Playing Saint

by Zachary Bartels

  “Parker Saint.”

  “Parker, it’s Detective Ketcham. Are you at home?”

  “Yeah. I’m still going through these photos. I actually may have something.”

  “Get dressed. There’s a squad car on its way to your house to pick you up. We’ve got another victim.”

  “A car? What, right now?”

  “Yes, now.” The detective’s voice was cold and distant.

  Parker tried to counter it with a friendly tone. “I’ll be of more use to you after a good night’s sleep, you know.”

  “Parker, we’d be coming for you tonight even if you and I had never met. The only difference is me calling to warn you, and that’s just a professional courtesy. You’re now a person of interest to this investigation.”

  ONE WEEK AGO

  Danny had a spot of blood on his sleeve from the night’s activities. This was unacceptable. He made a point of wearing latex gloves under a pair of black leather gloves whenever he went out killing for Them—a double precaution against leaving any of himself on his victims or bringing any of his victims home on himself. The last few times he had taken to washing the leather gloves with alcohol wipes and dropping them into one of many clothing bank donation bins around town. Hiding evidence in plain sight was better than bringing it back to where he ate and slept.

  Melanie Candor had put up an unexpectedly hard fight, though, and Danny had not been able to control the environment as much as he liked. He was not sure if the blood on his sleeve was his own—he’d been cut shallowly along the forearm—or the girl’s. Either way, it was best to burn the shirt rather than wear it again, even though he never crossed wardrobes. The clothes he used when feeding Them were never worn in everyday activities.

  Well done, Danny, he felt Them say, as he fed the shirt into the second-story fireplace of his old house. You are our greatest creation. They were the only ones who called him Danny anymore. He had left that name behind several years earlier when he’d adopted a public persona more conducive to his lifestyle—a persona that gave him growing power, resources, and a small band of loyal followers.

  Adopting this persona had had its intended effect, namely freeing him up from his weekly trips to churches for exorcisms. That habit had become too much of a liability. Not only was the pool of candidates growing incredibly small, but Their leaving and returning was becoming too much to bear. Especially the leaving.

  The last time he’d submitted himself to an exorcism, he’d fallen unconscious for three minutes. Fearing a lawsuit, the church’s pastor had freaked and called an ambulance. By the time Danny woke and pulled himself together, he could hear the sirens in the distance. He’d pushed away their concerned hands, slipped out to his car, and made his escape. That had marked the end of The Project. And it had served its purpose. Danny had all the power he was going to have. Now it was time to use it.

  He emptied his pockets into a large, plastic zipper bag. The various tools of the trade, many of which he’d been carrying for a dozen years, nearly filled it. The newest item was a black fine-tip permanent marker. He had marked the girl tonight, on the bottom of her foot. What the small star-shape meant was a mystery to Danny; They had written it, not him. He did not need to know its significance. What he did know was that Melanie Candor was only the first in a series of killings. Like the last spree, but bigger.

  After marking the girl, he had prepared the scene with the public and media in mind. Classic misdirection. There was a plan, a design to this seemingly random string of murders. The girl tonight was no one Danny had ever met, the reason she had died known only to Them. Danny’s contribution to the design would be the climax, the big finale.

  He could not wait to execute the finale.

  EIGHTEEN

  PARKER KNEW WHAT HAD HAPPENED AS SOON AS THE SQUAD car slowed in front of Paige’s building. He could not let himself think it directly, but the inevitability slowly sank in like poison as the policeman escorted him silently in the front door, up the elevator, and to Paige’s door, where a large X of crime-scene tape did nothing to keep Parker from rushing in as if he could get there quickly enough to prevent what had already happened.

  Paige was dead.

  She lay facedown in the hallway between the bedroom and the bath. Parker could not see her face, but the bright red hair was unmistakable.

  “Why would he do this?” Parker asked in a whisper, sinking to his knees at her side.

