The Church of the Holy Child

by Patricia Hale

  “Did anyone see her leave?” I asked.

  “Her roommate said Rochelle’s bed was empty when she woke up this morning and her clothes were gone.”

  “But Damien was still here?” I asked.

  Sandra nodded.

  “Where is he now?” Griff dug his fists into the pockets of his jeans and sighed, a gesture that told me he’d given up the battle of questioning the women.

  “Grandmother picked him up an hour ago. I asked her if she’d talked to Rochelle. She told me that Rochelle had contacted the shelter some time ago, but never acted on the advice she was given. In the last couple of days she’d decided she was ready. She said that someone from the shelter was helping her and Rochelle had asked her to take care of Damien until she heard from her. But I’ve talked to every staff person. No one here was working with her.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Griff slapped the steering wheel with his palm as we headed toward Vaughn Street.

  “We’ll go back through the files tonight,” I said.

  “Sandra said no one from the shelter was working with her.”

  “It has to be someone with a connection to the shelter. Maybe it’s not an employee.”

  Griff looked at me, the furrows on his forehead deepening. Before I could say more his cell rang.

  “What,” he said into the phone. “Ten minutes.” He clicked it shut and looked at me. “John wants me back at the station. Do you want to come?”

  “I need to do some follow up on Trek. It’s what Beth wants.”

  “Plenty of time for that.”

  “We do what the client requests, remember? She’s footing the bill.”

  “Let’s see what John’s got. He said it was important then you can do whatever you need to.”

  We walked into the Portland PD and proceeded past a few odd looks that I couldn’t read.

  “Detective Stark got a present,” one of the plain clothes said to Griff.

  Inside his office, John sat behind his desk. A black man in an Armani suit rose from his chair to well over six feet and extended his hand with what I read as reluctance. His shorn head gleamed under the florescent lights, but my attention was drawn to the gold stud in the lobe of his right ear. Not the traditional garb for FBI. All told, he looked more like he’d been called in off a movie set.

  “James Rhyder,” he said, “FBI, Behavioral Science Division.”

  “Cole, PI,” Griff said and shook his hand.

  “So I hear. A PI working with homicide?” He sank back into his chair. “Department must really be shorthanded.”

  “This is my partner, Britt Callahan,” Griff said, ignoring the agent’s arrogance.

  Rhyder nodded in my direction then turned back to Griff. “I’ve been told you’re the go-to guy for homicides, or were, when you were on the force.”

  “What I’m called around here would depend on who you ask.”

  Rhyder raised his eyebrows.

  “I left eight years ago for personal reasons and opened a PI business. “Occasionally Haggerty pulls me back in when he needs a hand. I like the arrangement, but it doesn’t put me high on the popularity chart with most of the men.”

  “So they call you in when they’re over their heads.”

  “I’ve got two guys on administrative leave and two handling another case,” John said defending the department’s credibility. “Rhyder’s a profiler,” he added, changing the direction of the conversation.

  “Sounds to me like you’ve got a serial on your hands.”

  Griff nodded. “Rochelle Davis makes four women in four weeks.”

  “At three they earn the title,” the agent said. “Our boy’s not wasting any time. And you can drop the Mr. Everyone calls me Rhyder. He crossed his legs and swung a polished, black wingtip in my direction. “Anyone have any questions before we start?”

  “I do,” I said. “Why only one agent? Battered women in Podunk, Maine not important enough for the FBI to spare manpower?”

  “I’m highly qualified to handle this, Ms. Callahan,” Rhyder said. “If I start feeling like I’m in over my head, I’m not above asking for help.”

  Rhyder turned his attention to John. “What have you got so far?”

  Griff sat on the edge of the desk and let the detective take the lead. There was no mistaking Rhyder’s sense of superiority and I couldn’t help but feel that the wingtip he kept swinging toward me carried a subliminal message.

  “As of this morning,” John said, “four women dead. All mothers of young children, all with histories of domestic violence, two married, one prostitute, one single mom. Three of them had contact with the women’s shelter. I don’t know if Peggy Taunton did or not.”

