by Frank Smith
Detective Rossi took a laptop from her bag and brought up a gruesome photo of the bloody depression on the back of Father Soroka's head.
"That's consistent with the photos of the body," she said, "and with pieces of wax embedded in the wound that are mentioned in the autopsy report."
I noticed the wax drippings under the electrical panel on the pipe and on the floor-heavy directly under the box and tapering off on either side looking like a mathematical normal distribution. Detective Rossi knelt on one knee and scraped at the wax with a manicured fingernail.
"Look at this, Fra? Father Donnelly. Does that look like dried blood?"
"Could be," I said. "Maybe that's where he hit. Could you back up to the first picture you were looking at?"
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"Geometry," I said. "Let me show you something." I got down of the floor and aligned my body with the chalked image and propped myself up on my right elbow so that the back of my head was touching the pipe.
"Look at the angle made by the pipe with my shoulders."
"About sixty, seventy degrees," Monsignor Smith said.
"I'd say about sixty also," Angela said. "And??"
"And if I was falling and hit my head on this pipe the depression in my skull should also be?."
"About sixty degrees with respect to your shoulders," she said.
I stood up and tried to brush myself off. Monsignor Smith looked baffled. I filled him in. "The depression in the back of Father Soroka's skull is almost parallel to his shoulders; maybe five or ten degrees at most. That's not consistent with the assumption about how he fell."
"What if he didn't trip over the tool box? What if he was standing in the middle of the room and just fell almost straight back against the pipe?" he asked.
"Not with the position in which the body was found," said Detective Rossi. "He would have been lying perpendicular to the wall, not along it."
"Maybe he moved after he fell," Monsignor Smith said.
"Even if he wasn't dead it's unlikely he was conscious after he hit the pipe," I said. "The body could have been moved. Maybe someone hit him with a baseball bat or something and then tried to make it look like an accident."
Detective Rossi laughed. "Whoa. Accident to murder. That's a big leap, Father. A baseball bat wouldn't drive wax into his skull and if he was moved there should be marks on the floor."
"But the floor looks like it was recently swept. It's clean except for a little dirt in the chalked outline of the body," I said. "He could have been moved and then the floor swept when the killer saw the marks in the dust."
Detective Rossi walked over to the shelves on the far wall. "Look at the dust on these shelves. Looks like years of accumulation. Now this is curious." She turned to Monsignor Smith. "What was on the shelves before these books?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Both Monsignor Smith and I went over to the shelf to look. Underneath the stacks of books were three larger rectangles free of dust.
There was something else on this shelf until recently," she said. "Do you know what it was, Monsignor?"
"I'm afraid I don't. I haven't been in this room for months."
She removed the books from the shelf, took a small tape measure out of her bag, and measured the size of one of the dust free areas.
"I get fifteen and a half by twelve and a half," she said jotting the figures into her notebook. She started to put the books back on the shelf.
"Wait a minute," I said. "Let me try something." I took a file folder box labeled "Marriage Records" from another shelf and fitted it over one of the rectangles. It fit perfectly. "That's what was here; three letter-sized file folder boxes. Any idea what they may have contained, Monsignor?"
"No. Like I said I haven't been in here for quite a while. Maybe boxes of junk that Father Soroka got rid of to get more space."
"Well, I don't think there's anything more we can do here," Detective Rossi said. Would it be possible to see his room, Monsignor?"
"Certainly. Follow me."
"Wait just a minute," she said and took a small clothing whisk from her bag. What else did the thing hold? She brushed off her slacks and turned to me.
"Hold up your right arm and turn around. You're a mess. Your black suit doesn't help. That's better."
CHAPTER 20-A BROKEN CANDLE
Detective Rossi went up the steps first. The door opened into the semi-circular space behind the altar. Turning left she immediately bumped into a chair.
"It's easier to go around this way," Monsignor Smith said as he turned right. "That side is filled with items we use frequently so we don't put them in the basement."