  She wore a white nightgown that scooped low in back, revealing the canvas of her pale skin, upon which were painted an ornate dragon and a crown in dull brownish red. The detail was impressive; someone had taken his time on this.

  “The dragon and the crown,” Parker said. “Both showed up on a number of the vandalized churches.” It was a feeble attempt at professional detachment.

  Detective Ketcham took a knee beside Parker and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “We didn’t bring you here to consult,” he said, his voice full of empathy. “I have some questions to ask you.”

  Parker couldn’t take his eyes off Paige’s lifeless body.

  “I take it you know this woman?” Ketcham asked.

  “Yes, she’s my personal assistant.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. She’s my—was my friend.” He choked on some tears. “I should call her mother, she’s—”

  “We’ll do that, Parker. Right now, I need you to follow me into the next room.”

  “Sure.” As Parker stood, his eyes were drawn to the dragon’s bulbous eye, painted carefully on Paige’s left shoulder blade. At its center, disguised as a twinkling gleam of light, was the same intersection of four wedge-shaped lines that Parker had spotted earlier in dozens of police photos. It was unmistakable. And yet Parker felt no thrill of discovery, no chill up his spine. He had no desire to point it out to the detectives—to solve the mystery or crack the case. What he did want, for the first time in his life, was revenge.

  Ketcham led him into Paige’s dinette and invited him to take a chair in front of an ultrathin laptop computer.

  “Mark, come here and make this thing play,” Ketcham called toward the door. “Mark!”

  “I’ve got it,” Parker said, using the touchpad mouse to press the Play icon.

  It was a video of Parker’s house, filmed from the street with a camcorder. The picture was crisp despite the waning light.

  After a few seconds of inactivity, Paige marched into the frame, up the front walk, and pressed the doorbell. She waited briefly before whacking the large knocker against the door several times with obvious annoyance. Another pause and she retrieved a key from her purse and let herself in.

  There was a cut in the footage. Now night, the front of the house was illuminated by porch light and street lamps. Parker arrived, crawling out the backseat of the Jesuits’ Cadillac, and made his way up the steps, appearing almost drunk for all his staggering.

  Another cut. The door flew open and Paige came charging out, slamming it behind her. The videographer was zooming in on her face, focusing in just as the anger melted away and she began to sob. She pushed her hands against her face and wiped her cheeks with a hard sweep. Another wave of tears hit her and she repeated the process, then walked quickly down the street, disappearing from the frame.

  Another cut brought up the side entrance of the Rivers of Life Worship Center. Paige was seen entering. Then Parker. The footage was much lower quality, but the angle caught them from the side, and both were clearly identifiable. With the final cut, the vantage point changed. The person with the camera was clearly exiting the building alongside Paige. She was again fighting tears and resting her head against the splayed fingers of her right hand as she made her way out into the parking lot.

  The picture went black and the words She knew too much filled the screen, almost immediately replaced with So he killed her. Then it faded to black. Ketcham gently closed the laptop.

  “This video disc was taped to the door when we got here,” he said. �
�You have no idea how much I hate asking you this, Parker, but . . .” He swallowed hard. “Where were you tonight from the hours of nine to eleven?”

  Parker put his head down on the table. “I was at the revival from seven thirty until I went home at about eight forty-five. Thousands of people saw me.”

  “No one thinks you had anything to do with this.”

  “I know.”

  Ketcham was silent for nearly a minute. “I’m sorry this happened,” he finally said, his voice cracking slightly. “I can’t help but think that she would be alive if I hadn’t involved you in all this.”

  “It’s not your fault. I don’t hold anything against you, Detective Ketcham. I just want to see that psycho thrown into prison. I hope it’s awful for him.”

  “We’ve got to pin it to him first. There are no prints on this disc; we’re sure of that. But I’ve got people who can find the digital watermark in the video, which will give us the device’s serial number. If it was filmed with a cell phone, which it looks like the second half was, we can probably pinpoint the account without breaking a sweat. And we’re going to visit Damien first thing in the morning—visit him hard. We’ll see if he’s got an alibi.”

