A Righteous Kill (42 page)

“She had something wrapped around her wrist,” Trojanowski informed him. “I think it lends credence to your Irish Saint theory.”

What they needed now was more than a theory, they needed some fucking evidence. “What is it?”

“The medal of some saint or other. I’ll snap a picture and send it to you.”

“I’m on my way.”

“No, you head to the hospital.”

Luca’s heart sputtered. “The hospital?”

“Winthrop’s in critical condition, but he survived. Di Petro is already there, but I want you both to talk to him when he comes to.”

“Yes, sir.” Luca’s chest filled with a reckless kind of hope. Another survivor.

Another witness.

It took him less than fifteen minutes to make the twenty minute drive to the Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center. The distinct smells of blood, sterilizer, and misery assaulted Luca as he hurried through the halls, and he tried not to remember that the last time he’d been in this ICU, Hero had been fighting for her life.

Vince met him in front of Josiah Winthrop’s room, but neither of them was allowed in until he was more stable.

“It was ugly,” Vince said soberly. “A lot of blood, no surprise there, but JTB, he… did things.”

“Like what?”

“Like this.” Vince sent him a file from his phone. The file was entitled:
Winthrop Crime Scene Photos
. Even Luca winced as he flipped through the gruesome pictures, not the least of which was the now familiar symbol of Asmodeus carved into the wrinkled, aged skin of Josiah Winthrop’s chest.

“Poor bastard,” Luca muttered.

“How’s Hero holding up?” Vince asked.

Luca shook his head, unable to meet Vince in the eyes. Guilt was like a burr in his shoe, pricking at his more tender skin, a constant reminder of what he and Hero had spent the night doing while sweet Angora Steinman and Old Man Winthrop were going through hell.

An email from Trojanowski was highlighted as new in his inbox, and Luca opened the attachment. The photo of a saint medal on a silver chain pulled up. The medal looked like real silver, if a bit tarnished. Luca had to ignore its placement, and how it draped across the wounded and mangled hands of someone he’d known and liked.

“What’s that?” Vince asked.

“It was found on Angora’s body.” Luca told him, reaching into his briefcase for his tablet.

“Another saint?”

“Looks like.” Luca downloaded the image onto his tablet and did an image search on the internet browser. He didn’t find a hit right away and had to scroll through some very weird Gaelic pictures and advertisements before he hit pay dirt.

“There.” He clicked on the picture.

“St. Kentigerna,” Vince read aloud. “Am I saying that right?”

“Who knows?” Luca shrugged. He clicked on the website and began to read her story. “Says here she’s Scottish, not Irish.” Choking on his mounting frustration, Luca scanned the long Catholic text, searching for anything that might be of some help. Vince had started to fidget in his shoes and check his watch before he found it.

Luca shoved the tablet at his partner. “According to this, she was married to the supposed grandson of King Arthur. She bore him sons, who were also sainted, some of them in Ireland. She was known for being a good and faithful wife, even if her husband wasn’t, and when she was widowed, she devoted her life to converting the pagan people of the Highlands to Catholicism.”

Vince narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. “Draw the parallel for me here, because I think it’s a stretch.”

“It may be,” Luca agreed. “I think this is more of an explanation to us of
why
Angora was killed, aside from being Hero’s friend. Angora was a showgirl before she married and divorced about five different times to amass her fortune. Out of all those marriages, she never had any kids.”

Vince started nodding, but said, “I don’t think I like where this is going.”

Luca agreed, feeling uncomfortable even as he spoke the words. “In the eyes of a zealot like JTB, I don’t think Mrs. Steinman was much above a well-paid prostitute who sold not just her body, but her name for a rich husband’s money. Also, birth control is kind of a hot bed sin right now in the Catholic Church.”

Sighing, Vince reached for his tablet and scanned the article. “I was right. It’s a stretch, but a plausible one.”

A pretty, young blonde dressed in pink scrubs walked up to them holding a clipboard. “Excuse me, but we don’t have a next of kin for Mr. Winthrop. Do either of you know if he has family who should be notified?” She flashed him a white smile that said she was open to conversation and possibly more.

