Playing Saint

by Zachary Bartels

  Ketcham shook his head slowly. “But we didn’t, Saint. Sadly, we got here just a moment too late to save the good pastor’s life.” He crossed himself, mockingly. “Fortunately, though, we were able to end the killing spree and neutralize the murderer. We’re going to be honest. This couldn’t be better for our career.”

  “You’re messing with me, right? This isn’t very funny.” He shouted into the darkness, “Corrinne! Troy! Are you guys back there? Come on out.” The web of phobias was fusing into one paralyzing cord, wrapping ever tighter around Parker. Behind his back he was trying to dial 911.

  “No one else is down here, Parker. It’s just you and Damien. And us. And we think you’ll find that there’s no cell phone signal either.”

  The detective’s body language had changed as well. His upright posture and uptight presence had melted away, leaving Parker with the impression that he was standing in the presence of someone else entirely—a complete stranger.

  “Give us the phone, Saint.”

  As Parker handed it over, a horrible, inescapable truth dawned on him. “You killed them, didn’t you?” he said. “You killed them all.”

  “That’s not what the paper will say tomorrow. The official story will identify the late Damien Bane as the killer. And who would question the official story? Killer acquired, evidence piling up. And just look at this guy.” He laughed, a deep, growling gurgle of a laugh. “It’s almost like he was auditioning for the role of Serial Killer #3. The city will breathe a sigh of relief and try to put the whole unpleasant matter out of mind.”

  Everything was clicking at once for Parker. The DNA evidence, Damien’s knowing about the pentagram, the hidden drugs and knives. It all made sense.

  “You picked Damien as your scapegoat from the beginning, didn’t you? And Officer Dykstra was your backup in case you couldn’t make the murders stick.”

  Ketcham took a step closer. “You’ve got it all wrong. You were our backup. Dykstra was just a coincidence.” He smiled coldly. “We always cover our tracks. Your god is a god of order. Well, we like order too.”

  “Why do you keep saying we?” Parker asked, knowing the answer and fearing it more than he’d ever feared anything before.

  The smile broadened. “Why do you think?”

  Parker whimpered involuntarily.

  “Perhaps a better question,” he continued, “would be why would a celebrated police investigator employ a clueless televangelist as an expert consultant in a series of murders?”

  “Because I was part of your plan from the beginning too,” Parker said. He was feeling drowsy, resigned, the fight-or-flight effects of adrenaline having more or less worn off.

  “That’s right. In fact, you should be proud. You were the inspiration for all of this. You’re going to love this, Saint. We were standing in line behind you at the airport that day. We saw you throw your little fit when you didn’t get your way. And we got to thinking . . . what could be better than a faithless hypocrite of a preacher right in the middle of our masterpiece? We knew there was no danger of you recognizing us, since you looked no one in the eye that day—so wrapped up in your own glory and fame. You have more in common with us than you’ll ever know.”

  “You’ve been playing me from the beginning.”

  Ketcham snickered. “Do you really think I’m the one who’s been playing Saint all this time?”

  Parker swallowed hard. “Is Brynn really dead?”

  “Look behind you,” Ketcham growled.

  Despite issuing himself silent orders to the contrary, Parker found his head craning back, following the dim beam of the flashlight. There, in an open closet, he saw Brynn Carter, her throat cut and her face decorated with occult symbols painted in blood.

  “Someone had to shut her up. Right, Saint? I just saved you the trouble. Although, to be fair, she never really wanted to press charges. At least not when we first suggested it. But everyone has their breaking point. Brynn’s was her sister. And her sister’s meth habit. In the end she decided she’d rather send you to jail than see her sister get a third strike and spend twenty-five years in prison.”

  A dead sort of rage began to build up in Parker. “You killed Paige,” he said, more accusation than observation.

  “No, no. Haven’t you been listening? Damien killed Paige. Then he killed you. Then we killed Damien. It really is tragic—losing a local treasure like Parker Saint. We’re just thankful that justice was done at the end of the day. And in the meantime, of course, we got to slay some lambs, burn some churches, have some fun.”

