He still got a long list of sites, but the first one brought Danny awake. He cleaned his glasses on his Mets shirt and found out some things that had not turned up in the routine bio check.
Kyle Shelton had a web site. At the top of the home page were three black-and-white photographs of a pair of hands. In the photograph on the left, the hands were open palms facing the camera. In the center photograph, the hands were folded in what appeared to be prayer. And in the last photograph, the hands were tightly clenched, knuckles white. Anger?
There was a comment in script just below the photographs. It read:
Imagine a vast valley full of rocks, boulders, as far as the eye can see in any direction. Now, imagine a butterfly the size of a baby’s hand with wings so thin you can see through them. The butterfly lands on one boulder the size of a Volkswagen and begins fluttering its wings against the boulder, slowly, imperceptibly, wearing down the boulder. When the boulder is finally gone after more than ten times as long as life has existed on earth, the butterfly moves on to the next boulder, which is even larger than the first. When all the boulders and rocks have been worn to dust by the fluttering wings, then, and only then, will eternity have begun.
Beneath the words was typed in regular text, “Suggested by a passage in Ugo Betti’s Crime on Goat Island.”
Danny reread the paraphrased quotation and felt somewhat calmed by it. Kyle Shelton was also a blogger. Danny clicked on the image for the blog site. A check of past entries showed that the site was kept up to date, a new entry at least once a week. There were no more than a few dozen responses to Shelton’s stream-of-consciousness meandering. Danny read Shelton’s entries, forgetting his anxiety. Some of the entries were about philosophers, dead philosophers with whom Shelton agreed or disagreed. There were quotations from philosophers in every entry.
The entries were full of contradictions. Shelton did not believe in the goodness of man, but in the near sainthood of many individuals. He said he had learned that in Iraq. He did not believe in any religion, but he cited evidence of the power of prayer. The entries were all calm, not frenetic, not someone trying to convince his reader, but someone who felt the need to send his thoughts to the wind.
There was only one subject about which Kyle Shelton raged: child abuse. Shelton did not consider human life sacred. There were many, mostly those who abused children, who Kyle said “should simply, painlessly, be executed, burned and their remains dumped into the nearest toilet.”
Danny kept reading, hand steady, focused.
William Wosak, SJ, thirty-eight, was a scholar-priest with a Ph.D. from Fordham. Wosak had written three books. His area of interest was correcting false conceptions and misreadings from holy scripture. Father Wosak, lean and graying, wore an almost constant bemused smile.
He was certain that most lay Catholics did not read the Gospels, and certainly not the writings of the saints, with an interest in learning. They read, those that did, to find in what they read and what they heard in church on Sundays confirmation of what they had learned from their parents and misinformed nuns and priests who taught them as children.
Catholicism was not in need of reform. It was the pervasive ignorance of Catholics about their religion that was in need of attention. Father Wosak also hoped that his writing would be read by the clergy of other religions. He wanted other Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and even atheists to understand, to be informed by his scholarship, not to get them to embrace Catholicism but to get them to understand what the religion really means. He expected very little success. It was enough that God had set him to his task and given him the intellect to undertake it.
William Wosak’s parents were immigrants from Poland. Both were dead. Father Wosak had no siblings, only an aunt and uncle who had never left a small town outside of Warsaw.
He had volunteered, both as part of his research and to strengthen his faith, to fill in for Father Cabrera at St. Martine’s in Brooklyn for a year. He was in his fifth month at the church and it had turned out to be even more than he had hoped.
Most of the congregation spoke Spanish. No problem for Father Wosak, who spoke fluent Spanish, Italian, Polish, German, Hebrew and rather rusty Latin. He conducted mass and services in Spanish.
In his second week at St. Martine’s, Father Wosak had made an appointment with Rabbi Benzion Mesmur, whose synagogue was six blocks from St. Martine’s. The thirty-eight-year-old priest had introduced himself with respect for the eighty-one-year-
old rabbi. Rabbi Mesmur had planned to make the meeting brief and remain in the small lobby of the synagogue.
