by Kay Hooper
Marc took a swallow of his coffee and then looked at the cup as if he wished there were something other than coffee in it. “Well, shit,” he said softly.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could offer you something more useful, but I can’t. I can tell you Shirley Arledge died at the hands of this monster. I can tell you his box score is up to at least fifteen now. But I don’t know much more about him than I did when I got here. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
“None of us does,” Jordan pointed out. “We have one incredibly gory crime scene with a bloody sign that seems out of character for a killer like this one, but no bodies. So far. Bits and pieces of two victims, but DNA results won’t come in for weeks, at least, and only a preliminary match between the fingertip found at the scene and some prints we were able to pull from Becky Huntley’s bedroom.”
Dani said, “So, probably hers. The fingertip. Way too coincidental if the finger belonged to someone who just happened to visit one of our victims long enough to leave fingerprints in her bedroom.” Then she frowned. “Wait. Did Becky and Karen—”
Marc was already shaking his head. “It’s preliminary in the case of Shirley Arledge, but as far as we can determine, none of these women knew each other. One more dead end.”
Hollis said, “Depressingly common in serial-killer investigations. That’s why profiling—still more of an art than a science—is so readily accepted and used by law enforcement. Any tool that offers even the hope of narrowing or focusing the scope of the investigation is better than no tool at all.”
“We barely have a profile,” Marc pointed out. “Still waiting for your boss’s rewrite, but in the meantime what we’ve got is a killer who’s probably a white male, probably between twenty-five and thirty-five, probably from an abusive background, and possibly psychic. Hell, I probably passed him on the street sometime this week.”
“If he’s psychic, you didn’t shake hands with him,” Dani murmured. “Otherwise, you’d have known.”
Hollis lifted her brows at the sheriff. “That’s your range? Touch?”
“Yeah. If we hadn’t already shaken hands, you could sit next to me and I’d never know you were a medium.”
Wryly, Paris said to him, “Care to make a list of everyone you’ve shaken hands with in Venture?”
“Not really. I don’t have a clue how to even start that list.”
Jordan looked at the file folders stacked here and there on the table and swore under his breath. “I know we’re really just getting started in terms of a time frame for a typical serial-killer investigation—and, man, I hate saying every part of that—but does anybody else feel like they’re spinning their wheels? A huge task force of law-enforcement personnel, including a team of psychics, has been trying to get a handle on this guy for months, with no luck. Granted, we have a smaller hunting ground here in terms of population—though not in area—and we don’t have media breathing down our necks—”
“Yet,” Marc interrupted. “Despite what Miss Patty said, I imagine there are at least a few of our citizens who would welcome TV cameras and microphones shoved in their faces.”
“Yeah. But the question stands: What do we have that the task force doesn’t?”
“We have Dani’s vision dream,” Hollis said.
“Which keeps changing,” Dani pointed out.
“Only in fairly minor details. The setting is always the same: a warehouse.”
“And we’re generating that list of warehouses now,” Jordan promised. “It’s taken more time than I expected to run down some of the property owners, but we’re getting there.”
“Great.” Hollis barely paused. “So there’s always a warehouse in the vision. There’s always a fire. And, with the roof apparently caving in behind us, we always go down into a basement where we know he’s waiting, into what we know is a trap. Interesting that the bait is always the same. Far as I know, Miranda’s in Boston with Bishop.”
“Which was,” Marc said, “this killer’s hunting ground. And we’re sure it’s the same killer.”
It was a question.
Hollis nodded. “We’re sure. The psychics who tracked him here are sure, and Bishop’s sure—and that’s good enough for me. Even if the murders here are getting different in ways that don’t make sense. Unless Bishop is right again, and this killer’s needs and rituals are falling apart rather than evolving.”
“I gather that’ll be part of the revised profile,” Marc said.
“That seems to be the way Bishop is thinking.” Hollis frowned. “At least, that was my take.”
Dani raised her voice slightly to say, “Can I just ask the question we’re all avoiding?”
Hollis nodded, with an expression that said she knew what was coming. “Might as well.”
“Okay. If we’re right and this guy is psychic, if that’s how he managed to hunt so successfully in Boston, then how do we know he isn’t at least a step ahead of us here?”
“We don’t,” Marc said.
“No, we don’t. If anything, we have some evidence that he is…playing with us. Leaving signs behind when he never has before.”
Hollis said, “That might not be deliberate. It could just be him coming apart.”
“But what if it is deliberate? He didn’t want the spotlight in Boston, but maybe, looking back, something inside him liked the attention. Maybe now he wants to prove he’s smarter than everybody hunting him.”
“Maybe,” Marc agreed. “And maybe that’s a difference we can use to our advantage.”
“He’s tricking you,” Hollis murmured, repeating what Shirley Arledge had told her in the predawn hours. “I’m not the one usually advising caution, but I think we’d better be careful if we even get the chance to play this guy’s game. We’d better be very careful.”
Tell me again why I shouldn’t clean his clock?” Gabriel demanded.
