depression.”

  “Really?” I asked. “There wasn’t any evidence indicating this wasn’t a suicide? No stray prints, or anomalous injuries, or suspicious depositions?”

  Quinto flipped a few more pages. “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Were there any other suspects in her death?” asked Shay.

  Quinto flipped back to the second page. “One. Her ex-husband, another minister by the name of Julian Bellamy.”

  Shay and I nearly bowled each other over with the strength of our exclamations.

  “What?”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Quinto,” I said. “Why didn’t you mention that sooner?”

  The big guy stared at me blankly, and I realized he’d never tagged along on our trips to the temple of the leafy green trees.

  “We need to get to the Church of the Divine Rebirth,“ I said.

  “Hold on,” said Quinto. “I’m not entirely sure what I’ve missed here, but according to this report, Julian Bellamy couldn’t have killed Tabitha Vo. He had a rock solid alibi. Apparently he was delivering a sermon to twenty or so people at the time of her death.”

  Quinto pressed a needle against the bubble of ideas in my mind, and I thought it might pop, but at the moment of critical pressure, I recalled a seemingly flippant statement Cairny had made in the morgue. Something about Deacon Vo’s killer.

  “Bellamy,” I said. “Was he alone? During the sermon?”

  “Huh?” Quinto glanced at the case file. “I don’t know. It doesn’t say. Why?”

  I smiled. “Because I know who killed Cornelius Vo. And Tabitha Vo, for that matter. Now come on. We need to get back to the Church of the Divine Rebirth right away.”

  38

  Quinto, Shay, and I pushed open the doors at the front of the Church of the Divine Rebirth and stepped into the darkened interior. The last vestiges of day had long since bid their farewells, and upon the sun’s departure, the creeping fog had pounced on its opportunity. Outside, the mist swirled, ominous and thick, but inside the church, it dripped from the sagging boughs of the trees like dew-soaked spider webs and wrapped itself around their trunks in chill, heartless embraces. A half-dozen lanterns set at the structure’s sides cast a hazy glow, not so much illuminating the interior as providing glimpses into its gloomy depths.

  Quinto cast his gaze into the darkness. “Names be damned—this church is far more terrifying than that Holy Oblivion place.”

  “It’s much less so in the day,” I said. “Now, come on. We have warm bodies to find. And keep your ears peeled, Steele. I don’t want anyone creeping up on us in this fog.”

  I led the way, meandering through the church interior more than I wanted to thanks to the fog. After I’d convinced myself no one hid among the place’s numerous recessed stone pits or between the wooden benches at the far end, I ventured into the living quarters beyond. I stepped through the dimly lit corridor in back slowly, intending to check off each room one by one, when Shay stopped me with a hand to my shoulder.

  “I heard a creak. That-a-way.” She gestured up, in the direction of Bellamy’s office.

  I mounted the stairs, liberating Daisy from the interior of my jacket as I did so. As we reached the door to Bellamy’s office, I stretched my ears, but I couldn’t detect anything other than my own breathing. Nonetheless, I gave Quinto a nod. He nodded back. I pressed my hand to the door knob and turned.

  A heavy hint of the day’s incense lingered in the room, tickling my nose but thankfully without the same gag-inducing force as before. A lantern burned bright against the far wall, shining light onto the colorful piles of pillows and the into the houseplants’ dense underbrush.

  In the middle of the pillows knelt Chester, clad in the same ankle-length grey robe I assumed was his only choice of attire. One of the thuribles—empty, based off the lack of smoke trailing from the openings in the metalwork—lay on the ground near his knees, but in his huge hands, he held something tangentially related.

&nbs
p; A long piece of metal—steel, if I wasn’t mistaken—perhaps three quarters of an inch across, with a hook at the end. The thurible stand.

  “Drop it, Slim,” I said as I walked into the room, “and put your hands behind your head.”

  The gangly youth did partly as I asked, dropping the thurible stand to the ground where it bounced harmlessly off the cushions, but he leapt to his feet and stared at us with frightened eyes. He glanced at me and then Quinto, who hunched over, coiled and ready to pounce, before moving his eyes to the window, which stood open by the barest of cracks.