Father Wosak had spoken in Hebrew and Rabbi Mesmur responded in kind. It struck him that no one in his congregation spoke better conversational Hebrew than this priest. The smiling priest seemed to have no accent, while Rabbi Mesmur was well aware of the tinge of Crown Heights that clung to his Hebrew and would always be there.
Within three minutes, the two men had spoken of the priest’s interest. In his three file drawers, the rabbi knew he had at least forty sermons and as many as fifteen speeches on the misreading of the Scriptures and the Talmud.
It was clear that the priest’s interest in the Talmud and its teachings came close to that of the old rabbi.
They moved to the rabbi’s office and spoke for two hours. The priest returned on a weekly basis. Rabbi Mesmur looked forward to the meetings and their arguments over interpretation of holy writings. They never met at St. Martine’s. Father Wosak never suggested it. He knew the rabbi would have to refuse. The moment would be awkward.
They had not had their usual meeting this week, but today Father Wosak felt that with two days passing, he could stop by briefly and give his condolences.
Rabbi Mesmur looked frail, his age increased by tragedy.
Rabbi Mesmur had insisted that the priest join him in his office. For reasons neither man could explain, they spoke in English.
“My congregation prayed for you and your loss,” said Father Wosak. “I hope that was acceptable.”
Rabbi Mesmur lifted a hand from the arm of his chair and said with almost a smile, “It can’t hurt. And the misguided young dead boy who believed in Joshua’s rantings?”
“We prayed for him too,” said Father Wosak.
In the past, both men had spoken of the Jews for Jesus and Joshua. Both men had rejected the passionate overtures of Joshua and his followers to accept them. Rabbi Mesmur had refused to engage in discussion with Joshua, but Father Wosak had gladly allowed himself to be engaged in discussion with the man. It wasn’t a matter of Joshua and his people trying to convert the Catholic priest as it was with Rabbi Mesmur’s congregation. The Catholics already accepted Yeshua as their savior. But, like Rabbi Mesmur, Father Wosak did not believe one could be a Jew and a Christian at the same time.
Father Wosak had realized early in the conversation with Joshua that the man was only superficially knowledgeable about both Judaism and Christianity. But it was not just the man’s ignorance that caused the priest to stop engaging in any further confrontations or discussions with Joshua. Fanaticism had been in the eyes of Joshua, a burning fanaticism. Joshua had wide-open eyes that couldn’t stay focused for more than a few seconds.
With great reluctance, but with an understanding that he must do it, when Father Wosak left the synagogue he would walk the two blocks to the Jewish Light of Christ and express his condolences.
Half a block away, plastic cup of tepid coffee in one hand and a copy of the Post in front of his face, the man leaned against a wall next to a small kosher Chinese restaurant. His eyes seemed focused on the stories of mayhem, corruption and tragedy. He turned a page and took a sip of coffee without looking up. He had checked the thermometer in a resale shop window on the way here. The temperature was one hundred and one. The sky was clear, but the air moist. It had been the same for the past two weeks. People moved slowly, people who had to be outdoors or had a high tolerance for heat and humidity. Perspiration formed a beaded rain forest around his
hairy chest.
The man he was waiting for came out of the building he was watching on the other side of the street and started down the sidewalk.
The man across the street would be the next to be symbolically crucified.
It would have to be done soon. One more death and it would be finished. He pushed away from the wall, dropped the coffee cup in a trash basket, tucked the newspaper under his arm and felt the weight of the bolts in one pocket and the heft of the hammer in the other.
The priest walked briskly. On the opposite side of the street, the man followed.
9
“YOU KNOW WHERE JACOB IS, DON’T YOU?” asked Kyle Shelton, who spoke slowly, drained.
