The Second Coming (43 page)

A
S
K
ATE PULLED
out of the parking lot into the oncoming traffic, she suddenly felt something sharp sticking in her side hard enough to puncture her skin. As she winced and leaned away from the pain, she saw Father John holding a sterling silver knife shaped like a cross above her hip. It was at that moment she realized that she was not with Father John; she was with the Sterling Killer.

“Owe, that hurts,” she exclaimed as tears formed in her eyes making her vision blurry. “Please stop that.”

“Shut the fuck up and keep driving,” he told her forcefully.

“I can’t drive with that knife stuck in my side,” she told him on the verge of crying as she sat idling at the stop light. The pain was so excruciating, she thought she might pass out. “Please don’t push so hard and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” She felt the pressure ease enough that she was able to bare it.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he growled at her. “I don’t want to, but I will stick this knife in you and let you bleed to death right here.” He glared at her with a menacing scowl as he waited for a response. “Take a left here and get on the freeway.”

Kate couldn’t believe it. Father John was the Sterling Killer. Or was it his alter personality? “Who are you?” she asked weakly as she made her way onto the freeway with her heart pounding as if it might burst.

“Don’t play stupid with me doctor,” he said with a menacing tone. “You know who I am.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Don’t try to fucking psychoanalyze me you fucking bitch.” The veins in his neck bulged and spit foamed in the corners of his mouth. “You don’t have the slightest fucking clue what I’ve been through.”

Kate couldn’t get herself to look at him. She sat as still as she could.

“You have no idea how lonely it is to be raised in an orphanage and to have no one who loves you,” he told her with a disdainful tone. “Families would come to meet me to see if they wanted to adopt me and would never come back because they were afraid of me. They thought something was wrong with me and that I wasn’t worthy of their love.”

Kate could feel her pulse throbbing in her neck as she stared straight ahead watching the lines of the lanes on the freeway zoom by when she remembered that Mike told her about the photo of Father John’s family standing in front of the orphanage when he was a child. Father John must have created the orphan personality as a way of coping with his mother’s death. She had to try and earn his trust.

“I’m so sorry,” Kate said with a tremor in her voice as she gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands. “That sounds horrible.”

“Even the parents at the foster homes didn’t want me. Nobody wanted me and I moved between verbally and physically abusive foster homes and the orphanage all of my youth,” he reflected with resentment. “The only thing I ever looked forward to was when Mr. Carpenter would come and visit me.”

The tension in the car was constricting and Kate wanted to roll a window down to get some fresh air, but she was paralyzed with the fear. She could feel his eyes watching her like a rattlesnake ready to strike.

“Who is Mr. Carpenter?” she asked cautiously.

“Don’t be coy. You know who I’m talking about,” he snapped as he pushed the knife into Kate’s side. “I used to see him wondering around the building in a sharp suit with his dark hair slicked back, looking very important and dignified. I remember thinking a great man like that must have a loving family,” he said with a hint of regret. “One day he came over and asked me my name and sat down and talked to me. He made me feel special. I used to imagine that one day he would show up with his family and adopt me. It was the only pleasant image I had in an otherwise miserable existence. All I ever wanted was to be part of a loving family.”

Kate kept her hands locked on the steering wheel with white knuckles as she stared straight ahead at the road.

The Sterling Killer glared at her indignantly. “Can you imagine how angry I felt when I found out years after I left the orphanage that he was my biological father and that he put me up for adoption even though he had five other boys he was raising on his own?” he asked with disdain. “At first I thought he must have abandoned me because his wife died while giving birth to me, but if he blamed me for her death, why did he come visit me? And if he didn’t blame me, why didn’t he take me home with him? I could tell he wanted to be with me,” he said reflectively as he glared out the passenger window. “And then one day, years after I left the orphanage, a manila envelope showed up mysteriously in my mailbox. I remember as I opened the envelope wondering how anyone had found me.”

Kate was scared to ask about the envelope, but was too intrigued to stop herself. “What was in it?”

The Sterling Killer stared at the side of her face for so long that she thought she could feel her cheek burning from the intensity. “Someone had sent me a copy of the Satanic Codex.”

“What is the Satanic Codex?” she asked oblivious.

“The Satanic Codex is the reason my father abandoned me at the orphanage when I was born,” he seethed callously. “It is the reason I am a cold blood killer.”

chapter
67

M
IKE EXPLAINED WHOSE
date of birth he thought he found on the orphanage list of names and what he thought it meant to Big Pete on the drive over to Father John’s dad’s house. By the time they pulled in front of the two story, brick colonial home, Big Pete was wondering if it could be true or if Mike was grasping at straws again.

As they walked between the hedges and up the path on the front lawn, Mike’s stomach churned with anticipation. If he was right, Mr. Carpenter had been keeping a dark secret for a long time. He wondered if he would admit to what he did or if he was hoping to take his secret to the grave with him? Did Father John know about it and was he involved in the cover-up? It didn’t matter either way. Mike was going to expose everything before he took the Sterling Killer down.

Mike rang the doorbell and then stepped back as he looked around to see if anyone was watching them from a distance. There were no parked cars on the tree lined street and the only sounds were the birds chirping in the rustling breeze.

Suddenly the door opened and a middle aged man dressed in khaki slacks and a blue button down shirt with a black belt and shoes stood so that his broad body was blocking the entrance as if he was going to slam the door in their face. A look of disbelief drooped on his pudgy face as he glanced up at the two men.