In the dim light I could see extra red upholstered chairs, kneeling benches, a cross on a pole, a large paschal candle, and two small tables.
"Now that's a candle," Detective Rossi said, looking at the huge candle in its stand. The candle itself was about four feet long and two and a half to three inches in diameter.
"A floor lamp of a candle, isn't it?" Monsignor Smith said. "It's a paschal candle for Easter. Father Soroka must have just got it in. Our old one was down to a small stub. They last for years."
"That's a little scary," she said pointing to a wide brass ring slipped over the candle near its base. The ring was cast to look like a crown of thorns with three thorns about an inch long sticking out of the crown. Monsignor explained what it was.
"Quite symbolic," she said. "Even some red wax representing blood. Very realistic."
"This ring should really be near the top of the candle not the bottom," I said. I gave it a tentative twist. It wouldn't budge.
"Oh, that's Ok. Leave it where it is. I'll get to it later," Monsignor Smith said.
I gave it a good twist and pushed it up the candle. When I removed my hand the candle collapsed, broken at the point where the ring had been holding it together. The upper portion of the candle was kept from separating from the lower piece by the wick running through its center. It dangled and swung back and forth briefly. The red wax that we thought represented blood was a little too realistic. I went to touch it.
"Don't," Detective Rossi said grabbing my arm.
"Did that autopsy report mention what kind of wax was found in the wound?" I asked.
"It just said wax. Why?"
"Because the wax in the candles in the box on the electrical panel is paraffin. This candle is beeswax."
"You can tell just by looking at it?"
"It's a matter of canon law-church law. The candles used on the altar must be made of beeswax. If the specks of wax in Father Soroka's wound are beeswax?."
"Then we may very well have a murder rather than an accident," she said, her cell phone already on her ear.
"I want to get a crime scene unit out here to get a sample from the candle and the wax on the pipe and to dust the candle for prints," she said to me as she waited for an answer.
She identified herself, where she was, and what we found, paused to listen, gave me a you-don't-know-what-I have-to-put-up-with look, and rolled her eyes up to look at the angels painted on the ceiling.
"Of course I'm sure. No, it wouldn't be a 'virtual' scene." She stretched the word so it came out as virt-you-all. "Now be a good sergeant and get me the CSU."
She put her thumb on the slits in the mouth piece, glanced sideways at me and then back at the ceiling. "He thinks sitting at a desk all day answering the phone makes him more of a cop than me and our cyber crime team. I swear if I had to call for backup he'd ask if I wanted the Geek Squad."
Not Geeks but two technicians were on their way. In the meantime she asked Monsignor Smith to lock the storeroom door and the church doors. He looked a bit shaken and then said, "Detective Rossi, there is something I forgot to tell you in the rectory. Before I left that morning I saw an SUV pull out of the parking lot around 10:30. Maybe a parishioner making a visit to the church or dropping off items for the clothing drive."
"Did you notice the make of
the SUV by any chance?"
"It was a smaller one. I didn't notice the make. Dark gray."
"And you say this was about 10:30. Are you sure of the time?"
"Certain. The clock chimed the half hour as I looked out the window."
She made a note of that and said, "Thank you."
I asked Monsignor Smith if he could make alternate arrangements for the morning Masses and confessions and Masses on the weekend. He said there was a small chapel in the basement of the closed school that had been used for Sunday overflow back when the parish was thriving. He would arrange to open it temporarily.
While we waited for the crime scene unit Monsignor Smith took us to Father Soroka's room. Detective Rossi rooted through the box of Soroka's personal possessions and pulled out a cell phone. She turned it on, pushed a few keys and said, "Monsignor, this is a Smart Phone and could contain some useful information. Do you mind if I take this with me? I'll return it with his computer?"
"No, please do. Anything that might help."
When the crime scene techs arrived we showed them what we had found and left.
