The Turin Shroud Secret

by Sam Christer

  Good news – they live close to each other. Not far from work. Not far at all. He makes notes of the addresses and home phone numbers, then returns the files. He turns off the last of the lights and locks up. His spirit lifts as he drives away into the dark of the night and the even darker plans he has for his troublesome employees.

  42

  77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

  The rest of Mitzi’s day gets chewed up fixing permissions for Nic’s Italian trip and dodging Matthews, who’s being hounded hourly by everyone from the mayor to the commissioner and back again. Poor guy looks like he’s going to blow a gasket.

  Tonight she’s planning to treat the girls to a takeaway, whatever they want and some good ice cream. They can pig out together on comfort food. A girlie night in before they go skiing. God knows they all need it.

  On her way home she calls Nic and braces herself for a torrent of abuse.

  ‘Hello?’ His voice crackles through the speaker in her car’s hands-free.

  She clicks the volume up as she answers. ‘Shouldn’t you be saying bonjour or something like that?’

  ‘Very funny. I think the Italians say buongiorno.’

  ‘Guess you’re gonna find out soon enough. You all packed?’

  ‘Just loaded the car and I’m leaving in a minute. Thanks for this, Mitz. Just what I needed to see me out – a ball-breaking trip of several thousand miles to chase shadows.’

  ‘Hey, had there been someone else I would have sent them. Had I been able to go myself, I would have. Believe me you were my last resort.’

  ‘Last resory, eh? You sure know how to make a guy feel good.’

  ‘Enough of the complaining. Did you manage to make contact with the Carabinieri?’

  ‘Only just. They say they’ll have a liaison officer for me. I’ve got an FBI buddy reaching out to find me a friendly face too.’

  ‘Make sure we don’t have to pay for it. Matthews will have my badge if you run up anything more than a coffee bill.’

  ‘Great. A bitch of a trip and full radar on what I spend. How was your day?’

  ‘I’ve had better.’

  ‘How so?’

  She almost tells him, then pulls back. What’s the point of passing on the poison? He’s minutes from heading out to LAX and has a murder case to run. ‘Been driving myself crazy reading those damned scripts you left behind. I ended up over at the Catholic Diocese this afternoon consulting a so-called Shroud expert.’

  ‘God bless you. Make you any the wiser?’

  ‘Some.’ She beeps her horn as an asshole in a Tahoe cuts her up. ‘Forensically, there doesn’t seem any proof this Shroud is really Christ’s, and that might have been what Tamara Jacobs was driving at. I’m gonna call Amy tomorrow and get her opinion as a pathologist. Maybe she could tell if the markings on the cloth match those of someone who’s been crucified.’

  ‘You know what, I’m not sure Amy’s ever worked a crucifixion.’

  ‘Weird shit goes down in LA, dumbass, you never know. You should try to see the cloth while you’re over there. I checked out some HD photographs today. It’s certainly amazing.’

  ‘In what kind of way?’

  ‘In the way that you just can’t explain how the whole body image got there. I mean, I just don’t understand it. From what I’ve read and heard, there’s no evidence to say it was painted or rubbed on. The one thing that’s real is that it’s a mystery.’

  Nic looks at his watch. ‘Mitz, I got to run, that’s if you want me to make check-in?’

  ‘Go. I just called to wish you luck. Mail me an update when you can.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll touch base as soon as I’m settled, okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ She pauses. ‘Take care.’

  ‘You too.’

  He’s gone in a click. She switches on the radio but doesn’t really listen. She drives the rest of the way on autopilot, wondering what kind of day the kids have had, whether they’ve done their homework, how they’re going to be with her when she gets in.

  She turns into her driveway and steps hard on the brakes.

  Alfie’s car. Smack bang in its usual place in the carport.

  She unbuckles the seatbelt, her heart hammering, then gets out and slams the car door. She’s so angry she almost kicks her own front door in rather than opens it.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, bold as brass, sat with his daughters at the family table around a big bucket of KFC. ‘I brought chicken, so you don’t have to cook.’