  Parker did not remember beginning to cry, although his cheeks were streaked with tears. His mind was filling up with things he wanted to say, but “Why?” was all he could get out.

  “Why? Because I’m a wolf, Parker. I’m a wolf and you’re a little lamb, waiting to be slaughtered.”

  “But you’re a policeman. A sheepdog, remember?”

  “We play the part well, don’t we? You asked how we deal with all the blood and the carnage, the chaos and the evil? The answer is that we savor it. We cherish every last morsel. Like the other morning. You should not have left the morgue in such a hurry. You missed the best part. We took that girl apart. Piece by piece. In that sterile medical environment, the good doctor and I finished the job begun in her apartment. And this Monday morning at nine—at my strong recommendation—we’ll be having a look inside your precious Paige.”

  Rage flashed to the surface, and no one was more surprised than Parker when he squeezed his right hand into a tight fist and smashed it into Ketcham’s ear. The blow seemed to catch the detective off guard, so Parker tried to follow it up with a haymaker, putting everything he had—all his fear, all his rage, all his confusion—into the punch.

  He was stopped midswing and felt Ketcham’s grip tighten around his wrist, locking his joint and sending a flare of pain from his elbow to his shoulder. His own inertia brought him down—or rather, seemed to bring the concrete slamming up to meet him. A wave of nausea came over him. The more he struggled, the more it hurt. Finally he went limp.

  “One more outburst like that and we’ll have to cuff you.” Ketcham tapped his coat pocket. “We brought a second pair for you, just in case. But we’d rather not deviate from the script this late in the game. It just wouldn’t look right.”

  Parker was disoriented, his fingers unable to grip the gritty cement floor. With great effort he pulled himself to his knees and gazed up at Ketcham, now pulling a black knife with a diamond-shaped blade from the folds of his coat.

  “Recognize this, Saint? You’ve already held the weapon that killed Brynn. And Melanie and Ben. And Isabella and her boyfriend. And Paige. How easily we could have taken your good name from you. But we’ll settle for taking your life.”

  He held the knife up, studying the blade in the dim light. “We’ve learned that if you put evidence in plain sight, slap a numbered tag on it, no one gives it a second thought.

  “It’s the same knife we used on two of the prostitutes a few years ago. But that’s ancient history. The real question on everyone’s mind right now is, what should we paint on your body? Any requests? Don’t be afraid to think big. I can take my time with you.” He tipped his head toward the man taped to the chair. “What do you think, Legion?”

  Damien jerked in his seat and tried to swear.

  “How about an ankh?” Ketcham asked. “Do you know what an ankh is, Parker? Hmm? Maybe you want to sneak out a minute and look it up on your smartphone.” He wound up and hurled Parker’s phone at the wall, smashing it into a dozen pieces. “Whoops. It looks like Damien did away with your phone so you couldn’t call for help while he was carving you up. Good thinking, Damien.

  “The ankh is out, then. Maybe something simpler, like that barbed wire circle—the one that death metal band stamps on all their merchandise. That would really resonate with the public, wouldn’t it? I can hear the preachers now: ‘Burn all your records!’ ” He threw his head back and indulged an enthusiastic laugh
. “And Lee here and his kind will take the brunt of the backlash,” he said, pointing back at Damien. “The sheep only see one side of evil, Parker. The obvious side. They’ll rail all day against the diversion while they stand knee-deep in murky water, oblivious to the serpents slithering around their legs.”

  “Detective Ketcham, please. I know you don’t really want to do this.”

  “Ketcham doesn’t want anything. You know why? Because he doesn’t exist. You can call me Danny.”

  Another fearful realization lighted on Parker, even as he tried to bat it away. “It was you. You’re the one Dr. Graham told me about. The one from Broken Bondage Ministries.”

  “Ah, yes. Geoffrey. We were afraid he recognized us at the church that day. But we noticed him too late to back out. These things are delicate. Once you light the fuse, it can’t be unlit. And, of course, it’s for the best.” He pointed to his head with two fingers. “Got to keep it swept clean.”

