The Christmas Killer (35 page)

Jake had to act fast. By now Asher would have put out the APB he’d threatened. Every cop in the city would be on the lookout for his car.

He was ten minutes from Christ the Redeemer. He floored it and let the siren blare. To hell with drawing attention to himself – he was far beyond worrying about that. He followed the spire of the church and was close within seven minutes.

A drive past was too risky, so he pulled up short and put his mobile on silent. He rummaged in the glove compartment, taking out his Beretta 92 semi-auto. There were eight rounds in the clip, and one chambered. Nine shots – more than he would need. He slipped the gun into his shoulder holster, then took out a torch. The knife he had recovered from the Chase Asylum was in a plastic bag on the passenger seat. Without really knowing why, Jake took the knife out of the bag and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

He got out of the car and walked up to the church, not even bothering to duck his head against the driving snow. He barely felt it now.

The scene was becoming depressingly familiar. The little cemetery was blocked off with a temporary hoarding set up by the construction crew, overlaid with black and yellow police tape he himself had helped put up. Jake didn’t expect there to be security cameras, but he wasn’t taking chances. When he got to the church grounds he crossed the grass verge rather than walking on the gravel. He reached the main door. It was closed. It was huge and made of oak, about twelve feet high, but there was an inset door on one side. Jake tried it and it gave. He pushed it open, fingers wrapped tightly around the edge in case he had to brace it against a whine.

Then Jake stepped into the darkness.

The church was little more than a vast cavern, with nothing at all inside. All the pews had been removed and sold through junk shops and antique outlets down in Indianapolis. There were blank patches on the walls where the Stations of the Cross had been taken down. The only things left in place were the ornate stained-glass windows, dappling the interior in an eerie orange, green and blue gloom. At the far end Jake could see the altar, a plain limestone plinth with a cross embossed on the front and a marble top. The altar was as empty as the church, and the tabernacle door was open behind it, like God himself had deserted Christ the Redeemer.

Sticking to the walls, Jake slowly made his way around the church. It was eerily peaceful. He could hear the rustle of wind through the bare winter branches
outside, and in the distance the rumble of holiday traffic. Inside, all was silent, but as he neared the altar he became aware of another sound, faint at first. It was a moan or a chant, seeming to rise up out of the depths of the darkness. The moan rose and rose in volume, seeming to coil and spiral in the air, before crashing down into a long drawn-out single note that cannoned off the walls of the church.

The moan faded and died, but Jake was moving now, moving fast towards the sound. He crossed to the altar. There were two doors, one on either side of the tabernacle. He tried the one on the left. It opened into the sacristy, the little room where the priest dressed for Mass. Empty. He tried the other door and was immediately hit by a musty smell crawling out of the open doorway. Squinting into the darkness, Jake could see stone steps spiralling down.

Now the sound was unmistakable. That was his mother’s voice, chanting and moaning. He could make out words: she was praying, or begging, for forgiveness. He recognized the formula from his childhood: the ritual of confession.

‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned …’

‘That’s right – beg the Lord for forgiveness, sinner.’ The voice of Father Ken rose in a crescendo.

Jake saw the next five seconds play out in his head, clearly – triumphantly. He would take the stairs two at a time, charging down into the basement below. He would take the butt of his gun to Father Ken’s head.
Not the skull, because he was an old man who probably couldn’t survive such a blow, and Jake wanted him to spend whatever time he had left rotting in jail. He would whip him across the jaw. At least it would stop him talking.

Let’s see how you like losing
your
teeth, Padre.

But Jake did not follow his own script. He couldn’t – his cop’s training overrode his emotions. This was an unknown environment, and he didn’t know the layout; he had not observed the target or the victim so he had no idea how the players were arranged. Any action would be slowed by the half-second Jake would need to get orientated once he was in there. And he knew from experience it was hard to be adaptable when your heart was in your mouth.