  “I’m his alibi,” Parker said. “He came to the revival, came up onstage so that I could pray for him. It was broadcast in four states.”

  Ketcham swore. “He’s pushing our face in it again. Only this time, his face is the one that will get dirty. Idiot placed himself near the victim hours before her death. If we can tie the video to a phone or a camera that he owns, we’ve got him at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder.”

  “How long will all this take?” Parker was feeling a growing panic about his own safety.

  “Techno-voodoo will take a day or so. But we’re not waiting for that. Like I said, we’re visiting Damien this morning. I’ve made a few calls tonight, cashed in most of my chips.” He hesitated. “There are a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t tell you this, but I owe you at least this much: if you really want to see Damien humbled, be at the corner of Sibley and Clemmens at five thirty tomorrow morning.”

  Parker checked his watch, although they were surrounded by clocks, both digital and analog. “As in three hours from now?”

  “Right. No one’s getting any sleep tonight anyway.” He locked eyes with Parker. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just numb.”

  “If you don’t want to be there, I understand.”

  “No. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

  Parker hit a convenience store for some NoDoz and nicotine gum, then whiled away a couple hours at an all-night diner sipping coffee, his principles on the subject now right out the window. He focused entirely on what lay ahead—Detective Ketcham would be serving a search warrant on Damien Bane and had all but promised that the guy would be locked up in a cell before the sun came up.

  This thought pleased Parker, but more than that, he was keeping his mind on the future to avoid any thoughts of Paige. Still, they squeezed in somehow, generally in the form of pining over missed opportunities. He wanted to go back in time, tell Joshua Holton to choke on his advice, marry Paige, and settle down to pastor a small church while she built up the PR firm she had dreamed of owning one day. He wanted to live the kind of life that would never intersect with Brynn Carter, Paul Ketcham, or Damien Bane.

  When the time drew near to meet the police, Parker let his GPS guide him to the intersection around the corner from Damien’s house, where five unmarked SUVs were parked end to end and about twenty men were gathered around Ketcham, getting their orders. Troy was there and Corrinne too, both wearing large Kevlar vests over their clothing. Almost everyone else was decked head to foot in body armor, pads, and goggles, a variety of long guns and submachine guns in their hands. The sight almost brought a laugh from Parker, who couldn’t imagine that all this would be necessary to deal with the scrawny, maladjusted man who lived inside.

  Parker pulled up behind the convoy and approached the group.

  “Our team comprises three units this morning,” Ketcham was saying. “Major Case, Vice, and Special Response Team. My thanks to Detective Donnelly and Sergeant Coleman for helping us out. For the uninitiated, the house we’re executing on belongs to one Damien Bane, alias Daniel Banner, our prime suspect in the Blackjack Murders, now numbering five.

  “We’ve managed to secure two warrants for this carnival fun house—one for narcotics and narcotics paraphernalia and one for weapons and physical evidence related to the murders themselves. These will give us access to every nook and crack. Let’s be methodical and let’s do this by the book. Our goal here is to get this man off the street this morning, however we can. I’ve got a whole buffet of evidence testing coming back today, but I can’t risk another body in the meantime.

  “So anything—and I mean anything—that could justify an arrest, you bring it to me. Rolling papers, knives, photographs, anything. If he’s got a newspaper story about the murders in his recycle bin, you bring it to me. I also want any kind of cell phone, video camera, or other electronic device. And because narcotics are involved, let’s secure the premises as quickly as possible. We don’t want to give anyone time to flush evidence.

  “One more thing: there are at least seven people we know of living in that house, probably more in there right now, crashing for the night. Half of them are minors. I’ve classified this a high-risk warrant to bring in the Special Response Team, but let’s show some extra restraint. Keep it tight in there. Detective Kirkpatrick and I have reviewed the files on each of the known residents and we know who’s who, so follow our lead.”