  “Don’t even think about it, Chester,” I said as I held Daisy out in a threatening manner. “We’re faster than we look, I promise you. And don’t think you can talk your way out of this.” The irony of the statement hit me as soon as I’d said it. “We know everything. We found Vo’s body at the Church of the Holy Oblivion. I don’t know if our coroner will be able to pull your prints off his neck, but I’m certain once we take a closer look at those massive hands of yours, we’ll find your prints somewhere in his office.”

  Chester’s brow furrowed as his eyes darted back and forth. He worked his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “Curious how we knew it was you, are you?” I asked. “Come on, young man. Did you think we wouldn’t make the connection between Vo’s late wife and Pastor Bellamy? He had an alibi—a concrete one, I might add—but you? Where were you that day, one year ago tonight?”

  As expected, Chester didn’t respond, but he wet his lips and rubbed them together.

  “Cat got your tongue?” I asked. “Figures. So, tell me. Why did you do it? Did Bellamy order you to? Or did you do it on your own? Was Bellamy still in love with his former wife? Did it irk you that he cared more about her than you, his faithful apprentice? Or was this a murder of religious zeal? Perhaps Tabitha was unfaithful to your beloved Bellamy, and so you thought her soul would be better put to use somewhere else, birthed anew as a caterpillar or a pine tree.”

  Chester’s mouth opened, and he croaked out a response in a stereotypically squeaky teenager voice, though one several octaves lower than the norm thanks to the size of his larynx. “I… I…”

  “Oh, you’re talking now?” I said. “Good. Because I’d like for you to explain the murders of the two homeless men. Why did you kill them? And why bother smothering one of them with one of the countless pillows at your feet when you clearly get a kick out of strangling people with your bare hands?”

  “I…I didn’t kill anyone,” squawked Chester, his voice sounding like the illegitimate child of a bass drum and a piece of rusty farm equipment. “You’ve…made a mistake. This isn’t what it looks like.”

  “Really?” I said. “Because it looks like you delicately caressing the various household implements you’ve used to murder people.”

  Chester pressed his elephantine hands against his temples and shook his head. “No. No. I just started to piece it all together myself. The missing transients. The events of yesterday morning. My master’s response upon seeing that token from the Church of the Holy Oblivion.”

  “Aha,” I said. “So you lied. You did know what it was.”

  “Well, yes,” said Chester. “But only because Master Bellamy claimed not to. I knew he was familiar with that church, because of his ex-wife’s conversion. I couldn’t figure out why he’d lie about that.”

  I recalled Chester’s reaction to the sight of the token, the way he’d glanced from me to the token to Bellamy and back to me and the way his mouth had twitched. I hadn’t imagined it. His indecision as to whether or not to contradict his master could’ve explained his actions, which meant he might be telling the truth—or at least part of it.

  “Keep talking,” I said.

  “I first noticed it yesterday morning,” said Chester as he wrung his hands together. “It was after you came and asked Master Bellamy about the disturbance outside. Master Bellamy said he heard a man and a woman shouting at each other, followed by fighting, and that’s all true. I heard it as well. But I thought it started before that. I awoke to a scream, perhaps two or three minutes before I noticed the shouting outside, and I could’ve sworn it came from inside the church. My thoughts were for Master Bellamy’s safety, so I hurried first to his office and then to his quarters to see if he was ok, but I couldn’t find him. It was only later, after the shouting began, that I found him back here.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” asked Shay.

  I jumped at the sound of her voice. In my hawklike focus on Chester Skillethands, I’d almost forgotten about her and Quinto.

  “I thought perhaps I’d imagined it,” said Chester. “Master Bellamy was unharmed, and no one other than the two of us lives at the church. No one would’ve been here at such an early hour.”

  “Where’s Bellamy now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Chester. “He left around nightfall, or at least that’s when I noticed him gone. He’s been doing that for a couple weeks now—leaving unannounced I mean. Always at night. I think he didn’t know I’d noticed, but I wake easily.”

  I glanced at Steele. “What do you think?”

  She seemed to catch my drift. “He could be telling the truth. If Bellamy somehow cut out a bit earlier than Chester thinks, he might’ve been able to make it to the Church of the Holy Oblivion within our murder window.”