CHAPTER 21-FAUX PAS
We made a left out of the parking lot onto Chester Avenue and another left onto Sixty-fifth. I made a suggestion. "Let's drop the 'Father' and 'Detective' appellations and just be Frank and Angela."
"Good idea. So who's your prime suspect, Frank, assuming we actually do have a murder?"
"I'd say pen pal. How about you?"
"I have four suspects. If the emails are really threats then pen pal looms large. Then there is the driver of the gray SUV. Also, Monsignor Smith, simply because he was there. He had the means and the opportunity but no motive. The fourth suspect is 'none of the above', say a thief caught in the act, a junkie looking for a golden chalice he could sell. No connection to the victim. They're the toughest to solve."
"So, what's the next step?" I asked.
"The next step will be up to the homicide detectives if-and it's a big if- this turns out to be murder. In the mean time I'll pay a visit to 'phurkfull' and see if they can mine any more information from Soroka's laptop and cell phone."
"Phurkfull?"
"That's what I call it. The Philadelphia Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, P-H-R-C-F-L. Quite a mouthful, isn't it?"
"What is it?"
"Just what it says, a computer forensics lab-out in the suburbs, in Radnor. It's a joint partnership between the FBI and state and local law enforcement. PPD is a participating agency. Their examiners will squeeze every bit and byte of digital information out of Soroka's computer and cell phone. If a mouse tap danced on his keyboard they'll know it.
"Meantime you can keep your scientific nose to the ground and feed me anything you think is relevant. But be careful. If pen pal is involved in this we could be dealing with a killer and not just a crank."
She tuned off sixty-fifth and down a cobblestone ramp back to the Cobbs Creek Parkway.
"By the way, that was nice work Sherlock. You'd make a good cop."
I laughed. "You realize that if I'm 'Sherlock' that would make you 'Watson' and he never sounded very smart."
"You've got a point there. How about 'investigative partners' then?"
"Better. Now, partner, while we are still in an investigative mode, what are you doing this evening?"
"Oh, wait a minute, Frank. You're a nice guy and all but I just?"
I laughed again. "Relax, Angela. I'm not asking you for a date, just some help with an experiment at the scene of Sunday's shooting."
"Right, right. I didn't really think?I mean you being engaged and all."
Whoops. I could have phrased that better. She'd turn me down if I was asking her out but now she's hurt that I wasn't.
"Not that I wouldn't want to ask you out-under different circumstances of course-I mean a beautiful woman and intelligent-who wouldn't..?"
Now she was laughing.
"Frank, stop, stop. Truce. Let's agree if I hadn't just broke up with my boyfriend of two years, and you weren't engaged then if you just happened to ask me out then I just might have said yes- even though it would be pretty weird to be going out with a priest. How's that?"
"I'd say it takes care of both our egos. Now, can you spare a half hour or so early this evening-for an experiment, not for a date?"
"Experiment?"
I told her about Joe's analysis of the video and that I wanted to check out O'Brien's "window-across-the-street" theory.
"What time?"
"About seven-thirty at the statue."
"Should I bring anything?"
"No, I'll bring everything we need.
She turned on to City Avenue.
"You're going back to PaCom, right?"
"Right."
I checked my watch. "I'll have about an hour to get some work done before I pick up Olivia at her play school."
"You, know, a question has been bothering me, Frank."
"What's that?"
"Wasn't it odd that Monsignor Smith didn't know who you were?"
"There are a lot of priests in this diocese, Angela."
"How many are widowers with a child? Does he live in a bubble?"
CHAPTER 22-AN EXPERIMENT
I checked my new email when I got back to my office. One was a request to call Sal Lucasi about the cosmic ray photos I sent him. He picked up on the second ring.
"Frank, old boy. Man of mystery."
"What do you think, Sal?"
"My first reaction was a solar flare, but there hasn't been any lately. You know Karl Kurtz?"
"I know of him. Cosmologist, right?"
