by Lori May
I watch as he disarms the Jeep. “You want a lift?”
Cain eyes me as he continues on to his car, and I see a slight grin crease his cheeks. Great. Now my mentor’s going to think something’s up between me and the detective.
“Actually, no,” I say, realizing I have an opportunity to investigate our most recent scene a little bit more. “Hey, Cain? You mind if I check on something in the library?”
He looks at me quizzically. “What are ya thinking?”
“I just want to look something up, and since I’m right here, I may as well. If there’s time.”
“Yeah, sure, feel free. CSU is still digging through all that, so go ahead. You want me to stay?”
“No, I’m good on my own.”
He nods back to me, then says, “Don’t be too long, though. We’re still on the clock, kiddo.”
“I know,” I reply, taking the foot trail toward the main library. “Just give me an hour.”
I look back as Cain squeals out onto the road, and notice Severo is still sitting in his Jeep, watching me as I walk away. I give him a dismissing wave before entering the building.
The City College campus occupies about thirty-five acres of St. Nicholas Heights, stretching from 131st Street to 141st Street along Convent Avenue. Cohen Library is housed in the North Academic Center, close to where Thomas Devlin’s body was found. If I wasn’t here on business, I’d take a moment to explore the neo-Gothic architectural landmarks of the campus, but there is much work to be done.
When I find my way through the library to a vacant computer station, I roll the task chair snug up to the study desk and click on the Internet icon. Using a popular search engine, I type in the words Devlin and sword.
Taking the advice of my father to heart, I trust my gut will lead me in the right direction. My dad may not have been able to give me everything, but he gave me everything he had, especially the notion of instinct. There has to be a reason our killer used four swords.
As the results filter onto the screen, I scan through the site descriptions, looking for a possible lead. Irish genealogy, family heirlooms and a few book-review sites head the list, but I continue to scroll, not satisfied with the findings. On the third page of listings, however, I see the phrase “Devlin sword” and click to see what is revealed.
It’s a Web site dedicated to coats of arms, and when I see the name Devlin cached, I click to open its accompanying image. The Devlin crest boasts a cross straight down the middle of the shield, at the top of which are two stars. There’s another star directly below the cross, and all of these details are positioned underneath an iron battle mask. The only sword I can find is one set off to the side, and it’s double-edged. The whole thing doesn’t quite add up.
As I stare at the image, I let the visuals of Devlin’s body sift through my mind. The head in the crest faces left, just as Devlin’s did outside. The shield in the image covers what would be the torso of a real person…. And then it hits me.
I approach a staff member and ask, “Can I print from here?” anxious to show my theory to Cain and Severo. She accompanies me back to the computer station, enters a quick code and within seconds hands me a page I can take back to the office. It may not be much, but at least it’s a possibility.
The idea that this may in fact be a serial killer makes my skin crawl. Not so much because it freaks me out, but that this could be huge for my career.
Maybe it’s selfish, but nailing this killer, whoever he is, and proving my ability as a profiler will boost my chances of making it into NCAVC. And when it comes down to it, that’s the most important thing in my life right now. It’s something my father would have been proud of.
I exit the building, pocketing my findings, and begin to walk along the Convent Avenue sidewalk, but I’m caught off guard when I see Severo’s Jeep still sitting there. He’s not in the driver’s seat, so he could be up to anything, but I hail a cab before I have a chance to find out his whereabouts.
There’s something else I want to check on, just to see if we missed anything the first time, and I don’t want to waste any time. “Riverside and 112th, please.”
The cabbie nods his head and speeds off, heading south out of St. Nicholas Heights. There has to be more than what we initially found. Maybe trace missed something. Maybe we didn’t look hard enough. But our first and most critical clue as to what this killer is up to was found at the historical church crematorium. And if anything was left behind, I aim to find it.