So he took the steps slowly, making sure to place his whole foot on each step, heel and toes touching the stone simultaneously to reduce the noise of creaking shoe leather or gently cracking metatarsal bones. He stopped before the final turn, the feeble light from the basement just catching the tops of his shoes. He listened.

His mother was still pleading for forgiveness. Her voice was low and weak, tired.

‘Please, Christ, forgive me my sins,’ she rasped. Her words were coming in short bursts that seemed forced from her throat. ‘Mother of mercy, forgive me.’

‘Real penitence only comes when you admit your sins,’ said Father Ken. ‘Admit your sins, and his divine grace will set you free, my child.’

His mother’s voice was shrill, shrieking, and felt like a dagger in Jake’s ears. ‘I admit my sins! I admit them.’

Jake was itching to storm into the crypt and open fire. But he couldn’t. He had to hold back and make sure he had a clean run at the priest. He also knew that Father Ken – for all his years – had to be considered a dangerous man. Jake did not want to think about how this thing would play out if he charged in and missed.

‘I haven’t heard you say it yet.’ Father Ken was bellowing now. ‘Your greatest, most grave and foul sin. Confess to what you did … Confess to the murder of Fred Lumley.’

A wave of shock flowed through Jake at that. His gun arm momentarily lowered. His mother wouldn’t have killed anyone, not in a million years. She
couldn’t
have killed Fred Lumley.

‘I can’t. I didn’t kill Fred. I should have, but I didn’t.’ His mother was pleading now.

Jake knew she hadn’t killed him in the same way he knew that it was Fred Lumley’s blood on the blade.

‘Liar!’ Father Ken yelled. ‘Confess your gravest sin!’

There was a scream, this one piercing.

Jake could listen no longer. He turned the corner and took in the scene at a glance. They were in a basement about sixty feet long, with an arched stone roof. The stone floor was bare. Against one wall lay three tombs. Against the other wall were lumber, ladders and old paint pots. It was half storeroom, half catacomb. His mother was kneeling in the centre of the floor
about twenty feet in front of Jake. Her head was trapped in the murderous head crusher.

Her hands were raised in prayer, but Jake could see that they weren’t bound together with rope or leather or anything else. She was praying voluntarily.

Jeanette’s face was ashen and was beginning to distort near the jaw line. Father Ken was standing above and behind her, his hands on the screw. He was in his white alb with a purple stole around his neck. Jake had a flash of a memory from his childhood: purple was the colour of penance.

Father Ken seemed ready for another turn of the screw.

‘Stop!’ shouted Jake, drawing his gun and aiming at the head of the priest.

Father Ken looked up and nodded as he saw Jake. ‘The confessional is normally private,’ he said, ‘but I think, under the circumstances, we can allow you to stay and listen to the sin and then the absolution.’

‘Step away from her,’ Jake ordered.

Father Ken had a determined look. ‘Well now, I think we have a problem,’ he said. He leaned forward deliberately, grasping the handle of the screw.

Jake cocked the pistol and squinted down the barrel, lining up the shot he didn’t want to take unless he had to. ‘I’m giving you one chance, you sonofabitch. You really do not want to fuck with me today.’

The evil priest kept his eyes on Jake’s mom. ‘If you shoot me, Detective, you might kill me. But it won’t
save Jeanette, because the force of my body falling will turn this screw. I might die, but I will still win. If you want to save your mother, you will drop the gun and kick it across the floor to me.’

Jake held his gun hand steady, then slowly brought his other hand up, settling his aim. He had a clear shot, even in the darkness, across the basement. He could take the priest out. But even as he thought it, he had to ask himself how tight was the screw already turned? How much more could his mother’s fragile skull take?

‘Be a sensible boy, and drop it,’ coaxed the priest.

‘Do as he says,’ said his mother. Her voice became a scream as Father Ken turned the screw. Only a little, but it was enough … ‘Please, Bruce!’