Luca pulled up the case files, knowing that Josiah Winthrop had been enough in Hero’s orbit to merit a folder. “He has a daughter who’s stationed with her husband near Atlanta.” He gave the nurse the daughter’s contact information without even looking at her nametag, and then dismissed her.

It took three extra hours for them to be cleared to see Mr. Winthrop. Aside from the gunshot and the gruesome carving in his skin, the seventy-three-year-old man suffered a head wound from being knocked unconscious, and also ligature marks on his wrists and ankles.

The dimmed lights in Josiah Winthrop’s room caused the monitor screens around him to emit a florescent glow all around his tall, willowy form. Cords and wires disappeared beneath the white blankets attached to every damn thing. His mottled, leathery hands twitched beneath the oxygen sensor on his fingers, and Luca noted the very angry bruises around Mr. Winthrop’s wrists. Older people bruised ugly, and this guy was no exception.

Doctor Karakis stood on the far side of the bed, insisting on monitoring the patient while he spoke. Luca exchanged nods with the Mediterranean doctor, remembering he’d done right by Hero.

“Let’s stick to what’s important,” Karakis said quietly. “I don’t want him straining anything, not with his concussion.”

Luca nodded his understanding, and then met Mr. Winthrop’s cloudy, gun-metal grey eyes. The old man licked his dry lips with a drier tongue and spoke. “You find her—body?” He croaked. “She was—already
gone
when he—when he took her.” A tear slipped out of the corner of his eye, but his stare never wavered.

“We found her, Mr. Winthrop… We’re incredibly sorry for your ordeal. And for your loss.” It felt lame even as Luca said it, but an acknowledgement needed to be made.

A shoulder that looked like it had been wide and strong twenty years ago twitched in the weak semblance of a shrug, or maybe a grimace. “I went through worse as a POW in Korea. It’ll just take me longer to heal this time, I think. But this… this makes me glad I’m an old man, because I’ll hear Angora’s screams every night for the rest of the time I have left.” He speared Luca with those intense grey eyes. “Hope you never have to listen to the dying screams of the woman you love.”

A raw, desperate chill speared through Luca and settled as roiling nausea in his gut. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Mr. Winthrop, as you know, we’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My name is Agent Luca Ramirez and this is my partner, Agent Vincent Di Petro.” They flashed him their badges, taking comfort retreating into their duties. “I hate to ask you to relive your attack, but if you can remember anything, it might be helpful in catching the man who killed Angora Steinman.”

Winthrop lifted a shaking hand to hover above the white bandages wrapped about his chest peeking above the hospital blanket. “I’m pretty sure he’s after
you
, Agent Ramirez.”

Vince made a tight noise.

“Excuse me?” Luca asked.

“He said—for the ritual to be complete—that a man who has been infected by the taint of the demon must be bled.” More tears shimmered in the dim light, threatening to follow the grooves carved by age and sadness through the old man’s face. “He said it was either me—or
you
.”

Luca ignored the shocked stare of the doctor and Vince’s sharp intake of breath. He compartmentalized that information for later. Winthrop was fading and they didn’t have much time. “Sir, can you give me a description of the man who attacked you? Anything you remember will be of help. Age. Size. Identifying characteristics. An accent, maybe?”

Winthrop’s hand continued to hover, his bruised wrists standing out in stark blacks and purples. “I couldn’t say as to the accent, he spoke mostly Latin in a deep, chanting voice.”

“You said he spoke to you. You understand Latin?”

Winthrop shook his head, and winced.

“Please remain still, Mr. Winthrop.” Dr Karakis shot Luca a warning look.

“Italian, French, and Spanish,” the old man said. “I grew up an army brat in Europe. I tried to communicate with him…to plead—” Tears spilled freely into Mr. Winthrop’s silver hair and his breathing sped. “We spoke briefly in Italian. He seemed pleased I could speak it. He said it’s one of the languages of God.”

“Did you get a look at his face?” Luca prompted, worried over the increasing slur in the old man’s speech.
Come on, old man, give me something I can use.

