The Psalmist

by James Lilliefors

“Lividity of the body indicates she had been moved, probably twice, before the perpetrator carried her into the church and left her in the pew. The M.E. found signs of ligature on her wrists. Nowhere else.

  “Yesterday, investigators went house-­to-­house interviewing residents along Bayfront. We’ve got four ­people who say they saw vehicles near the church overnight or early Tuesday. Two say they saw a white or tan SUV driving along the church road. One put it at around one-­thirty, the other at one forty-­five or one-­fifty. Then we’ve got two reports of a silver pickup on Bayfront just after sunrise Tuesday. No plate numbers on either vehicle, unfortunately.

  “State police have talked with church employees, including the six ­people who had keys to the building, and most or all of the AA members who attended a meeting in the parlor Monday night. It’s likely the parlor window had been left unlocked and the perpetrator entered through that window.” She turned a page in her notes. “Three stores in Tidewater County were open all night and we’re still reviewing the tapes. There are several cameras up on the highway and at the Bay Bridge, so we’re in the process of checking everything coming and going.” She nodded to Henry Moore, who had moved three state police homicide investigators to Tidewater County just to help sift through surveillance tapes.

  Hunter didn’t bring up the numbers that had been carved into the Jane Doe’s right hand. She also didn’t mention that sheriff’s deputies, in particular Barry Stilfork, had compromised much of the crime scene and probably contaminated evidence. Nor did she speculate on the possibility that this crime might be connected to others, which Hunter was beginning to think possible. She thought it would help explain why the local case had such big problems.

  “Questions?”

  No one spoke. John Jay Blount, she noticed, was staring at her, a cryptic, lopsided smile on his face.

  “Captain Blount, how’s your day going so far?” Hunter said, and he immediately lowered his eyes.

  Then Kirsten Sparks, talking and chewing at the same time, said, “I’m getting inquiries about whether this was a homicide. Can we at least tell the media it was a homicide?”

  Hunter nodded. “I don’t see any reason not to. Unless there are any objections.”

  State’s attorney investigator Clinton Fogg made a snorting sound.

  “Mr. Fogg?”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes. He was a peculiar man, who barely acknowledged some ­people and was overly friendly with others. Often he acted as if he was hard of hearing, though he wasn’t. Fogg was thorough and highly competent as a detective, but loyal to no one but the state’s attorney, Wendell Stamps.

  “Okay,” Hunter said. “Anything else, then? If not, let’s get back out there and solve this thing.”

  Hunter took her time pushing papers together as the others rose and filed from the room. She knew that she sounded more like a football coach than a homicide investigator, but that was how she approached her job; so far it’d served her well. Sometimes she caught herself saying a phrase that reminded her of her father, who’d coached high school ball most of his adult life, and who had drilled in her simple lessons about winning and losing, pumping her with sayings from ­people like Vince Lombardi and John Wooden.

  State’s Attorney Wendell Stamps waited until the others had all left.

  “How do you feel about this?” he asked Henry Moore, the case officer with the state police homicide unit, who was still seated. “Just curious.”

  But Moore wouldn’t bite.

  “It’s Hunter’s investigation,” he said, looking at the state’s attorney. Moore was a deliberative man in his late fifties with a ruddy, wind-­burned face. “I won’t comment beyond what she told you.”

  Hunter tried not to smile. The state’s attorney nodded to her politely, said, “Sergeant Hunter,” and left the room.

  Chapter 6

  “PICK UP SOME lunch?”

  Ben Shipman was standing in Hunter’s doorway, wearing his old red lumberjack coat and worn, bleach-­spotted jeans.

  He twirled his keys once around his index finger. “I’ll drive.”

  Ship was a stocky man with rusty, wool-­like hair and earnest blue eyes. He was in his mid-­forties, divorced four or five years, with a teenage daughter. But he could be like an adolescent himself at times; this morning, Hunter had noticed, his socks weren’t matched—­almost the same color, but one thick wool, the other nylon—­and he’d missed two belt loops on his jeans. Also, he looked tired; the day before, Ship had driven to Baltimore and back, to witness the preliminary forensics on Jane Doe.