  Quinto grunted. “Let me remind you that, according to the eye witness accounts in Elmswood’s file, Bellamy couldn’t have killed Tabitha Vo.”

  “No,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t blame Cornelius Vo for her death, whether justly or not.”

  I glanced at the seven foot tall youth again. “Chester, if you think you’re going to have any chance of convincing us of your lack of involvement in this, you’ll to need to help us locate Bellamy. So I’ll ask again. Where is he?”

  “I’m telling you, I don’t know,” he said. “And I swear I had nothing to do with his wife’s death. Honest to the souls of rebirth, I thought she committed suicide. But…”

  “But what?” asked Steele.

  “Well, if Master Bellamy is indeed involved in something heinous,” said Chester. “If he did have clandestine affairs with those homeless men, or if he attacked them, he must’ve done it somewhere nearby. Somewhere in this church, if I’m not imagining the scream I heard.”

  “And you think you know where?” I asked.

  Chester gave me a small nod. “Follow me.”

  39

  Quinto followed Chester closely—very closely, practically breathing on his neck—as he led us down two flights of stairs to the church’s basement. We snaked along a narrow passageway, past a cold pantry and a couple of densely-packed storage rooms, before eventually stopping at a door at the far end of the corridor.

  A chill radiated off the basement’s stone walls. I shivered as I nodded toward the door. “Well?”

  Chester knocked, then when no one answered, he tried the doorknob. He turned and shrugged. “It’s locked.”

  “Well, Captain Obvious,” I said. “Do you have a key?”

  Chester shook his head. “Only Master Bellamy does. These are his private chambers. I’ve never been down here myself. In fact, it’s the only place in the church I haven’t been, which is why I brought you here.”

  I still clutched Daisy in my right hand, so it was a hand and a fist that I rubbed together in glee. “Alright, then. Step back everyone, and let me do what I do best.”

  Quinto frowned and grunted. “Why is it every time an application of force is required, you make me do it—except on the rare occasions a door needs to be kicked in?”

  “The perks of seniority, my friend,” I said. “Now stand back.”

  I slammed Daisy’s tip against the face of the door three times. “Police! Open up!”

  I didn’t actually think there’d be anyone inside, but yelling before I sprang into action gave me a heady thrill, and it protected me in case of liability should someone be standing on t
he other side, looking through a peephole. I sent the heel of my boot crashing into the door above the lock. Wood splintered, cracked, and gave way, and I surged into the great unknown beyond.

  I blinked, expecting a yawning void of darkness or perhaps a janitorial closet, but I found neither. Instead, three or four dozen votive candles spread their light throughout a wide room, from nightstands and wall sconces and even from the floor. All of them flickered, their wicks lit, indicating someone—most likely Pastor Bellamy—had recently left. Much like Bellamy’s upstairs quarters, pillows of varying shapes, colors, and sizes littered the floor, and a metallic gleam from the far side of the room caught my eye. Another thurible stand, with the thurible itself on the ground at its feet.

  Despite the lack of smoke coming from the metal censer, the room smelled of incense almost as strongly as Bellamy’s quarters had earlier today—perhaps due to the collective output of the candles—but lying underneath the aromatic oils and whiffs of potpourri was something altogether different. A putrid collection of scents. Blood. Rot. Decay. I couldn’t put my finger on what, but I suspected if I could, I’d want to wash my finger thoroughly afterwards.

  I entered the room, dodging pillows as I walked. Shay skirted around me, headed in the direction of the thurible stand, while Quinto escorted Chester in. In the center of the floor, in a space clear of cushions and clutter and haphazardly ringed by candles, a collection of branches and sticks and bleached wood mingled with grayish-white beams—bones?—to form an oval with a perimeter roughly large enough to contain a man. A dark stain marred the oval’s center. Blood, I assumed.

  “What in the world is this?” I said.

  I hadn’t expected an answer, but Chester gave me one regardless. “A psychitaph.”

  “Psychopath?” I asked.

  “Psychitaph,” repeated Chester. “I’ve never seen one myself, but I’ve read of them in some of the ancient texts on our religion. According to lore, they were crafted by those in sects with proximity to the sea and fashioned out of driftwood and whale bone.”