“With all due respect, Gabe, I wouldn’t try it if I were you.” The hollow cell connection did nothing to hide the dryness in John Garrett’s voice. “As good as you are—he’s better.”
“I’m willing to test that theory.”
“It isn’t a theory. And the last thing any of us needs is you tangling with Bishop. Just don’t, okay? He had good reason for approaching Roxanne when and how he did. I agree with his reason. Roxanne agrees with his reason.”
I do, you know. Three more steps the way I was going, and I would have tripped that motion-sensor floodlight. And roused the neighborhood canine watch. And Bishop could hardly stop me any other way without alerting those same dogs. Right?
“Well, I—”
“Gabe. Let it go.”
Gabriel was a stubborn man but hardly a stupid one. “If you say so, John. But I don’t have to like it.”
“I never expect miracles.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Gabriel kept his gaze fixed on Bishop, who stood some yards away and out of earshot in this remote spot overlooking Venture.
He’s a telepath, Gabe. Do you really think there’s such a thing as “out of earshot” where he’s concerned?
Bishop turned his head and raised an eyebrow at Gabriel, then once again directed his attention to the town.
“Shit.”
John, neither present nor telepathic, had nevertheless spent enough time with psychics in recent years to be able to pick up on nonverbal communication—even at an extreme distance. “Something I should know about?” he asked calmly.
“No. Just remembering why I don’t like working around telepaths, that’s all.”
“You can trust him, Gabe.”
“With all due respect, John,” Gabriel said, deliberately using his employer’s earlier words, “I’ll make up my own mind about that.”
“Fair enough. But on this particular job, your orders include following his lead as you would mine.”
“You sure about that? Running a parallel investigation with the police is one thing, and we’ve done it before. But this time we’re hunting an honest-to-God monster, and the sooner eve
rybody involved puts their heads together and compares notes, the better our chances of tracking him down before somebody else dies.”
“And do you honestly believe either Bishop or I would do anything to deliberately sidetrack an investigation or delay for even one moment the capture of such an animal?”
“No. I don’t believe that.” It wasn’t a grudging admission so much as it was an uneasy one. “But somebody always has an agenda, and Bishop’s reputation preceded him.”
“Meaning?”
“You know exactly what it means. He never puts all his cards on the table, John, and I’m betting he hasn’t this time. Whether he and Miranda have seen something he’s hoping to avoid, or he’s just convinced he has a better plan than the rest of us, he’s going to keep it to himself.”
“None of us wants Dani’s vision to come true,” John reminded him.
“I know that. And if I were in Bishop’s place, with a vision warning me of that particular dire outcome, I’d make damn sure my wife and partner was safe under lock and key, and far away. I got no problem with that.”
“But?”
“But he shouldn’t be here. He was part of the vision, too, and every player we put within the killer’s reach makes it that much more likely that what Dani saw is going to happen.”
“Maybe. Or maybe the right person in the right place is all that’s needed to change the outcome.”
“John, how many times have you and Maggie told us to be careful where premonitions are involved, because we can’t know our actions won’t produce something worse? Hell, it’s practically our mantra.”
There was a brief silence, and then John said, “Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means work with Bishop, Gabe. You and Roxanne. Keep every sense open, and stay on your toes. And please try to remember that we’re all on the same side, okay? Check in daily.”
“Right.” Gabriel slowly closed his phone and wasn’t much surprised to see that Bishop was already crossing the space between them. He waited until the other man was close before speaking. “So what now, Chief?” The title held a faint note of mockery rather than respect. “More warehouses?”
“No,” Bishop said. “Now we watch Dani.”
17
DANI STARED AT THE formidable list of warehouses, storage facilities, and any other isolated building that might provide the space and privacy a murderous serial killer might need, and drew a deep breath.
“Damn,” Paris said before she could.
Nodding, Dani said, “I had no idea. And I never realized how many of these places have been locked up and abandoned for years.”
“Decades,” Marc said. “My deputies check the doors during patrols—when they remember to. But we don’t have vandals to speak of, and unless there are complaints…In all honesty, these places are easy to forget unless you’re staring right at one of them.”
Hollis chewed on a thumbnail briefly as she studied her copy of the list. “I know big abandoned buildings are difficult to repurpose, but I’d think some of these would have been somewhere along the way. That or torn down to make way for new construction.”
“I might have an answer for that.” Jordan was going over a different list, frowning. “Marc, take a look at this. And tell me how in the hell we didn’t know about it.”
Dani waited until Marc had the list in hand and began to frown himself to ask, “What is it?”
“Looks like about eighty percent of these old buildings have been bought up by a properties-management company.”
Dryly, Hollis said, “I don’t see much management involved. Wait a minute. The same company?”
Marc grunted an assent, then said, “Huh. How about that. The properties-management company is owned by a church.”
“A church?” Paris asked. “A single church?”
“Yeah. The Church of the Everlasting Sin.”
