by Mary Nealy
Paul noticed her scraped-up hands and saw her move her aching joints gingerly. He still wanted some time alone with Pravus.
“Wanting to catch Pravus is the right instinct. Your human side also wants revenge. That’s perfectly normal. The part of you that is ruled by God actually goes against human nature. So, yes, you wanted my gun. Yes, you saw yourself making Pravus pay for the harm he’d done, but God has a nice firm grip on you. You’d have done the right thing in the end.”
Paul eyed the nasty bruise on her forehead, almost covered by the hair that had escaped her barrette, and felt himself sink deeper into cop mode. “How’d it go with the investigation into the discharged weapon?”
“I told my story, told the truth.” Keren exhaled slowly, maybe with relief. Maybe her ribs hurt. “But I didn’t tell all of it. I can’t decide if I feel right about it. Am I denying God when I deny this gift?”
Paul tried to shift into pastor gear. This would be an excellent time for that. All he could do was remember how badly he’d wanted that gun. “You did right. They wouldn’t have understood if you’d talked about discerning spirits.”
“But there’s no law that allows me to shoot at a person I can’t see, can’t identify, but ‘know’ in some spiritual way is the right man. “
“Tell that to Spiderman.”
She slugged him but there was no force behind it. There was an extended silence before she added, “They seemed to accept my story and be okay with it. They didn’t take me off the case, so that’s a good sign. But it’s by no means settled.”
“If I were still on the force I’d probably be making an example of you right now.”
Keren scowled at him, and he smiled right into her bared teeth. She couldn’t sustain any true anger, but Paul suspected that was mainly because she was tired.
“You know, that’s the first time I’ve ever pulled the trigger on my gun outside a shooting range.”
Keren ran her hands through the wild curls that rioted, trying to escape the bun on her head. She rescued her barrette and replaced it with graceful efficiency.
Paul wanted to offer to help. Having his hands in her hair was very tempting.
“Part of me feels like a failure because I didn’t stop him. But then, the other part of me is horrified that I could have killed a human being. The part of me that’s horrified seems like the Christian part, but I’m not sure it is. We have to stop this guy. I may have no choice except to kill him before this is over.” She had her hair back under control long before Paul had himself under control. She leaned forward, forearms on her knees, and turned to look at him.
“I shot a man while I was a cop.” Paul remembered the price he’d paid.
“Killed him?” Keren asked, watching him closely, like a good little investigator.
Paul matched her pose and noticed his face was really close to hers. Well within kissing distance. Talking about killing someone put a damper on his wayward thoughts, though. “It was my third year on patrol. I don’t think, even now, that I had a choice. He was out of control, unloading his gun in every direction. He’d already hit a couple of bystanders. He put a bullet into me before he was done.” Paul rubbed his shoulder and felt the old scar under his T-shirt. “Of course, I acted like it was nothing. I was at my very macho best. I never admitted to anyone how torn up I was inside. I’d only been married about a year when it happened. I didn’t talk to my wife without biting her head off for six months. I got drunk every Friday night for a year. That was the first time she left me.”
“Didn’t you go to the department shrink?”
“Yeah, they required it. I went and didn’t tell the poor woman anything. I was too tough to even admit to myself how scarring it was to take a life.”
“You’re talking about it now,” Keren said.
“Yeah, I am.” Paul leaned toward her slightly, just to see if she’d stay put or move away. “I like talking to you, Detective Collins.”
“I like talking to you, too, Pastor P.” She didn’t move much, but a little, and definitely in the right direction.
Before Paul could close the last few inches, a nurse came out of the IC unit. “I can let one of you go in for five minutes this half hour and the other go in next half hour. You can do that all night if you want to. Like I told the other lady who was here, don’t ask her questions about the attack. Even in the coma it could be upsetting to her, but go ahead and talk to her. It definitely helps our patients to hear a familiar voice.”
Keren never took her turn—since Paul’s was the only familiar voice—but she stayed. He never suggested she go home. She might not be safe at home. She never suggested abandoning him. Instead, she stretched out on a hard vinyl sofa and slept.
