by Elle Gray
“This man I’m looking for may have witnessed a murder, Cat,” I tell her. “This is as serious as it gets, and I really need his help.”
She fixes her blue eyes on me, seeming to have come to her decision. “What is his name? This man you’re looking for?”
“I don’t know his real name, but I’m hoping that since you’re familiar with the less fortunate, you might,” I say. “The name he gave the police was Louis Vitton.”
A smile flickers across her lips and she shakes her head. She knows him. Sister Cat looks up at me and grins.
“His real name is William Turner,” she says. “Sergeant William Turner. He’s a veteran and has some issues. He’s also got an affinity for fashion designers. William likes to tell people his name is Ralph Lauren, or Giorgio Armani. My favorite was when he insisted his name was Diane von Furstenberg. That went on for a couple of weeks. But he’s much better when he takes his meds. He’s lucid. Stable. Doesn’t run around telling people he’s Gianni Versace.”
“Do you know why he does that?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I have no idea. It’s just one of his eccentricities, I suppose,” she says. “You can’t go to war and see the things he saw, or do the things he did, and not come back a little… different.”
“That’s so true,” I say. “I’ve known plenty of vets who’ve been changed forever by war. I can’t imagine.”
“I tell you that so that you know he’s delicate, Blake,” she says. “I understand you need whatever information he might have, but I beg you to please be gentle with him.”
“You have my word, Cat.”
“Then that’s good enough for me. I can see you’re a good and trustworthy person,” she says. “That’s the only reason I’m going to help.”
“And I appreciate that more than you know.”
“I’ll put out the word that I need to see him,” she tells me. “Come back tomorrow around lunchtime. I’ll be sure to have him here.”
I take her hand and give it a squeeze. “Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Twenty-Six
Industrial District; Briar Glen, WA
I get up from the bed and get myself dressed, my eyes never leaving her. She’s curled into a ball on the mattress, her bare back to me. She’s hugging herself tightly and sobbing wildly. I’ve soundproofed the walls in this room. in theory, she can scream all she wants and nobody will hear her. I’d prefer she didn’t though. It would irritate me.
When my people joined me in this mission, I rebuilt this room in the old family factory. I paneled the walls and made it a comfortable bedroom, bringing in a large, soft bed and other furnishings. This is where the ritual takes place. This is where we purify our souls and consecrate our bodies.
“Be still. Stop crying,” I command.
She tries to choke back her cries but can’t. I reach for the cat o’nine tails on the nightstand, running my hands up and down the long, smooth, leather handle. The feeling of my tool, my instrument, my weapon, my holy totem, sends shivers and purpose running through me. I smile, content in God’s light.
“I said be still, child. You are being purified. Your body consecrated. And your sacrifice sanctifies us all,” I say. “Your sacrifice blesses our work. So do you not see? There is nothing for you to cry about. You are doing a good thing, child. You are helping us cleanse this world of evil.”
She continues to sob, but it’s quieter than before. Even still, her crying irritates me, so I lash out with the cat o’nine tails. She screams and arches her back as the welts from the studded leather braids bite into her flesh.
“Mortification of the flesh has been used to purify ourselves for centuries. For thousands of years,” I tell her. “We rend our own flesh to purge the evil within us. To cleanse ourselves.”
I’m tempted to lash her again, just to get her to stop crying, but I don’t want to mark her up too badly. The others have not had their turn just yet. This is part of the ritual. Part of the cleansing and purification of ourselves, and the renewal of our bonds to both, our mission, and to ourselves.
I walk over to the oak highboy and pick up the candle, then turn and carry it back to the bed. I tilt it and watch as a thin stream of wax spills over the side and splashes onto her flesh. The girl screams as if I’ve just used a hot iron to brand her and writhes on the bed in front of me. I chuckle to myself and return the candle to its place.
“Why are you doing this?” she whimpers.
I turn to her, surprised to hear her speak. The candlelight glows softly on her creamy pale skin, and glints off eyes as green as jade. Dark hair frames her lovely face, and my eyes are drawn to her full lips. My gaze travels lower, taking in the swell of her breasts, and curve of her hips, and I feel my arousal growing again.
I push it away though. I’ve purified myself. To partake of her flesh again would be gluttonous. Lustful. It would be wrong, and so I must deny myself. But she is such a beautiful woman and reminds me so much of my wife, who has been gone from this world for a long while now. In a way, they all remind me of her. But the woman on the bed before me looks so similar, she could be related, and the thought of keeping this one drifts through my mind.
The knock on the door draws my attention and pulls me out of my thoughts. Thankfully. Those were abhorrent thoughts. Dangerous thoughts. Entertaining the idea of keeping this woman for my own is wrong. It goes against my teachings and would be an affront to my people and our ways. It would endanger our mission and disrupt our good works.
“No, I can’t think of keeping her. I won’t keep her,” I mutter to myself.
Turning away from her, I slip into my robes and slide my mask down over my face. Only then do I walk to the door, unlock it, and open it up to the next of my flock.
