by Rachel Lee
Frustrated, Matt left Wheelwright's office. He knew his boss was right, but that didn't make him any less frustrated. For the love of mike, working this case was like trying to swim through spaghetti. Too many strands, and all of them seemed to loop around in crazy directions, never quite bringing him to a terminus.
Back at his desk, he pulled out a stack of index cards on which he'd written every fact and every suspicion he had in this case. He spread them out, and began to try to order them in some way that made sense without having to invoke some faceless, nameless government conspiracy, because if he so much as breathed a word of such a thing around here, they were going to call the men in the white coats.
And just as important as what he knew was what he didn't know. Sighing, he took out another stack of cards, blank ones, and began to write questions on them.
How were Humboldt and King linked? Through Brendan, of course. Dumb question. But why were they being linked?
Someone was working very hard to establish that connection. Possibly for no reason other than to frighten Brendan. Or possibly it was …
REVENGE.
He wrote the word in large capital letters on one of the cards and stared at it. Of course. He'd suspected that for some time. But it didn't answer the questions about the crucifixion and the body being moved. Or the blood in the trunk of that rental car, assuming it proved to be King's.
Something else was going on here. Chloe was right. They had two sets of perps, and the perps had different motives. The two sets came together at the crucifixion of Steve King. That had been the nexus.
But why. Dammit, why?
He picked up his phone and called Chloe. “You busy?”
“Other than beating my head on a wall, not at the moment. I’m heading over to the rectory to make sure Father Brendan is tucked in for the evening. I want to check before Lucy leaves. If you ask me, the horse is getting ready to bolt the barn.”
“Yeah. I can't say I blame him. I just wish he'd be a little more frightened.”
“Me too. But you have to remember, for him death is merely the promise of something a whole hell of a lot better.”
“I’ll meet you afterward then. We need to have a brainstorming session.”
“Sure. Come about six. Bring your own refreshments. All I have is rabbit food.”
“You're on.”
When he arrived at Chloe's at six, he was carrying a pizza and a six-pack of cola, and his pockets were full of index cards.
“Oh, God,” said Chloe when she opened the door, “you didn't!”
“Didn't what?”
“Bring a pizza. I can't resist pizza.”
“No reason you should. And there's plenty here.” He found himself distracted from his purpose, as he took in her tousled blond hair and her barely there gray T-shirt and shorts. If she was wearing a bra, it was invisible to him. He gave himself a stern mental shake and marched into her house, bearing the pizza. “Got any paper plates?”
“No, but I have regular plates. Sorry, you'll just have to suffer.” Turning, she headed for her kitchen.
“Napkins?” he called after her.
“Sure.”
He plopped the pizza on the coffee table, next to the icy six-pack, and told himself that it wasn't healthy to have spent all these years wondering what one woman's breasts looked like. There were plenty of great breasts in the world, and he'd eyeballed his share. He didn't need to be wondering about the set adorning the ice queen.
She returned with plates, napkins, and two glasses filled with ice on a tray. That touch of organization and homeyness reminded him they were miles apart. At his place, he'd have eaten out of the box and drunk out of the cans.
Why was it women didn't do those things? Or was it only some women? And how did men and women ever live together when they were so different?
Stupid question. He supposed the men gave in and started using glasses and plates. After all, he knew the steel most women called a backbone.
Chloe's phone began ringing just as she was about to join him on the couch. She turned at once and answered it.
“Hi, Agnes,” he heard her say. “Did you get something? Yes? I want the whole list. Unless you can scan it quickly for me. Okay, will do. Thanks a bunch. I owe you.”
She hung up and faced Matt. “That was my expert. She got news out of the lab. The blood sample was in bad condition, as she warned us.”
“Shit.”
“The markers that are still identifiable brought up about two thousand matches. She asked for a printout and should be bringing it by in an hour or so.”
Matt nodded, feeling a ray of hope. Or possibly fear. If the two cases were related … “I just wish linking these two murders would actually get us somewhere.”
“Yeah.” She sat beside him on the couch. “I’m not really hungry, Matt. You go ahead and eat.”
But his own appetite had waned. He didn't even open the pizza box. “The slashing victim used government travel orders to rent his car.”
Chloe stiffened. “No.”
“Oh, yes.” He leaned back on the couch and rubbed his eyes briefly. “The car rental company saw them. However, no person by the name of Lance Brucon exists. No such name, social security, etc. Credit cards are new, only a couple of months old.”
“You're giving me chills.”
“Yeah, it didn't make me feel too good either.”
Chloe suddenly popped up off the couch and picked up the phone.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Calling Father Brendan.”
“Why?”
“Because this is just too damn much of a coincidence. My instincts are shrieking.”
“Go for it. Maybe a good jogging of his memory will shake something out. Except that we don't yet know these two cases are linked.”
“True.” She put the receiver back. “Okay, let's wait until Agnes drops off the list.”
“That woman must have lit a fire under somebody's butt at the lab.”
“She used to be somebody over there, I’ll tell you. Considering how nervous it makes them when she shows up to testify against them, I’m kind of surprised she could shake anything out of that tree.”
