The Church of the Holy Child

by Patricia Hale

  She arranged her slightly crushed breakfast on top of a thick manila file.

  “I might be leaving for a few days,” I said.

  She wiped some sugar from her lips with the balled-up napkin in her fist and tossed it onto the desk. “Where have they got you going now?”

  “They don’t have me going anywhere,” I said. “This is my own doing. We might have a suspect.”

  “Why isn’t Mr. FBI following up?”

  “I’m just going to do a little research. The suspect is here so it makes more sense to have him and Griff stay put. Besides, I think the shelter staff will feel freer to talk to me than to him.”

  “And he agreed to all this?”

  “He doesn’t know I’m going, not yet. And I have to make some calls first to be sure it’s worth my while.”

  “He’ll think you’re treading on his shiny black wing tips.”

  “I’ll stomp on them if I get the chance.”

  “And Beth Jones?”

  “If this is the guy, it will solve her sister’s murder.”

  “Are you going to bring her up to date before you go?”

  “I don’t want to get her hopes up.”

  “You should let her know you may have a lead. You can’t raise her hopes if she doesn’t have any to begin with.”

  I smiled. “Okay, I’ll consider it. Now get out of here and let me make my calls.”

  “Well don’t be gone long.” She got up and gathered what was left of her breakfast from my desk. “Your job is here, in this office. And I need you.” She looked at me in earnest. “It’s a girl thing,” she whispered and closed my door.

  After reiterating numerous times my understanding of the need for secrecy pertaining to shelter information and the necessity for her help, Rita Bainbridge in Joplin, Missouri said Trek may have been a volunteer, but wouldn’t confirm it by phone. And yes, a woman had gone missing around the time frame I gave her, but she wanted to see my credentials in person before discussing any of her staff or details around the missing woman. Getting information from the director of a woman’s shelter is like trying to pry a T-bone out of a dog’s mouth. The director in Hartford, Connecticut, Carole Pelsky, said Trek was top of the line when it came to volunteers and it would be out of the question to connect him with the death of a woman at her shelter. (If there’s anything I know, it’s that something out of the question is worth questioning.) She was sorry to see him go, but he had to care for his sick mother. There was the sick mother again. I hung up after arranging a face-to-face meeting and Googled Hartford homicides and missing persons for the year Trek was there.

  Two women had gone missing the month after he’d left, a third, was killed by her husband, who is now in prison appealing the charges and swearing his innocence. I already believed him.

  Rhyder was sitting behind John’s desk when I walked into CID. He looked up at me and cleared his throat. “I’ve decided to call those shelters myself.”

  “Done,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I took care of it this morning. Look Rhyder. I was hired by Beth Jones not you. I’m doing my job and I’ll share whatever information I get with you. Anyway, like I said, those women won’t talk to you, especially over the phone, they barely spoke to me.”

  “I’m F.B.I.”

  “They don’t care if you’re the Buddha,” I said. “Nobody gets information from a women’s shelter, especially not some unidentified guy on the phone.”

  “Not even when women are getting killed?”

  “Because women are getting killed. Where’s Griff?”

  “Behind you,” he said.

  I turned as Griff came through the door carrying two cups of the stations finest. “Didn’t know you were coming. I would have brought you one too.”

  “Spare me,” I said. “Where’s John?”

  Griff and Rhyder exchanged a look.

  “Hasn’t shown up yet,” Rhyder said.

  “Did you go by his house?” I asked Griff.

  Griff nodded. “He’ll be here.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Rhyder said. “Shop talk is that his bender will last right through the holidays.”

  “He’ll be here,” Griff said again.

  “Faith,” Rhyder sighed. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

  “Shut the hell up, Rhyder.” Griff took a step toward him.

  “Blind faith at that,” he continued. “Detective Stark pulls you in so he knows the job will get done while he goes off the deep end. Gotta hand it to him, he’s still smart enough to save his ass.”

  Griff pulled his arm back ready to take a swing.

  Rhyder looked genuinely surprised.

  I grabbed Griff’s arm. “Don’t,” I said. “John will be back. We both know it.”

  “Look Cole,” Rhyder said tossing his pen onto the desk. “Maybe I crossed a line with that, but there’s nothing that pisses me off more than a cop who can’t be depended on. So, you keep your fist in your pocket and I’ll keep my opinion to myself.”

  Griff turned away from him and walked out of the room.

  I caught up to him in the hallway. “Don’t let him throw you off your game. Especially now, because he’s right about one thing, John needs you to do this for him. We were hired to find Shirley’s killer and that’s what I’m doing. Rhyder thinks he’s using us, but we can just as easily use him. I’ve already called the shelters. Trek’s been in Joplin and Hartford. He could be our guy.”

  Once outside, away of Rhyder’s earshot, I told Griff what I’d found out that morning.

  “Jesus. Did you tell Rhyder?”

  “I didn’t get a chance.”

  When did these women go missing?”

  “Same time of year. It might be some kind of anniversary for him. The holidays can be a trigger for a lot of people, especially for a kid whose mother ditched him.”

  “If he killed those three women in Connecticut, he’s already gone over his limit here. We’ve got to act fast.”

