Authors: Alex Mueck
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
P
RESTO’S PRIVATE PHONE RANG, jolting him from a dream of an unlimited shopping spree at the new gourmet supermarket that opened a few blocks away. A look at the clock told him he’d not overslept. Presto’s innards tightened. It was the killer. He’d struck again.
Presto rolled out and stumbled from his king-sized mattress. Phone in hand, he fell into a rocking chair by a window that overlooked a dull brick wall.
It was Danko. He sounded as tired as Presto felt. “Bad news.”
“Who, what, where, when, how?”
Presto heard Danko suck in his breath. “Your spot, Grace Church.”
“Oh, no,” Presto cried. “Please don’t tell me Reverend …”
“Perkins, yeah,” finished Danko. “I’m here now. Do me a favor; get those two agents to meet here.” His words trailed off like the end of a sad song.
As Presto walked to the gothic cathedral, he noted the rising sun, which hung over the towering spire like a late fired warning flare. The fact that he considered Grace Cathedral a high probability target did not assuage his grief; there were no moral victories here. If anything, it made him feel worse.
As he neared the main cathedral doors, he saw throngs of police who looked like they were ready for action but had little to do. The streets were blockaded. There would be no Easter Mass this year.
A detective that worked under Danko spotted and beckoned him. He led Presto back to an exit recessed on the east side of the cathedral. The door led to the Parish Room, which connected the rectory to the courtyard garden.
He found Danko. “Forensics inside,” Danko explained and then motioned to the victim’s door with his head. Despite the dark circles under his eyes, Danko’s voice had strengthened since the call. “I can’t believe what I saw in there. It’s evil,” he asserted angrily. The bulged vein in his temple was back.
They both heard Ridgewood’s and Donavan’s voices. For once, the conversation appeared civil. “Let’s grab them, and I’ll brief you outside. I can use the air,” Danko said wearily.
They intercepted the two agents, reversed back through the Parish House, and went outside to the garden. They walked several yards along a tiled path near an antique, black light post. The trees’ spring flowers began to bud. New life. New death.
Presto turned and gazed back at the church. From his angle now, it looked as if the sun sat impaled on the spire
Presto never had this view of the church. He took in the arched windows, the pointed buttresses, and the immenseness of the stone cathedral. He could not fathom the work of something this grand. He once tried his hand with military-type models but never advanced beyond the novice level. His last effort, a Panzer tank, went from a fifty-piece model to almost a hundred after he smashed his foot down on the aborted jalopy.
“This is good,” said Danko. “I needed some space, and we have to wait until forensics is finished. I was only allowed in a secured square of the room that they’d cleared. I saw enough.”
Danko recapped what he did see. Tacked to the wall was a crude, cloth cross. In an effigy of Christ’s crucifixion, Reverend Perkins was nailed through his wrists and feet to the wall. A fake crown of thorns was placed on his head. On Perkins white nightshirt two words had been written in blood: Myth Man.
Donavan, who had been jogging at the time of the call and was dressed in a running suit, coughed. “Any chance the killer was just looking for a handicapped parking sticker?”
No one laughed. Not even his new friend Danko, who looked away embarrassed.
The good vibes between the two agents ended on that comment. “You’re an asshole, Donavan. Have you no shame? No, don’t answer. Stay quiet for a while.”
Donavan recoiled like a snake in retreat.
Ridgewood then turned to Danko, the edge still in her voice. “What about security? I thought there were police posted at every church entrance in the city? How did he gain access: force or trickery?”
Danko’s face twitched defensively. “Well,” he said tentatively, “we have to check something out, but it looks like chicanery, again.” His shoulders drooped. Frustration oozed perspiration from his pores despite the cool April day. Adrenaline and coffee were the chemicals that kept him awake. “I’ll tell you what I know.”
Danko explained that the only man purportedly to have entered Perkins’s room was his nurse, Victor Markov. Markov left about a half hour later. Said he had to get something and never returned. Officers were dispatched to his apartment. We should hear something soon,” he said with tempered optimism.
“The way I see it,” Danko continued, “is there are four possibilities, and I think you can discount two and shortly the third. Either someone entered and left whom we don’t know about, or the killer may have been disguised as cop or clergy. That leaves either Markov being the killer, or the killer disguised as Markov. We need to find this nurse to rule out the first three.”
Presto found Danko’s reasoning sound. Those were the likely scenarios, and he also shared the view that the killer was disguised as Markov. If that were true, that meant Markov was dead.
Ridgewood pressed politely. “What else did the cops say about the nurse?”
Donavan had another thought. “What I want to know is why Perkins didn’t have a female nurse, in one of those sexy after-hours outfits that my wife won’t wear, tending to his needs? After all, he’s single now.”
Ridgewood, like a cobra, spun quickly, and her head rocked slightly from side to side. Her gaze was venomous. With no tune to charm, Donavan decided to pipe no further.
The minitension was broken when Danko’s phone rang. Everyone focused on the call, reading Danko’s face for clues. When he hung up, they knew. “The nurse is dead.”
Ridgewood stomped her foot. “I can’t believe this. Who is this guy, a Hollywood makeup artist?”
“He must be,” said Danko in hopes of crediting the killer’s guile over ineptitude. “They had photos of all the staff. They said the guy was a dead ringer for the ID.” His demeanor, like a storm to come, darkened. “There’s one other thing.”
Ridgewood asked the obvious. “What?”
