“Her bodyguard?” I ask, turning to the hulking man. He’s bald with an ichthys—also known as the Jesus fish—tattooed on his chin. “But you don’t know where she went?”
“None of us do,” Brian says.
“Mary likes to pray in private,” Fitz interjects. “So, she went into the pastor’s office to do it since the only other room she could have gone into for privacy was the bathroom.”
“So which one of you was the last one to see her?” I ask.
Fitz shakes his head. “None of us. She was talking to one of her fans.” He glances over at the crowds in the pew. He points over a few heads. I look back toward the crowd. “It’s the pink-headed chick. She’s in her late teens, I think. She was a big sobbing mess when she came over to greet Mary, so I don’t think she’s handling her disappearance well, either.”
I turn back to the band and the bodyguard. “None of you seem overly concerned that she’s gone.”
“God will take care of her,” Fitz says. “She was faithful and He would never abandon her.”
“Well…He has some help from the Detroit police too.” I step away from them and walk down the aisles until I reach the pew that has the pink-haired girl. Her face is streaked with tears, which doesn’t look good because she had a lot of eyeliner on. I reach toward her. “Miss? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
She wipes her cheeks and sidles past the other people in the pew. I move aside as she steps out into the aisle.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Cherry.”
“I’m sorry if this is rude, but is that your real name?”
“Oh, no, sorry. Right. Sorry, I’m not used to talking to the police. My legal name is Cheryl Watts.”
“Okay, Cheryl, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. Mary’s band members told me you were the last one to talk to her. What were you two talking about?”
“Oh, um, nothing really,” she says. “I was just thanking her for all of the great music she makes and she thanked me for all of my support. We did a small prayer together and I came back here because the pastor was going to have his sermon after her performance.”
“Did Mary seem to be acting odd at all? Did she seem nervous or scared?”
“No…no, I don’t think so.” Cheryl’s bottom lip begins to quiver. “I can’t believe she’s missing. How could someone like that just be taken?”
“We’re going to figure that out,” I reassure her. “Can you think of anything else? Anything that you thought was weird while you were watching her perform, or even before she came out to perform?”
“Actually, yes,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “This might seem really weird to notice, but it did seem…strange. There was this crazy Satanist who always came to her concerts to protest—saying all this stuff about how she was a phony and that Christianity was evil…but he wasn’t at this performance. I would understand if it were a performance with a lot of security or one where it would be hard to hear him over everyone else, but this would have been an easy target for him. I think most of the Christian media was expecting him to be here.”
That is strange. I wonder if this Satanist chose to not make an appearance because he was planning to kidnap Mary.
“Do you know this Satanist’s name?”
She shakes her head. “Not off the top of my head, sorry. But if you look it up online, I’m sure you can find it. He has really upset Mary a few times, but she’s a strong person. God created her to withstand anyone who hates her.”
“I’m sure He did,” I say. “Thank you, Cheryl. If you think of anything else, you can call the police station.”
As I step away from her, surveying the crowd again, Romano steps into the room.
“Hey, Lauren,” he says. “I just asked the pastor and there isn’t any surveillance footage around the church. You find out anything here?”
“Possibly,” I say. “What do you know about Satanism?”
“It scares me,” he says. “Why? What do you know?”
“I know they use the Sigil of Baphomet,” I tell him. “The image uses a pentagram, which some see as a symbolism of Christ’s wounds from being crucified.”
“Do I want to know how you know that?”
“Ottis Toole, a serial killer from Florida, said his mother exposed him to Satanism," I say. "I was curious about it and if it could lead people to kill, so I researched it."
"Haven't you ever heard curiosity killed the cat?"
"Good thing I'm not a cat."
Chapter Four
Tobias
It takes a lot for this job to surprise me anymore, but when I woke up this morning, I certainly didn’t expect to be reading a Satanist’s blog before lunchtime.
In Mary Fitzgerald’s song “For the Love of God” (a poor excuse of a play on words), she preaches about how we have to love everyone because they are all God’s creation. So, why doesn’t the queen of self-righteousness abide her own creed? Why does she preach about love while simultaneously calling the gay community “abominations” and nonbelievers “Satan’s little helpers”? Why is she casting the first stone when the Bible specifically told her not to?
For the same reason all of these other hypocritical Christians do: because they aren’t worshipping any god. They’re worshipping themselves, so they can create any rules or exceptions that they want to.
“Well, this guy is just a bundle of joy,” I mutter, scrolling through the rest of the blog, aptly named The King Jackson Version of Antitheism. “But I’m not sure what I expected from a Satanist.”
“Some Satanists don’t actually worship Satan. It’s more an ideology. They just call it Satanism because they see him as a figurative entity that represents knowledge in mankind. I have a feeling this is the kind of Satanism this guy is part of,” Lauren says. “Besides, his attitude toward Christianity reminds me of you.”
“What?” I snort. “Come on. My problem with Christianity is the way people tend to use it in order to discriminate or justify their cruel behavior. I wouldn’t specifically attack a teenage girl. I have no problem with Christians as individuals as long as they’re not hurting anybody.”
