Mortal Sin (41 page)

“I did exactly what you said—staked out the house all night and waited until she was alone. The other two left just after nine this morning; I waited five minutes. When they didn’t return, I went to her door. She tried to stall and I watched as she sent someone a text message, but I didn’t play her games, and brought her in before they returned. She’s in interview two.”

“Observe for me, will you?” she asked Hank. “If you think anything strange is going on, I need you to call me out. Intervene in some way.”

“Why?”

“I don’t trust her. Moira says she’s a witch, who may not have any power when she’s separated from the other two. But I can’t trust that. Too many strange things are happening. If she does something to me, hell, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Skye found herself rubbing the special crucifix that Anthony had given her months ago. She barely believed in God, but somehow, the necklace made her feel marginally better. A security blanket, she supposed. She’d take anything she could get at this point. Maybe Anthony’s faith was enough for both of them.

Anthony is in a coma. He’s going to die if you don’t figure this out.

Skye was a cop first. She’d spent two years in community college, six months at the police academy, and was a cop by her twenty-first birthday. She didn’t want to do anything else. She’d always been good at her job, but the last six months had tested her limits. She was investigating situations she couldn’t explain. She’d seen things she wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t witnessed them herself.

Except… she was still a cop
first.
Which meant she needed to approach Brianne Graves as if she were any other suspect in any other crime.

Skye retrieved a copy of the disk from the chemistry room. She’d already taken the original and hid it in her office safe, and put another copy in the evidence room. If Truxel truly was involved, she had to make sure he couldn’t get any of the evidence.

In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but remember that when Hank had gone to Truxel’s house on Saturday night, he wasn’t there—at the same time that Father Isaac had been murdered.

Skye walked into the interview room. Brianne wasn’t handcuffed. For a nineteen-year-old college girl, she didn’t seem disturbed by the situation—that she’d been taken into custody for questioning in a murder investigation.

“Did Deputy Santos read you your rights?” Skye asked.

“Yes,” Brianne said. She stared at Skye. “I won’t be here long.”

“That’s up to you,” Skye said. “Do you understand your rights?”

Brianne smirked. “I know I don’t have to talk.”

“That is correct.”

Skye opened her laptop and popped the disk in. She turned the screen around so Brianne could watch. Skye had seen it a half dozen times, so instead, she focused on Brianne’s expression.

It was clear that Brianne was surprised the disk existed, but she covered her reaction quickly and leaned forward, as if watching a good show.

She smiled and leaned back when Skye closed the laptop. The girl was attractive, no doubt, but Skye saw the cunning behind her pale blue eyes. This girl was a sociopath.

Skye didn’t ask about the ritual. No jury would believe that three college girls could use magic to burn down a church. They
might
believe the girls rigged the church to burn, then went to the school to perform it as if they were witches. Or that they were working with someone else who burned the church, and therefore they had foreknowledge of the crime and reenacted it in the high school. Skye would need physical evidence, which meant she’d need a search warrant. Right now she wouldn’t be able to get one from Truxel, but she’d go to a judge herself if she had to. She’d love to get a confession, but Brianne was shrewd.

Instead, Skye said, “I have evidence of conspiracy to commit arson and accessory to murder. I will file charges to that effect, and let the shit hit the fan if necessary. But I’m willing to negotiate on all that, if you tell me who killed Father Isaac.”

Brianne tilted her head back, her long, blond hair hanging behind her. “Let’s see—you’re a cop. You can’t offer me a deal. Only the D.A. can do that. So I’m not talking to you.”

“Brianne, you’re nineteen years old. The rest of your life is a long, long time, and I would be happy to see you and your girlfriends spend a long, long time in prison.”

“I’m not going to jail.”

Her nonchalant attitude angered Skye. She had to consciously work to control her temper. Yelling at Brianne would only make the girl more confident. Skye leaned back in her chair, using the silence to her advantage. First, she had to calm down. Second, she had to make Brianne worried. The girl appeared to be worried about nothing. Why? Because she thought Kimberly and Laura would find a way to save her? Because there was no physical evidence of her complicity in this horrific crime? Because she was a fucking sociopath?