“I’m just grateful. All I want is an acorn I can actually gnaw on.”
“Try gnawing on your pizza.” She settled onto the couch beside him again and twined her fingers restlessly. “If these two cases are linked, we've got something bigger than a couple of murders on our hands.”
“You don't have to tell me that. The ‘c’ word could actually become part of my vocabulary. Except … Damn it, Chloe, what would a chaplain have to do with anything like this?”
“Maybe it wasn't the chaplain who was involved.”
“You mean the kid who killed himself?” Matt shook his head as if trying to dislodge an insect. “This is crazy. Absolutely crazy.”
“It would be, if someone weren't so hell-bent on linking the two deaths with Father Brendan.”
“Maybe it's just some weirdo who hates him for some reason.”
“Sure. And he transported Steve King's body not once, but twice. And managed to nail it to a cross single-handedly.”
He was rebelling, and he knew it. The vaguely formed suspicions that kept creeping into his brain were driving him nuts. He didn't have a single solid peg to hang any of them on; but at the same time, nothing else added up unless he mixed in this disquieting notion of some conspiracy. Why else had he been so ready to assume that the bloodstain in the trunk of a murder victim's car had anything at all to do with the murder of Steve King?
“Relax, Matt. If we're crazy, we'll know soon enough.”
“Yeah? How?”
“The list Agnes is bringing over won't have Steve King's name on it.”
“Yeah. And we'll be no closer to solving this case.”
“We may not be anyway, since the slasher victim doesn't exist.”
Again that chilly feeling ran along his spine. “Fact is, that alone has
me as jumpy as a cat.”
She nodded, her eyes now opaque, revealing nothing at all.
Giving in to the demands of his body, if not his appetite, he opened the pizza box, pulled out a slice, and for form's sake passed it over one of her plates before biting into it.
“If the slashing victim really works for the government, they'd have his prints on file at the FBI, wouldn't they?”
“Yeah. If he does, if he needed a security clearance. I don't know about people who don't need clearances. If he's military, they'll be there. And maybe our guys can get into his computer and we'll learn something there.”
“You have his computer?” Her brows lifted.
“I think so. The perp told us where he'd pawned it, and I picked it up. Password protected, of course.”
“Of course. But that doesn't really mean anything by itself. My computers are password protected. Do you have any idea when your specialist is going to look at the e-mail?”
“In the morning. First thing. He's also going to hack the laptop.”
“Good.” She poured herself a glass of cola and sipped it. “Maybe it's a good thing I left the force.”
He twisted to look at her, pizza in hand. “Why?”
“Because I just realized how fortunate I was in all my cases on the beat. The perp was always as obvious as the wart on the end of a hag's nose.”
“Usually. But it's the same in homicide, babe. It's almost always writ large on the scene. But occasionally …”
“Yeah. Occasionally. I remember those cases, too. I don't like dealing with the absence of information when homicide is involved.”
“None of us do. But in your case it's worse. You might want to remember that.”
“Worse how?”
“You're involved with the victim. And the potential victim.”
“True. And don't call me babe.”
He looked down at the pizza he held. “So … when this is all over, you wanna go out for dinner?”
It was as if everything inside him stopped, frozen in that instant of terrible anticipation. It didn't help to realize that he cared a helluva lot more than he'd thought he should. Slowly, uneasily, he looked at her.
Her eyes had taken on the color of glacial ice again, blue upon blue, with depths that seemed to hold no warmth.
But after a moment, she tilted her head. “Ask me when it's over.”
That, he thought, could either be a reprieve or a delayed execution. But at least the question was still open, which was more than he'd hoped for.
The doorbell rang, saving him. Chloe answered it, returning with Agnes Lucci, who carried a briefcase.
“Detective,” Agnes said, shaking his hand when he rose to greet her.
“Ms. Lucci. Care for some pizza?”
“Actually, yes. I’m starved. I haven't eaten since this morning.”
Chloe promptly got her a plate, napkin, and glass. But before she helped herself to food, Agnes opened her briefcase. “I wish you two joy of this,” she said, pulling out a ream of computer printout. “This is a list of all possible matches, along with their rap sheets, if they have any.”
“Is it alphabetized?” Matt asked hopefully.
Agnes shook her head. “Sorted by probability of match. My contact says the sample from the car was badly deteriorated from the heat. She also added that the matches aren't good enough to stand up in court. Any of them.” She placed the stack of paper on the coffee table and helped herself to pizza.
“Well,” said Matt, “I don't need it to stand up in court. I just need to know if there's a possible link.”
“With this list, you've probably got a possible link to twenty-two hundred people.”
“All that matters is if one name shows up.”
Agnes looked wry. “Good luck.”
Chloe spoke. “Thanks, Agnes. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“Well, Idid have to do some arm twisting.” But Agnes smiled. “It's a worthless list. My contact didn't like giving it to me. And she said to warn you that if you try to pull her in court to testify on anything in here, you're not going to like what she says.”
