Unholy City

by Carrie Smith

  “Homicide is my business, and you were directly involved in a homicide—possibly two or three. You took your revenge on Graves for revealing your relationship with Monique Wilson. Monique. It’s a pretty name, isn’t it?”

  Roger flashed an irate look. Fuck you, Detective, he wanted to say.

  He could still hear Philip using Monique’s name in the garden that night. Kendra and Monique, he’d said. You’ve got yourself a little harem of black beauties, don’t you, Roger? You must really like those tight black pussies.

  Then Roger had thrown the right hook that sent Philip to his knees. Roger was about to walk away, but Philip was tougher than he’d imagined. He got right back up and charged at Roger like a linebacker determined to make a tackle. The two of them were locked together when Peter Linton appeared behind Philip with the shovel raised. The shovel came down at them so fast that Roger barely had time to duck before it struck Philip squarely against the skull, and Philip dropped in a heap. And then Roger heard the gasp of Emily Flounders twenty feet away as she collapsed to the ground.

  “What happened?” Codella insisted.

  “I intended to rough Philip up,” said Roger. “I intended to give him a piece of my mind. But I never intended for him to die that night. It wasn’t me.”

  Codella pointed her index finger at him. “Don’t even think about moving from that couch, Sturgis. I’ll be back for you.”

  CHAPTER 73

  Peter Linton’s wife was sitting at a table in the reception hall with two other parishioners, but Peter was nowhere to be seen. Codella searched every Sunday school classroom—including the one Anna Brookes was still in—and she even peered into the storage closet where she’d found the shovel on Wednesday night.

  She returned to the first floor. He wasn’t in the Community Room, the “dish room,” or the kitchen. She entered the men’s room and called out, “Mr. Linton?” but no one answered, and she saw no feet below the partitions of the stalls. She stepped into the nursery, but he wasn’t there either.

  Returning to the corridor, she listened for sounds, but all she heard was the murmur of the parishioners in the reception room above. She turned into the narrow hall that led to the rector’s office. The door was unlocked, and she opened it, but Peter wasn’t inside. She passed two other small offices—both empty—and came to a narrow staircase she’d never seen before. She studied the steps leading up and down and chastised herself for not completing her tour of the church with the rector on Wednesday night.

  She climbed up the narrow stairs. They led to a passage behind the reception hall where the second-floor restrooms were located. She checked all the stalls in the men’s and women’s rooms. She glanced into the reception hall once more in case she’d missed him the first time, but his bald head wasn’t there.

  She took the stairs back to the first floor and gazed at the steps leading down. Her hand reached instinctively for her service weapon, but pulling a gun out of her holster in this place of worship felt strange, so she just kept her hand on the grip as she took one step at a time and listened.

  When she got to the bottom, she saw a fast-moving blur out the corner of her eye. She turned, and the blur became a solid mass that crashed into her chest and stomach so hard that she crumpled to the floor, her eyes burning with tears of pain. Peter Linton stood above her with a wooden chair in his hands that she never would have guessed he had the strength to hold, let alone heave. He brought it down again, and she narrowly ducked its full force, but one chair leg landed squarely on her ankle. She heard a loud crack of bone and then her own voice howling in pain.

  She took deep breaths as she drew her gun. “Get the fuck back, and drop the chair.”

  But Peter moved closer. His eyes were tiny pinpoints. The muscles in his face twitched. You’ve been snorting away your paychecks, Philip Graves had told him at the Wednesday-night meeting, according to Anna Brookes. Was he on something now?

  “I’m not taking the rap for this,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For killing Philip.”

  “But you did kill him,” Codella asserted. “You swung the shovel against his head just like you’re swinging that chair at me. Why attack me if you didn’t do anything?”

  “It wasn’t just me.” His eyes darted from side to side as he continued to grip the chair so tightly that his knuckles were white. “They were all part of it—Roger, Susan, Vivian—”

  “Maybe so,” she interrupted, “but they didn’t kill Philip. You did.” She breathed in and out through her nose and tried to ignore the intensifying pain in her ankle. “You’re the one who swung the back of the shovel blade into his head. And then you took the shovel upstairs and hid it in the supply closet. That was your mistake, Mr. Linton.”