Keren woke in the first light of dawn as Paul came back from sitting with LaToya. His hair was curling and messy. His clothes looked slept in. He had dark circles under his eyes and he was cradling his arm to his chest, reminding Keren that a building had fallen on him just recently.
“How is she?” Keren sat up on the vinyl couch, aching in every joint from the car wreck and the uncomfortable bed.
“No change. Still in a deep coma. But the nurse said her vitals are strong. They’re really hopeful she’ll wake up and be okay.” Paul’s smile was weak, but it was there.
Keren ran her hands into her hair and realized her barrette was gone. She looked around.
“This what you’re after?” Paul dangled it from two fingers. “It fell out in the night.”
“My barrette never falls out. That’s why I love it.” She stood, suppressed a groan of pain, and snatched it away from him. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How’d you get it?”
“You really don’t like your hair?”
“Of course not.”
“Because it’s about the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen.” Paul’s eyes flashed as he studied her corkscrew curls, made more awful by a terrible night’s sleep.
“You have really bad taste.” She began finger-combing her hair into a ponytail. “You probably get all bothered by clown wigs on Halloween.”
Paul laughed. It was a great sound.
Higgins came striding into the waiting room. “Is she awake yet?”
“No, sorry.” Keren looked at Higgins, immaculate as ever. A few nights sitting up with one of his vics might do him a world of good. Might help him remain a human being. “What have you discovered about the people you had up on the wall yesterday?”
“I left a report in triplicate on your desk,” Higgins said.
“Why don’t you just phone next time?” Keren asked. “Save yourself the drive over.”
“It was on my way, and I wanted to make sure Pastor Morris came in early. I’ve got a long list of questions about the people we’re investigating. A few minutes talking with you, Pastor, might save us hours.” Higgins gave the door to the intensive care unit a disgruntled look, like the room was committing a crime by keeping LaToya from him.
“We’re taking a lot of heat over Melody Fredericks. Any second now, the press is going to connect these killings and go ballistic.”
“I’m coming in as soon as someone comes to sit with LaToya. I expect her any minute.”
Higgins glared as if he was tempted to arrest Paul and drag him into the station house. But finally he left, alone.
Keren pulled on her blazer and checked her gun, tucked in a holster at the small of her back. It hadn’t helped with her night’s sleep, and the hospital wasn’t real happy about her wandering around armed, but she wasn’t going anywhere without it.
O’Shea arrived with Rosita. They’d convinced her to wait for O’Shea, rather than take the bus or the El.
“Buddy’s back,” she announced cheerfully. “Louie showed up for his shift just as I was leaving and Murray was already at work on breakfast. They’ll keep things running at the mission so I’m free to be at the hospital.”
“I’m going to get some coffee in the lounge. Anyone else want a cup?” O’Shea rubbed his face
, looking like he’d slept about as well as Keren and Paul.
“Is hospital coffee as good as mission coffee?” Rosita asked.
O’Shea shrugged. “Probably about the same.”
Rosie shuddered. “I’ll take a cup.”
Keren and Paul passed. O’Shea wandered off in search of caffeine.
“You haven’t told anyone what you’re doing, have you, Rosita?” Keren asked.
“No. Not too many of them remember LaToya—she’s been off the street for a while. So it’s not like they’d want to take a turn sitting with her. I told them a friend of mine is in the hospital, and that’s not a lie.”
Paul smiled at this former crack whore, who now worried about telling a lie. “Thanks. We’ve got to keep working on catching this maniac.”
“I’m rooting for you, Pastor P. I’m glad to do anything that will get this nut off the streets.”
They walked toward the exit door. Keren said, “I should go to the mission. I’d probably be able to eliminate Murray and Buddy just by meeting them.”
Paul nodded. “And I need to go over those pictures again with Higgins and see what he’s come up with.”