“I have no intention of doing that,” Matt assured her. “The thing is, Ms. Lucci, I need to know if there's a link. But it won't turn up in court, because the guy who owned the car is dead. I’m certainly not going to charge him with murder now.”
Agnes laughed. “Okay. I realize you guys get frustrated with the lab, but you have to remember — they work based on evidence only. Not on theories of the case. And the care they need to exercise usually takes time. They're not out to prove or disprove, but only to discover the facts. And they're very proud of that.”
Matt nodded. “I see their point. But they need to remember our point.”
Agnes shrugged. “Theories are just theories, and we can't allow them to affect our impartiality.”
She left a half hour later, and Matt looked at the stack of printouts.
“Let's move to the kitchen table,” Chloe said. “We'll have more room.”
He helped her carry the dinner things into the kitchen, load the dishwasher and dump the pizza box. Then they sat at the table and divided the printout in two. Another hour passed, then Chloe looked up.
“I’ve got it.”
Matt's heart jumped. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Steve King's name is on the list.”
Brendan served Mass that morning with a heavy heart. Seventy faces looked back at him from the pews, and they seemed to reflect his sorrow.
He felt cut off from them. All the strictures on his movements were slowly taking him away from his flock, from people he had come to know and love over the last six months. He couldn't allow this to go on much longer. He simply couldn't. There was a fine line between protecting himself and failing as a pastor.
But the reality was that there was an officer standing in the doorway of the sacristy, keeping an eye on him every moment. The reality was that after he removed his vestments, he would be escorted across the small courtyard right back into the rectory.
Somehow he had to find a way to continue his duties within these boundaries, or despite them.
During the moment of quiet after the prayers of the faithful, he asked God to show him a way. Any way.
After Mass, despite his guard, he went to the back of the church to talk to his parishioners. They seemed glad that he was reaching out to them again, and shared their worries, their hopes, even a few jokes. Brendan believed that laughter was a good thing, but aware as he was of the gaping hole where the crucifix used to be, it was almost painful to him.
At last, he allowed himself to be escorted back to his temporary prison.
There he found activity at a high peak. Lucy's desk had been taken over by a young man in civilian clothes with a badge on his pocket. Chloe and Matt were both there, watching him work.
He considered waving to them and heading to his office to return phone calls, but instead he found himself drawn into the room, taking a chair near Chloe.
“What's going on?” he asked.
Matt answered. “Jim here is trying to find out more about that e-mail.”
“Ah.” He folded his hands together and squeezed tight, wondering if he should say anything about the memories that had been plaguing him. The weird things that poor young sailor had been hinting at before his suicide. It would probably sound as crazy to them as it had sounded to him.
“You know,” Lucy said, turning suddenly to Matt, “there was … A man came by asking Father to hear his confession yesterday.”
Brendan sighed. “Lucy, people ask for that all the time.”
“I know, but …” She glanced at Brendan, then returned her attention to Matt. “The more I think about it, the more it bothers me. Maybe I’m overreacting, but … it bothered me. He was insistent on seeing Father, even when I told him that Father Dominic would be back shortly. Then he left and said he'd come back another time.”
“Well,” said Brendan, �
�he should have been able to see me.”
“No,” said Matt. He turned back to Lucy. “What did this guy look like? Did he leave a name?”
“No name. I’d say he was fifty or fifty-five. He was thin, maybe a little too thin, not too tall. Average, I guess. Nothing about him stood out.”
“Coloring?”
Lucy thought about that. “Nothing that stood out to me. I don't remember his eyes except they looked tight. And his hair was mostly gray. He was just ordinary.”
Matt pulled a pad out of his pocket and scribbled the description down. “Thanks,” he said. “That could wind up being useful. Which reminds me.” He turned to Chloe. “Do you have a phone number for the family of Thomas Humboldt?”
“Humboldt?” Brendan sat up straighter. “That was his name. Tom Humboldt. Why do you want to call his family?”
“To find out something about his state of mind. And to find out what happened to the suicide weapon.”
Brendan, his heart thudding, managed a nod.
“I don't have a number,” Chloe said. “But my investigator will. Let me call her.” She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and left the office to make the call from the hallway.
Brendan spoke to Matt. “You think there really is a connection?”
“Let me put it to you this way, Father. Somebody's trying to make that connection. If nothing else, that makes a link, namely a person who wants to harm you in some way.”
“I can see that. So you want to know Tom Humboldt's state of mind?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, I can tell you. He was scared to death.”
“Of what?”
“Of being forced out of the closet. Of losing his navy career.”
Matt nodded. “You've already shared that with me.”
“Well, there's something more. I didn't think too much of it at the time. It sounded too wild, as if he was imagining things. When he killed himself, it occurred to me that he'd been far more over the edge than I’d thought at the time. That he was truly psychotic, not just a little disturbed and wild. I even began to think that he might have been schizophrenic.”
Matt leaned forward. “But something's changed your mind?”
Brendan hesitated. None of this had been revealed under the seal, and if Tom hadn't been imagining things, it might well have something to do with what was going on now. Especially considering that e-mail. “Yes,” he said finally.