The Killing Room (39 page)

‘Not a big fan of irony either, Roland.’

‘No. I imagine not.’

‘Are you ready?’

Roland Hannah didn’t respond. Byrne flipped on the light. Hannah was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed. He was fully dressed. He was not wearing his amber aviator sunglasses.

‘I hope you didn’t hurt him,’ Roland said.

‘He was a police officer,’ Byrne replied. ‘I don’t hurt cops.’

‘Just criminals?’

‘And those who would have me believe they are not.’

Byrne looked out the back window of the motel room. The lot behind the motel was empty.

‘Why have you come for me?’ Roland asked.

Byrne said nothing.

Before they left, Byrne took Anthony Colasanto’s cell phone and two-way radio, then cut the motel room’s phone line. It wouldn’t prevent Colasanto from putting the word out when he woke up, but it would slow him down a little. If Byrne knew anything about the pills he had dissolved into Colasanto’s coffee – and over the years Kevin Byrne had become quite the expert on sleeping pills – they had a few hours. Which was more than enough time.

Byrne led Roland Hannah to the door. There, he turned and did a quick sweep of the room. He had taken care of everything. He opened the door, checked the sidewalk and parking lot again. Silent and still. He walked the blind man over to his car, unlocked the back door. Roland Hannah slid in.

Byrne handcuffed Hannah to the door handle of the back seat.

Two minutes later, they drove into the night.

FIFTY-EIGHT

By the time Jessica and Maria reached the rowhouse where Sarah Goodwin kept her private office, there were a half-dozen sector cars in front of the building. The street was blocked off at both ends, and a SWAT team was in the process of deploying on nearby rooftops and fire escapes.

Josh Bontrager, Jessica, and Maria would breach the entrance, accompanied by two SWAT officers. The entry would be a no-knock, hard entry. This was a suspect in multiple murders.

As they prepared for the breach, the three detectives secured their Kevlar vests. Jessica silently berated herself for not putting it together before. Danny Palumbo, Adria Rollins, Michelle Calvin, and Martin Allsop were all prime candidates to have been analyzed by a psychiatrist before court proceedings. Sarah Goodwin did consulting work for both the county and city law enforcement agencies. Jessica knew that Byrne had seen her professionally, and it was very likely he had
opened up about Gabriel and DeRon Wilson, knowing – or at least believing at the time – it was all confidential.

Jessica also knew that the video camera they had found in the reporter’s car was either on its way to or had already arrived at the crime lab. Maria had tried to delay it as long as possible, but there was only so much she could do. Any second now the criminalists would place Byrne at the scene at St Simeon’s, and questions would start to be asked.

As Jessica approached the door she scanned the area. She did not see Dana Westbrook on scene. This was a good thing. Jessica had a lot of explaining to do to her boss, and she was not prepared to do any of it yet.

The SWAT officer with the ram took up position on the small porch. He looked to his two fellow officers. The other two SWAT officers carried AR-15 assault weapons. On a silent three, the ram hit the door, blasting it almost off its hinges.

‘Philadelphia Police!’ one of the SWAT officers yelled. The two men rolled into the front room. One of them flipped on the light. After a few seconds:

‘Front room clear!’

The two officers methodically went room to room in the rowhouse, and ultimately found no one. The only space left to clear was a closet in the main office.

Her weapon aimed low, Jessica positioned herself to the left of the closet door. She was flanked on her right by one of the SWAT officers. The officer raised his weapon, pointed it at the closet. He made eye contact with Jessica. The second SWAT officer pulled open the door.

The dead body in the closet was that of a white woman in her forties. She wore a lab coat over a dark blue pantsuit, no
shoes. There were no visible wounds on her face or hands, no blood, no apparent trauma. Heart racing, Jessica knelt down, put two fingers to the woman’s neck, found no pulse. Before she stood up Jessica noticed the edge of a plastic nametag peeking out from behind the lapel of the lab coat. Although she should have put on a latex glove, she had no time. She gently turned over the lapel. The nametag clipped to the dead woman’s coat read:
SARAH GOODWIN, MD
.