O’Shea came down the hall, handed Rosita her coffee, and headed after Keren and Paul. “Any change in the vie?”
Paul shook his head.
“She’s shown no signs of regaining consciousness.” Keren shoved her hands in the pockets of her slacks. “Paul’s going to go with you and get to work. I’ll be right behind you. I’ve got to run an errand first.”
“You’re not going home, are you?” Paul asked. “You know Pravus is paying attention to you now.”
“I’m sure I’d be fine. Pravus works in the dark. But no, I’m not going home.”
“Keep in touch and don’t take too long,” O’Shea said. He and Paul went one way, Keren another.
It was a wasted trip. There must have been some morning break, because there was almost no one at the mission, except a woman in the kitchen who wouldn’t speak to Keren or make eye contact. But she was baking bread that smelled like heaven. Hunting in the back rooms of the mission, Keren found a group of ladies from a local church who were stuffing envelopes.
“Where is everybody?” Keren asked the group of gray-haired worker bees.
One of them smiled at her from behind her trifocals. “It’s the first of the month.”
“What’s that have to do with anything?”
“Welfare checks, social security checks, disability checks all come out today. Most of the people here will have money for the next few days. It gets pretty quiet.”
Frustrated, Keren headed for the station.
When she got there, O’Shea had more details. “We’ve narrowed the type of chisel down to a very specific artist’s tool.” He started talking before she had a chance to stick her purse in her desk drawer. “Only a half-dozen stores in the metro area handle them. The one Pravus threw was old, but we’re hoping he might be compulsive enough to need one exactly like it, so we’re monitoring the stores and any mail-order businesses that sell them.”
“Sounds good,” Keren said as she settled in. “What about the frogs?”
“The frogs were really interesting.”
Keren exchanged a look with Paul. He shrugged. “I thought they were pretty interesting when I was picking them out of my clothes.”
Keren shuddered, remembering. “How so?”
“Well, they’re not a usual kind of frog. They’re a really small tree frog, native to the southern part of the United States, mainly Louisiana. They can also be purchased in pet stores, but no stores would carry that many. The medics estimated there were over a hundred frogs crawling on LaToya and scads of them were hopping away in all directions. They got twenty in the ambulance with them because they seemed to kind of cling.”
“Tell me about it.” Paul rubbed at his stomach as if he could still feel the little wrigglers inside his shirt. “I’m going to go home for the night. I hope a shower helps me forget just what special little frogs they were.”
Paul nearly staggered as he climbed the stairs to his apartment that night. He would have gone back to the hospital directly from the station house, except he hadn’t showered or changed clothes since Sunday morning—two days ago. He was starting to disgust himself. A shower, a change of clothes, and right back to LaToya.
He opened his apartment door, jogging straight for the shower. The apartment smelled stale, like it had been closed up for too long, which it had. He felt like a jerk, leaving LaToya all day. As her pastor and her friend, not to mention the catalyst of this mess, it was his duty to be at her side. He rushed through his shower and pulled on a pair of blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and running shoes; then he ran to his tiny spare bedroom to snag his jacket.
He pushed the door open and the air hit him in the face. It was thick. It was alive. His mouth filled with choking dust that crawled down his throat.
Then the smell hit him.
Choking and covering his mouth, he fumbled for the light switch on the wall. The bare bulb was almost snuffed out by the swarms of gnats.
He could just make out the body on the floor. Covering his mouth and nose with one hand, he knelt and virtually pushed aside a solid wall of bugs. He felt for a pulse. There was none. The body was stone cold. She was long dead. But the smell of death had told him that before he’d touched her.
Gnats covered her body. They clustered on the hideous rust-brown painting on her death shroud. Paul lurched to his feet, suddenly remembering he was invading a crime scene. He backed out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He ran into his bathroom and spit gnats out of his mouth, clawed at his face to wipe them away, then pulled out his cell phone and called Keren as he rushed out into the hall.
O’Shea beat Keren there. Paul was leaning against the wall outside his door, posting himself as guard. He’d been thinking like a cop. Call it in. Preserve the crime scene.