  “I’ve booked my flights, Joplin this afternoon. Connecticut tomorrow.”

  “What about when Rhyder finds out you’re gone?”

  “Screw him.”

  “He’ll say you’re impeding a federal case.”

  “I’ll give him the information when I get back. Look, it’s only because Haggerty and John pulled you into this that my path is crossing Rhyder’s. I still represent our office and Beth Jones.”

  “What am I going to do with Allie? It’s going to be tough to work while you’re gone.”

  “I won’t be gone long and it’s better for me to go than you. Get John on his feet. Tell him the tables turned and we need him now. He can deal with Rhyder. You’ll have to work from home. I’ll only be gone for a day. Two at the most.”

  “Won’t Eliza be surprised when she finds out I’ve become a stay at home dad?”

  “And everything she thinks about me will be confirmed.”

  Griff slipped his arm around my shoulders and we walked outside the station and onto the sidewalk. “I’ll be glad when this one ends.”

  “Thought you liked it when CID pulled you in.”

  “Not when women are getting killed and you go off alone.”

  “I’m only going to shelters. You know, where women go to escape violence?”

  “You mean used to go to escape violence.”

  “I’ll be fine. Whoever it is, is here, not where I’m going.”

  Griff leaned toward me and placed a kiss, soft as a whisper, on my lips. “I better get back inside and patch things up.”

  “Yeah, God forbid we upset Rhyder.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  I landed in Joplin, Missouri at nine thirty-five. A light mist fell against the window beside my seat blurring the lights on the runway. At nine fifty-five I was standing at the Hertz counter. It’s a small airport. I checked into Days Inn on Interstate 44 and called Griff.

  “How’s Allie?”

  “She’s fine. Disappointed that you’re not h
ere.”

  “Have you talked to Eliza?”

  “She hasn’t called and I’m not about to interrupt the two of them unless it’s an emergency.”

  “Do you think it’s odd that she hasn’t at least checked in?”

  “I assume she’s a little sidetracked. Vacations have a way of doing that.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You will. We’re due. Sleep tight and call me tomorrow.”

  I hung up the phone and leaned back against the pillow, the next thing I knew the sun was warm against my cheek. There’s nothing worse than sleeping in your clothes. Groggy, I peeled off yesterday’s attire and stepped into a hot shower. I had just enough time to grab a cup of coffee before I was expected at the Joplin women’s shelter.

  Rita Bainbridge was mid-fifties with salt and pepper hair cropped tight against her head. She pushed back from her desk, raised her butt an inch or two off her chair and extended her hand. I believe most people are worth a full stand. A half stance is indicative of a person who isn’t sincere in their greeting. And I was right. She reached past my outstretched right hand for the ID I held in my left. “Ms. Callahan,” she said, fingering my PI photo.

  “Britt,” I said.

  “What can I do for you?” She lowered herself back into her chair. A puff of air escaped her lips.

  “I’m trying to locate someone who may have worked at your shelter, Randolph Trek.”

  Rita Bainbridge leaned toward me, her silver earrings brushing the tops of her shoulders. “In the best interest of my staff and residents, it’s my policy to never give out information regarding either.”

  “I understand that, Ms. Bainbridge, but seven women have been killed over the last six years and two missing, and those are the ones we know of. Trek has been a volunteer at at least two of those shelters. That says to me that it’s definitely in your staff and residents’ best interest for you to answer my questions.”

  She folded her hands together at her mouth and sighed into them, visibly softening. “I’ve been here almost three years. Trek isn’t a name I’m familiar with. Excuse me while I check the archives for his file.”

  Ten minutes later she returned flipping open a manila folder as she walked into the room. “Says here that he completed the staff training and did four hours a week on the hotline. He was here for six months. He left just before I got here due to a family emergency. That’s it. Unless we have issues with a volunteer not much else is documented.”

  “Would he have had access to women’s phone numbers by working the hotline?”

  “The number shows up when they call in,” she said. “Oh sweet Jesus.” She sat up very straight and placed a hand over her mouth.

  I counted a ring on every finger. Experience has taught me that the best way to get information is to be patient. Everybody wants to talk and the less you pull, the easier it flows.

  “Trek was a volunteer here just prior to two women being killed. One husband was arrested, his alibi checked out and he was released. The other woman was a single mother with a boyfriend who was also cleared. Neither murder was solved.”

  “Did they have children?”

  “Yes, I think so. I know the single mom did because I came into this job just after it all happened and people were still talking about it. It was at the start of the holiday season and people were saying what a terrible time of year to lose a mother and child.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They couldn’t locate the child and some speculated foul play. As though the murdered mother wasn’t enough. It turned out a relative had her who’d been afraid to come forward.”

  “How old was the child?”

  “Around a year, I think, maybe two.”

  “Was the staff questioned?”

  “Like I said, I wasn’t here until afterward, but I would assume so. I’m sure I can find out if you need me to.”

  “I never heard anything about it. Was there news coverage?”

  “In general the media tends to keep something like that low profile for the protection of the women in the shelter. It may have been in the local news, but I doubt it got national attention. I’m sure there was a thorough investigation. It was probably just done without the usual fanfare.”

