by C. J. Kyle
Her eyes grew wide, and he could see her preparing to run. But as he stood to go after her, she surprised him by not running away from the scene, but directly toward it.
“Son of a bitch!” Turning, he raced toward her, catching her when she stopped at the tree line. He grabbed her arm and yanked her to his chest. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, I had to—it’s—I needed to see for myself.” She was staring at the body, trembling, ghostly pale. Her words were whispered, and when he spun her to face him, he saw tears in her eyes. “Oh God, no. I think I’m going to be sick.”
He hustled her back toward the path before she could contaminate his crime scene. He held her hair, but turned his back to her, trying to save a bit of her dignity as she deposited the contents of her stomach into the pristine snow.
“Who the hell is she?” Andy stopped beside them.
Tucker ignored him. Miranda wiped her mouth as she turned to face him, tears glistening in her eyes and rushing down her cheeks.
Tucker gave her a slight shake. “What the hell are you doing here, Miranda?”
He tried to read her, but her face gave no explanation for her outburst. Her teeth chattered so loudly that he couldn’t make out her mumbled words. He guided her to the cruiser and popped the trunk, pulled out his spare coat, and slid it over her parka.
“Go home, Andy. No sense in both of us waiting here.”
“Who is she, boss? Want me to take her in?”
“Nah. She’s my problem for now.” He fished inside Miranda’s coat and came up empty. “Where are your keys, Miranda?”
“C-car.”
“And where’d you park the car?”
She didn’t answer. Tucker swore. “She drives a black Range Rover. Find it. Make sure it gets taken back to my place. She’s one of my renters.”
Andy looked confused, one eye narrowed, the other brow raised. “You’re letting her stay?”
“Just do it.” His patience worn thin, Tucker popped open the back door of his cruiser and none too gently placed Miranda inside.
He glanced over his shoulder. “You too, Walt. Get on home. Take Trapper with you. I’ll make sure your property is violated as little as possible.”
The old man spit again and glowered. “I don’t want no reporters sticking their noses ’round here tomorrow, either. You keep this under your belt or there’ll be a lot of journalists with pencils crammed up their asses.”
“Not smart to make threats around an officer of the law. Go on now.”
Walt grumbled his way back toward his house, and Tucker looked down at Miranda. She wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“Did you know that man, Miranda?”
“No.”
“So you just reacted that way because you saw a dead body?”
“Yes. No. I need a minute to think!”
To hell with that. “Think about what? You followed me to a crime scene and nearly contaminated the shit out of it. The time for games and stories is long past, Miranda. Why the hell are you really in my town?”
Her wide eyes searched his face, and Tucker stood still, watching her, waiting her out. “If you’ll take me to the cottage, I can show you something you might want to see.”
Show him something? “Are you trying to fuck with my head, woman? Show me what?”
She glanced toward the body, invisible now beneath the shadows of trees and night. “Did he have a burn on his face? Between his eyes?”
Other than the broken jaw and sliced throat, he hadn’t yet had time to detail anything about the victim’s face. “Why would you think he did?”
“Just look. If he does, then I’ll know I’m right.”
“Right about what?”
“I need to know.” She held his gaze. “Please.”
Tucker clenched his teeth. “Move your legs.”
She looked as though she wouldn’t obey, then slowly swung her legs inside the car. He slammed the door with more force than necessary.
He left her there and returned to the body. The packed dirt beneath the trees was now becoming muddy from the light layer of blowing snow. He knelt and rested his elbows on his knees, his gut churning as he imagined the forthcoming conversation he was going to have with the mayor. Telling someone his son had been murdered was something he’d hoped he’d never have to do again. That he was going to be the Reaper’s messenger tonight and leave a family bereft was giving him an ulcer.
He would be breaking every damned rule in the book if he touched the body, but he suspected Miranda knew something about all this, and if playing her little game was going to make her speak up, he’d play. For a little while.
The white suit jacket pooled around Michael like a silky blanket, soiled with mud and blood and a few bits of pine straw. Gently, Tucker pushed the hair from the pale face, revealing wide green eyes frozen open. He shone the beam of his light over him.
At first, the only things he saw were the man’s blue-tinged skin and those eyes. He held his arm above his head, changing the position of the light so he wouldn’t have to touch anything more than the strands of hair his fingers had brushed.
And there it was, burned into the center of the man’s forehead. The sign of the cross.
What the hell was going on in his town?
Chapter 11
FROM THE BACKSEAT of the police cruiser, Miranda could hear Tucker talking on his radio even before she could see him step from the darkness onto the dirt road. But she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Had he seen the burn? Would he even tell her if he had? She hated putting her trust in someone she barely knew, someone in a line of work that had let her down more times than she cared to count.
But what choice did she have? This was his town. She didn’t have any connections here. And after what she’d just seen, keeping to herself was no longer an option. The only way she could get the details she needed was to trust Tucker with the information she’d been gathering since her return to the States.
And hope like hell that he’d be different.
