by Alton Gansky
Ellis raised his hands and covered his face. “Oh dear God.” He slumped in his chair, as if all his bones had just dissolved.
36
I don’t understand.”
Ellis didn’t respond to Captain Simmons. The pain in his head had been replaced by another in his mind. Why hadn’t he seen this coming?
“Dr. Poe, are you okay?” Simmons stern voice had lost its edge.
“What? Yes. No. I mean . . .” Ellis lowered his hands and pushed up in his seat. “I should have thought of this. The moment I saw the wall in the case room. I should’ve . . . I am so stupid.” He couldn’t look at any one. His mind painted images of three women with their photos hanging on the case room wall next to the bloodied and battered victims. Nausea rolled through him. His greatest desire was to flee the office, to run.
It was the only thing he was good at.
“Dr. Poe. Look at me.” The earlier firmness returned to Simmons’s voice. “Look at me!”
Ellis snapped his head up.
“That’s better. Are you telling us the abductions are related to the murders?”
Ellis nodded then looked at Carmen. Her jaw was still tight, her face red, and her shoulders tense. She was a frightening sight. “Two Marys and a woman named Salome or something close. Am I right?” His question was for Donovan and Simmons, but he kept his eyes on Carmen.
“Yes. How did you know?” Donovan’s words were saturated with suspicion.
“The prostitute angle is wrong. She wasn’t a prostitute.”
Donovan stepped to the side of Simmons’s desk and faced Ellis. “I don’t know who you are, buddy, but I can assure you the woman I described is a longtime hooker. She has an arrest record going back ten years.”
“Not here, Detective. Mary Magdalene. It’s a myth that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. There’s no indication of it in the Bible.”
“What?” Donovan looked at Captain Simmons. “Who is this guy?”
“Dr. Ellis Poe. He teaches at the seminary in Escondido. He’s . . . consulting.”
Carmen huffed but said nothing. She looked like a boiler ready to blow.
“A Bible thumper—” Donovan cut himself short. “Sorry, Dr. Poe. What I mean is—”
“I know what you mean, Detective. No need to apologize.”
“Carmen, bring Donovan up to speed.”
“Do I still have a job?”
Simmons’s black face darkened all the more. “That largely depends on what comes out of your mouth next.”
She inhaled deeply. “Dr. Poe has convinced us the murders are following a biblical pattern. Each victim was killed in a way that mirrors an assault Jesus endured.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Trust me, Donovan, I’m not in a kidding mood.”
Donovan bounced his gaze from Carmen to Ellis and back to Carmen. “Do I want to know about the bruise?”
“You do not.” Simmons made it sound like an order. “Go on, Dr. Poe.”
He didn’t want to. He was embarrassed about his cowardice, he was traumatized by Carmen’s attack, he was fearful of going to jail, and he felt adrift from God.
“Poe.” Simmons raised his voice.
“When Jesus was crucified, there were several people at the foot of the cross. Three of them were women. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Salome the mother of James and John. Her son John was there, too.”
“Wait,” Carmen said. “Jesus’ mother was at the cross?”
“Yes, Detective. It was not unusual to make the family watch the beatings and crucifixion. It would also be their job to take care of the corpse. If they didn’t, the executed person’s body would be thrown outside the walls of Jerusalem and left on the city’s dump—a burning pile of refuse. Jesus used the burning garbage heap as a metaphor for hell.”
“They made the family watch?” Simmons said.
“Romans had no love for Jews. They cared nothing for the torment they caused.” He paused. “May I ask when the abductions took place?”
“All over the last few days.” Donovan looked defensive. “It takes forty-eight hours before we can open a missing person’s case.”
“He’s making them watch.” Ellis leaned forward and lowered his head like someone attempting to avoid fainting. “He’s making them watch the flaying and is planning to make them watch the crucifixion.”
“Who’s getting crucified?” Donovan sounded puzzled.
“We don’t know.” Carmen’s expression changed from fury to concern. She was thinking about the case now. “Were they taken from their homes?”
“Yes,” Donovan said.
Carmen turned to Ellis. “Does this mean he’ll abduct someone named John? You said John was at the cross, too.”
“Maybe. Maybe.” Ellis touched his swollen jaw. “Not necessarily. There is not a one-to-one correspondence to the biblical account. For example, he’s stretched out the killings over a period of days. What happened to Jesus happened in a single day. The killings are symbolic, not literal.”
“They were literal enough for the victims,” Carmen snapped.
“Of course. I’m saying the message is not literal. He’s parceled out the clues. Maybe to buy time. I don’t know. The point is, he may or may not have abducted a male named John.” Ellis looked to Donovan, who shook his head.
“None reported.”
Donovan exchanged glances with Simmons. “The guy put all this together just by hearing that two of the women were named Mary?”
“He’s made a lot of connections we’ve missed.” He turned to Ellis. “You know this makes you look pretty suspicious, don’t you?”
“What? You suspect me to be the killer? Do I look like I could beat the victims like that? Detective Rainmondi just knocked me on my backside. I’m neither a lover nor a fighter. I’m just a guy who spent nearly thirty years finding some small semblance of courage.”