  Peter was breathing heavily now. “You can’t prove any of that.”

  “Why? Because you killed the one person who saw you with the shovel?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, yes you do.” Codella kept her hands relaxed around the gun grip. “You didn’t expect Stephanie Lund to be at the piano when you sneaked the shovel upstairs. She heard you pass by the door, and your eyes met, didn’t they? Just for an instant. She didn’t know you by name, so you were confident she wouldn’t identify you to us that night, but you figured she’d tell us she’d seen someone up there, and you couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t identify you later if we showed her some photos. So you didn’t take any chances. When you left the church that night, you went straight to her apartment and waited for her to get home, and then you tried to kill her. But you didn’t quite finish the job. What happened that night, Mr. Linton? Did you lose your nerve?”

  Peter’s face was red with rage. The chair shook in his trembling hands. “I won’t lose my nerve with you,” he said between clenched teeth as he took a step toward her.

  Codella aimed the Glock’s muzzle straight at his face. “Step back and put down the chair right now.”

  “Or what?” Sweat rolled down one side of his pallid face. “Go on. Shoot me.”

  “I will if I have to.”

  They were in a dressing room, she observed in her peripheral vision as she continued to train the gun on him. To her left were two racks of blue-and-white choir robes. To her right was a full-length mirror, several chairs, and a water cooler. On the far side of the room, behind Peter, was a second narrow staircase that she supposed must lead to the choir loft. Her swollen ankle throbbed inside her boot like a beating heart. She could still hear the loud echo of her bone cracking. She imagined the jagged edges of that splintered bone, and she knew she couldn’t rise. Don’t think about it, she told herself. “Put the chair down,” she said again, but her words only intensified Peter’s agitation.

  “I’ve got two thousand dollars in the bank. That’s it. That’s all.” His voice quivered. “I can’t pay my mortgage. My credit cards are maxed. I can’t keep things going anymore. He took away the one chance I had to get my hands on some cash. Either you kill me, Detective, or I’ll kill you and eat your gun myself, because I’m not going to prison. I’ve seen inside prisons. I know what they’re like.” He clenched his jaw and shook the chair over her head. “Pull the fucking trigger!” He kicked her broken ankle.

  The pain was so intense that tears rolled down her face, and although her gun was still raised, her arms shook, and she could barely see through the blur.

  “All right,” Peter said. “We’ll do it the hard way.”

  She saw him raise the chair higher and prepare to bring it down on her. She aimed her gun at the biggest target—his torso. She was breathing in to squeeze off the round when someone yanked the chair out of his hands from behind, threw it across the room, and applied a chokehold. The arms did not let go until Peter stopped thrashing like a wild animal. Finally, his body relaxed, his eyes closed, and he slid to the floor unconscious.

  Roger Sturgis stared down at her. “Are you all right, Detective?”

  “Yeah, bu
t the motherfucker broke my ankle.”

  Roger helped her stand. “You’ve got handcuffs? Give them to me.”

  Codella leaned on the wall and reached in her pocket. Roger fitted the cuffs around Peter’s wrists. Then he supported Codella to the steps. She sat and took out her phone to call Haggerty. While she waited for him to arrive, Roger told her, “I wasn’t lying about one thing, Detective. I never intended for Philip to die. I went out there to talk to him—to reason with him. I’m not even sure whether Peter meant to kill him, or me, or both of us. I’d never seen him like that before.”

  Although Roger had just saved her, Codella was in no mood to cut him any slack. “Who carried Emily Flounders to her car?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but I assume it was Peter. After he knocked Philip to the ground, I told him he was on his own. I went inside, and he stayed out there for at least another five minutes. When I came back out with Susan—after Rose found Philip’s body—Emily wasn’t where she’d fallen. I suppose Peter thought it would look as if the deaths weren’t related and that someone from outside the church had attacked Philip.”