  43

  BOYLE HEIGHTS, LOS ANGELES

  It says Boyle Heights on the map but locals call it Paredon Blanco – ‘White Bluffs’ – a hilly neighbourhood on the eastern banks of the Los Angeles River. It’s a main gateway to the city for new arrivals. The place where an Irish immigrant called Andrew Boyle settled, back in the days when California was more Mexican than American. He went on to become mayor and built much of the infrastructure that led to the place becoming a modern-day melting pot for Latinos, East Europeans, Japanese and white minority Americans.

  JJ is parked up just south of St Mary’s Church and west of Promise Hospital watching the front of a big five-bedroom home that was once a highly desirable residence and no doubt housed a good, God-fearing family. Now it’s old and rundown and is staggering to the end of its life as a cheap stack of one-room rentals. This is Jenny Harrison’s address, though from where he’s staked out, he has no idea in which part of the building she rests her sorry butt in.

  A glance at the clock on the Explorer’s dash says he’s been here for more than four hours, painstakingly watching a whole army of people troop in and out. Harrison’s friend Kim Bass arrived about three hours ago and hasn’t come out since. Maybe she’s staying over. If not, she has a walk of less than a mile to her own place. A farewell walk.

  It took JJ a while to figure out what was going on. At first he guessed there was a party in the offing, then he realised none of the male visitors stayed for long and none brought any bottles or gifts with them. It’s a whorehouse. He should have expected it. Harrison and Bass are low-life. That’s why God pointed them out to him, that and the fact they made Em’s life hell. And hell is exactly where he’s going to send them.

  An S-Class Merc pulls up and two muscular Hispanics get out and disappear inside the house. Twenty minutes later they strut onto the decking near the screen door, blowing cigars and counting cash. They half-jog down the front steps and then out of the gate to the sleek limousine.

  Lights start to go off in the house. The girls are calling it quits for the night. They’ve earned enough.

  JJ wonders what it’s like in their darkness, to lie at the bottom of their private swamp and move in on them.

  Easy meat.

  He pictures the layout of the house. How to enter and exit. Which way to drive off when it’s over. When Harrison and Bass are dead.

  44

  WALNUT PARK, LOS ANGELES

  Mitzi drops her bag and jacket in the hall. Tells herself to stay calm but her heart is trying to kick a hole in her ribcage.

  She walks back to the front room and looks at her daughters. Jade offers the explanation before her mom even asks. ‘I let him in.’ She sees the anger and adds, ‘He’s still my dad.’

  Amber backs away a little from her father and sister. She wants to be close to her mom if things kick off.

  Mitzi glares at her husband. She can’t believe this is the man she gave eighteen years of her life to. The man she once thought she wanted to spend every breathing second of her existence with. ‘We eat this then you go.’

  ‘We need to talk, Mitzi. You know we do.’ He says it like he’s the smart one, the reasonable one, the one showing them the safe path across the crazy dangerous ground facing them. He picks up the chicken tub. ‘How about you get some plates and I dish out the good stuff?’

  She feels rage rising. How dare he breeze back in here like last night never happened – as though it was nothing out of the ordinary.

  ‘I’ll get them
.’ Jade jumps to her feet and heads to the kitchen. She knows her mom is close to breaking point.

  ‘We’re done talking, Alfie. I’ve hired a solicitor and I’m divorcing you.’ Mitzi says it with cold determination but part-way through feels a stab of regret, a sting of sadness that her dream of love has turned into a nightmare.

  ‘Don’t do that, Mitzi.’ His voice is soft and reasonable. ‘I know I screwed up. I screw up a lot, eh? But you know I love you. I love you and the girls more than anything in the world.’ He gets up from his chair and creeps around the table towards her.

  ‘Don’t!’ She raises a hand. ‘Don’t even think about coming near me, Alfie.’

  He stops beside her chair, stranded, lost.