“Which is exactly what this guy is saying here.” She points to the screen. “Let’s just put this blog photo of him in the facial recognition system.”
I sit down in the chair beside her desk, closing my eyes. “You know I don’t mean to be offensive about your beliefs,” I tell her. “It’s just a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. I grew up around those kinds of Christians that took a lot of enjoyment out of telling people that they’re going to burn in Hell, so I have a lot of pent-up anger about it.”
“You spent the first couple of weeks we worked together making fun of my field of study,” she says. “And now you’re concerned about my feelings?”
“That was before I knew you!” I say. “I was hoping that you wouldn’t stick around.”
“And now that I’m sticking around, you care about my feelings?”
I frown. “I’m not going to win this argument, am I?”
“Welcome to being in a relationship,” she winks. “Don’t worry too much about it, Tobias. I’ll only bring it up every argument to use against you.”
“Thanks,” I said, smirking. “I knew you’d understand.”
Her computer pings and a driver’s license pops up. I read the name, “Jackson Belamonte. Well, that certainly sounds like an asshole’s name. I wonder if he lives off his daddy’s money and that’s how he can spend so much time writing blogs about teenage girls.”
“He’s actually only a few months older than Mary. They're both nineteen,” she says. “All he has is a couple of parking tickets. I’m surprised. Cheryl said this guy was always at Mary’s concerts, harassing her, and the news articles seem to confirm that, but Mary never tried to get a restraining order. If someone was harassing you at concerts, condemning you all of the time, wouldn’t you try to get the police involved?”
“Maybe it’s that Christian love,” I mutter. “H
e lives in town, so let’s go question him. From his blogs, it seems like he doesn’t ever shut up, so this should be easy.”
* * *
A young man with sooty black hair pulled back into a ponytail opens the door. He’s wearing a black t-shirt with a red skull on it, flames leaping out of the eye sockets. I don’t know why I expected anything different.
“Mr. Belamonte, we’re homicide detectives. Can we talk to you for a minute?” I gesture to Lauren and myself.
He raises one eyebrow. “Can I see some ID?”
Lauren and I exchange a look. There are only a few reasons someone would ask for police ID and all of them lead to a difficult interview. I pull out my badge as Lauren shows him hers. He takes both of our badges and closely inspects them. He hands them back.
“I suppose you should come in,” he says, gesturing into his apartment. “The last thing I need is my landlord seeing you two and thinking that I’m cooking coke or something.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty certain that’s not the worst thing you could be accused of, especially considering we’re homicide police,” I say, stepping in. Lauren follows me. I’m instantly drawn toward his living room, where I see papers taped to the wall with strings in between them all. As I get closer, I realize many of the photos are of Mary.
“I’m guessing that’s why you’re here. It's all over every entertainment website,” Jackson Belamonte says.
If there's a Hell, it's full of reporters fucking up my investigations by turning it into a circus.
Belamonte continues, “All of you policemen are very simple-minded. You really think I would have taken all of this time to protest Mary Fitzgerald and then kidnap her? No. I’m a revolutionary, not an idiot. You’re wasting your time, which means—according to most kidnapping cases—that Mary is running out of time.”
“You almost sound like you care about her, Mr. Belamonte,” I say. “Which is a drastic change in attitude from how you talked about her in your blog.”
“Just because I didn’t support her getting on her knees for Jesus and preaching to people who don’t want to be preached to doesn’t mean I wanted her kidnapped or dead. If I were you, I’d be looking at her father and government officials.”
“Why her father and government officials?” Lauren asks.
“Because the government is working with the media—especially the music industry—to force more religion into people’s lives. Her father is a Captain of the police force, which makes him a government employee. Her uncle is a city council member, and a good sum of money that she has donated has gone to Tom Rift, an independent politician who is super religious.”
Great. We’re dealing with the kind of person who checks police IDs because he’s a conspiracy theorist.
“Mr. Belamonte, why don’t you come down to the station with us? It’s easier for us to document everything if we have you in our interview room.”
“You mean an interrogation room?” he sneers. “No way. I know how you guys work. You take my fingerprints off anything I touch and the next thing I know I’m being framed for something I didn’t do. I’ll pass on self-incrimination.”
“So, are you admitting that you’re guilty of something?” I ask.
He throws his hands up. “See! You’re already trying to twist my words around. You know that’s why they have that whole Miranda rights spiel about how anything I say can be used against me because we damn well all know you will use it against me.”
“Jackson,” Lauren says, stepping closer to him, her spicy vanilla scent wafting past me. “Listen. I understand everything you’re talking about. Other people don’t understand the world like you and I do because they’ve been brainwashed since they were young and they’re not smart enough to see that they’ve been brainwashed. Everything we see is controlled by the government. The news, the music, the TV shows, the advertisements…it’s all created to control us. The leaders don’t have to worry about using punishment or reward to make us do what they want—they already have control of us through the media. I understand that. And we’re trying to fight against that…but if she was taken by any government officials, we still need to get her back.”