Skye would put her money on the latter.

She changed tactics.

“Why did you burn a replica of the church?”

No answer.

“How did you get into the school?”

No answer. Brianne looked at her painted nails.

“Where is the bag you removed from the school? The bag you put all your supplies in?”

Brianne sighed and looked at the ceiling.

She was trying to make Skye angry.

Skye smiled. “I’m placing you under arrest.”

Brianne laughed. “You have no proof of
anything.
”

“I have proof of breaking and entering. Misdemeanour.”

“We didn’t break anything.”

“It’s a legal term. You were in the school Saturday night when there was no school function and you had no legal right to be in there. You entered a locked classroom and set a fire, in violation of state law. I’m adding a charge of accomplice to felony arson with special circumstances.”

Brianne smiled and shook her head. “I won’t be charged with anything.”

The temperature in the room dropped, dramatically enough that Skye noticed the hairs on her skin rose. Was this girl actually trying to work up a spell? Power of suggestion or something like that?

Skye rose. “You will. Two officers will be here to escort you to holding and process you.”

For the first time, Brianne looked mildly irritated. Maybe a bit scared. Good. She should be, because Father Isaac was dead, and Skye wasn’t in the mood to play Brianne’s games.

“You’ll be sorry.”

“I can add threatening a law enforcement officer as well.”

Brianne snorted and looked away, her arms crossed over her chest.

Skye didn’t trust her. She walked around the table and said, “Put your hands on the table.”

Brianne didn’t comply.

“Do it, or I will do it for you.”

“Bitch, you
will
pay,” Brianne said in a voice so low Skye almost didn’t hear her. But she put her hands on the table.

Skye cuffed her to the bar on the table and left without another word.

Hank met her in the hall. “Are you really arresting her?”

“Yes.”

“Trespassing will stick, but it’s a misdemeanor. She’ll get a slap on the wrist.”

“But I can hold her for the rest of the day, and hopefully find proof. Where are we on security cameras? Cars? License plates?”

“Collins is following through on a lead. The night of the fire, a rental car was spotted around the corner from the church. A witness heard the sirens and looked outside, saw a man getting into the car and driving away. We don’t have plates, but we have a good description of the car and the rental agency it belonged to.”

“And the man?”

“White male approximately forty. He wore dark clothes and a cap.”

“At least it’s something.” But Santa Louisa was a tourist town. A rental car near downtown wasn’t unheard of. “Hank—process Brianne. But don’t do it alone. I felt… I don’t know, something strange.”

“Maybe Moira’s talent is rubbing off on you.”

“I think she wanted me to feel something. No one is to be alone with her. I don’t trust her, and I don’t know what she’s capable of. And under no circumstances are her two girlfriends allowed to see her.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks.”

She started toward her office, but was waylaid by the desk sergeant. “Sheriff? A Dr. Charles Wicker is here to see you, and he says it’s urgent.”

She followed the sergeant back to the front of the station. Wicker didn’t look like he’d slept the night before. His gray hair was in tuffs, his glasses askew. “Doctor—”

“Skye, I don’t know what Martin Truxel did with Juan Martinez, but he hasn’t been admitted to any psychiatric facility in Santa Louisa County, or in either county bordering Santa Louisa.”

Skye glanced around. She didn’t know who she could trust, so motioned for the doctor to follow her to her office. She closed the door. “How do you know?”

“I have a court order that I’m allowed to visit with and assess the mental condition of my patient. I contacted Truxel’s office, but he refused to speak to me, and his office claimed not to know where Juan is being held. I went to four different facilities and he wasn’t there. I don’t think you understand how delicate Juan is right now.”

“I want to talk to him as well,” Skye said. “He claims that Truxel killed Bertrand.”

“And you let Truxel take him away?”

“I put Juan in your care, Dr. Wicker. I don’t know how Truxel knew it, or knew who you were, or where you were. I have legal issues because my boyfriend knew where Juan was, and Truxel could argue that I, too, must have known.”

“The man is a witch.”

“So I’ve heard. And that’s not a crime.”