  She looks away from him. Her eyes pass from Jade in the kitchen doorway, a second away from tears, to Amber at her side, gripping her hand and shaking with fear. ‘Sit back down, Alfie. Sit down or leave.’ She can barely breathe as she speaks.

  He stays where he is. Still hoping to close the gap between them. ‘I’m asking for you to forgive me. Give me another chance to fix things, to make us all a family again.’

  He’s been drinking. She hadn’t noticed it at first but she smells it now – yeasty and stale. When Alfie drinks, anything can happen. Suddenly she stops fumbling around like a scared wife and mother and starts thinking like a cop. He could get violent. The girls could get hurt. Mentally and physically.

  She has to take control. Mitzi smiles across at her daughter. ‘Come on, Jade, don’t just stand there – get those plates sorted or we’re all going to starve to death.’ She looks up at Alfie and tries to sound submissive. ‘Sure we’ll talk, Alfie, but not until we’ve eaten, okay? I’ve had a hard day and the girls are tired and hungry. Please, sit down.’

  He doesn’t move for a second, then edges back to his seat – his usual place at the family table.

  ‘Anyone want a drink?’ She looks towards her husband, her soon to be ex-husband. ‘You bring any soda?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Thought not. I’ll get some. What do you want, Amber?’

  ‘Coke.’

  ‘Coke what?’

  ‘Coke please, mom.’

  ‘That’s better.’ She heads to the kitchen. ‘You want coke or beer, Alfie.’

  ‘Beer.’ His tone is as sour as his breath.

  Mitzi takes cans from the fridge as Jade heads back to the table with four white plates. There used to be six but Alfie broke two along with a dozen other pots when he lost his temper one night. She puts the drinks down on the table. ‘You girls washed your hands?’ Their faces confirm they haven’t. ‘I didn’t think so. Go get scrubbed.’ She pushes the bucket of chicken towards her husband. ‘Dish it up, will you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I need to wash as well.’ She shows him the palms of her hands and drifts into the hall. ‘Come on, kids, hurry up, food’s going cold.’ She says it loud enough for him to hear, loud enough to disguise the fact that she’s already dialling 911 on her cell phone.

  Damn the humiliation. She’s going to get the no-good son-of-a-bitch locked up once and for all.

  45

  BOYLE HEIGHTS, LOS ANGELES

  A glint of light draws his eyes.

  The door is open. Two people are there. Someone’s leaving.

  He can see more clearly now. Jenny Harrison is out front, in a short skirt, boob tube and high heels. An amber bottle of Bud dangles in one hand as she waves goodnight to someone. Kim Bass’s big blonde hair blows back as she picks her way down the decking and out onto the worn pathway. JJ hesitates for a moment. He’d imagined he would kill Harrison first. God knows, she deserves it. But now he feels directed towards Bass. The woman is out on the street. Alone. Vulnerable. There for the taking. There to be punished.

  He starts his engine and drives with the lights off. Her home is a fifteen-minute walk – if that – down past Hollenbeck Park across East 4th Street then right past the garage at the corner of South Cummings. He can make it in less than five.

  A thought hits him as he pulls a right onto South Chicago. She might cut through the park. It would be the perfect place to take her. Twenty acres of rolling grassland. And a lake. He turns again and takes South Saint Louis along the edge of the green sprawl. It’s too busy. Skater boys jerking around the kerbside. Falling about and laughing, slugging beer. Further down he sees stoners hanging out in the entrance to the Recreation Centre, weird music pounding out from some boombox.

  A voice inside his head tells him to stick to what he does best. Stay on plan. Do things the way he’s done them before. He parks on the forecourt of a disused gas station, right opposite the Subway sandwich franchise, the kind of place he wouldn’t be seen dead in. He looks around for cameras as he zaps the car closed. There aren’t any.

  Thank you, God.