‘
Shit!
’ Jessica yelled.

As the SWAT officers and detectives stood down, Jessica began to pace the small office. This did not make sense. Worse than that, she knew how it was going to look for Byrne. Sarah Goodwin was his psychiatrist, and now she was dead.

‘Jess.’

It was Maria Caruso calling her from the waiting room. Jessica walked out there. Maria was looking at a framed photograph on the wall. In the picture two women sat on the edge of the desk in the main office. The caption read:
Dr Sarah Goodwin and her assistant Antonia Block open a new office
.

Jessica looked at Dr Goodwin, then the other woman in the picture. She knew her, but not as Antonia Block. Jessica recognized the woman in the photograph as Mara Reuben, the woman she had interviewed across the street from the St Adelaide’s scene.

She was looking into the face of a murderer.

Jessica pulled the piece of paper out of her pocket, the one she had kept from the envelope Father Leone had sent Byrne. She looked at the hand-scrawled note.

IT WAS A VESTMENT, KEVIN. THE FIRE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
.

Jessica knew where Byrne was.

FIFTY-NINE

He is much bigger than she imagined. Or maybe she just sees him that way. She thinks it must have been this way for the Apostles as well.

They are sitting in a circle surrounded by seven candles. Ruby, the boy, the detective. There is one empty chair.

‘What should I call you?’ the detective asks.

‘Ruby,’ she says. ‘I want you to call me Ruby. Will you do that?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s been so long since anyone has called me that.’

‘Your father was Elijah Longstreet?’

‘Daddy.’

‘You are also Mara Reuben?’

‘Yes.’

‘And also Antonia.’

Ruby smiles. ‘Antonia Block.’

The detective nods. ‘From Antonius Block. In
The Seventh Seal.’

‘My little conceit,’ she says. ‘I was afraid you would see through that when you came to Dr Goodwin’s office.’

‘The last name wasn’t on your nametag.’

‘Of course.’

When she had gotten the job as the medical assistant she didn’t know much about the computer system. It didn’t take long to learn. Forging the prescriptions from Dr Goodwin was much easier. Eventually Dr Goodwin allowed her to call the pharmacies using the office code. This night, when the detective needed the sleeping pills, it was effortless.

‘These people,’ the detective says. ‘The victims. You knew their psychiatric histories.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you select them?’

There were many answers to this. ‘We selected them because they all made a deal with the devil.’

The detective looks at his hands for a moment, then back at Ruby. His eyes are cold jade stones in the candlelight. ‘And you collected what the devil was owed.’

‘Yes. It was the only way to rid my son of the demons he has carried all these years.’

Night after night, after Ruby prayed, she had read the transcripts of Dr Goodwin’s consultations with her patients. She had been privy to all their thoughts, their desires, their shame, their guilt. She had seen inside their souls, all of them children of disobedience. The young girl had asked the devil to stop the abuse she was suffering at the hands of the building’s superintendent, the coupling that had produced the baby. Ruby had visited the building earlier in the day and granted Adria’s wish. Edward Turchek would no longer abuse anyone.

Ruby did not hurt Adria Rollins.

The young man who was a police officer, the one called Daniel, had told Dr Goodwin that he would do anything if his HIV did not become full-blown AIDS. It did not. He paid.

The old pedophile said he would do anything to not have to go back to prison. He got probation. He, too, paid.

‘Why DeRon Wilson?’ the detective asks.

‘Who?’

‘The man at St Simeon’s. The man who took Gabriel.’

‘A thief is a thief,’ Ruby says. ‘He made his deal the moment he held out his hand for golden coins. When you told Dr Goodwin about your relationship to the boy, and why you were trying to save him, we knew you would do anything for him.’

The detective glances at the young boy, and back to her. ‘So, this has all been about the preacher?’

‘Yes.’

‘All of this was designed to get him out of prison?’

‘Not all of it.’

The detective glances around the vast expanse of the basement room. ‘And there are just two churches left?’

