by C. J. Kyle
Tucker climbed behind the wheel. Oh yeah, that advice made him feel a lot better.
They hightailed it to Anatole’s secluded house. Three squad cars were already parked in the drive. Tucker pulled to the side of the road, got out, and checked the mailbox. The stack was thick. More than a couple days’ worth—among which was a catalogue of religious trinkets. Tucker thumbed through that as he walked up the drive to join his men. Nothing in the catalogue resembled the rosaries found on the victims, but the Bibles did. Of course, they also looked like Bibles found at any bookstore, too. Just in case, he’d hold on to it, have Anatole’s prior purchases from the company looked up.
As Tucker approached, Andy gathered the other three men around the front stoop and waited for instructions.
“I want everyone wearing gloves at all times. I want photos of everything and a thorough search of every square inch of this place.” Tucker pointed at one of the officers who’d just joined the force this past summer. “Franks, I want you and Braydon to search the woods on the property. We only have a warrant for this place, so make sure you stay on property lines—about ten feet into the trees in all directions. Andy, take Sergeant Goiter with you around the perimeter of the house, check the carport out back, trash cans and the like. Smith, you can join me and Finn inside. I want you to bag any computers, phones, and electronics. Let’s get them into tech for a search back at the department. We do this quick. St. Catherine’s is going to take a while and I want to hit it before it gets dark.”
The men scattered to do as they were told, and together, Tucker and Smith headed up the porch, while Finn headed around to the back door. Tucker knocked. Called out a warning that he was coming in, even though he knew he’d get no response. He twisted the knob, and finding it locked, nodded to Smith, who broke open the front door, and they entered.
It took less than thirty minutes to clear the living room and kitchen. Both rooms were so sparse, there hadn’t been much to look through. He’d lifted the sofa cushions, checked under and behind all the furniture while Finn took pictures and walked the kitchen. The refrigerator contained only sandwich meat and condiments—the oven, microwave, and cabinets all bare. Not even a box of crackers or a can of coffee.
Tucker made his way down the hall, poking his head in the home office where Smith was unplugging a desktop, and left him to it. He’d give it a once-over when the kid was done. He gave the tidy room a quick glance. Should he even be here at all? His gut was telling him that he’d gotten the warrant for the wrong house. Everything about this screamed at him that they were searching for the wrong man.
He’d face that possibility once he finished serving this warrant. As he walked into the bathroom, he pulled out his cell and called Lisa.
“Any word from the employment records?”
“Not yet. But they promised to call back within the hour.”
“Good. In the meantime, get someone from the nearest crime scene unit you can find down here. Doc doesn’t have everything we need, so it’s going to be an out-of-town favor. I want a luminal check and a professional dusting, just in case. This place is way too clean.”
“It will take a while for anyone to get there,” Lisa said, the sound of her clicking keyboard in the background.
“I don’t care. I’ll keep one of my men here until they’re done. I want them at the church, too. This has to be done right.”
He hung up and stared at the empty bathroom sink. If blood had been washed down the drain or the tub, they’d find it when the scene team got here.
The sink cabinet contained a few rolls of toilet paper and a small stack of hand towels. On the counter, there was a toothbrush, a razor, and a can of shaving cream.
He checked the medicine cabinet. Deodorant.
No weapons, no little dots of red anywhere. Not that he’d expected to find any, really. The notion that Anatole would kill in his own home was far-fetched. But there was always the chance he’d cleaned up here. If he was their murderer.
The sparsely decorated bedroom held very little of interest, either. The nightstand held only a Bible and a notebook of future sermons and Scriptures—none of which had anything to do with the numbers found on his victims. Finn joined him, and as Tucker checked the closet, Finn used his flashlight to search under the bed. Tucker took the camera from him and snapped photos from every possible angle before returning to the small office. The desk, now bare of its computer, gave no clues to Anatole’s whereabouts or pointed to any victims.
“I got nothing,” Finn said, passing the evidence bags to Smith. “We’ll have better luck at St. Catherine’s.”
“We’d better.”
When they exited the house, his officers had finished their assignments and were waiting for further instructions.
“Smith, you’re going to stay here. I have a crime scene pro coming in. Make sure you document anything they find. Andy, make sure all the evidence collected is tagged correctly and locked in your trunk. I don’t want a broken chain of evidence to bite us on the ass.”
“Already taken care of.”
“Then let’s get to the church.”
He waited for them to clear out, headed to the points Miranda had told him about and removed her cameras, slipping them into his pocket before anyone could notice.
MIRANDA ROLLED THE kinks out of her neck and opened her laptop screen again for the third time that morning. She knew Tucker was supposed to search Anatole’s house this morning, and had to see what was going on. She hated that she was being excluded again, but understood the reasons. That didn’t mean she couldn’t watch from afar.
Or maybe not. She smacked the back of the computer but the staticky image remained. Nothing. She hit the button that showed the church. Still working. Tucker must have already taken down her cameras at Anatole’s house.
Damn it.
The church office was empty, just as it had been the last few days. The wonky camera view showed just the slightest edge of Anatole’s chair, and the window.
Nothing new.