“Yeah, about that, Doc,” Carmen said. “There’s something else you should know. I saw you looking at the photos on the wall. Do you know which ones I’m talking about?”
“The one of you and your sister. The one with the lip prints.”
“Nothing gets by you, Professor.” Her sarcasm was almost as damaging as her fist. “Did you notice the one next to it?”
“Some kind of writing. It looked like lipstick on glass. A mirror, maybe. I didn’t look closely.”
Carmen smiled, but he could see no joy in it. “Since you’re so good at putting pieces together, maybe you can tell me—”
“Wait, why would a photo of you and Shelly be on the wall . . . the lipstick? It’s the same?” He thought for a moment. “The lip prints—are they Shelly’s?”
“Bingo.”
Ellis’s put a hand to his mouth. “The message—that’s recent?”
Carmen nodded.
Simmons cleared his throat. “Detective—”
“Let me have this, Cap. I may have just slugged my way out of a job, but you owe me a little something for my years of service.”
“I owe you—”
“No . . . no . . . no . . .”
Ellis Poe began to weep.
The next few days passed like months. Ellis continued to teach but often lost his train of thought. A few people asked how he had hurt his face, but he waved it off and said it was embarrassing. No one pressed for an answer. Dr. Adam Bridger looked concerned but respected Ellis’s privacy.
Teaching was his tonic, his balm. When in front of the class, he could lose himself in the topics he loved and knew so well, but he couldn’t teach twenty-four hours a day. When the breaks came, when the day’s work was done, he was left alone with himself, company he didn’t like. The bruise darkened before the skin began to lighten. His soul was another matter. His
only relief, and it was thin, was learning that he had broken no laws. He had not been part of the murder, didn’t know the attacker, never interfered with the investigation. Apparently cowardice was not a crime.
Silence was his enemy. He stayed at work as long as possible, chose to eat out where the noise of others could dilute his acidic thoughts, and began watching television to occupy his mind. He had moments of success, but mostly he spent his alone time submerged in churning guilt.
On the plus side, his prayer life returned. He prayed for Carmen and the other detectives, he prayed for the family of the victims, but he never asked for forgiveness. He deserved punishment and would accept whatever came his way without complaint.
He had lived with his cowardly decision to run for nearly thirty years, but learning that the killer that night might be the same man brutalizing so many now had left him a husk, the form of a man without being a man.
Then, on Thursday, his cell phone rang at 6:00 a.m.
At 6:30, he was in Carmen’s Crown Vic. The conversation was minimal and missing the preamble of “How are you doing?” Instead, Carmen spoke without looking at him.
“New body. I want you to see this one in the field.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be much help. I don’t have the training—”
“I’m not asking for your help, Doc. I’m punishing you. You need to see the unsanitized version of homicide.”
Ellis didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut, opening it only to leave a message at the seminary that he was going to be out for the day. Someone would cancel his classes.
He didn’t know whether it was protocol or not, but Carmen placed a pulsating red light on the dashboard and sped south on the I-15.
“How’s the jaw?” Carmen changed lanes to pass a driver who didn’t seem to understand the purpose of an emergency light.
“It hurts.”
“Good.”
No other words were spoken. Ellis thought of apologizing again, but such an act seemed foolish. How do you apologize for what he did—more accurately, what he didn’t do.
She took the I-15 to the 163 to the I-5 to Pershing Drive, ignoring all speed limits. She slowed on Pershing and turned left on Florida Drive then made her way to Bob Wilson Drive. Ellis could see a string of patrol cars and two other black Crown Vics. His stomach constricted and twisted like someone wringing out a dishrag.
“You stay with me, Poe. You do not wander off. You touch nothing. You speak only when spoken to. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“The media is there. You will not talk to them. You are not here in an official capacity. Is that understood?”
Ellis doubted she had the right to make such demands, but he made no protest.
She parked at the end of the line of police cars. Several television vans were present, as were those from major radio stations in San Diego. There was also a crowd of onlookers stacked near the crime-scene tape.
“Get out.” Each of Carmen’s words landed like a bomb. “I want you close enough to touch.”
“Understood.”
They exited the car and pushed through the crowd. Carmen wore her police ID on a strap around her neck. “Coming through. Make a hole.” The crowd parted and Ellis followed her. At the barrier tape she made eye contact with one of the uniforms. “He’s with me.” She snapped her head around. “Walk behind me. No place else. Got it?”
“Got it.” Ellis envied those restricted behind the tape.
Ten yards to the north of Bob Wilson Drive was a crowd of men in suits. He recognized them as members of Carmen’s team. Dutifully, Ellis followed Carmen step for step.
“Get lost?” Bud asked Carmen.
“I made a detour.”
Bud looked at Ellis like a man studying someone with advanced leprosy. “What’s he doing here?”
“He’s been so helpful, I thought he deserved to be on the ground floor of the investigation.” She motioned to a blue tarp on the ground that was clearly hiding something. “Remove the tarp.”