His mother’s mistake drew Jake’s eyes briefly to her. She did not have her hands bound; why wasn’t she doing something to free herself? Why was she accepting this? It was like the priest had some kind of power over her. She had knelt willingly before his infernal machine and now was silently praying. He could see her lips moving with the words.

Jake turned his gaze back to Father Ken, who was glaring at him with a look that seemed to be half-warning him to obey his command and half-desperate for him to justify using the crusher. Slowly Jake lowered his arm and, bending low, put the gun on the floor. He kept his eyes on the priest the whole time.

Jake straightened. His body tingled with annoyance at himself – he had not followed a basic rule of training
for hostage situations.
Dismantle your weapon. Neutralize your opponent’s advantage as best you can.

‘Kick the gun over here,’ said the priest.

Jake did as he was told, all his senses on alert, his muscles poised for one lunge. If the priest bent to pick up the loaded gun, he would have to take his hand off the screw … and if his hand was off the screw …

‘Relax, Jake,’ said Father Ken with a smile. He didn’t move for the gun. Jake tried not to let his disappointment, his rising panic, show. ‘There are things you need to hear. Isn’t that right, Melanie?’

‘Yes,’ whispered Jake’s mother.

‘Speak up. I don’t think he heard you,’ said the priest.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Melanie?’ whispered Jake.

Father Ken’s lips curled in a grim arrogant smile. ‘And you seemed like such a close family …’ He loomed over Jake’s mother. ‘The floor is yours … Melanie.’

Jake’s mother turned her eyes as far as they would go, so that she could look at Jake. ‘My name is Melanie. Melanie Sands. I was a patient at the Chase Asylum.’

‘Very good,’ said the priest encouragingly. ‘Go on.’

There was a haunted expression on Jake’s mom’s face, an expression that was caused by more than the pressure on her skull.

‘I knew about Fred Lumley,’ she whispered. ‘We all knew. He was abusing the children. And we did nothing about it. Forgive me, Father.’ Her voice was low. Jake strained to hear.

‘There’s more,’ urged the priest. ‘There’s more sin to be confessed, Melanie.’

‘Some of the children disappeared. And we knew he had killed them. But we were too scared of him to do anything about it.’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks now, and her voice was strangled – as though she was forcing the confession physically out of her mouth.

‘He killed them?’ asked Jake, hearing the pain in his own voice echo back at him, as though the walls of the crypt were rejecting him, rejecting his pain. As well they should – his biological father was a child abuser and a murderer.

‘Oh yes, he killed them, all right,’ said Father Ken. ‘Daddy was an evil man, Jake.’

Jake was stunned. He’d got the answer to a question he’d been asking his whole life, and was now wishing he hadn’t.

‘I will never forgive myself … for not doing anything …’ said Jeanette. She looked hard at Jake. ‘I tried to stop him. I tried to help you. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough.’

Jake’s words were hoarse, barely audible. ‘What are you talking about, Mom?’

‘I couldn’t keep him away from you,’ she said, face crumpling and her voice collapsing to a wail. ‘He said you were his son and he could do what he wanted …’

Jake felt his stomach lurch like he had gone over the top of a roller coaster. His mind pulsed with vague flashes of memory, and he tried to push them aside.

‘I’m sorry, Bruce,’ said his mother. ‘Forgive me.’

‘Mom …’ Jake said, but he couldn’t finish the sentence. The words were choking him. The memories were flooding back now, memories of a young boy and a man who scared him. Jake had thought the shadowy spectre in his dreams was a figment of his imagination, the product of a naturally skewed and twisted mind. The kind of mind that made him a unique and effective cop. But now he knew – his mind was twisted because he had
inherited
that trait.

And there was something else he knew, another explanation for why he had turned out the way he had. Why he had the ability to anticipate criminal behaviour, second-guess the moves of psychopaths.

How else could he have turned out after having grown up inside Chase Asylum?