Detective Langley, the lead detective in Dayton, had listened to her suspicions for all of ten seconds. Once he’d confirmed that the priest had been out of town when one of the murders had occurred, Miranda had been chastised for wasting the department’s time and money, before being dismissed. It hadn’t mattered that she’d talked to parishioners in the neighboring towns who’d confirmed that there were several hours unaccounted for. Hours that would have allowed Father Anatole to murder and pose the bodies. The detective had talked to the same people and many more.
But he’d had his man—one that would certainly make him look better to the city than arresting a man in cloth would have. So now an innocent man was sitting in prison. And then Father Anatole had disappeared. And she’d tracked him here. And now . . . it was happening again.
Tucker opened the rear door and peered down at her. “Want to explain how you knew about that burn?”
“Take me to the cottage,” she said. “I’ll tell you everything.”
“How ’bout you just tell me now, or would you prefer to wait until after I’ve booked your ass for obstruction?”
Anger lined his eyes and forehead, and she could tell that whatever he’d seen had disturbed him a good deal. She understood how he felt. She’d seen only photos of such scenes and still had nightmares consistently.
“I can’t prove to you that my story is true unless you take me to the cottage,” she said.
Fatigue shadowed the small, hollow curve above his sharp cheekbones. “You better be damned sure whatever you have to show and tell is worth me leaving my crime scene in someone else’s hands.”
She swallowed, thinking of her pitiful stack of clippings that might now become her saving grace. “It could save lives.”
He pressed the button on his mic. “Bowen?” he said, releasing a sigh that suggested she’d pressed his last button of patience. “Turn around.”
MIRANDA PULLED HER key from her inside jacket po
cket, unlocked the door, and stepped inside her cottage. Tucker took off his hat and tossed it on the small table in the breakfast nook. It looked as though he was wearing every minute that had passed since his bedtime on his face and shoulders.
“All right. Make this good.”
Her battered backpack sat on the floor of the narrow hall’s closet. She grabbed it, dumped the contents on the sofa, and retrieved from the messy pile a worn accordion file folder that looked ready to fall apart. Praying she wasn’t making a huge mistake, she handed it to him and made her way to the kitchenette for caffeine to keep them both awake and alert while she spilled her guts.
While he pulled the contents out one by one, she tapped her fingers on the counter. The moment the percolating coffeepot stopped, she snatched the two cups out of the draining board, filled them, and took a seat by Tucker in the nook, passing him his drink.
He took a sip and looked up from the newspaper clippings. “What do the Rosary Killings in Ohio have to do with my town?”
“The Rosary Killer struck on three consecutive Sundays. Each murder held a religious aspect.” She fiddled with the chipped edges of the table, her heart racing now that she had both coffee and Tucker’s attention in hand. How much did she tell him?
She sighed. Best to start at the beginning.
“Almost two years ago,” she began, “a man was killed in Dayton—”
“Where you’re from?”
She shook her head. “I came here from Ohio, but I’m from California . . .” She carefully laid out three photographs, each portraying a brutally murdered man, the mark of the cross burned into each of their foreheads, a crucifix clutched in their hands, a long rosary chain placed somewhere on their bodies, and a Bible somewhere near or on them. Other than that, there weren’t many similarities. But the one glimpse of the Bible she’d seen at the river . . . she’d known in her soul that it was linked to Anatole. “That man at the river . . . he’s part of this. Number four. Look. Recognize anything?”
She pointed to the Bibles in the photos and the crucifix held in the victims’ hands. “Just like at the river, isn’t it?”
His face paled just a bit, and she knew he was seeing in these clippings another version of the horror he’d seen tonight. What the photos didn’t show, but she was sure that man’s autopsy report would, were the throats that had been garroted so deeply that only a fraction of the men’s spines had kept their heads on their shoulders. Or the gashes on their arms and legs that had kept them too weak to fight. Or the broken spine that had kept them from escaping. All things Miranda was certain he’d discover about this victim.
“After seeing that man . . . I don’t think he’s going to be the last murder you see, Tucker. This started in Dayton, and the same man who killed these men there has come here.”
His gaze remained on the clipping. “This have anything to do with why Father Anatole caught you trying to get into his office?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know . . . Never mind. Just look.” Her palms were sweating and she was pretty sure she was about fifteen seconds away from a stroke. She saw the same look of skepticism in his eyes that she’d seen in Detective Langley’s. He’d chosen not to believe her half-cocked story—as he’d called it. Was Tucker going to come to the same decision and dismiss her proof? How many more men would die before someone took her seriously?
“The one at Walt’s place? You knew he’d be burned.”
“I saw the Bible. It’s too coincidental that you’d have a killing here, with a freaking Bible . . . if . . . if you found the burn on his head . . . Tucker, please believe me. The cross burned on that man’s head was a tainted version of a blessing. A sign that holy water would have scorched him because he was uncleansed of sin. All of these victims had the same mark. He’s creating his own perverted version of the Catholic sacraments.”
His almost-black eyes narrowed and watched her until she squirmed in her seat. “Let’s say this isn’t all bullshi—”
“It’s not—”
“You’re talking about a serial killer. You’re saying his MO revolves around the Catholic sacraments . . . which he began in Dayton according to all these.” He flicked the clippings as though they were worth nothing more than discarded candy wrappers.