“My heart has been purified,” I give our traditional ritual greeting. “My body has been sanctified. My bonds to you, to our faith, and to our good works have been renewed. How do you enter?”
“I enter seeking to be purified and sanctified,” he replies. “I enter seeking to renew my bonds to you, to our faith, and to our good works. Nos servo fidem.”
“Nos servo fidem,” I repeat. “So may you enter.”
I step out as he goes in and closes the door, locking it behind him. She is the third of our seven. I have the next four picked out already. As usual, our ritual is running smoothly. Once we have all purified ourselves, we will then purify her through mortification of the flesh. We will send her to God as pure and innocent as a newborn. And my people and I will be sanctified for the next seven years.
My footsteps echo around the empty corridors, and my torchlight flickers and jumps upon the walls like living animals as I make my way toward the stairs. His voice stops me before I get there.
“Brother,” he calls.
I turn to him. “Brother,” I reply. “I believe your turn to purify yourself comes next.”
“It does,” he replies. “But I wanted to speak with you first. I have concerns.”
Of course he does. He always has concerns. Of my people, he’s the jumpiest. He’s always on edge and worried about something. He wasn’t always this way. But over the years, he’s grown more skittish. It makes me wonder whether he is still a true believer or not. If he still believes in our mission and in our works.
That I have to question it at all disturbs me. I will need to address this at some point, because if he cannot be trusted, he is a danger to our entire flock. I hate to think of it like that. I’ve known him for thirty years and consider him one of my closest friends. But I can’t have him endangering our work.
“What are your concerns?” I ask.
“The FBI Agent,” he says. “She found her way to St. Bernard’s.”
“I know this already.”
“And you’re not concerned?”
“Why should I be? Sister Catherine knows nothing,” I tell him. “There is nothing to tie St. Bernard’s to our works.”
“Are you
sure of that?”
“Of course I am,” I assure him. “If I wasn’t, I would share your concerns. As would everybody else. We all have the same skin in the game, Brother.”
He shifts on his feet, still radiating tension and fear. In truth, I’m merely saying what I have to in order to calm him. I don’t know for certain what this FBI agent can find at the mission, but I don’t think there’s much there to find. It’s slightly worrisome, but I don’t really think it’s a big deal.
It’s true, our group was founded there. It was where we first shared our grief. Shared our stories. It’s where the seeds were planted and nurtured. Our names are on records somewhere in there, but unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, there is no way to connect us.
“She’s clever, this Fed woman,” he continues. “Smart. Worse than that, she’s determined. And relentless.”
“Be calm, Brother,” I implore him. “I truly don’t think there is anything to worry about. I think you are working yourself up for nothing.”
“I wish I could believe that. But we have so much to lose.”
Reaching out, I put a hand on his shoulder and give it a reassuring squeeze.
“Be at ease. We have all already lost everything that was precious to us,” I tell him. “There is nothing this world that can be taken from us that’s worse than what’s already been taken. It is only our work that frees us. Am I right?”
He hesitates, but nods. “You are right. As always,” he says. “I’m sorry for my doubts, Brother. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive. We all have fears. We all have doubts,” I say. “If we did not, we would not be human. Nos servo fidem.”
“Nos servo fidem.”
He gives me a nod, then turns and walks away. He says all the right things, but I know he’s still scared. On the one hand, I can’t blame him. I have no desire to spend the rest of my days in prison either. That would be a fate worse than death. On the other hand, we expect total commitment. Our work demands it.
Faith is all we have. Faith in each other, and faith in our work. Without faith, we are nothing and we might as well not do our good works. We might as well sit back and let the degenerates and evildoers have run of the world.
But I will not have it. My people will not have it. God demands faith and he demands justice. If there is something at St. Bernard’s that must be dealt with, we will deal with it. Just as if we have somebody who is losing their faith and breaking their bond with us, we will deal with that too.
Nos servo fidem. We keep the faith.
Twenty-Seven
Pacific Crest Motor Court; Briar Glen, WA
“So we have a witness?” Astra asks.
“I’m hoping so. I have to go back to the mission at noon tomorrow to meet with him,” I tell her.
Astra leans back in her chair and looks at me. “A witness would be good. Really good.”
“It would be. But I have to be honest, I have my concerns about him,” I say. “In his initial statement to the police, he was talking about angels and demons kidnapping this kid Tyler. Plus, Sister Catherine said he’s delicate. So I’m not entirely sold on this guy yet.”
“Probably suffering from PTSD.”
I nod. “That was my thought too,” I tell her. “It might not hurt to see if we can get him into the VA.”
“If he’ll go.”
“Yeah, there is that.”
I drop down into the chair across from her and turn my attention to the white board. She’s got twenty-three names in the “Omnivore Unsub” column, with dates, and brief descriptions next to them. I note that there are men and women on the list. White, Black, Asian, Hispanic. Again, it cuts across all normal demographic lines, staying true to the omnivore profile.