She rewound the recording to when she’d last viewed the church the previous night. She didn’t know why she even bothered. She hadn’t seen a single person enter Anatole’s office in days.
But, as was her habit, she settled against the pillows and started the recording. She watched the room slowly lighten as the sun began to rise. Saw the priest’s desk and chair come into view. Mostly, all the camera captured was the gently falling snow outside the window. She fast-forwarded a little, then jumped when something moved past the office window. She hit rewind. Watched in slow motion.
Leaning closer to the screen, she squinted, trying to decipher the grainy image.
It took rewinding three more times before she could piece together what she was seeing.
Every cell in Miranda’s body began to tingle. How could she have been so wrong? Anatole was innocent? And . . . She swore.
Holy orders. The last sacrament. Of course it would be a priest chosen as the final victim. Who else would fill that requirement?
She reached for her phone to call Tucker, forgetting it had been stolen. Cursing, she shoved her feet into her shoes, grabbed her parka, and flew out of Tucker’s house, laptop tucked securely under her arm.
Simon. The groundskeeper.
All this time, she’d been so very wrong.
Chapter 40
AFTER CLEARING ST. Catherine’s of the few people inside, Tucker and Finn ushered the deacons outside to wait on the sidewalk until their search was complete. They didn’t look at all pleased, and had wasted a good ten minutes of Tucker’s time reading the search warrant word for word, protesting when they found out Tucker intended to search Anatole’s office when the man wasn’t around to give permission. Nor were they pleased when Tucker reminded them that the warrant was all the permission he needed.
By the time they finished with Anatole’s office, it was completely ransacked. Sergeant Goiter and Sergeant Franks were sitting on the floor in the corner, combing throu
gh every Bible and notebook for any references made to the Catholic rites or the Scriptures found on the victims, and Tucker, Finn, and Andy made good use of a box of trash bags, loading them up with Anatole’s work computer and files to comb through later.
There was nothing worth claiming as evidence in the chapel or confessionals. Still, he wanted the luminal team here. He couldn’t imagine Anatole killing anyone in the church where he worked, but if Anatole wasn’t their killer . . . if Simon had anything to do with this, there was no telling what they might find.
As for dusting, what was the point? Of course Anatole’s prints would be here. Simon’s as well.
Along with a million others.
His cell rang. It was Lisa.
“Tell me you have something or I’m going to make them pull those damned employee records up right now anyway,” he said in greeting.
“No need. I think you guys showing up scared them into complying. I called them back when I didn’t hear from them, told them you were on your way, and voilà, I have answers.” She paused, and for a moment, he was afraid he’d lost the connection. “He was from Dayton, Tuck. I think you found the owner of that medallion.”
Motherfucker. “When was he hired?”
“About three weeks ago . . . November twenty-sixth, according to his file.”
Tucker did the math. Bobby Harley had been convicted on August twenty-seventh. A little more than three months ago. If Simon had waited until Bobby had been found guilty, moved here before beginning again, that would have put Ricky’s murder at just the right time . . .
“He been brought in yet?”
“Can’t find him. The deacon I talked to said someone from our office had already been by looking for Simon, but they haven’t seen him since last night.”
Tucker’s headache turned into a full-blown migraine. “Put out an APB on him, too. Then call the judge. I’m going to need another warrant.”
“I’ll let you know when it’s approved.”
“Thanks, Lisa.”
Grumbling, he hung up and walked back outside with Finn and Andy, eager to get a look at Simon’s home base, the gardening shed. As they walked, he filled both men in on what Lisa had told him.
“So we really have been looking for the wrong guy this whole time,” Finn said.
“It’s a possibility.”
“Fucker was right under our noses,” Andy grumbled, stopping short once they reached the front steps. “Freaking great.”
Tucker followed his gaze to find half the town standing across the street, watching them.
They’d suddenly become the town’s festivities for the day. He spotted Helen Stillman snapping pictures from the iron gates and stomped over to her. “Goddamn it, Helen—”
“Free country, Chief. How ’bout you tell me what’s going on so I don’t have to create something to go with my photos here?”
Anger knotted Tucker’s guts. “How ’bout you go to—”
“Hey Tuck? You might want to see this!”
Tucker glanced over his shoulder to see Finn waving at him from the toolshed. He looked back at Helen and said through gritted teeth, “Take one step on this property while we’re doing our job, and I’ll toss your ass in jail. Got it?”
She grinned like the bitch she was. “’Course, Chief.”
Still cursing under his breath, Tucker made his way toward Finn. “What is it?”
Finn led him behind the garden shed. A pair of hedge clippers lay in the snow. Next to a cane. He knew that cane. It was Father Anatole’s.
He stepped closer and saw that what he’d thought was rust on the blades was actually dried blood. Finn swung his arm toward the exterior wall of the shed, leading Tucker’s gaze to a distorted red handprint splattered down two panels of weathered wood.
Trying not to damage any evidence the snow hadn’t already destroyed, he carefully picked up the clippers, intent on having them dusted and tested at the lab.
“Wait.” Finn knelt across from him, snapping a couple of photos. “What do we have here?”
He slipped his fingers beneath the blade, showing Tucker a large, ragged strip of black fabric stuck to the blood, and quickly snapped a picture.