"Right. Big Bang, cosmic background radiation, Anthropic Principle. Big stuff. I showed him the photos."
"And?"
"He thought it was probably just a temporary anomaly, a statistical fluke, but then asked me if the person who sent the pictures happened to be a priest. I thought that strange since I only told him that the pictures came from a lab in Philadelphia. I said yes and told him who you were."
"Was he surprised?"
"Didn't seem to be. He just nodded and asked me to keep him informed if the anomaly continued. So, keep me informed, buddy. Okay?"
"Will do. How's your mother doing?"
"Not so good. I try to get up to Philly as often as I can to see her. I'm hoping to get up next week. If the cosmic ray weirdness continues maybe I can take a look."
"That would be great. Take care."
I doubted it would continue but if it does the more eyes on it the better. I checked one more email. It was from Angela Rossi. The subject line read, "FYI: Ballistics". The message was: "Bullet a .223 Remington. Not a match for the .22 slugs recovered in the cemetery. Sorry. See you tonight."
Not as sorry as I was.. Before going for Olivia I took a small penlight type laser from the Optics lab and rooted through our supply of glass tubing in the storeroom until I found a two-foot long piece that the laser fit in snugly. I took both back to my office, dropped them in my briefcase and added the range finder from my golf bag in the closet.
That evening I dropped Olivia off at my mother's and went to St. Elizabeth's. While waiting for Angela I amused myself with a little ballistics research on my iphone. She showed up at exactly seven-thirty.
"Thanks for coming."
"Did you get my email?"
"I did."
"Unlikely it was vandalism, Frank"
"It doesn't look that way. The video pretty much ruled that out too. What we want to do know is see if we can determine where that shot actually came from."
"Shouldn't you be talking to O'Brien about this, Frank, and not me?"
"Could be a bit dicey," I said. "He might not appreciate that we're checking up on him."
I got the glass tube, laser, and range finder from my briefcase and took a pair of small binoculars from the glove compartment.
"What are you planning?"
"A little experiment with some light amplified by the stimulated emission of r
adiation."
"In English, please."
" L-A-S-E-R?"
"Of course. We should hurry up, then, it's getting dark."
"All the better."
I walked over to the statue and stepped over the yellow police tape surrounding the grotto.
"I don't like this, Frank. What are you doing?"
To answer I threaded the glass tube through the exit and entrance 'wounds' in the statue.I slipped the laser into the tube and turned it on.
"What do you see?" I asked after adjusting the position of the tube.
"Where?"
"The windows across the street. Top floor."
"Okay, I see it on the shade in that window."
"The window the police saw when they looked through the exit and entrance holes," I said. "But the size of the exit hole suggests other possibilities. Now, here's where I need your help. Step in here and hold the end on this tube while I step outside the grotto."
"Okay, I got it."
"Now, slowly move the end on the tube down. There's plenty of slack."
The spot moved up toward the roof.
"Push down a little more but don't force it."
"It's gone, Frank. The beam must have cleared the roof."
"I raised the binoculars to my eyes and scanned the side of a darkened office building some distance away.
"See anything?' she asked.
"Move the tube a little side to side.-Okay, I see it now. Leave it like that and come over here and take a look."
Angela ducked under the tape and I handed her the binoculars.
"The white brick building, near its roof, under the third window from the right."
"Oh, I see it. Bright red, about the size of a quarter or half dollar."
"You got it. What's your guess as to the distance to the building?"
"Hmm, maybe one-seventy, one-eighty yards. A good three iron shot."
."Funny you should mention golf," I said taking the range finder that Vicki gave me for my birthday out of my pocket.
"Oh, that's cheating," Angela said.
"I'm a high tech golfer."
I sighted on the flag pole on the top of the distant building that was glowing with the last of the sun's rays.
"I get two-twenty .You'd be short."
"I meant to the base of the building. You measured to the top. I was pretty close."
"You can hit a three iron one-eighty?"
"One-eighty five with a good roll."