The sounds of screeching brakes and a loud horn behind us divert my attention. Jerking my head around, I see two vehicles nearly meet bumper to bumper at the 125th Street intersection. The driver of the second vehicle is clearly pissed at the idiot in front of him for taking his sweet time passing through the intersection. At this moment, I’m a little pissed myself.
It’s Severo’s Jeep.
Evidently, he has a hard time hearing me when I say I do not need his presence every minute of the day. Thankfully, his mishap at the intersection stalls him, and before he has a chance to get back on course a taxi cuts in front of him, following my cabbie’s path along Morningside Park.
Our car soon begins to coast along Cathedral Parkway, and I take a moment to relax, absorbing all this city has to offer. Just seeing the trees and even the buildings brings up memories of my youth. New York is incomparable to anywhere else, and it feels good to be back here, even under the circumstances.
I hand the cabbie some folded bills and exit onto the grassy slope of the cathedral property. As I slam the door with my butt, the taxi that was following our trail passes by and heads to the other side of the lot. Must be a tourist checking out the historic landmarks. At least Severo’s nowhere in sight.
I get started along the walking path the team took recently. Passing by the water fountain and then the large statue of Christ, I head west toward the underground site. Crime scene tape is still draped along the entranceway, though I feel no shame in pulling it to the side as I descend the stairs to the dank and dirty underworld. The place still reeks of flesh and death, but my nose is slowly becoming accustomed to these occupational hazards.
My fingers trace along the carved words I found here, and the Latin meaning chimes through my thoughts, as if eager to reveal a greater meaning. In the name of God.
It’s frustrating that there is no other evidence within these walls to set us on the right track. Three bodies in three days? There has to be something more to tie them together. At this tomb, however, it seems we got everything the first time. One clue to lead us, and nothing but broken links to confuse us.
As I lean against a wall of one of the labyrinthine arteries, desperate to discover any minute sign of misconduct, my nose is again alerted to a nasty smell. Beneath me, the ground is still damp and sour from the fuels used in torching the spiritual advisor, but my senses are telling me there’s something more. Something fresh.
With careful footing, I step closer to the center of the crematorium and follow the scent of fuel. With the slight slope in flooring, a trickle of liquid passes between my feet and edges toward the back of the room. This isn’t right. The fuel should have been absorbed enough not to run, so I follow the direction from which the tiny river is flowing.
For all I know it could be raining now, thereby pushing residual liquid down into the cave. As I find a slim trail dribbling across the middle of the room, however, I realize a shadow lurks at the entranceway.
Man, this guy cannot take a hint. “Severo, what the hell are you doing? Are you going to follow me everywhere I go?”
As I turn my head toward the shadowy light, I have a hard time distinguishing his silhouette.
“Severo? Come down here if you insist on tagging me like a lost dog. Help me give this place another look.”
With slow-motion maneuvering, one foot steps down cautiously, then the next, and I shake my head at the dramatic entrance of the detective. But as his shadow falls slightly away from the backdrop of light, clarifying the si
lhouette, the person’s shoulder width is very different from what I expect.
This is not Severo.
“I’m sorry, this is a crime scene. It’s off-limits,” I say, realizing some passerby has too much curiosity for his own good. You’d think the caution tape would have told him as much.
He stands firm in the staircase, with little light showing his outline, and his stubbornness is getting on my nerves.
“Sir? This is—”
“You will find nothing here you don’t already know.”
His voice catches me off guard, with its quiet, yet raspy sounding reverberation. “Excuse me?”
My heartbeat quickens and my hand instinctively reaches to my holster. This man may be a lost tourist, or he could be a cracked-out wanderer, but I can’t afford to take any chances.
“Sir, you can’t be here. This is a crime scene.”
“You think this was a crime?”
As I move a few steps closer, now taking him a bit more seriously, I reach to my left side to retrieve my flashlight. When I light up the staircase to view the intruder, he raises his elbow to shield his face. He’s wearing a rather long raincoat, vinyl or coated cotton maybe, but its black color makes it hard to see any distinguishing traits against the dark underworld.
