A Cruel Season for Dying (29 page)

Father Andrew Kellog did not have nightmares, so the vague apprehension that aroused him from sleep was something unusual.
For what seemed like an eternity, but was probably more nearly ten minutes, he drifted in a fog of semiawareness, resisting
the intuition that whatever had interrupted his good night’s rest would have to be sooner or later acknowledged.

Still huddled within the precincts of the comforter, he made himself sit up, pulling the cover around him as he reached for
his robe. He
had worn his socks to bed, and they gave him some protection as he poked his feet free and slid them into leather slippers.
For a minute more he hesitated at the side of the bed. Then relinquishing the old down quilt, he wrapped himself in the robe
and shuffled to the window to peer outward, realizing, even as he looked, that it was the church that was the center of his
fear.

The building appeared all right. Which was to say it looked as it always had to him, sullen and medieval, its slender spires
diminished in the growing decay of the neighborhood. For a fleeting moment as he watched, a light seemed to move behind a
window. But was it real, or only headlights reflecting from the street?

He went to the closet and put on his overcoat. He didn’t have the patience to put on his boots, but shoes would at least be
better than slippers for crossing the yard in the freezing hours before dawn—one more duty to be gotten through in a day.

Outside, it was colder but less damp than inside the rectory. Walking across the yard, his head felt suddenly clear, as if
he had decompressed like a diver or an astronaut finally sucking normal air. The light had not appeared again in the window,
and he thought of turning back. There was no one in the church. And if there were, what was he going to do about it?

The side door that led to the sacristy was still secure when he reached it, and he wasn’t about to walk around the building
to check every entrance. He unlocked the door and went in, groping for the switch. The light came on and he listened. He was
alone in the sacristy, could hear nothing but silence from the darkness beyond. But the apprehension that had seemed to disperse
in the outside air was returning, seeping back inside him with the chilling dampness of stone.

He would just go in for a minute. Just have a quick look to see if anything appeared disturbed. If someone had broken in with
an intention to steal, it was the poor boxes they’d go for first.

He walked across the sacristy, aware of his old man’s wheezing, aware of cold pipes weeping inside walls. The door into the
sanctuary was a deeper blackness. The night outside had been city bright, but the narrow arched windows of the chancel and
nave allowed little light through heavy leaded panes. A single candle symbolizing the presence of God burned next to the tabernacle
on the altar. Votives fluttered in
an alcove. Again he listened, again heard nothing. Whispering a hurried prayer, he inched against the wall toward the switch.
In the moment that he hit the altar lights, he heard the muffled footstep.

“Oh, my God,” he heard himself say. As, turning, his eyes beheld what hung above the manger, and the naked man in front of
him, as startled perhaps as he. In the second when he moved to run, he’d recognized the face. But by then, the blows had started.
There was time for submission to the will of his God. Then the floor as cold as ice.

Zoe felt him twist away from her in the same instant the telephone started ringing.

“Yeah,” Johnny’s sleep-rusty voice spoke into the receiver. “Shit.” He jerked up in bed, turned, and began scribbling on a
pad. “I’m on my way.” He cradled the phone, staring at it for a few seconds.

“Johnny?” She was leaning over, catching a quick look at the address he’d written down.

“I got to go.” He was out of bed, ripping away the sheet of paper from the tablet, scrunching it into a pocket as he threw
clothes on his naked body.

“What’s happened?” She was on her feet, hooking her bra, pulling up her panties.

“We got another one.”

“Another murder?” She was next to him. “Who? Where?”

“For chrissake, Zoe, just go back to bed.” He moved into the bathroom. She could hear him urinating, then flushing.

“Another gay?” she asked over the running water as he brushed his teeth.

He came out of the bath. The tracks of a wet comb ran through his dark hair. He put his arms around her waist and kissed her.
“I’ll call you. Lock up when you leave.”

“Who, Johnny?”

He pushed her away. “Is that all you can think about?”

“Johnny …” She reached out.

“Sorry, Zoe. I’m finished talking.” He turned and walked out. The front door of his apartment shut. She closed her eyes and
took one long, deep breath.

He hadn’t even noticed that she’d dressed while he’d been in the bathroom. She took a brush out of her purse and ran it through
her hair. Her mascara had smudged, leaving her with French bedroom eyes. But lipstick was all she had time for. She glanced
out the window to the dark street below. He had scrawled an address in Brooklyn on the phone pad. She’d give him a fifteen-minute
head start.