‘Yes. Just two.’

‘Will we be going somewhere?’

‘No,’ Ruby says. ‘This church merged with another years ago. It must all end in this place, at this time.’

Ruby considers the detective for a few moments. She has seen his face over the years, in her mind, in her prayers. The face of St Michael the Archangel. There is no doubting his strength.

‘You are the last of your kind,’ she says. ‘You are the last saint.’

The man shakes his head. ‘No.’

Ruby stands, listens to the ancient stone walls. Something is happening. She feels a stirring within. ‘You have brought him here?’

‘Yes,’ the detective says. ‘He’s in the next room.’

‘My son is here, too. It is time they met as men. A boy should know his father, don’t you think?’

The detective says nothing.

Ruby smoothes her hair, then instantly berates herself for this small weakness. It has been so many years since she has seen the Preacher. The last time was when he was standing on that carrousel.

Frailty, thy name is woman.

‘Please bring him to me,’ she says.

The detective stands, crosses the room, opens the door, and steps into the darkness.

SIXTY

Byrne lifted Roland Hannah to his feet. He walked him across the large basement room, toward the candlelight. Hannah’s hands were bound behind him, his mouth gagged.

When they reached the circle of light Byrne uncuffed the man’s hands, sat him on the old wooden chair. He removed the gag from Hannah’s mouth, sat down next to him. Byrne looked at Gabriel. The boy was crying.

While he was gone the woman removed her dark coat. Dressed in a flowing white gown, she now sat next to Gabriel. Around her waist was a corded white belt. In her lap were a pair of golden knives with razor-sharp edges.

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire … and white raiment.

Roland Hannah cocked his head, as if he’d suddenly heard something.

‘Ruby,’ he said.

Mary Longstreet blushed. ‘Preacher,’ she replied. ‘How did you know it was me?’

Roland Hannah smiled. His teeth were small and yellowed. ‘A flower does not lose its bouquet, does it?’

‘Only when it dies, I reckon.’

‘Even then it lingers.’

Mary Longstreet reddened even more deeply. She remained silent.

‘You have become a woman,’ Roland said.

‘A long time ago.’

‘How long has it been?’

Mary Longstreet looked at the floor for a moment. ‘A spell, Preacher.’

Byrne noticed a slight change in the woman’s accent. The West Virginia had begun to creep back into her voice.

‘And your boy?’ Roland asked.

‘The devil is still inside him.’

Roland Hannah said nothing. Without the dark amber glasses, the man’s eye sockets were deep, scabrous holes in the candlelight.

They sat, the four of them, in a circle. Every so often Byrne would glance at Gabriel. The boy looked small, and terribly frightened. His hands were shaking.

Mary Longstreet gestured to a room off the large space that was the basement of the cathedral. ‘That room yonder,’ she said to Byrne. ‘It must happen there.’

‘Beneath the sacrarium,’ Byrne said.

‘Yes, sir.’

The sacrarium, Byrne now knew, was the sink in which all consecrated items had to be washed. What flowed from these
sinks could not be treated as other waste waters. The marks on the lampposts were made from the earth beneath the churches, washed by decades and centuries of Christ’s blood and flesh.

Mary Longstreet stood, put both knives through the corded belt. Byrne saw that one of the knives sliced through the thin white fabric. A blood rosette bloomed. She had cut herself. She didn’t seem to feel it.

As she crossed behind Roland Hannah, Byrne noticed that she now had something else in her hand. At first, in the dim light, he didn’t know what it was. Soon he was able to focus. It was an antique hairbrush.

‘Remember how I used to brush your hair, Preacher?’ she asked.

To Byrne there was no question that this woman standing in front of him – a woman who had killed at least five people, a woman who now had a pair of razor-sharp daggers within reach – was regressing before his eyes. Her body language had become more adolescent, her voice had risen a half-octave. Her accent was becoming more Appalachian with every word. She pronounced the word
hair
as
har
. She was returning to the age she was when she met Roland Hannah for the first time.