  Bass’s building is a three-storey brown stucco block behind a small chainlink fence and a couple of token patches of rubbed grass. He walks calmly to the entrance door and is pleased to see it has been wedged open. The interior lights come on as he steps inside. An empty boxy corridor, blue-painted walls, blue polished floor. No central mailbox unit, no way of knowing who lives where. Just three doors. There are numbers on the doors but no names. He walks back outside to look for a bell box. There isn’t one. So he comes in and looks around. The apartment doors are old style, British, with mail slots cut into the wood – a lot of places have started using them because it cuts down on crime, especially identity theft and card fraud. Next to each door is a vertical strip of frosted glass, a vain attempt to let in a little light.

  The stairwell is narrow and too open for him to hide anywhere. She’ll be here in a minute. There isn’t long.

  He considers just knocking on the door to his left and asking where she lives. As he looks at it he notices it’s wider than the one to his right. It’s been altered for wheelchair access. He examines the other one. It has flowers painted around the door handle. A stencil. Bass wouldn’t do that. She doesn’t have an artistic or cultured bone in her. There’s a light glowing behind the third door. He steps close and listens. Deep male voices laughing, a TV playing.

  JJ moves upstairs. The first landing has another three doors. All in darkness. He walks up to the top level. Three more apartments, two with lights on. He kneels in front of the darkened door and opens the mail slot. It smells musty inside. Earthy, like no one lives there.

  It’s the second floor. He’s sure it is. Kim Bass lives on the second floor. He can feel it. God is telling him that’s where she will go. He unbuckles his belt and makes a noose out of it. Sits like a shadow on the top step of the block’s stairwell. Waits motionless. Listens in the darkness and tunes into the noises.

  Clunk. The gate being closed on the small metal fence.

  Click, click. Click, click. Heels on the concrete path.

  Cough. A throaty female hack, sign of a smoker, signs of someone coming up the stairs.

  He stands and stretches the looped belt between his hands.

  46

  WALNUT PARK, LOS ANGELES

  It looks like old times. The best of times. Happy times. Four plates of picked-clean chicken bones, kids licking spicy fingers.

  Only this is the new time. An unforgettably bad time. Mitzi wipes her mouth with a KFC napkin. ‘Help me clear the table, girls.’

  The twins are glad to. Anything other than see mom and dad fight. They push back their chairs and sweep up the takeaway tubs and plates.

  Only Mitzi hears noise outside. Only she has been expecting it. She follows the girls, closes the kitchen door behind her and leans against it. Her daughters dump mess in the trash and don’t see the look on her face. Right about now uniformed cops are piling through the front door she left open.

  She hears Alfie shout, ‘What the fuck?’ Her heart jumps.

  Amber’s running hot water in the sink and can’t hear a thing. Jade wipes her hands on a tea towel and sees her mom with her ba
ck to the door. She knows something’s wrong. ‘Mom, what’s happening?’

  Mitzi’s face offers no comfort. ‘Something that has to happen, baby.’

  It has to be her dad. He’s in the front on his own. Jade tries to push past.

  ‘Leave it, honey, leave it.’

  Amber’s backed up against the sink, staring at them both.

  Mitzi wants to hug her and hold her. Tell her baby that it’s all okay. Everything will soon be all right.

  There’s a meaty thump on the wood behind her head.

  ‘Ma’am, we need to speak with you.’ The voice is male, full of street grit and a West Coast drawl.

  Mitzi swallows and opens up. Jade flies past her. There are two cops in the room. Big black guys who could play offense for the Lakers.

  No Alfie.

  The furthest cop grabs Jade. ‘Slow up, Princess. Hang on there.’

  Mitzi is with her in a flash. She holds her by the shoulders, looks her straight in the eyes. ‘Take your sister and go to your room. Don’t argue with me.’ The instruction is more cop than mother. The teenager does as she’s told.

  Mitzi stands in the room with the cops and the consequences of her actions. It’s for the best. If things had turned nasty tonight, it could have been her being hauled away with her hands behind her back – and Alfie being carried out the back door in a body bag.

  ‘You going to be okay, ma’am?’ The question comes from Officer Logan Connor, six-three and two-twenty pounds of raw LAPD uniformed muscle.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she lies. ‘Just fine. Thanks for your help.’