St. Sebastian Catholic Church looked like a movie set. Floodlights had been set up around the perimeter of the frozen zone
inside, and technicians and extras were everywhere, police being brought in from outside commands on the orders of Lincoln
McCauley.

James Sakura had already had his moments alone with the dead. As head of the investigating unit, he remained in complete charge
of the area around the bodies. But tonight’s vicious murders had complicated an already sensitive case. He could feel the
rising panic, like the tug of reins in his hands. Things could start to spiral out of control.

He cursed under his breath. He was letting the pressure get to him. Two more people had died tonight, and still they had nothing.
Worse than nothing. Because significant patterns, which had seemed their only insight into the killer’s mind, had been broken.

He looked to where Willie stood talking with Detective Johnson. He was glad she was here. He needed her to see this.

“Lieutenant …” Rozelli came toward him past the Nativity scene. His eyes held down.

“Yes, Detective.”

“Sergeant Kelly wanted me to tell you he’s keeping things tight as he can.”

“You interviewed the priest who called it in?” Sakura asked him.

“Father Graff … yes. Talbot is taking him downtown to sign his statement. But bottom line, he didn’t see a thing.”

Sakura had gotten as much from the first officer’s report. The assistant pastor had returned to the rectory sometime after
two
A.M
. and noticed that the pastor wasn’t in his room. A little later, he’d gone to the church to investigate.

One of the CSU techs came over as Rozelli walked away. “The guys are finished with the photos and the sketches, Lieutenant,”
he said to
Sakura. “We got all the angles you wanted.” Charlie Tannehill was hatchet-faced, the kind of forensic specialist who favored
graveyard humor. Tonight he seemed nearly as subdued as the rest of them.

Sakura looked at his watch. “Linsky here?”

“Not yet.”

“Let’s give it some time, Charlie.”

“No problem.”

“Any word on fingerprints?”

“Same old story, Lieutenant. He wore gloves. Nothing on the candlestick. But I think we may have got a partial footprint.”

“Footprint?”

“I think Dearborn’s right that our guy’s doing this without his clothes on and wiping up the floors. This time there was blood,
remember. Head wounds bleed a lot. He stepped in the blood, left us part of a heel. It’s not much.”

“No, but I’ll take what I can get…. There’s a sink in the back there.” Sakura nodded toward the sacristy.

Tannehill’s beagle eyes mimicked hurt. “Have a little faith, Lieutenant. We’re working on the drain. Likewise in the bathroom.”

“Sorry, Charlie. I know you know your job.”

Tannehill’s gaze went upward. “No problem, Lieutenant,” he said again. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”

Zoe had the taxi drop her off two blocks away. The area around the church was already being cordoned off. Cop cars were everywhere.

She shoved her scarf farther down over her face, clutched her purse with her camera tucked inside, and walked. It would be
tricky, but the church was big, full of nooks and crannies. It cast a wide shadow.

She crossed the street, moving toward a side building, then through a dark breezeway that connected with the left side of
the church. The area was deserted. She crouched in some shrubs and waited. Light from inside threw a tangle of color onto
the ground as it passed through stained-glass windows.

A side door opened, and she saw a uniform cop coming out. He moved to the rear of St. Sebastian toward another building. A
large structure that appeared to be the rectory.

She got up and headed toward the door, hoping it hadn’t locked behind him. She was in luck. The door opened. She took a deep
breath and entered.

She was in partial shadow, in a small alcove that led into a side altar. Candles flickered, but the main body of the church
exploded with light. She could see Johnny talking to another cop about twenty feet away.

She had to move quickly, do what she had to do, and get out. She crouched low, keeping near the outer wall. She was midway
down the side aisle when she slid into a pew. All activity seemed to be centered near the main altar and a side altar where
a Christmas crèche had been set up. She eased upward, her eyes level with the back of the pew. At first she thought it was
just part of the Christmas decorations, until the horror of what she really saw came crashing through.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Sakura said as Darius walked up to him in the church.

“Willie called. She said I ought to see this.”

No answer for that. It was not an explanation he’d expected. “So what do you think?” he asked him.

“I think I’m disgusted for thinking what I see up there is a little bit beautiful.”

“I know.”

“You know what? That it’s beautiful? Or that I think it’s beautiful?”

“That you think it’s beautiful.”