  When Shipman asked if she wanted to “pick up” lunch, it meant McDonald’s, one of the two fast food restaurants in Tidewater County. Usually, it also meant he wanted to talk.

  The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” blasted from the car’s speakers as Shipman started the engine. “Whoops,” he said, punching it off. He kept two CDs in his car, The Beatles 1962-­1966 and The Beatles 1967-­1970. It was, as far as Hunter knew, the only music he listened to.

  “You know what’s going on, don’t you?” he asked as they cruised onto Main Street.

  “No, what’s going on?”

  “G.J. city, here we come.”

  “What’s G.J. city?”

  “Grand jury.”

  “For whom?”

  “Fallow.”

  “But Robby Fallow didn’t do this.”

  “I know, I’m just saying.”

  Shipman went silent after that, hunched over the steering wheel. The homicide unit was assigned unmarked cars, none of them too obvious, like a Crown Vic. If Ship’s Mazda had been a suit of clothes, it would’ve been two sizes too small. Shipman had grown up here in Tidewater County and his speech was rich with Eastern Shore inflections—­water was “wu-­ter,” about was “a-­boat.” He’d worked for the sheriff’s office for three or four years before earning his stripes as a state police investigator, and was still friendly with some of the deputies. He was Hunter’s liaison to what the “other side” was thinking.

  “Tell me about that,” she said as they came to the first of Tidewater’s three traffic signals.

  “Well, I mean—­another week goes by, right? We don’t have any more than we have this morning? They’re going to convene the grand jury. Guarantee.”

  “Based on what?”

  Shipman shrugged and, as he sometimes did, answered a different question: “I’m telling you, this thing is freaking them. ’Course, being an election year, it wouldn’t hurt any if they can show that they were the ones who solved it, not us.”

  “Guess not.” Hunter waited, knowing he’d say more. Ship tended to open up around her more than he did with anyone else. Early on there’d been a few awkward moments when he’d suggested that they should go “out out” sometime. But they were long past that now, and Hunter thought of Ben Shipman as an older brother.

  “If they can’t have a real solution,” he said, “they’ll settle for the appearance of a solution. A ‘necessary outcome.’”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “I know. I’m just saying. It is what it is.”

  Yes, it is, Hunter thought, feeling her face flush with anger. They rode in silence again past the Blue Crab Diner, Holland’s Family Restaurant, and the white frame Baptist church at the other end of Main Street, then over the northern trickle of Jimmy Creek toward the highway and the county’s small commercial strip. As with most of her cases, Hunter had already raised the stakes of this one, figuring there was more involved than just finding a criminal; there was also a darker riddle of human motivation to be answered. She had heard the term “God’s work” used to describe homicide investigations years before she understood what it meant. Now she understood, but tried not to think about it.

  “What are they saying about the numbers in her hand?”

  “Not muc
h,” Ship said. “The state’s attorney evidently thinks it’s irrelevant. A red heron.”

  “Herring.”

  “Herring.”

  “But for what purpose?”

  “Just Robby, trying to divert attention.”

  No, Hunter thought. Not possible. Robby Fallow doesn’t think that way. The number in her hand is something else. The number in her hand has to mean something. It’s probably the key to understanding this.

  “There’s another reason, too, you know.” Ship was grinning slightly as he switched lanes.

  “Which is?”

  “A lot of ­people don’t like Robby Fallow. ­People respected his daddy, but not him. Lot of ­people’d be glad to see him gone. They just don’t want to go to war with him. Robby can be a stubborn guy.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Hunter recalled the hand-­painted plywood sign he’d nailed to a tree last winter reading, Private Property. Keep Out. This Means You.

  “So this would be a way of forcing him out?” she said. “That seems a stretch.”