Bud and Hector each took a corner and slowly pulled back the covering.
Bile raced up Ellis’s throat. He gagged and covered his mouth.
Carmen raised a finger. “So help me, if you puke on my crime scene I will shoot you.”
Ellis struggled to keep his gorge down. Being shot sounded pretty good.
“What I want to know is this: Is this what you meant by scourging?”
He wasn’t looking.
“Look at the body, Dr. Poe. Look at it!”
He did. On the ground was a nude man who looked to be in his thirties. He lay prone, his head turned to the side, his back facing the early morning sky—a back with no flesh, just muscle tissue, and even some of that had been whipped away to reveal bits of rib and vertebrae. The shredded flesh ran from the shoulders, over the back, and down to the back of the man’s knees. Just as startling was the razor wire wound around the deceased’s head—a poor man’s crown of thorns.
“Is it, Professor?”
Ellis nodded.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Poe, I can’t hear you.”
“Y-yes.”
Carmen folded her arms. “Such a young man. If only there had been a way to stop the killer . . . oh, I don’t know, twenty-eight years ago.”
Ellis couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe.
“ID?” She directed her question to Bud.
“No. We’ll run prints. Hopefully he’s in one of the systems.”
Carmen stooped by the body. Ellis had no idea how she could do that.
“Ligature marks on the wrists similar to the others. Wait, this is different.” She turned one of the victim’s hands so she could view the knuckles. “The skin is busted.” She examined his face. “Bruises. Jaw may be broken. Swelling around the eye. This guy fought back.” She stood. “I want those wounds examined closely. Maybe we can get some perp DNA.”
“Will do.”
Carmen faced Ellis. “See, Doc. I went easy on you.” She waited for a response. He didn’t offer one.
The crime scene was at the bottom of a hill and the intersection of two well-traveled roads. Not main arteries, but busy enough that someone would find the body not long after sunup. Carmen pointed up the hills. “See those buildings, Professor? Know what they are?”
The sight of the body had so unnerved Ellis that he hadn’t thought to look. “Naval Medical Center.” The Navy’s hospital was a landmark in the city.
“Yep. Been around since 1917. Did you know that the grounds had once been a part of Balboa Park? Did you know that when the US entered World War I, the city of San Diego offered property to the various branches of the military? Did you know that in the early years, part of Balboa Park was used as military barracks?”
“No. I didn’t know any of that.”
Bud Tock stood close to his partner. Ellis wondered if he was protecting her or him.
“She used to work in the park.” Bud offered a humorless grin. “She knows everything.”
“Seems you were right about the next body being found near a military facility.” Carmen looked down at the shrouded corpse. “Kinda got the crown of thorns thing wrong.”
He hadn’t, but he didn’t correct her. True, he hadn’t anticipated razor wire being used, but he had been right that the body would have a crown of thorns on his head.
Carmen looked as if she had more to say but decided against it. She turned to Bud. “Where’s Officer Heywood?”
“Scouting the area for surveillance cameras. We know the hospital grounds have cameras, but it’s doubtful that they track what’s going on here. We’re too far from the buildings and there isn’t much else around.”
“Who found the body?”
“Joggers.” Bud pointed down Bob Wilson D
rive. “Access to the hospital passes through a checkpoint about a quarter mile down. It has a surveillance camera. Joe went there first and talked to the people there. No one on duty saw anything. It looks like our man just pulled up to the curb on Florida Drive and dumped the body.”
“It just gets better and better.” She looked toward the thin crowd and the media. “The ME is here. Let’s canvas the area; then I want to talk to the joggers.”
“Hector and I’ll check the grounds.” Bud stepped away.
“I wish I could help.” It was a sincere statement, but Ellis doubted it softened Carmen’s opinion of him.
“You can. You’ve been right about so much of this, maybe you can apply that great intellect of yours and figure out who the killer wants to crucify.”
“I don’t know how . . .” He thought for a moment. He owed her an effort, even if the odds were impossible. “Maybe . . . I need a place to work. Something with a computer and a phone. I have no idea how to start, but I’ll give it my best.”
“You do that, Professor. You do that.”
For almost three decades, Ellis Poe had believed he couldn’t feel more guilty.
He had been wrong.
37
That was a pretty special thing you did.” Joe Heywood steered his patrol car south to the city.
Ellis looked at the big man. “Special good or special bad? I only ask because I excel in the latter.”
“Special good.”
Joe smiled and seemed genuinely amused. Ellis hadn’t seen many smiles of late. Too bad he couldn’t find much comfort in it.
The comment puzzled Ellis. “I don’t follow, Detective.”
“First, I’m not a detective. Normally, I’m a uniformed officer, but I’ve been pulled up the ladder to help with the case. I oversee the uniforms during canvassing, review countless hours of video, and pretty much everything else that frees the detectives to do their job. When this is all over, I’ll be back on the streets. Not that I mind. I was born for this work.”
“You don’t want to be a detective?”
“Sure I do. I’d like to rise to captain, but I’m still paying my dues and learning the work.”