  I thanked Ms. Bainbridge for the information and called Griff as soon as I got into my rental car. “She wasn’t here when Trek was, but she had a memory of the killings and gave me what she could.”

  “So he works at the shelter, quits, waits a month or so and then goes after the women when everyone assumes he’s long gone,” Griff said.

  “Sounds like it,” I answered, realizing I was on speaker.

  “Callahan, listen up.” It was John. “I checked in with the ME’s in both Joplin and Hartford. Murders are the same right down to the hands, nails and brick. Rhyder’s due here any minute. I’ll bring him up to speed.”

  “Thanks for that, John.” I checked my watch. “I have to go. My next flight leaves in one hour. I barely have time to pee.”

  Griff laughed and John cleared his throat. I hung up.

  The Hartford airport was not much bigger than Joplin. I hit the Hertz counter once again and was on the road by four-thirty. Carole Pelsky’s office closed at five-thirty. I was determined to be back in Maine tonight and in my own bed.

  I pulled the car to the curb in front of a white Victorian house in a residential neighborhood and climbed the wooden stairs. Before I reached the top, the glass door swung wide.

  “Britt?”

  I smiled at the woman. Fortyish, whose blonde bob, jeans and fleece jacket over a white turtleneck suggested the sidelines of a Little League game more than the director of a shelter for battered women.

  “Carole,” she said. I took her outstretched hand, grateful for a sincere welcome after a long flight.

  I smelled coffee the moment I stepped inside. “That smells good. I didn’t have time to stop on the way.”

  “Freshly brewed,” she said.

  I followed her down the hallway and into a kitchen softly lit by a small lamp in the center of an old pine farmer’s table. An orange glow spilled onto the weathered wood from its mica shade.

  “Homey,” I said.

  “She handed me a steaming mug. “We haven’t been here long, not even a year yet. It’s a wonderful old house. So much nicer than the place we used to rent, a converted office building. The shelter is often the first place a woman in trouble comes. I want them to feel cozy and safe from the minute they leave their homes. The kids too, especially the kids.”

  I followed her back down the hallway and into her office, which felt much more like a small parlor and I suppose at one time that’s exactly what it was. She nodded toward an overstuffed, wingchair and I sank into it. I sipped my coffee, it was perfect and I was glad I’d waited instead of hitting one of the chains. “You understand why I’m here?”

  “I do, but I can’t imagine that Randy Trek could have had anything to do with murdering women.”

  “He left due to an ill family member?”

  “Yes,” she said. “His mother, I believe.”

  “And a woman was murdered after he left?”

  She drew her lips into a thin line and nodded, “One. Her husband is in prison.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “He says no, but then what else would he say?”

  “And two women unaccounted for?”

  She nodded. “I still don’t know what happened to them. They were determined to make a better life away from here for themselves and their children.”

  “Children?”

  “They’re with family members now.”

  “Were the women working with the same staff person?”

  “They were fairly new. They’d first gotten in touch through the hotline then came to the shelter. Their plans were not solidified that I was aware of and then they just disappeared. Here at dinner, gone at breakfast.”

  “Both within the same month?”

  She nodde
d. “November, a week or two before the holidays.

  “Did it seem odd to you that they just disappeared?”

  “More sad than odd. It happens like that sometimes. I don’t report it because they may have just gone home or they may be trying to leave on their own. If that’s the case, I don’t want to call attention to them. When they found the body of the woman who’d been killed I told the investigating officer about the two who were missing. I don’t know what came of it. Never heard back from them, but that’s not unusual. At the time, the police spoke to all of my staff.”

  “Trek?”

  “No, he’d already been gone a month or so. But as I said, he couldn’t…”

  The phone on her desk rang. “Excuse me,” she said and picked it up.

  I stood and wandered her office. One wall was floor to ceiling shelves brimming with photographs and books. I perused titles, most of which were self-help, psychology and studies on domestic violence. A photo in a bright red frame caught my eye. Two tow-headed boys about five years old grinned at the camera from a tide pool at the ocean’s edge, identical twins, oblivious to the sand crusted at the corners of their mouths and buried in the crevices of their necks. I smiled and moved on to the next image. A ribbon cutting outside of the building I now stood inside of. Carole was front and center, smiling and holding an oversized pair of shears. Three rows of people I assumed were her staff lined the stairway behind her.

  Carole had finished her call and now came up beside me. “Our grand opening of the new shelter,” she said. “It was a wonderful day.”

  “These people on the steps are your staff?”

  “Yes,” she said. “One of my caseworkers was sick, but that’s the rest of the crew. And this,” she pointed to a man at the end of the first row seated in a wheel chair. “This is Randolph Trek. You see? I can’t imagine that he could possibly be involved with killing anyone, though he’s able to move around very well. He suffered a stroke. His left side is paralyzed.”

  I set the picture back on the shelf. Thanked Carole for her time and made it into the rental car before exploding, pounding my fists on the steering wheel and letting go with a few choice expletives.

  Griff answered on the first ring.

  “A goddamn wild goose chase.”