  “Don’t underestimate what the sheriff’s capable of when he gets a bee in his bonnet. I can see it going there—­I mean, say they end up working out a plea deal, he agrees to leave Tidewater. The case is quietly dropped. Maybe Robby sells the property, gets enough to buy a nice little retirement place down in Florida or the Carolinas, for him and his son. Everyone lives happily ever after.”

  “And a murderer goes free?”

  “Well,” Shipman said. “There’s that.”

  SHIP PLACED THEIR orders without asking Hunter: Oriental salad and small fries for her, Big Mac and large fries for himself. Otherwise a healthy eater, Hunter harbored a weakness for McDonald’s french fries.

  They were driving back when Sonny Fischer, the other local member of the homicide unit, called. Fisch was Ship’s antithesis in many ways, a heath and exercise nut who could literally become ill in the presence of fast food. He was also highly antisocial. Both, though, in their own ways, were exceptional investigators.

  “Going or coming?”

  “Coming,” Hunter said. “Why?”

  Ship reached for a handful of fries.

  “Might have something. Pickup truck ID’d from description.”

  “Video?”

  “Partial plate. Checking.”

  “Okay.”

  Fischer often spoke in a peculiar verbal shorthand, which Hunter was able to decipher.

  “Anything?” Ship asked, glancing over.

  “Don’t know yet. Maybe.”

  Maybe it’s the break we’re looking for, Hunter thought. But probably not. At least ninety-­five percent of her work on homicide cases ended up as wasted time. But she had to go through it to get to the five percent that wasn’t. Meaning none of it was really wasted, just incredibly tedious.

  Chapter 7

  THE BIG MAN had been eating pancakes alone at two-­twenty in the morning, the only customer seated at the counter, when the phone vibrated in his trousers pocket; it was the one call he had to take.

  “Gil Rankin.”

  “He needs to see you,” the familiar voice said.

  “I thought we were finished.”

  “No. One more.”

  So Rankin, his muscles still tingling from pumping iron, had no choice but to follow instructions. He flew that morning to New York City, where a driver met him at LaGuardia and took him to meet the Client. This time the man was sitting in the back of a delicatessen in midtown, eating a pastrami on rye and drinking coffee, the Daily News open in front of him to the sports pages. A slight, otherwise plain-­looking man, with silvery hair and dark, disturbing eyes.

  “I wish it hadn’t come to this, Gilbert,” he told Rankin, taking his time folding the paper closed. “It isn’t a result any of us wanted. But it has to be done. This sort of betrayal—­it’s like fruit that has gone bad. Have you ever seen spoiled fruit made good again?”

  “No,” Rankin said, trying, with mixed success, not to look at his client’s eyes. It was like looking at the sun, something you shouldn’t do.

  “No, that’s right,” his Client said. “It doesn’t happen.”

  How did things get to this point, anyway? Rankin asked himself on the limo ride back to LaGuardia, watching the city through a driving, icy rain. It was hard to say. He had worked for lots of high-­end clients over the years, all sorts of characters. But a decade ago his list had shrunk to one, and stayed that way ever since. His assignments now were infrequent but always lucrative. And the rest of his time was his, to do whatever he wanted. For a man who liked to work after dark, Rankin had made a good life for himself in the Sunshine State. He was married to a beautiful, intelligent, Puerto Rican–born woman who was also his best friend. They lived in a 17,000-­square-­foot Spanish-­style place on the water, paid for, fully staffed. They had one boy in elementary school, one in middle school. Sometimes, Rankin and his family took his boat into the Gulf of Mexico, far from everything, for days at a time. Nothing made him happier.

  The only thing he didn’t have anymore was the luxury of saying no. That was their arrangement: you take the assignments you’re given, you know the pay will be enormous, you don’t ask questions. And Rankin did a good job. It was the only reason he’d gotten to where he was today.