Wicker ran both hands through his hair, messing it up even more. “Because Juan was possessed, he has information—knowledge—from the demon. I think that’s why Truxel wants him.”

“Juan said Truxel killed Bertrand because he was angry, thought Bertrand had betrayed him. What if Bertrand had the dagger?”

Skye hadn’t liked Richard Bertrand, but he was a blowhard. She didn’t see him killing a homeless veteran, and he was already dead when Father Isaac was murdered. Both were the acts of a cold-blooded killer. Unless the dagger itself forced the holder to kill. At this point, she’d believe just about anything.

She continued, thinking out loud. “Juan wasn’t making a lot of sense, but if Bertrand betrayed Truxel in some way, maybe it was over this missing dagger?” She was about to fill Wicker in on the box and the supposedly evil dagger that had been contained inside, but he stopped her mid-sentence.

“I know about the dagger.”

“What if Bertrand stole it, killed Smith, and Truxel killed Bertrand and stole the dagger, then killed Father Isaac?”

But
why?
There had to be a reason.

She continued. “Father Isaac may have known about the dagger, or at least where it came from and why it was in a protective box. The people who rented the storage unit had donated everything to the church.”

“To silence Father Isaac is motive enough,” Wicker said.

It didn’t seem right that two different men had the dagger and killed with it. And why nearly two weeks apart? What was going on in town over the last two weeks?

Wrath. Wrath started messing around with people. The violence in town started with the murder of Joe Smith, growing until Floyd’s. And that was right after the murder of Father Isaac.

There was something here, Skye felt it in her gut, but she couldn’t put it all together.

“I’m going to see Truxel.”

“Be careful with him,” Wicker warned. “He’s obviously dangerous.”

“We need answers, and maybe I can get him to slip up. I have to try. I need something!” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called Hank. He didn’t answer, and she remembered she had him processing Brianne Graves. She left him a message to call her back, then hung up. Then she called Zach Padilla, Rod’s new brilliant CSI.

Zach sounded rushed. “Sheriff?”

“I have a job. I’m hoping it’ll be quick.”

“Okay,” he said.

“You’re in the middle of something.”

“Ten somethings, but what do you need?”

“I need you to track the GPS on two county vehicles. I’m sending you the names now. This is between you and me.”

“Understood.”

Skye hung up and sent Zach a text message with the information.

“What are you doing?” Wicker asked.

“The cop who pulled you over—I know he was supporting my opponent in the sheriff’s race, so I’m going to assume he’s in bed with Truxel. And Truxel himself drives a county car. All county cars are equipped with GPS, and I don’t need a fucking warrant to track where they’ve been or where they’re going.” She added a second message to Zach:

“Trace Truxel’s vehicle for the last two weeks, report to me only.”

#

Skye found Martin Truxel leaving his office in the county building at the end of the lunch hour. “I don’t have time for you, Sheriff.”

“Make time.”

He stopped walking and spun around. “You’re in over your head.”

She stepped closer to him. “So are you.”

He hesitated, just a bit, and Skye wondered who he was really scared of. “Get out of my way.”

“Tell me where Juan is.”

“You’ve been removed from that investigation. And,” he added, tilting his chin up, “you won’t be sheriff after tonight’s emergency Board of Supervisors meeting. I have the four votes I need to remove you for gross incompetence and obstruction of justice.”

Skye couldn’t hide her surprise, but she didn’t back down. “I’ll be there, happy to give them the same statement that Juan Martinez gave me—that he watched you beat Richard Bertrand to death then search his office.”

“No one will believe a word from that lunatic. I’ll make sure of that.”

“And I think that you and your psycho group of demon worshippers have had a falling out, and you’ve been dumped.”

He laughed. “On the contrary, maybe it was the good doctor Bertrand who was
dumped
for being the whiny, irresponsible jackass that he was.”

He turned and started down the hall toward the court. “You have no idea what’s about to happen, Sheriff. And when it does, you’ll have no authority and no power to do anything about it. As soon as Raphael Cooper steps foot in Santa Louisa, I will have him arrested for mass murder. Bertrand couldn’t get the information we need from Cooper, but believe me, I will get it. And you won’t be able to stop me.”