The blood. The cane that Anatole was never without. The black cloth—a piece of Anatole’s frock? They might have just found their next victim . . . and it looked from all sides like it might have been Anatole.
He really had been chasing the wrong fucking dragon.
Finn slipped the clippers into an evidence bag, signing and sealing it.
Tucker knelt in the thin layer of snow. “That’s Anatole’s cane. I’ll know as soon as we can get this blood tested whether it’s his or someone else’s, and I’m fairly certain I can get those details quickly. The church ran a blood drive in late November, and as far as I know, they all participated. Even Anatole, I hope.”
And Simon. He had to find out more about that man.
“So this Simon guy came here and took Anatole as your final victim?” Finn thought about that for a moment.
Tucker pressed his palms into his eyes, praying the pain in his head would go the hell away. “Holy orders. Makes sense to off a priest. If Anatole is Simon’s dad, and he knows it . . .
“Then he’s made an ass out of you for chasing Anatole these last couple weeks.”
“Long as I catch the right guy in the end, I can live with that.”
Finn raised a brow. “It’s only Tuesday. Why take the victim so early? It’s a long time till Sunday.”
Tucker took samples from the wall and ordered a bigger bag to be brought over to secure Anatole’s cane. Who the hell knew why the last victim would be taken off schedule? Maybe Simon wanted to stick it to his old pop and just couldn’t wait anymore.
Finn touched a gloved finger tentatively to the sticky blood while Tucker signed his name across the red seals on the evidence bags and passed them to Andy to do the same.
“Get these over to the doc,” he instructed Andy. “I want to know whose blood this is, and she needs to move this up to priority one.”
Finn stepped away from the scene and lit a cigarette. He kicked the large green Dumpster that sat about two feet behind the shed. “Why isn’t anyone searching back here?”
Goiter quickly answered Finn’s summons and climbed into the Dumpster. Trusting Finn to keep a handle on the situation, Tucker pulled out his phone, punching in Miranda’s number. He needed to let her know what he’d uncovered. When she found out she’d been blaming an innocent man . . .
“Uh, Chief?” He spun, the faint sound of a phone ringing pulling his attention to the trash. Goiter was standing with his head poked out of the Dumpster. “The trash can is ringing.”
Tucker hung up, stalked toward the large green bins, and dialed again. The trash rang again, the faint, muffled melody of “I Shot the Sheriff” singing out from below a black plastic bag.
What the hell? He glanced at his phone’s display, double-checking that he hadn’t dialed the wrong number. He hadn’t. Shit, he’d forgotten Miranda’s phone had been stolen.
“Look who’s here,” Finn said, jutting his chin toward the fence.
As though summoned by his confusion, Miranda ducked between the deacons and jogged toward him, ignoring the invisible line the rest of the crowd—even Helen Stillman—had the decency not to cross. As he watched her run, he dialed her number again. The ringing once again came from the Dumpster.
Shit. “Find the source of that song!”
“Tucker, I have to show you some—”
He held up a finger, silencing her. “Recognize anything?”
He hit redial again, saw her face crumple as she recognized the ring tone.
“Got it!” Goiter yelled, leaping out of the bin and thrusting a dirty white iPhone at Tucker.
Tucker carefully took it with his thumb and forefinger and dangled it in front of Miranda. “Yours?”
She reached for it but he pulled it back. Her face paled. “Yeah. Mine.”
&nb
sp; “‘I Shot the Sherriff,’ huh?” he asked, trying to clamp down on the overwhelming anger, frustration, and fear that was making his body hum.
She shrugged, her wide eyes still focused on the phone hanging from his fingers. “It fit.”
“Get in my cruiser and wait for me. I don’t want you alone again until I say. Understand?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts!”
“Tucker, shut up and listen to me. I have to show you something. I think I saw what happened to Anatole. You won’t believe this, but I don’t think he’s our killer. I’ve been wrong—”
“It’s Simon,” he muttered.
“Yes and . . . you know?”
“Yeah, I know. Show me what you have.”
She stood where she was, staring at him as though trying to figure him out, then opened the laptop she’d had tucked under her arm and punched a few keys until camera images flickered onto the monitor.
“I know you said no more video, but look . . . I saved the file. Just let me . . . there. Watch!”
Tucker tilted the screen, trying to clear up the image. He watched the recording, shaking his head. “Play it again.”
Miranda clicked the buttons, restarting the grainy video. Finn joined him. Together, they hunched over the computer. As he watched, the garden shed door slowly opened and Simon stumbled out. He nearly toppled over and fell against the side of the wooden building. The long, bloody garden shears dangled loosely from his grasp before falling to the snow where Finn had found them.
As Tucker was about to look away, another man stumbled from the shed. His hand gripped his side. What looked like blood seeped from between his fingers. He gripped the door, sliding along until he stood just outside the shed’s entrance.
“Turn it up,” Finn said, leaning closer to the screen.
“There’s no sound.”
“Damn it,” Tucker mumbled, his gaze riveted to the images. “I really would like to know what he’s saying.”
Simon lunged at the priest. They struggled and the cane fell from the priest’s grasp.