Winthrop was careful not to shake his head this time. “No, when I arrived home, I immediately heard Angora’s screams. They were coming from the bedroom. There was a man’s voice. I thought maybe he was—that she was being sexually assaulted. I didn’t think. I just grabbed my pistol from my study and charged in there.”

His hand lowered back to his sides where he fisted it in the bed sheets. “I should have called the authorities. I should have taken a moment to be smarter. To
think.
But my blood was filled with her screams.” His voice broke, and he took a moment to contain himself. “The sound of her pain. It drove me out of my right mind. I don’t know if you understand my position, Agent Ramirez, but—” He trailed off, lost in a nightmare forever branded in his memory.

“I believe I do, sir,” he admitted.

Josiah Winthrop had burst into that room ready to die for the woman he loved, and Luca could see the regret that he hadn’t done so glimmering in the tears streaming down his temples.

Luca felt so compelled to check on Hero, his hand twitched.

“He was waiting for me.” Mr. Winthrop’s voice began to shake. “She was already tied to the bed with her arms spread, screaming like a banshee. They tell me I was hit in the back of the head. I remember the gun going off in my hand… When I came to,
I
was tied to the bed and blindfolded, as well. Angora was quiet, and somehow… I knew… she was...” He broke down, no longer able to speak through the force of his grief.

Luca regarded the man with sympathy. Winthrop may have tragically been the one to end Angora’s life when his gun had gone off. Luca hoped the man
never
found that out. By his way of thinking, her quick death had been a blessing, under the circumstances. She hadn’t had to live long enough to experience a painful crucifixion, stabbing, and drowning.

“He started carving on me,” Winthrop said woodenly. “Chanting in Latin. Praying, I think. That’s when we talked. I’m ashamed to say I screamed. I begged. Something I
never
let the Koreans make me do… He said he was saving us… from each other. From
him
.”

“From himself?” Vince asked.

“No,” the old man’s voice faded to a whisper. “From the demon. Then he—he shot me—shot me with my own gun.”

Doctor Karakis injected something into his IV then touched Mr. Winthrop’s good shoulder “I think that’s enough for now.” He directed this at Luca, who nodded his assent.

“Thank you, Mr.—” Winthrop was already knocked out, so Luca followed Vince and the doctor into the hallway.

“The bullet missed his heart by inches. Millimeters even,” Karakis gravely informed them. “It’s my professional opinion that it was meant to be a kill shot.”

Luca agreed. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“The press is gathering,” Vince said ominously.

Luca let out a weary breath. “Better here than the river. The hospital staff will keep them away from Winthrop.”

“Where to? I’ll check to see if Angora’s body has been taken to the ME’s office, or should we check in on Hero?”

Luca straightened his jacket and adjusted his case, considering the gathering bodies swathed in tailored suits and holding microphones or cameras. “I say we send this motherfucker a message of our own.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Wherever sorrow is, relief would be:

If you do sorrow at my grief in love,

By giving love, your sorrow and my grief were both extermin'd.”

~William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Hero tried to blink open swollen eyes. Her nose felt numb, and her face puffy, so she just buried it deeper into the pillow, still damp from the storm of her grief.

Rown had helped her situate her bed in the middle of the loft for the time being, and put her mattress on it. She hadn’t let him in her bedroom, as the dried paint on the teal wall still told a pornographic story. She’d have to redo that wall. Or maybe she’d leave it as a delicious reminder of Luca’s reckless passion.

Curled on her side with her pillows and a throw, Hero stared at her brother as he sprawled on her couch, watching the news on his tablet. “Ramirez is in
so
much trouble,” he muttered, his hard mouth drawn into a thin line. “This press conference was
not
cleared with the Bureau.”

Hero barely heard him. She’d honed in on the unmistakable sound of Luca’s voice on the news, silk with an undercurrent of hard steel, heated by determined rage. She knew he stood in front of the hospital where poor Josiah Winthrop fought for his life. “My message to the killer who calls himself John the Baptist is this: Your latest two victims are dead and we’re closing in. While you wait for justice, let me direct you to Deuteronomy 32:35. ‘
To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of calamity is at hand
.’”

Hero had to admit; hearing Luca quote the bible was odd. But, she supposed, he was trying to speak to JTB in a language he understood.