  “Then he shouldn’t have hidden the shovel in the storage closet.”

  Roger smirked. “And he’s a criminal defense attorney.”

  “You’re not clean in this, Sturgis,” she said. “You lied to police officers. You withheld evidence.”

  “Philip invaded my life, Detective. He violated my privacy. You didn’t have a right to those details.”

  “We could charge you with obstruction of justice.”

  “Go ahead,” Roger said. “But the bastard deserved what he got.”

  “Maybe so, but that’s not the point.”

  Peter shifted on the ground behind them. They turned when he started to groan. Codella made sure he knew where he was and who she was, and then she recited his rights until he cut her off with, “I know, I know. I’m a lawyer, for God’s sake.”

  Haggerty arrived minutes later. She filled him in, and then she said, “Get me up these steps. There’s one more person I need to talk to.”

  CHAPTER 74

  Todd Brookes finally unlocked the door after the uniformed officers warned him to stand back because they were going to break it down. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Muñoz stepped forward. “Mr. Brookes, I’m arresting you on suspicion of criminal possession of computer-related materials.”

  “What?”

  “And we have a warrant to search your cell phone and computer.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Muñoz slapped the warrant into his hands. “Here, read it.”

  Todd stared at the document until Muñoz signaled to a uniformed officer who moved behind Todd and placed handcuffs around his wrists. Muñoz read him his rights.

  “I want my lawyer!”

  “I’m afraid your lawyer’s indisposed,” said Muñoz. “He’s been arrested for murder.”

  “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find on my computer.”

  “Documents, Mr. Brookes. Documents that prove you were helping Philip Graves blackmail vestry members of St. Paul’s.” He was done talking to the snide asshole. He looked at the officer who’d handcuffed Todd. “Sit him in the living room, and don’t let him move or speak.”

  Todd jerked away from the officer. The officer grabbed him by the arms and slammed him against the vestibule wall.

  “You have no right!” cried Todd.

  Muñoz stepped close to his face and smiled. “I have every right,” he said, waving the warrant. “You’re the one who had no right.”

  CHAPTER 75

  Haggerty brought Susan Bentley into the Blue Lounge, and she sat on the couch across from Codella. “What happened to your leg?”

  “Never mind my leg,” Codella said. “I want the truth from you. What was your part in the murder of Philip Graves?”

  “My part? What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Susan looked away. The guilty always looked away.

  “We’ve just arrested Peter Linton,” Codella said.

  “So Peter’s the one.” Susan covered her mouth with her palm.

  “You knew?”

  “I hoped it wasn’t.” She lowered her gaze. “But I was afraid it might be.”

  “What did you do, Doctor? Confess it right now, or I’ll find out on my own, and I won’t be happy about it.”

  Susan bent forward and hugged her knees. “I didn’t know anyone was going to die that night. You have to believe that.”

  Codella watched her close her eyes and shake her head as if she could clear all the bad thoughts out of her brain. “Roger came to me while Philip was putting on his coat,” she said. “He asked me to keep Mother Anna distracted for a couple of minutes.”

  “And you didn’t bother to ask him why?”

  “I didn’t need to,” she said. “He told me. He wanted to speak to Philip outside. He was afraid Mother Anna would rush out there and interrupt them.”

  “And you agreed.”

  Susan nodded. “Roger voted against the cemetery proposal too. As I told you yesterday, I assumed he was in the same predicament I was in—that Philip had compromised him the same way he’d threatened me. How could I say no? It never occurred to me that he would kill Philip.”

  Codella propped her swelling leg on the seat of a chair. “You’re a very intelligent person, Doctor. You weigh consequences and make important decisions every day. Are you honestly going to sit there and tell me that when you flipped over the body and saw the face of Philip Graves that night in the garden, it didn’t occur to you that Roger had killed him while you kept the rector distracted?”