  Somehow, in the midst of all the fear, an idea was forming in Parker’s mind. It was a long shot, but he knew he had to run with it now before he lost his nerve. Drawing himself up on one knee, he pointed his hand at Danny like a superhero shooting a laser beam.

  “In the name of Jesus, I cast you out!” he shouted with all the authority he could fake.

  The knife clattered to the ground and Danny doubled over, hugging himself violently around the abdomen. He wheezed and whined in an unnerving high squeal, his eyes rolling back in their sockets. Parker rushed to his side and shoved a hand up into his coat, searching for the 9 mm pistol that he’d seen there so often, hanging under the detective’s left arm. After a few incredibly long seconds of grasping, he felt the cold metal of the handle on his fingers—and the hot flesh of Danny’s hand around his forearm, squeezing, crushing, twisting, bursting blood vessels.

  Danny’s pitiful wheeze morphed into a dark, rhythmic laugh as he pulled Parker in close—an inch from his face. Parker could smell the stale cigar smoke and mint Binaca on his breath.

  “Nice try, Parker. Here’s the problem. Jesus, I know. And I know Geoffrey. But who are you supposed to be?” He smashed his knuckles into the bridge of Parker’s nose, spattering blood. Parker crumpled to the ground and went fetal, using his forearms to protect his head from the rain of blows. Danny kicked and stomped, a stream of curses and gutturals coming from the back of his throat.

  Parker was on the verge of blacking out when the beating suddenly stopped.

  “Is this what you were after?” Danny asked, drawing the handgun and pressing the barrel against Parker’s temple. He cocked the gun.

  Parker squeezed his eyes shut and thought for the first time in recent memory about what would happen when he died. Would he see his father and mother and Evert and Paige? Would he hear the words he’d recited at so many funerals, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest”? Had he been faithful at all?

  Danny eased the hammer back into place. “No such luck, Saint,” he said, standing. “You see, the Blackjack Killer cuts people’s throats. That’s what he does.” He slammed his foot into Parker’s abdomen again.

  Parker had never really been hit before tonight. Tears overflowed his eyes, and the pain was more than he could handle. He pushed his forehead to the ground and rolled onto his knees. “Oh, God . . .”

  “God? That tired old song again?” Danny’s laugh scooped up to a high giggle. “All right, we’ll give you another shot, Saint. You go ahead and have your little meeting with God. See if he’ll come on down here and save you.”

  Parker buried his face in his hands and prayed silently. For the first time in years, it was not for the benefit of an audience. Lord, I know I can’t resist the devil without submitting to you. I confess that I’ve been preaching a gospel with no scandal—a gospel with no blood, no substitution, a gold cross with no one dying on it.

  “Yesssss,” Danny hissed. “Pray.”

  I know I’ve been trying to save you, when you are the one who seeks and saves the lost. I confess that I am wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. He was pouring his heart out for the first time in almost a decade, having replaced his nightly time of prayer with the rather neutral habit of Internet research.

  “Tell him, Parker. Tell him how he let you down. What a pathetic shepherd. Just when the widdle wamb needed some help, he was nowhere to be found. Tell him he lost.”

  I submit to you. Not a little at a time when it’s convenient, but everything. Now.

  “Time’s up,” Danny said. “Time to take you apart.” He scooped the knife up from the concrete.

  Parker stood quickly, feeling taller than he’d been before, the pain of the beating leaving his body all at once. Everything in the room looked different somehow: Damien taped to the chair, Brynn’s body in the closet, Danny standing there holding a knife in one hand and a gun in the other, the smile quickly fading from his face. Everything was smaller.

  “Be quiet,” Parker commanded, “and come out of him.”

  Danny convulsed, stumbling backward and falling hard onto the concrete steps. The gun clattered up the stairs behind him. He arched his back, his mouth gaping and foaming. A hideous sucking sound filled the room.

  Parker quickly decided that his best chance of escape lay in shifting the odds. Gauging and analyzing, he rushed over to Damien, trying to determine the quickest way to free him from his bonds. What he saw was not encouraging.