Mac sat in the chair in the Vorhees living room, a cell phone to his ear. His temporary partner sat silently as darkness fell.
“Yes,” said Mac.
“Then I’m going to disappear,” said Shelton.
“Not possible,” said Mac.
“Then you’ll catch me,” he said. “I’ll tell you then what I tell you now. I killed them, Becky, her mom and her father. My prints are on the knife.”
Mac was silent.
“You there, Taylor?” Shelton asked.
“I’m here.”
“You think I’m a monster, Taylor?”
There was a touch of pleading in his voice.
“ ‘He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster,’ ” Shelton went on. “Friedrich Nietzsche. I stabbed three people to death.”
“What monster did you fight?” Mac asked.
Kyle Shelton said nothing. After a long pause, he hung up.
Almost immediately the cell phone in Mac’s hand began to vibrate quietly. Mac and Rufus went to the front door and stepped out. When the door was closed, Mac answered the call. Danny told him what he had found on Shelton’s blog.
“I followed up and guess what I found?” said Danny.
Mac guessed. He was right.
“You want me there?” asked Danny.
“I want you to get at least eight hours of sleep,” answered Mac.
Mac closed his cell phone and said, “It’s time, Rufus.”
Stella’s cell phone rang and someone buzzed her apartment at the same time.
She popped her phone open and moved to the door to buzz her visitor in without asking who it was. She knew who it was.
Before he got up the elevator and to her door, Aiden had filled her in.
“Warrant?” asked Stella.
“This late?” asked Aiden. “It’ll take too long. Let’s hope he feels like being cooperative. If not, I’ll wait there while Flack tracks down a judge who’s awake and having a good day. You going to meet us there?”
Now there was a knock at the door.
“It’s yours,” said Stella. “Someone’s knocking at my door.”
She hung up, checked the pocket of her loose jeans, resisted the urge to tuck in her blue blouse, and opened the door.
“Agent Harbaugh, I presume?” she asked. “Right on time.”
He was wearing a dark suit and tie, the FBI uniform. He was tall and older than she would have guessed from his voice on the phone. His neatly cut hair was white. His skin was weathered less from age than from the sun. He was definitely good looking.
“Come in,” Stella said.
He did. She closed the door. There was no need for him to look at the paintings on the wall. He had looked at each one carefully the last time he was here.
“Would you like that Coke?” Stella asked.
“No, thanks. May I?” he asked, nodding at a chair.
“Please,” said Stella.
He sat. She sat across from him.
He looked at her with a sad smile and sat back. He had come to kill her, but there was no hurry.
The shop was dark except for two low-wattage night-lights inside.
Flack knocked and looked at Aiden, who shifted the weight of her kit. Flack knocked again harder, much harder. The door rattled. If there were a sensitive alarm it would have gone off by now, but they heard nothing.
Flack didn’t give up. More than two minutes passed before they could make out the figure of a man coming down the stairs inside the shop.
Arvin Bloom stopped for an instant at the bottom of the stairs, recognizing the police officers, and then, with what looked like a huge sigh that shook his body, he came to the door and opened it.
“We’d like to take another look at some of your furniture,” said Aiden.
“Now?” said Bloom. “You are harassing me. Do you have a warrant?”
“No,” said Flack, “but we can get one. Same deal as before. One of us gets the warrant. The other stays with you. How do you want it?”
“Come in,” said Bloom, stepping aside. “I’d ask you to be fast if I thought it would do any good.”
Flack and Aiden entered. Bloom closed the door behind them and made no move to turn on more light.
Flack stayed with Bloom and Aiden went into the darkness at the back of the shop. She was back in five minutes, saying, “The bloodwood cabinet. Where is it?”
“Sold, this afternoon,” said Bloom. “I made a good sale. If I’d waited, I could have done better, but I wanted to get money back to the widow of Asher Glick, aleviah sholom.”
“Who bought the bloodwood cabinet?” Aiden asked.