  “Of course it occurred to me,” Bentley exclaimed. “I never intended to aid and abet a murder. You have to believe that. As soon as I saw Philip’s face, I sent Rose back to the parish house for the defibrillator, and while she was gone, I asked Roger how he could have done this—taken a life, I mean—but he swore he hadn’t, and something in his voice made me believe him. Maybe I just wanted and needed to believe him.” She shrugged. “And then Rose came racing back to us, and Roger whispered, ‘For your sake and mine, say nothing, Susan.’ He promised to explain everything later. And that was the last opportunity we had to speak privately that night.”

  Susan gripped both sides of her head. “I’m not proud of myself, Detective, but self-preservation is a very compelling motive for silence.”

  Codella felt like telling the doctor that she was more disappointed in her than in anyone else. She, after all, had experienced the consequences of people’s impulsive decisions more intimately than all the others in this case. She at least should have shown some character. But Codella didn’t have to say these words. She knew Susan was already thinking them and that she would only be pouring salt into open wounds.

  “I wish I’d had the courage to tell you the truth right away,” Susan acknowledged, “but truth has been my enemy for so long. Philip used my worst vulnerability against me. He threatened to humiliate me in front of the whole world, to destroy the life I’d fought to build. He had no conscience. And when the EMTs peeled the electrodes off his chest and he was beyond a doubt dead, it wasn’t at all hard for me to conclude—in the harshest Old Testament sense—that he got what he deserved that night.”

  CHAPTER 76

  After Susan departed, Haggerty brought Anna Brookes into the Blue Lounge. She sat on the couch and stared at the bag of ice he’d placed on Codella’s ankle. “What happened to you, Detective?”

  Codella ignored the question. “It’s over, Rector. We’ve arrested Peter Linton for the murder of Philip Graves.”

  “Then Todd didn’t—” She paused. “He’s innocent?”

  “He didn’t kill Philip, and he didn’t attack Stephanie Lund,” Codella told her. “But he’s not innocent. You see, he was helping Philip blackmail Susan and Roger.”

  “Blackmail them?”

  Codella quickly explained w
ithout revealing the details. “We have officers executing a search warrant at the rectory right now. They’ve found evidence on your husband’s laptop that he supplied Philip with the information Philip used to blackmail them.”

  Anna lowered her head.

  “We’ve arrested him for criminal possession of computer materials. There will probably be more charges to come.”

  Anna shook her head. “I could have prevented all of this.”

  “You’re a priest. You’re not God. You can’t control people,” Codella reminded her.

  “I could have stood up at the vestry meeting and said no. None of this had to happen.”

  Codella shook her head. “You’re not without fault, but you didn’t make Peter pick up a shovel that night. You didn’t give Philip Graves the idea to blackmail members of the vestry. And you certainly didn’t make your husband have an affair or do Philip Graves’s dirty work.”

  “I should have seen Philip for what he was.”

  “You’re human,” Codella said. “You don’t have the power to see into everyone’s soul. You were needy, and he used that to his advantage. That doesn’t make you culpable. We all have weaknesses. We make mistakes. Some of us realize our limitations, but others think they can get away with terrible things. They convince themselves that they won’t be the ones who have to pay the price—but everyone pays the price one way or another.”

  Anna wiped her eyes.

  “If you believe you caused these deaths to happen, then you’re playing God, and I know you don’t want to do that.”

  “No,” Anna agreed.

  “Too many people have tried to use this church to further their own agendas. Someone needs to remind them why they’re really here.”

  “I’m not fit for the task,” said Anna. “I’ve proven that.”

  “I disagree,” Codella replied. “I think you’ve been sorely tested, but everybody gets tested. Everybody falls. The strong people get up.” Codella leaned forward. She thought of her own past, the trials she’d lived through. “Listen to me, Rector. St. Paul’s isn’t in trouble because of its financial difficulties. You’ll solve those. You’ve got people who can help you do that. But you need to step up now. This is your time. You’ve got to make a difficult decision. Are you going to throw in the towel, or are you going to lead?”