  Damien’s ankles were taped to the two front metal legs of the chair; his torso was wrapped in duct tape many times over, holding him to the backrest; and his wrists poked out the back of the chair through a square hole in the green plastic, shackled together by a pair of metal police handcuffs.

  Parker forced his eyes back toward the steps. Danny’s violent jerking had subsided; he lay on the stairs, quivering softly, his eyes closed tight. Parker knew that he needed both the keys to the handcuffs and the knife to cut Damien’s bonds. But how long would this condition last? When he came to, would Ketcham remember where he was, what was happening?

  Walking tentatively toward the stairwell, the first thing Parker saw was the small flashlight rolling along. He grabbed it and clicked on the beam, shining it about the floor, searching for the knife.

  Danny’s eyes remained closed, his breath shallow, his right hand weakly grasping the railing and his left pinned beneath his body. Parker reached gingerly into the pocket of the trench coat, immediately feeling a cold metal ring with several keys attached. He pulled, but something was caught on them. He yanked harder and found himself holding a collection of keys and a pair of handcuffs.

  Recalling every cop show he’d ever seen, Parker slapped one of the cuffs against Danny’s wrist with a flick of his own. It surprised him by swinging closed and ratcheting shut. Parker secured the other cuff to the handrail, then tightened both.

  That’s when he saw Danny’s eyes, now wide open, boring into him. He was trying to move, trying to wrench his left hand from underneath him. He hadn’t dropped the knife, Parker thought. Parker leapt back from the steps just as the blade came swinging from underneath him. Danny was clearly disoriented, rattling the handcuffs and swinging wildly with the knife, back and forth across the stairway.

  Parker grabbed the back of the plastic chair and dragged Damien away—away from Danny, away from the stairs, and through a doorway, deeper into the dragon’s lair. He needed somewhere to untape Damien and remove the handcuffs. He needed a phone, another set of stairs, an escape plan. Most of all, he needed to put as much distance between them and Danny as possible.

  He moved along quickly, considering the hundred-and-sixty-pound load he was dragging behind him. Before long they’d covered a great deal of ground, having taken two turns, and Parker was feeling a little safer. As he dragged his one-time enemy, he was looking for exit signs—the glowing red kind that point the way out. Not surprisingly, there were none lighting up the basement of the abandoned school, but he kept looking, shining his weak stream of light into every corn
er, sweeping it above every doorway.

  A noise from behind them caused Parker to freeze. He forgot to breathe for a moment, listening for the sound of footsteps. Instead, he heard the loud clung again. And again. It was distant, but hard to say how distant. Was it coming from the stairway, or had Danny managed to free himself? Parker felt a paralyzing fear grip him.

  Damien was trying to say something through the tape on his mouth. He grimaced as Parker removed it, taking a good portion of his black goatee with it.

  “That’s far enough,” he said. “Now help me get loose.”

  “You’re right. There has to be another stairway somewhere, but I can’t drag you up like this. Let’s do it in here.”

  Parker opened a heavy door bearing a sign that read East Wing Boilers. He dragged Damien awkwardly through the doorway, somehow certain that Danny was indeed loose and lucid and would soon be bringing a legion of evil spirits through that very door.

  TWENTY-THREE

  IT TOOK PARKER LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED TO REMOVE THE duct tape. Danny had secured Damien from his chest down to his lap, crisscrossing the heavy tape back over itself many times. Removing it required a finesse Parker lacked at the moment. Strips of tape kept getting tangled and stuck.

  The room—about fifteen by twenty-five feet—was feebly lit by the flashlight, now secured by a scrap of discarded tape to the pull chain overhead. Parker was cursing himself all the while for having removed the gag from Damien, who seemed to have been born without the ability to whisper.

  “What happened back there?” Damien asked, having already posed the question in different forms half a dozen times.

  “I told you. Now be quiet.”

  “You really expect me to believe that?”

  “At the moment I don’t care what you believe. We can discuss it over goat’s blood and burnt cat tomorrow if you like. Right now I just want to make sure we live to actually see tomorrow, okay? Let me concentrate.”

  The boiler room was cold; they could see their breath. Damien was bouncing his knees to keep warm, which did not help the process of freeing him.