  Corrinne approached Parker, a bulky ballistic vest in her hand.

  “Do you want to come in?” she whispered.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Unfortunately, I am. Ketcham insisted you have the option. I think he’s nuts, but if you want to . . .”

  “Of course I’m coming.”

  She secured the vest to his torso with heavy Velcro straps and ordered, “You stay behind us, you hear me?” a command she repeated at least three more times as she adjusted the vest. When she was satisfied, she put a hand on his shoulder. “I heard about your friend,” she said, tilting the word friend up slightly, fishing for confirmation. When Parker said nothing, she added, “I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll take care of this.”

  Ketcham had finished his pep talk. He pulled out his sidearm and racked the slide. The ratchet echoed across the still street.

  “Let’s go,” the detective said.

  With silent efficiency they rounded the corner and surrounded the house in formation, so quickly that Parker had trouble keeping up.

  Ketcham thumped his fist against the front door. “Police! Search warrant!” he bellowed. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a thick-necked cop, heavy-laden with tactical gear, slammed the door off its hinges with a battering ram. They poured in.

  Inside, the house was thick with odor—a potpourri of dry rot, marijuana, and head-shop incense. Several young people were roused from their slumber on couches and tattered, old recliners, groggy and disoriented. Before they knew what was happening, they were being pinned to the floor, their wrists secured behind their backs with plastic flex-cuffs.

  With a single motion Ketcham ordered two of the SRT members to remain in the front room and cover the door. Parker followed Ketcham and Corrinne through an arched doorway into a large sitting room, half a dozen cops at his heels.

  “You Brownshirts!”

  The redhead from Parker’s backyard exploded into the room and lunged at Corrinne, swinging a wooden baseball bat. She absorbed the blow into her vest, trapped his wrist, and flipped him to the ground with such ease and grace that Parker wanted to initiate a slow clap. She rolled her assailant onto his stomach and held his arms in place while another officer secured his wrists.

  “Look at the tactics of the Christian Elite,” he grunted through the pain, “break
ing into a man’s house with machine guns, beating up teenagers.”

  Corrinne leaned in close. “Your mistake was turning eighteen last month, Dylan, my man. You’re going to do some time for me now.” She thudded his head against the floor and stood at the ready. At Ketcham’s command they mounted a flight of stairs to a spacious landing, where they broke formation and quickly searched the four bedrooms, netting a sparsely dressed young couple in their early twenties and a very stoned teenager who laughed uproariously at the sight of the Special Response Team in their tactical gear.

  Ketcham quickly exchanged status reports with the men downstairs via radio.

  “No Damien,” he said. “He must be in the attic.” He pulled a rope dangling from the ceiling, and a retractable ladder came down. The smell of incense increased, and an orangish glow spilled down onto the landing.

  “I don’t like this, Ketcham,” the sergeant whispered intensely. “Poking our heads into an attic with a suspected serial killer waiting up there, undoubtedly aware of our approach. I strongly suggest a flashbang.”

  “Negative,” he answered. “Damien’ll come with us quietly. Won’t he, Parker?”

  “I think so. He’s definitely not up there with a gun, waiting to go down in a blaze of glory. Not his MO.”

  “You’ve got to stop with the MO stuff, okay?” He turned to Sergeant Coleman. “He’s right though. I’ll lead. You men hang back. We wouldn’t want to frighten the delicate, little man, would we?” Ketcham scaled the ladder quickly, Parker right behind him.

  Parker recognized the attic immediately as the setting for Damien’s many video podcasts. The walls were plastered with occult symbols and psychedelic art. Damien sat cross-legged between the low table—upon which a thick book lay open—and the Satan Self Will banner, a hand palming each knee. He was smiling broadly.

  “Hands where I can see them, Damien,” Ketcham ordered, gun trained on his chest.