  “The prostitute?” Rhyder asked.

  John nodded. “All four women had their hands washed and nails trimmed postmortem. Clorox wipes except with Peggy Taunton, hotel soap. And there’s this.” He opened the drawer of his desk, unlocked a metal box and lifted out the plastic bag that held the anonymous note and envelope addressed to him.

  “OCD.” Rhyder said, as much to himself as to us. “Media have this info?”

  “Not the hand washing or the note.”

  “We’d originally gone with the husbands,” I said letting him know I had a voice. “The one Detective Stark arrested has been released with a restraining order. Not enough to hold him.”

  Rhyder nodded. “The obvious choice.”

  “But the hand washing discounted the husbands,” I said ignoring the dig.

  “And then Peggy Taunton didn’t fit,” Griff said, taking over. “So we scrapped the husbands and began looking at shelter employees. There are only four males with recent affiliation. All seem unlikely. We’ve scratched the two maintenance workers. Of the hot line operators, one is still around and his alibi checks. The other had to leave, sick mother, but the shelter director said he wasn’t a candidate. He moved to Florida a month ago. Unless he’s got frequent flier miles I doubt it’s him.”

  “Find him anyway,” Rhyder said. “Sick mother or not, I want to talk to him.”

  “He’s an unlikely suspect,” Griff said. “Do we really want to spend time on him?”

  “I’m on it,” I said “I’m working for the first victim’s sister. She wants me to follow up on Trek.”

  Rhyder glanced at me. “Isn’t it a conflict of interest for you to be sitting here and handling the case for your firm?”

  “The way I see it,” I said, “the department and my client both get more bang for their buck when we exchange information.”

  And Haggerty?” Rhyder asked. “How’s he feel about it?”

  “Depends on the day,” I said.

  “Okay,” Rhyder said dismissively. “You’ve got your little piece of the puzzle. But if we’re working this close, no moves without first discussing them, just in case you start impeding my investigation.”

  I nodded my agreement. I’d take on the search for Randolph Trek and at the same time I declared a silent war on Rhyder. Before this was over, I would make him eat his belief that I was a dispensable member of the team.

  Agent Rhyder repositioned himself and put both feet on the floor. He held the plastic bag in his hand and rubbed his fingers over the note inside. “Curious thing,” he said. “Giving us a clue.”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked figuring a small amount of ego stroking couldn’t hurt.

  “Sometimes they’re ready to get caught. They like the chase, the cat and mouse, but it’s exhausting, takes a lot of thinking and planning. They can’t keep it up. Or they have a specific cause, a mission so to speak, and when it’s been fulfilled they’re done.”

  “So they let themselves get caught?” I asked.

  “They’re called “Missionary” serials. They feel it’s up to them to clean up society and when their work is done they want recognition for it. What better way to get it than to have your face and name all over the six o’clock news?”

  “We just found another victim so he’s no
t done yet.” I said.

  “And moving at a good clip,” Rhyder said. “Makes me wonder if he’s working within a time frame, an anniversary or something.”

  “We went over the tape from the PD’s front desk surveillance camera on the day the note was left,” Griff said. “Nothing.”

  “I’d like to look at it myself,” Rhyder said. “Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can see things.”

  Griff and I exchanged a glance. I could see the smirk held in check at the edges of his mouth. Griff was having fun. He hated arrogance and he’d just met a master.

  “Be my guest,” John said. “I’ll have someone dig it up for you.” He picked up the phone.

  “It’s about the children,” Rhyder repeated staring at the plastic bag. “This guy is killing the mothers for their kids. How does that make sense?”

  I looked at him getting the sense that he often spoke more to himself than to anyone else.

  “He believes the children are getting wronged somehow,” he continued, “maybe in the same way he got wronged as a kid.” He looked up. “Were these kids slapped around at home?”