“A couple,” said Bloom. “Maybe in their late fifties. Dressed like money. Handed me cash, $25,000. They didn’t want a receipt and they had a van parked illegally in front of the shop. I helped them put the cabinet in the van.”
“So you don’t have a name or address for these customers?” asked Flack.
Bloom shook his head “no” and said, “It’s not unusual.”
“Where’s the money?” asked Aiden.
“Got to the bank before it closed,” he said. “You can check with the bank in the morning. I didn’t kill Asher.”
“We will,” said Aiden, starting toward the door. Flack wanted to keep Bloom talking, but Aiden was now on the street, so Flack followed her, closing the door behind him.
“What’s up?” he asked her.
They both looked through the window at Bloom, who looked back at them. Aiden and Flack moved toward their car.
“I picked up what looked like fresh latent prints on the wall the bloodwood cabinet was against. Two different sets.”
“One Bloom’s,” said Flack. “The other the customer who bought the cabinet.”
“Or the person who helped Bloom get it out of his shop,” she said. “One more thing.”
As they walked Aiden pulled a see-through packet out of her pocket and held it up for him to see.
“What is it?” asked Flack.
“Sawdust,” said Aiden, smiling.
FBI Agent Harbaugh sat comfortably, legs crossed in the chair facing Stella.
“I like the paintings,” he said, looking around the room. “That’s an Andre Danton, isn’t it?”
The painting he was looking at on the wall behind Stella was a scene of a narrow cobblestone street with houses seeming to bow toward the lone old woman on the sidewalk with a kerchief over her head and a basket of flowers under her arm.
“Yes,” said Stella, without turning to look at the painting.
She examined Harbaugh again. He was lean, sat straight and was in obvious good shape, but she could see now from the age spots on his hands, the hair growing on his ears, that he was at least in his mid-sixties. His teeth were white, even and definitely his own. His face was weathered, the stereotyped image of a cowboy.
“Yes,” he said, seeing the question in her eyes. “I’m a temporary retread, brought back as a consultant because this guy was mine until I retired. Nine people over a fifteen-year period. Texas, California, Illinois, Tampa. Stopped three years before my retirement.”
Stella nodded, hands folded in her lap.
“Pattern,” said Harbaugh. “Kills three. Gets his fix and goes underground till he has to
start again.”
“The crucifix? The victims? The words in Hebrew?” asked Stella.
Harbaugh shrugged and said, “All of his victims have been religious, not just Jewish. I think the last one in this cycle will be a Christian minister or a Catholic priest.”
“Just a hunch?” asked Stella.
“Fits the previous pattern,” he said.
“Is any of that true?” she asked.
For a few seconds they both sat silently and then Stella reached into the lacquered red box on the table next to her. She pulled out a small gun and a bottle and held them up for him to see.
The bottle was the antihistamine syrup from Stella’s bathroom cabinet. The gun was her .38, and it was aimed at him.
“You were careful,” she said, “but you moved a few things, not much, but enough for me to notice. A lot of my job is to notice small things.”
“You think I moved your pill bottles?” he said.
“I know you did,” she said.
He nodded, now understanding, and said, “Fingerprints.”
“And two strands of hair in my bathroom drain where you poured the poison into my antihistamine bottle.”
The man remained rigid, eyes on Stella.
“You’re not and never were in the FBI,” she said. “Your name is George Melvoy. You were born in Des Moines seventy-three years ago. You were a medic, an infantry corporal with MacArthur when he landed in Korea in 1950. After the war you went to Iowa State University, majored in pharmacy. You’ve had your own successful drugstore in Des Moines for more than forty years. Wife died six years ago. No children. I’ve got a photograph of you faxed from the Des Moines Register four hours ago.”
Melvoy didn’t move.
“You’re losing hair,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“You know why?” asked Stella.
“Yes,” he said.
Blood on the Sun (CSI: NY) Page 13