“There are undoubtedly more. This is just over that uptick in the last four years you had me look at,” she says, noticing me looking at the list. “But those were the ones I’ve found so far that were dump jobs. And none of the ME’s reports back that up. It’s only in the crime scene photos that you can tell.”
“And let me guess, Dr. Sofia Carville was the ME listed on all the reports?”
“The one and only.”
“This is looking worse and worse for her,” I mention.
Astra nods. “But here’s the weird thing. Originally, I couldn’t find the crime scene photos from these case files. They’d been deleted.”
“Deleted?”
She nods. “Yeah, like physically deleted.”
“So how’d you dig them up?”
“I called a friend of mine who’s pretty good with computers and he was able to… recover them.”
I look over at her, a smirk on my lips. “Do I want to know how your friend managed to recover them?”
“No, definitely not.”
“Fair enough,” I grin. “Ignorance, as they say, is bliss.”
“Especially if it keeps you out of prison.”
“Absolutely,” I reply.
We both fall silent for a moment as I continue to scan the list on the white board. I think back to my conversation with Sister Catherine and the idea that took root in my head at the mission.
“Tell me something,” I say. “Is there any way for you to tell if the names on the Omnivore list were homeless?”
“I looked at that and they all have addresses listed,” she replies. “And get this, here’s another commonality that we can’t overlook. Those twenty-three people all had previous brushes with the law.”
“Brushes?”
She nods. “None of those twenty-three were ever convicted of anything, but they were all charged for one thing or another at some point,” she says. “But, like the crime scene photos, their charging records were all deleted.”
“Well, if they were never convicted of anything, they wouldn’t have a record.”
“That’s not what I mean. When you’re charged and booked, you generate paper. Charging documents, mugshots, the whole works,” she says. “And those papers get stored, whether you’re convicted or not. But it’s like somebody went into the database where those papers are stored and plucked them out.”
I tug on the end of my hair, thinking about it and know that she’s right. Charging documents and all don’t just magically disappear when your case is disposed of. It’s not an open case, of course, but those records are definitely kept in a database somewhere. The fact that they were erased is intriguing. To say the least.
“Okay, so who would have access to do that?” I ask. “Who could go into a court database and delete things?”
“Anybody with a password. This isn’t a federal database, babe. It’s a local municipality. They maintain their own records,” she tells me. “So anybody from the mayor, to the city attorney, to your Sheriff could possibly have access. You also have to wonder if former employees still have access. If the city isn’t diligent about changing access protocols and passwords, there could be an even bigger group of people out there who can do it.”
“Yeah, but don’t they leave fingerprints?” I ask. “I mean, if it’s a login database, they surely have to have a record of who went in and removed the files.”
“Had my friend check that too, and whoever it was, knew to cover their tracks,” she tells me. “They used a system admin login. There’s no way of telling who it was.”
“Well that should narrow the suspect pool some.”
“Sure. Assuming the people who have system admin passwords haven’t given them out,” she says.
“This just gets better and better,” I sigh in frustration. “Okay, I think the first thing we need to do is get a list of people who have system admin passwords currently. We can cull through those and find a possible suspect that way. Or at least somebody we can squeeze until they squeal.”
Silence descends over the room again as we lose ourselves in our thoughts. This whole thing is beginning to take focus, and the picture it’s revealing is a lot uglier than I ever anticipated it would be. If all of this theory
pans out, we’re looking at a possible conspiracy to commit mass serial murder inside the city’s government. To pull off something like this, it would require multiple people. One person couldn’t do this alone any more than Sofia could have carried Tracy Webster out to Widow’s Bluff all by herself either.
It’s not lost on me either that the uptick in the last four years happens square right in the middle of Morris’ term as Sherriff.
It sounds absolutely crazy. Like something out of a Grisham thriller or something. It’s a plot that doesn’t sound like it can be real. The idea of multiple members of a city government conspiring to murder their own citizens sounds beyond outlandish. Preposterous. And yet, here we are, all the same.
I frown as the pieces in my head start to fall into place. “So, stop me if this starts to sound too insane－”
“Stop,” Astra says with a laugh. “Trust me, I’ve been looking at this all day. I’ve been looking at it from every possible angle, and it gets more and more insane the more I think about it.”
“You’re not wrong. But I need to talk this out,” I tell her. “So, we have somebody inside the city government, well call them unsub A, who has an axe to grind with people who are charged with crimes but are never convicted.”
“It could be multiple unsubs, but we’ll go with A for expediency’s sake.”
“Good. That works. Okay, so unsub A, enraged by the system failing to send people who, in their view, are criminals, to jail, murders them,” I go on. “And once he carries out his sentence, he then uses his access and goes into the appropriate databases, police and court, and removes records, photos, and everything else, to cover his tracks. How am I doing?”
“Oh, it still sounds outlandish as hell, but you’re doing fine,” Astra says. “Go on.”
“That’s where I stop,” I reply. “Because I’m still trying to figure out how Tracy and Stephanie fit into this picture.”