  Rhyder’s eyes sent me back to summer afternoons and the coveted aggies in my marble bag. A few of them still rolled around in the bottom of my jewelry box. “Not that we know of,” I said. “In each case the abuse was directed at the women.”

  “By their husbands?”

  I nodded. Except for Peggy, although in her line of work I’m sure she’d had her share of violence. And Rochelle Davis wasn’t married, but her father had abused her and I think her current boyfriend as well.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not about the abuse. If it was he wouldn’t be killing the women. It’s about the kids, like the note says.”

  “How is he helping kids by killing their mothers?” John asked.

  “Or.” Rhyder tilted his head to the right. “Turn that question around. What are the mothers doing that in his mind, says they deserve to be killed?”

  “They’re trying to save themselves and their children by escaping the violence,” Griff said.

  “But they didn’t take their kids with them,” Rhyder added. “They all left without their kids.”

  “But they were coming back for them,” I pointed out. “Except for Peggy. The state took her child away over a year ago.”

  “She’s the misfit,” Rhyder said. “I think she was a random killing. He didn’t plan that one.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “He washed her hands with the hotel’s soap. All the others were cleaned with the same disinfecting wipes. He brought them with him for the others, but he was unprepared at the hotel. That tells me he wasn’t planning to kill her. She must have said something about losing her kid that triggered his sense of duty, but killing her wasn’t his intent when he met her. The common denominator with the others is that they each were found leaving, alone.”

  Rhyder picked up a black pen and started making a diagram on the dry-erase board. Kids left behind, he wrote across the top then turned around and looked at the floor for a moment without speaking. I watched as he formulated his thought.

  “What if this guy grew up in a violent home and his mother left without him? What if she promised to come back and never did?”

  “He’d grow up hating women, never trusting them and…”

  “And he’s not going to let other kids draw the same hand. He’d rather kill a mother than let her leave her kid behind,” Rhyder said, completing my sentence.

  Stage grabber, I thought. No wonder the locals dreaded seeing the feds arrive. They didn’t help. They stole the show. I had to remind myself that this was not a competition.

  “Better for a kid to grow up thinking their mother was murdered than to think she’d abandoned them. This guy is killing his mother over and over again with every one of his victims.” Rhyder tossed the plastic bag onto John’s desk. “His mother may even be his ultimate goal.”

  “Why bother with all the other women if it’s his mother he wants?” I asked.

  “Serial killing is like any other pursuit,” Rhyder said. “Practice makes perfect. Or worse, his mother may be dead by now which means he’ll never be satiated.”

  “Then it has to be someone with ties to the shelter,” Griff said. “Someone who knows who’s leaving, when they’re leaving, how they’re leaving, and most importantly, who’s taking their kid and who isn’t.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was tough to take time away from the case, but when Eliza called and asked if I’d have lunch with her, it felt more like an obligation than a choice. At least three times a year she’d ask me to lunch. I think she went through phases where she felt the need to form a friendship with me and during the lunch itself, I’d get a glimpse of another side to her, but as soon as regular life resumed, so did her digs. I think her ulterior motive was to assess me as a potential stepmother for Allie. But meeting her expectations wasn’t even remotely possible. Griff believed her lunch invitations had more to do with her insecurity and the fact that she regarded me as the competition, a concept of her own design.

  This time, she wanted to discuss the cruise that she and Neil were taking and the fact that Allie would be staying with Griff and me while they were gone. I wasn’t sure why we couldn’t discuss the situation by phone, but didn’t want to rock the boat.

  I suggested Gritty’s Pub, Griff’s and my favorite watering hole. I knew the scarred wooden picnic tables and rough, wide-pine floors provided a more casual atmosphere than Eliza’s past choices of Fore Street and Hugo’s. So maybe it was a tad passive-aggressive, but the microbrewery was walking distance from our office, and the lunchtime bartender knew how to make a perfect margarita.