“He did.” Keeping the disdain out of her voice was virtually impossible. Tucker was proving to be no different than Detective Langley; looking at her like she was crazy.
“And you just assumed he’d start all over again in a new town?”
She swallowed and her dry throat burned. It was as though all the liquid in her throat had traveled to her eyes. They itched with the need to cry, because in all honesty, his question poked a very sensitive spot with her.
“No,” she whispered. Had she anticipated any such thing, she would’ve come far more prepared. But she’d assumed he wouldn’t risk being caught now that someone else had been convicted for his crimes. That was three months ago. Throughout the entire trial and investigation, the killings had stopped. If Anatole hadn’t planned to stop killing, why had he waited three months since the verdict to begin again? “I came here to see if . . . I don’t know. Maybe he would slip up, get comfortable . . . give me something to take back to Dayton as proof. I never . . . I never suspected he’d start again. At least not someplace as small as this where it’s harder to hide.”
“Just going on a whim here, but I’m guessing you’re talking about Anatole. That’s why all the pictures? The B and E? The man walks with a cane and you think he’s capable of this?”
“You make him sound like a crippled old man. He’s not. He’s a very healthy man in his late fifties, and he’s strong.”
And she’d seen with her own two eyes that he was religious about working out every morning.
“Okay, but he still depends on a cane. That’s going to hinder his movements.”
“You’d be surprised. He was Bobby’s—the convicted man’s—priest in Dayton. They were friends. They worked out together. Please don’t believe for a minute that he’s feeble.” She removed her jacket and wished like hell that she could turn the air on. No matter what the temperature outside was, she was beginning to sweat. “When I heard the lady on your radio mention religion and dead body in the same sentence, my gut knew. I had to see. But until that moment, no. I didn’t assume he was killing again.”
“You’re basically telling me you think I have a serial killer in my town,” he said. “One who kills men.”
“I know it’s strange, but it’s not unheard of.” She gestured to the clippings. “Obviously, since all these were men, too.”
As she sat back down, he held up the last article she’d clipped. The one of Bobby being carted off back to jail after the verdict had been read. Handcuffed, head down.
“Look, I appreciate that you believe everything you’re telling me,” Tucker said, cooler, if possible, than he’d been before. “But all you’re giving me to go on is a priest who lived where the murders occurred and is now in my town when we get our first murder in decades. The same could be said about you, showing up in town just before a man is killed.”
“We both know you don’t suspect me, Tucker. You saw what was done to that man and I’m not strong enough to do that.”
She could tell by the look on his face that she was right. He’d very likely already tried her in his head and found her incapable. She was counting on that, anyway. Getting herself locked up wasn’t going to do anyone any good. Especially Bobby.
“For someone who didn’t suspect anything, you sure were ready to show me all this.”
The overhead light dimmed and cast him in a shadow that made him look like someone out of the Old West. Stubble lined his sharp cheekbones as they sucked in when he sipped his coffee, and she was having a hard time thinking straight beneath those damnable eyes of his. They were so piercing, she felt exposed, emotionally stripped, and extremely vulnerable. She decided it was best to be as honest as possible without giving too much away.
“I knew there was a slight chance I’d have to explain what I was doing.”
“Did you lie about being a nurse? You really a reporter or something?”
Let him think what he would, as long as he listened. His assumption might just be her salvation, as long as she didn’t outright lie about it.
“Bobby was a lawyer who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it wasn’t a coincidence,” she said, skating right over his question. “Someone made sure he was seen in those places and turned him in when the cops got too close to the truth.”
“Which is?”
“Someone with a calling from God who he feels will be better served cleansing the Earth of the wicked than helping save their souls through something as simple as confession and prayer.”
He drummed his thumbs on the table and stared at a photo of Father Anatole standing outside the courthouse beside Bobby. “So, Father Anatole. Was he ever suspected?”
Miranda took a sip of her cooling coffee and shrugged. “Only because I demanded they listen to me. But he was off their radar almost before I’d finished talking to the department.”
She tried to read his face for signs that he might be even the least bit inclined to believe her. She saw only exhaustion. Terrified that he’d lose interest in her story before she’d had a chance to explain everything, she handed him one photo at a time.
She set out stacks of clippings and photos. “Baptism. Confession. Holy Communion.” She swallowed. “Those three were completed in Dayton. Confirmation. Marriage. Anointing the sick. Holy orders. Those were left undone.”
“Where do you see that? I see nothing here that specifies any sacraments being recreated.”
“The Dayton police found something that led them to believe that’s what was happening. I wasn’t privy to those files. All I know is that this murder looks a lot like those. If you want the facts, you’ll have to get them from the police files.”
She took a deep breath before continuing. “After what I saw tonight, I’m terrified he’s going to finish recreating them right here in your town, with your people. If he is, more men will die. The Rosary Killer struck on Sundays. The man by the lake was killed tonight . . . on a Sunday. You have the chance to stop him before he frames someone else and disappears. Again.”