“I’m going to ask you once more to leave this area.”
My words do little to shake him, but as I move a step to the left, out of the stream of light, I begin to see the side of a chiseled jaw, with sunken cheeks leading to high cheekbones.
My fingers interlace with my Bauer .25 and I slowly pull it from its nest. For all I know he may be armed, and I don’t want to make any sudden movements.
“Sir?” I beg, trying to get this man to understand my plea.
His voice, a firm whisper comes again. “I mean no harm to you.”
My back stiffens as I grasp my weapon. “Okay, well, good. Let’s take this back above ground, shall we?”
My feet scrape along the damp crematorium floor, shuffling along the residue of flammable fluids. “Come on, let’s go.” My weapon at the ready, I step closer, but he raises a hand, revealing a container of kerosene, to warn me off approaching.
“You will do best to stay where you are.”
“Listen, mister,” I say, trying to talk some sense into him. “I don’t know you, but you just said you mean me no harm, and I want to believe you. I do. So, if we can go on back up there, and talk out whatever it is you need—”
He angles the container downward and fuel drizzles into the room. “Revenge. I’m sure you can understand that.” Beneath my feet, kerosene swirls across the ground, sinking into crevices and spreading throughout the tomb.
“I’d like to understand. Let’s talk about it outside.”
I study the man’s position, figuring how I can gain the upper hand in taking him down. He is too far away to get past safely, and still blocking the stairway. Plus I can’t see what he’s placed behind him, a few steps up.
I walk toward him with a firm pace, no longer taking this lightly. “If you don’t turn around right now, I will have no choice in the matter,” I say, releasing my handgun’s safety.
He sets down the container of fluid. “Neither do I.” He pulls a Zippo from his pocket and flicks it swiftly, bringing a flame to life.
My index finger slides to the trigger. I drop my flashlight and focus on my target as I shoot in the direction of the stranger. He dodges my attempt, knocking over the kerosene and dropping his lighter into a pool of fluid. Flames burst high and spread throughout the crematorium, and I leap away from the room’s center, desperate to find safe ground.
Again I reel off a shot, trying to close the distance between us and end this charade. He’s at least fifteen feet from me, but damn it, I’m not playing games. “Face the wall and put your hands in the air,” I say, though with the increasing flames I can barely make out his whereabouts.
The fires are sucking in air from the open staircase, climbing into the depths of the cave, and I take careful breaths to preserve whatever oxygen may be contained in this room.
Coughing, I yell out to this man, “I’m thinking you didn’t mean it when you said you didn’t want to hurt me! Whoever you are, you better damn well get your ass over here and give me a proper introduction!”
Muffled words travel through the smoky space. Disoriented, I angle my weapon to take aim at any target I can, but a sweeping force knocks me from the side and I fall to my knees. “In time, Angie. In fact, I think we’ll come to respect one another very much.”
“What?” He knows my name. I scramble to grasp hold of my gun, which fell from my hand with the attack, but as I reach through the flames, another blow finds its way to my head and the shadows stop.
Chapter 8
The pulsing at the back of my neck muffles my clarity, but the shrill sound of ringing is enough to elicit some energy to lift my head. Through the dancing flames and toxic smell, I see my cell phone lying next to me, the small red light flashing as it rings. As I reach for it, my eyes take in the smeared blood on my hand.
With the phone cradled between my ear and shoulder, I push myself off the ground, but it’s difficult to get any reception underground.
“Angie, where are you? Is everything okay?”
I slide along the wall of the main room, sweat mixed with blood dripping down my neck, as I try to find the staircase. “Severo? I’m at the crematorium. I need help.”
Muted sounds travel through my phone and I cannot understand what the detective is saying. “Severo? I can’t hear you. I’m at the cathedral.”