  The waiter set my cocktail on the table and I reached for it, not only thirsty for the drink, but for the memories it triggered. I’d spent many a Friday happy hour within these four walls beside college friends and more recently my sister, Amy. Gritty’s is the kind of bar I’m even comfortable in alone. When you’ve lived in the same town for thirty-three years, it’s rare to take a stool without seeing a familiar face somewhere along the rail.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Eliza said as she sat down. “I know you’re busy with the case, but this is really the first time I’ve left Allie for more than an overnight since Griff and I,” she hesitated and then waved away the rest of the sentence. “Well, you know. I don’t need to get into that.”

  “I’m glad Allie will be staying with us. We’ll have fun.”

  “I know you will, but I trust you also understand that taking care of a child isn’t only about having fun.”

  I did my best not to roll my eyes or look away from her in disgust. “Of course I do, Eliza. I just meant I’ll enjoy spending time with her.”

  She ignored my explanation and plowed ahead.

  “I’ll feel better knowing you’re there too. You know, in case his phone rings in the middle of the night.”

  I wondered why she thought only Griff’s phone rang at odd hours and not mine. Or why she always placed him in dangerous situations but never me. I was after all, his partner.

  “We’ll have dinner together every night and if he gets called in to work, I’ll stay at home with Allie. And vice versa,” It’ll work out fine Eliza, really. You have nothing to worry about.”

  She took the Chardonnay out of the waiter’s hand before he could set it on the table and took a sip. “You must think I’m crazy,” she said after swallowing.

  “Not at all, even though I don’t have children, I do understand that it’s hard to go away and leave them behind.”

  She waved her hand in the air, dismissing my response. “I’m talking about my relationship with Neil.”

  “Because of his age, you mean?”

  She nodded. “Allie’s not happy about it, but he’s mature and he makes me feel young. It’s a compliment when you’re in your mid-forties and gravity’s getting the best of you.” She laughed and a blush raced up her cheeks. “Anyway, twelve y
ears is nothing when it’s the other way around, right? I mean lots of middle aged men go for younger…” She stopped and looked at me, offering a sheepish smile. “Oops. My former husband likes them young too. Give me a minute to remove my foot.”

  It wasn’t easy, but I decided to be the bigger person and ignore her faux pas. “I think it depends on the people involved and you’re right, it shouldn’t be acceptable for men and not for women.”

  “Thank you for being gracious,” she said downing half of her Chardonnay.

  “Well it sounds like he’s treating you right. No better time to sail to the islands than when winter’s making its debut. I think you should enjoy the perks.”

  She took another swallow and set her glass carefully back down on the table. “You mean his money?”

  “I didn’t mean to sound that crude. But it does allow for some fun, doesn’t it?”

  She laughed. “Yes, it does. I have to admit that I was a little worried of what people might think as to why I’m in this relationship. But Neil really is a nice guy, despite his money and what my daughter is saying.”

  “Griff said he’s a day trader. Looks like he’s good at what he does.”

  “Neil received a large trust when his father died. He’d been doing well on his own anyway, but once he received his inheritance, he hasn’t had to do much other than enjoy life. Hence the sailboat and BMW.” She glanced around the bar as though someone might be listening then leaned toward me. “I’m afraid people will think I’m one of those women who hire a gigolo because they can’t get a boyfriend their own age or worse, think I can’t accept the fact that I’m aging.”

  “You’re over-thinking this, Eliza. Relax and have fun. Twelve years isn’t that much. If people talk, let them. They’re probably jealous.”

  She laughed. “Really? I am having fun. It’s the first time in a long time that I don’t feel lonesome. But I don’t want Neil to see me as needy.”

  “Have you told him how you feel?”

  She shook her head.

  I finished my margarita and motioned to the waiter for another. I’d always thought of Eliza as sophisticated bordering on elegant, capable of living on her own and hiding well the insecurities that Griff had become accustomed to. Maybe it was the wine or a sudden need for the friendship of another woman that had caused her to drop her guard. For the first time I saw her, a lonely woman, midlife and lost, grasping at youth and ashamed of her need. “A lot of things go unsaid in a new relationship.”