They all exchanged glances, then Hollis said, “I did a quick recon when I first got here to get the lay of the land, and one thing definitely caught my attention. The Church of the Everlasting Sin. It’s currently being housed here in Venture in that onetime grain-storage facility, right?”
“That’s the one,” Marc confirmed.
“It didn’t appear to me to be very wealthy. To say the least.”
Jordan looked baffled. “At the last town council meeting, Reverend Butler claimed he couldn’t afford to rehab the place. But if his church owns all these other properties…”
Hollis moved to the other end of the conference table, where her laptop lay open and ready. She sat down and typed rapidly, then sat back and waited, her gaze fixed on the screen.
While they waited, presumably for more information, Dani said, “I know I’ve been away for a while, but as I remember it, the churches in the area have always been sort of…bland. I mean, just straight-up Protestant, mostly Baptist, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“We get the occasional outside-the-mainstream church,” Marc said. “A small block building goes up, or a trailer, or an old storefront gets a new sign painted on the window. Nothing as extreme as snake-handling, say, or Satanism, but there’s been talk—forgive the pun—of speaking in tongues, and we’ve had complaints from neighbors when the worshipping got a little loud on Sunday. Most of those churches don’t seem to stick around long, even though they have congregations.”
“Maybe the congregations aren’t large enough to support the churches,” Dani offered.
“Could be. All I know is, one day they’re there, and the next they aren’t. The Church of the Everlasting Sin, though, that one has stuck around. At least ten years, I’d say.”
“No wonder I don’t remember it,” Dani murmured.
Marc nodded. “You wouldn’t. Reverend Butler set up shop the summer after you left Venture.”
She refused to be dragged back into the past, saying only, “I can’t imagine he’d have much of a congregation. Unless it’s just an ordinary Baptist-type church with an unusual name?”
“I’m not sure what it is, to be honest with you, but the congregation is sizable. We’ve had a few complaints, especially in recent years, about some of their practices, but nothing I’ve been able to get any real evidence on.” Marc shrugged. “It’s a tight-knit congregation, I can tell you that much. And you seldom see any one of them out alone. It’s a bit weird, actually.”
“Creepy,” Jordan translated. “Far as I can tell, you never see one out alone. Well, except for the reverend. Marc, weren’t there some rumors about him when he first got here?”
“Yeah, that he killed his wife.”
“False rumors?” Dani ventured.
“Depends on your point of view. When I became sheriff, I checked into his background, and what I found was mostly vague except for that single bit of his history. His wife died under mysterious circumstances about fifteen years ago. Investigators were pretty sure in their own minds that he did it, apparently to collect the insurance, but there was never enough evidence to arrest him, much less convict him. Then he got involved with his church and more or less dropped off the map as far as the police were concerned.”
Paris said, “I guess it’s too much to hope he could be our killer here?”
“He’s the wrong age according to the most recent profile we have, he isn’t psychic, and as far as I can remember he was in Venture all summer.”
“So that would be no,” Paris murmured.
“Pretty much,” Marc told her. “Which isn’t to say he might not know something that could be helpful. Especially since his church seems to own most of the abandoned warehouses and other derelict buildings in Venture.”
“Well,” Hollis said, “the Church of the Everlasting Sin is wealthy, whether this particular congregation is or not.” She was frowning at the screen of her laptop. “The IRS has its suspicions of Reverend Butler even if the police couldn’t prove theirs, but it appears he has a very good ac
countant—in Atlanta—and they haven’t been able to pin anything on him. But the church, now that’s something different.”
“How so?” Paris asked. “I’ve heard a few wild rumors, but—”
“Maybe not so wild. Says here that the Church of the Everlasting Sin first made an appearance about twenty-five years ago, out west. Gossip had it that among their practices was some kind of supposed cleansing ritual that involved screaming at members—including children—in order to scare the sin out of them.”
“I’ve heard that here,” Marc admitted. “But we could never find any evidence of abuse, and neither could Social Services.”
“Couldn’t find much out west either, according to the FBI files,” Hollis told them. “The Bureau was called in initially because a former member charged that the church kidnapped his children, took them across state lines to another—well, they call them parishes, apparently. So what you’ve got here in Venture is a parish of the Church of the Everlasting Sin. Anyway, turned out the man’s estranged wife, still a member of the church, had the kids with her and eventually won legal custody.”
Jordan said, “But the FBI kept the case file open?”
“Looks like. Over the years, they had reports from some of the watchdog groups that monitor cults, and complaints from quite a few former members, but so far nothing they could take to court.”
“Sounds familiar,” Marc said.
“Yeah, only this church doesn’t seem to be building its wealth through its members, like most cults do. Nobody signs over their properties or businesses—in fact, that’s forbidden. Members are expected to tithe, but no more.”
“So how can they afford to buy up all the property here?” Jordan asked.
Hollis scrolled through a few pages, reading intently, then said, “It’s one of the reasons the IRS is suspicious. It looks like they use the member contributions to purchase land and other properties, and the member businesses provide donations of goods and services to keep the church and all its parishes running.”