“It seems this psycho likes to take pictures,” he said with some shame. “He asked the two officers to pose for a picture outside the door. Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
“Oh, no,” Ridgewood said. She knew the implications, none good.
It was then, for the first time, that Presto realized he’d been in Ridgewood’s company for several minutes, and he’d hardly cared. Was it the hiatus they’d spent apart? Perhaps it was the drama of the moment. Or maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with Camille? He pushed away that thought.
Now that he noticed, he knew it had nothing to do with her appearance. Despite her understandable anxiety, she was as comely as ever.
Ridgewood turned and saw Presto looking at her. She gave him a hopeful smile. “Dom, what are you thinking,” she said slyly, and then added, “about the case.”
Presto had a few thoughts, but her
gotcha
flustered him. “Uh, I think we learned a few things.”
“Like what?” Donavan challenged. “Crucifixions are on the comeback?”
Ridgewood fixed her partner with a steely stare and went back to Presto. “Go on.”
“It may seem meaningless, but we know the name he wants to be known by. It tells me he’s got an ego. He craves an identity; he wants the notoriety. If he’s taking pictures, then it means he’s reaching out, and like a mouse that ventures farther from his hideaway looking for a bigger piece of cheese, there’s more exposure and risk.” His voice became certain. “Let’s use that to our advantage.”
“How?” Danko asked.
“A few ways,” Presto answered. “He wants a forum. That’s a mistake. Let’s use the press to our advantage. Let’s insult him. I sort of like Son of Satan, but I’m sure the headline writers have others. He wants respect. Let’s not give it to him.”
“We might just piss him off more,” Ridgewood said.
“Come on,” Donavan said, ignoring his silent moratorium. “How much more testy can you get than dismemberment, a bullet to the forehead, a decapitation, and now a crucifixion?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
D
ESPITE IT NOT BEING a Catholic church, Presto sat in a pew, lowered his head, and prayed. He first thought of his mother. Nothing malignant should ever touch a soul as benign and pure as his mom. He knew from Camille that she’d been to the doctor several times while he’d been at work, and yet his mother never mentioned it to him. Why?
Presto then thought of the murdered victims. Despite Myth Man’s crusade against religion, these were decent men, not shady quacks. Had Perkins not suffered enough from the limo wreck? And what of this poor chap Victor Markov?
Then Presto turned his prayers to Frank Danko. His former foe left an hour ago after being denied sleep for more than thirty hours. With downcast eyes, drooped head, and dragging feet, he bid his forced farewell and returned to an empty home. Holidays can be a bad time to be alone, especially after his estrangement, and he took the murders as his personal failure. Presto wished him a therapeutic rest and a miracle panacea for his family issues.
Then he turned directly to God.
Hey, big guy, or girl. I’m no sexist, but either way, no matter which religion is right, or even if we’re all wrong, there has to be a reason why a species as advanced as us, across almost all ethnic groups, believes in something divine. So I know you’re out there, and I hope you’re listening.
Help us eradicate this evil. While my badge may be a shield rather than a religious talisman, my charge is an extension of your commandments. You made the rules, and some don’t live by them. They’re an affront to the tenets of peace and love. Please give us the guidance and strength to find this pawn of perdition.
Oh, and finally, if you may see fit, can you ensure that Mrs. Stagnuts’s concoctions are not the only leftovers from today’s missed Easter meal
?
Presto had already phoned home to tell his mother he would not make the feast. He called Camille too. Both already heard the news of Perkin’s murder. Good news travels fast; bad news travels faster.
Pretso heard the patter of short, quick steps echo in the quiet cathedral. It was Ridgewood. “Forensics may have found something.”
“Really?” Presto was surprised but reserved. It could be nothing. Thus far, they found plenty of evidence, most to all of it planted, but nothing that led them to a suspect.
“They found blood on Markov’s shirt that is not his own blood type. They also found a hair sample match at both Markov’s apartment and in Perkins’s bedroom.” Ridgewood sat in the pew beside Presto. “Hopefully, this evidence is the killer’s. Doesn’t help us find him, but if we do, we’ll have a DNA match.”
He looked at Ridgewood; her skin was paler than usual. “That’s good news.” Presto was still dubious but didn’t want to sour Ridgewood’s spice. “Where’s your pal Donavan?”
“On the phone with his wife. We already reported everything to Malcolm. He’s coming to New York, something to do with this big assignment he’s been working on, but while he’s here, he’s going to assist on the case.”
Ridgewood and Presto looked at each other. She let her head fall against his side. “I’m scared of what’s to come, Dom. I fear this Easter was a prelude to a nor’easter.”
Presto arrived home at nearly ten o’clock in the evening. He found two notes on the kitchen table. One was from his mother. She’d had a few glasses of wine and went to sleep. She left a plate for him in the microwave. There was more in the fridge. She was kind enough to mark anything cooked by Mrs. Stagnuts with an
X
. Presto thought a skull above the
X
would have been more apropos, but he was thankful for the warning nonetheless.
The other note was attached to a pink, green, and white Easter basket. Fake green grass was strewn about like Presto’s morning mane. A brick-sized chocolate Easter bunny sat upright in the grassy bramble, guarding foil-wrapped eggs.
It was a difficult choice—milk chocolate or Camille’s words. He took the note.
Dear Dom,
I resisted drawing a happy bunny rabbit with big goofy ears. Let me simply say that like the rabbit I wanted to draw, I’m all ears. Any time you want, give me a call, and I’ll hop on up. ……Camille