But our connection soon fades and my phone is now useless. Shielding my eyes to protect them from the flames, I quickly dash through the fire, trying to find the entranceway staircase. I trip on something, and when I look to the ground, I see an extremely large wooden crucifix stained with blood. My guess is it’s the weapon this guy used to knock me down. Bastard.
My lungs respond to the environment, and my coughing prompts my eyes to water as I stumble up to the doorway. It’s stuck. Locked from the outside? My hand doesn’t find the Bauer .25 at my side, and I desperately need something to force this door open. Air supply is running low in here and I don’t know that Severo understood a word I said.
For once, I need his help. This much I know.
I pull my shirtsleeve up and over my nose and mouth to protect myself from ingesting the gases as I scramble to find something, anything I can use to apply force to the door. When my feet again knock the large crucifix, I kick it free from flames and return with it to the entranceway.
It’s heavy, wooden and was strong enough to knock me out. Now I need it to save my life. With my neck pulsing shots of pain, I slam the cross into the door, screaming with every blow. The solid portal shifts a bit as I hammer at it, but doesn’t yield. I must get out of here!
Small, deliberate breaths seep through my lips as I gain focus and find my center of gravity. Blocking out the external influences of my environment, I focus only on the door. When my head is as clear as it can be, I put all my strength into ramming the cross into it. The impact is enough to trip me up. The crackle of chain, though, lets me know I have succeeded. The lock has been busted.
Sunlight blinds my eyes as I crawl up the stairs to safety. Gasping for breath, I savor the New York air, and the cross falls from my grasp as I lie on the ground, my life no longer in jeopardy.
For a moment, fragments of words exchanged between me and the stranger drift in and out of my brain. Did he say he knew me? Did he know my name? If only my head didn’t hurt so much.
Faint voices fill the air and I lift my head to see Severo running toward me, squad car sirens echoing in the near distance.
“Angie! What the hell happened?”
He extends a hand and envelops mine, steadying my stance as I find my footing. My eyes begin to take in the surroundings and I have to say New York has never looked so good.
“There was a guy, a man…”
; “What man?” he asks, helping me walk to a churchyard bench a few steps away from the staircase. The squad cars slam to a stop by the outer lawn and soon the unit—accompanied by the fire chief—sweeps in to inspect what just happened.
My palms against my head, cradling the throbbing pain, I think of anything I can to make sense of this. “I don’t know.”
“You’re a mess,” Severo says, sweeping loose strands of hair from my face. Though his observation is less than pleasant, there is a calm, soothing tone to his voice. “I knew I should have stayed with you.”
“Did you?” I turn my head to face him, and my neck spikes with cramping pain. But I have to look into his eyes for answers. “Why is it, Detective, that you are so hell-bent on following me? I can take care of myself, you know.”
His playful chuckle irritates me as he says, “Yeah, I can see that.” He breaks eye contact, though, as he stands to meet the squad and inform them of my physical state. I watch his actions as he gestures toward the crematorium, and as I look toward the place I just crawled free from, my thoughts begin to form.
“Severo?”
Wiping his brow, he returns to the bench and again squats in front of me, placing a hand over mine. “You doing okay?”
“Severo, I think he knew me. I think he said my name.”
“You think, or you know?”
My eyes squint back at him, partially due to the smoke intake and partially because I wonder if he doubts my sanity. “I’m not making it up, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Okay, okay. We’ll talk about it on the way. Come on.” He wraps a hand around mine, pulling me to my feet and steadying my wooziness. “That’s a pretty bad blow you got. We need to get you checked out.”
As he leads me past the crew, who are intent on stopping the flames below and seeking out any evidence left by my attacker, I have to wonder why this happened. I need to know who the man is. And why, it seems, he knows me.
After a much-needed check-in with the paramedics, Severo and I head back to the Plaza to meet up with Cain. Painkillers have toned down my discomfort and my wounds have been cleaned and labeled less than critical. Now the only pain on my mind is figuring out what just happened out there.