  This deal, from the beginning, had been the Client’s strangest assignment. But it came with the sweetest incentive: this job could be his last, if that’s what Gil Rankin really wanted. Meaning, he could walk away, if he wanted, millions of dollars richer, and never have to go back. There was an adage he’d heard all of this life—­that eventually, everybody gets caught. It wasn’t strictly true, but close enough. Rankin had known hugely successful ­people who now resided in nine-­by-­nine-­foot prison cells because they’d played too long and gotten sloppy, or made deals with clients who were wearing wires. He had always wanted to get out undefeated, the way Rocky Marciano had.

  So now he was driving back to Maryland to complete the last part of the Client’s deal. It meant returning to the little town of Tidewater, to a rented house the Client was providing for him. The rest would be up to him. The final part of it was simply to take out Jackson Pynne before he talked. According to the Client, Pynne would probably make it easy for him. Fact was, Pynne might be on his way back there now, right back to the scene of the crime.

  Chapter 8

  “HOW DOES SHE-­CRAB soup and homemade cornbread sound?” Charlotte asked.

  “Mmm.”

  “Good. Because it’s the only item on the menu today.”

  Sneakers raised his head and thumped his tail twice as Luke pulled the rose from behind his back and handed it to Charlotte. Kissing her, he breathed a nice blend of body lotions, spices, and corn bread. Classical piano music played in her study.

  Luke fetched a bottle of water from the fridge and leaned on the kitchen counter, admiring Charlotte. Their cottage was officially a parish house, owned by the church, but she had converted it into something quite different, finding it too musty and rustic. It now resembled a quaint Queen Anne–style New England bed and breakfast, decorated with an assortment of antiques and nautical knickknacks.

  Charlotte turned down the music.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say one of Beethoven’s late quartets,” Luke said. He took a drink of water.

  “Good thing you don’t have to guess,” Charlotte said.

  “Brahms?”

  “Ravel.”

  “Well. I was close, anyway.”

  She just gave him a look, and began to ladle the soup. Although she worked at home as a writer and historian, Charlotte dressed smartly each morning, as if she were going into an office full of ­people rather than just one largely indifferent mixed Labrador retriever—­except on those days when she volunteered at the Humane Society. Today she wore charcoal gray slacks and a tan wool pullov
er. Her ash blond hair was up in a claw clasp.

  “So, what have you been doing?” she asked.

  “Just trying to pretend it’s a normal day,” he said.

  “Any luck?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Your public has been calling.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Don’t worry. I turned off the ringer.”

  Charlotte watched him as he walked to the table.

  “Are you limping?” she said.

  “No, I’m okay. I just banged my knee earlier, at the office.”

  “Oh.” She brought their lunch to the table and Sneakers resettled beside her chair. For most of the day, the dog stayed in close proximity to Charlotte. Luke, despite his deep affection for Sneakers, would always be his auxiliary master.

  “How was your meeting with the investigator?” she asked, looking at Luke with her intelligent, pale blue eyes. “Learn anything new?”

  “A little.” He told her about the morning meeting with Amy Hunter as they ate. Luke shared everything with Charlotte. The night before, they had sat in these same places and mulled over possible explanations for what had happened at the church Monday night. Today none of them sounded right. Nothing did.

  “This is delicious,” he said. Charlotte smiled appropriately, although he could tell she was waiting for him to say more. They’d always been good counterweights—­Charlotte the product of a wealthy and privileged D.C. upbringing, Luke raised middle-­class in towns all over the States. But Charlotte had a rebellious side; she’d apparently crossed swords often with her famous father on political issues before the two of them settled into an awkward truce some years ago. Her only sibling, a younger brother named Nelson, had died when she was ten, and it remained an uncomfortable topic between Charlotte and her parents. She had an inwardness that still intrigued Luke, an ability to be sociable when she wanted and also to spend long periods of time in silence.

  “You know what’s funny?” he said, noticing that she was still looking at him. “I think I saw Jackson Pynne today, on my way home.”