Jackson laughs. “Do you really think your little psychology tricks will work on me? I know you don’t think the same as me simply by the fact that you’re a cog in the machine. Unlike the movies will make you think, you can’t work against the system by working within it.”
“For Christ’s sake, just tell us where you were this morning. Around 11 a.m.,” I snap.
He shrugs. “I don’t remember. I could have still been sleeping. I could have been eating breakfast. I could have passed by a church. I have really bad memory, so I could have been anywhere.”
“I swear to God, I will arrest you,” I snarl.
“Except you can’t arrest me for refusing to answer questions.”
I clench my fists to prevent myself from grabbing my gun. Of course he would be the type who knows the law a lot better than the average person. If there is a god, he placed Jackson Belamonte in front of me to test my restraint.
“Jackson, the press is already going to assume that you’re involved with Mary’s disappearance,” Lauren says. “Which means they’ll assume that you’re involved with that man’s murder. You can hate us all you want, but Mary is very popular and everyone who likes her or desperately wants justice is going to be looking for a scapegoat. You will become that scapegoat if you don’t give us more to go on and I’m sure you already know how crazy some of her fans are.”
Jackson’s eyes narrow, but his arms drop away from his chest.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” he mutters, sitting down on his plaid loveseat. “You’re wondering why I didn’t go to the church because I go to all of her other venues, right?”
“You have to admit that it is strange,” Lauren says.
“It’s just because it’s a small church,” he says. “It wouldn’t have brought any more attention to my cause, so it wasn’t worth my time to go. I’ve skipped out on a few of her other church concerts too. And I was visiting my grandfather, who’s in a retirement home. You can check my alibi there—it has security cameras and a sign-in sheet. I didn’t kill anybody and I didn’t kidnap Mary.”
“What’s the name of the retirement home?” I ask.
“Brightest Legacy,” he says.
“And your grandfather’s name?”
“Albert Belamonte.”
I pull out my cell phone and send a text to Romano.
Me: Look into the retirement home Brightest Legacy for Jackson Belamonte visiting his grandfather, Albert Belamonte.
As I put my cellphone back into my pocket, I realize this is all a precaution because I have this nagging feeling that Jackson isn’t our killer. He’s someone who talks big, but never takes any action. Our killer is someone who doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty—in fact, they seem to relish it if they kept the victim for a couple of days.
Still, I can’t leave any stone unturned. That’s what gets people killed. If I had taken the extra time to investigate everyone I came across in the PVP Killer case, I could have saved Captain Ray Stewart and Detective Richardson. I can’t slip up again.
Chapter Five
Lauren
“My critique of religion isn’t a reflection of how I think about you!” Tobias slams his badge on his desk. “It’s a critique of religion. There’s you and there’s religion. They’re two different things.”
“You can’t separate me from my beliefs,” I say, sitting down at my own desk, which is a few feet away from his. “That’s all we are, isn’t it? What we believe? Or else we would just be walking corpses.”
“No, we’re also our hobbies, our jobs, our culture, our emotions, our fears, our annoying little habits, our—”
“Hey, you guys,” Romano says, stepping in between us. “We figured out who the victim of our murder is. Do you want to know who he is or should you make it more obvious that the two of you are in a relation
ship, so the new Captain separates you?”
Tobias scowls. “Did you look into Belamonte’s alibi?”
“Rock solid,” he says. “There is surveillance footage, his signature, and a very chatty receptionist who told me what a sweet boy he is, though she wishes he would cut his hair and wear a button-up shirt.”
“Right. So, who is our John Doe?”
“His name is Gavin Lively—”
“Ironic last name—”
“—He was an entrepreneur. He invented this jacket that changes colors depending on the temperature. When it’s hot, it turns into a lighter color, and when it’s cooler, it begins to darken. I suppose it’s rather smart because I know I can’t wear black out in the sun without feeling like I’m burning up.”
“Did he go to the church?”
“I only talked to his wife briefly, but she said he sporadically attended Pious Church with her.”
“Did she have any idea why he would be crucified?” Tobias asks.
“She had no idea,” he says. “It’s never that easy.”
“Did he know Mary at all? Was he a fan of her music?”
“I didn’t ask if he was a fan, but she said that he didn’t know Mary Fitzgerald on any personal level.”
Tobias turns to me. “I really thought figuring out who this guy is would help us.”
“Well, we all have to be wrong about something at some point,” I say, standing up. “I’ll go question the wife. Romano, what’s her address?”
He hands me a copy of Gavin’s driver’s license. Their house is about ten minutes from here.
“You don’t want me to go with you?” Tobias asks.
“We’ve been arguing all day,” I say. “It’s probably best if we take a few seconds away from each other.”
He shrugs. “All right. If that’s what you want. I’ll focus on Mary’s life—see if there was anyone who wanted to hurt her other than an angry blogger. I’ll try to get her father to come by, too. I doubt Belamonte’s conspiracy theories are anywhere near correct, but I’ve got to look into every lead in order to find her.”
Voice of the Spirit (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1) Page 2