“Where is she?” O’Shea pulled out a handkerchief and reached for the doorknob.
“No.” Paul moved to block O’Shea from going in. He wasn’t sure if it was to protect the crime scene or O’Shea. “It’s bad.”
“Melody Fredericks?” O’Shea didn’t protest.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure it’s her, but I couldn’t see her really.”
“Why not?”
There was an extended silence. Finally, Paul said, “Gnats.”
Keren emerged at the top of the stairs as Paul spoke. She grimaced.
Paul repeated his orders to stay out. The three of them stood waiting.
When Higgins got there, Paul said, “Wait a minute.”
“I’m allowed in.” Higgins reached for the door.
Paul grabbed his arm. “You’re going to run into a million gnats when you get in there. Cover your mouth.”
“I’m not afraid of a few bugs.” Higgins looked at them like they were wimps.
Paul almost let him go in without further warning. “You’ll need to cover your mouth to breathe. There’s a small bedroom on the right, beside the kitchen. The body is in there.”
Higgins looked at Paul for a long second and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. Then he went in. He was back out in thirty seconds, with his mouth and nose covered.
“She’s been dead at least twenty-four hours.” Higgins swatted at the bugs all over him. He muttered, “Crazy freak. Where did he get all these gnats? When were you last in there?”
“I left here Sunday morning after church and I haven’t been back. I’ve been at the hospital.” Paul could hear himself talking like a cop, reporting the facts in a brisk, no-nonsense voice. “She may have been here since then.”
Higgins looked up and down the hall. “We’ll need to question the staff. Aren’t there offices on this floor?”
“Yes,” Paul said in the clipped tone he couldn’t shake. “But they’re closed today. It’s always quiet around here on the first. Welfare checks.”
“With this case, I didn’t expec
t it to be easy,” Higgins said sardonically. “I opened a window to thin out the gnats. I don’t think we need to keep them all as evidence.”
“You’ll need to get face masks before you can go in there and get her out,” Paul said through his tensed jaw.
Higgins didn’t even debate it. He placed the call and settled in to wait with the rest of them.
Paul’s phone rang.
He flipped his phone open without a second thought.
“No,” Higgins hissed, “wait for the trace.”
Paul wasn’t thinking about anything else, except who would be calling him. He knew.
“Are you expecting a package to arrive momentarily, Reverend?” the silky smooth voice asked.
Paul waved at them to pay attention. O’Shea immediately started recording. Higgins gave Paul a disgusted look and began the process of having the call traced.
“You ruined things for me last time,” Pravus crooned. “This time I don’t think I’ll give you a chance to spread my message. But you will find a carving in the room with pretty Melody.”
“I didn’t ruin things,” Paul said. “I gave them your message and they heard. That’s why the bomb didn’t go off. They listened to me. They let your people go.”
Pravus hesitated. “No one as evil as they are would accept the message I sent. You’re lying.”
Paul was lying, and he had the strange idea that he shouldn’t be. In fact, he decided in a split second that he wasn’t acting at all the way he should be. Whether that was God’s inspiration or his own temper, he couldn’t be sure. “All right, Pravus, you want the truth? The truth is no one is going to listen to your message because they know the message is being sent by a coward.”
Keren’s hand clamped on his forearm in warning.
Paul ignored her. “Everybody knows you’re a fool who says he speaks for God but really only speaks for himself. I’m sick of your threats. I’m sick of listening to a weak little piece of slime who thinks his pathetic imitation of God’s miracles makes him equal to God. Read the book of Exodus, Pravus. Over and over Pharaoh’s magicians do their little tricks to try to copy the plagues. They’re trying to prove Moses is just doing tricks, too, but they can’t prove it, because Moses is doing the work of God. Well that’s all you’re doing, Pravus. A bunch of sneaky, little tricks. You say you hate me, but you’re too much of a crawling worm to face me and take out your anger where it belongs. So instead you hurt innocent women.