“My brother isn’t here,” James said with an irritated tone.

“Actually, we’re not here to see your brother,” Big Pete corrected him politely. “We’re here to see your father.”

James expression receded into his face with surprise. “Why do you want to see my father?” he asked perturbed. “Does this have to do with my brother and the Sterling Killer?”

Mike glanced at Big Pete with an amused smirk. “It’s not what you think,” Mike assured him patiently. “We just want to ask him a few questions about his association with the Oakland Children’s Orphanage.”

“The Oakland Children’s Orphanage?” James repeated confused. “What does the orphanage have to do with the Sterling Killer?”

“The body of the Sterling Killer’s first victim was found in your mother’s church,” Big Pete explained evenly. “We just want to ask him a few questions.”

James glared at the two men with disgust. “I know what you are trying to do,” he said agitatedly. “You think my brother has a split personality who’s is committing these crimes. You think he is the Sterling Killer.”

“We don’t think your brother has a split personality or that he is the killer,” Mike replied non-confrontationally. “That’s why we’d like to talk to your father. We want to clear your brother’s name.”

James’ face went soft. “My brother isn’t a suspect?”

“As a matter of fact,” Big Pete chimed in. “Another victim was killed while your brother was under surveillance so we know he can’t be the Sterling Killer.”

“We just want to ask your dad a few questions to see if he knows if there is any connection between the first victim and the orphanage,” Mike assured him kindly.

James peered at Big Pete and Mike, examining them as they stood on the front stoop with their hands at their sides and then he let out a sigh. “You’ll have to be quick,” he told them shaking his head with his eyebrows raised in disbelief. “I need to give him his medication and he won’t be much good to you after that.” He stepped back and invited them in.

Mike followed Big Pete into the foyer and James quietly clicked the door shut behind them.

“Please, follow me.” He led them up the stairs with the ornate banister and then down the hall to his father’s bedroom door. “Please wait here while I check on him.” He disappeared into his father’s room.

Mike and Big Pete waited anxiously in the dark hallway listening to the beeping and sucking of the life support machines.

“There are two detectives from Oakland homicide here to see you,” Mike heard James say to his father through the crack in the doorway.

“What are they here for?” his father replied with a feeble voice.

“It has something to do with the Oakland Children’s Orphanage,” he said calmly. “Do you want to see them or should I tell them you are not well.”

“I’m fine,” his father replied. “Help me sit up and take this mask off my face.”

Mike and Big Pete glared at each other and listened to the rustling of James helping his father get situated until James appeared and escorted them into his father’s bedroom.

The withered old man was sitting up in his light blue pajama top, with the covers pulled up to his navel. The shades were drawn and he squinted in Mike and Pete’s direction as they walked over and stood by the foot of his bed.

“These are the detectives I was telling you about,” James said in a clear loud tone over the breathing sound of the machine.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” Mr. Carpenter asked in an unsteady voice.

“We’re sorry to bother you sir,” Big Pete said diplomatically. “We were hoping you would answer a few questions for us.”

“What’s this about?”

“Can you tell us what your connection is with the Oakland Children’s Orphanage?” Mike asked.

“I served on the board of directors and was a fundraiser and donor for the orphanage,” the old man struggled to reply with a look of concern on his emaciated face.

“When did you become involved with the orphanage?” Mike inquired.

A look of contemplation spread across his ashen face. “That would have been in 1966,” he replied hesitantly. “After my wife passed away.”

“What was your interest in the orphanage?” Mike probed carefully.

“My wife had a life insurance policy and I didn’t need the money,” the old man recalled. “I thought it would be nice to give the money to those unfortunate children.”

“Is that why they named the church after your wife?” Mike asked with an inquisitive tone.

“That’s right,” The old man confirmed. “It was a rather substantial sum of money and they wanted to name the church in her memory.”

“Why the orphanage?” Mike asked skeptically. “Why not some other charity?”

A disturbed grimace came over the old man’s face. “After my wife passed away, I felt as though my children had been orphaned,” he replied as if he said it a hundred times before. “I could relate to the tragedy of those poor kids and wanted to do something to help them.”

Mike glanced at Big Pete with a discouraged frown and then looked back at the old man. “Are you aware of the Sterling Killer murders?”

“I am not,” the old man confused.

“The Sterling Killer is a serial killer who is stabbing women in the heart with a sterling silver knife shaped like a cross,” Mike explained as he removed a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. “The first victim’s body was found at your wife’s church. The killer left this symbol smeared in the victim’s blood on the wall.” He handed a photo of the symbol to the old man.

The old man held the piece of paper with shaking hands close to his eyes and squinted at it. James reached over and grabbed his reading glasses from next to all of the prescription bottles on the bedside table and placed them on his father’s beaklike nose. The old man stared at the photo and his face went blank. Mike knew he had him and pressed on.

“When your son John told us he was having dreams about the murders and then we found out that the church where the first victim’s body was found was dedicated to your wife, I knew there had to be a connection, but I couldn’t figure it out. After we cleared John, Kate told me about Jimmy Jones threatening to kill her and I thought maybe he was the Sterling Killer, but I didn’t know what his connection to the orphanage was. I thought maybe he was adopted from the orphanage, but Big Pete told me his parents listed on his birth certificate were the same parents he grew up with. I told Big Pete that anyone who wanted to hide something could get a forged birth certificate and that’s when it dawned on me that if Jimmy’s family could get one, so could you.”

The old man sat in his bed looking like he wanted to say something, but was afraid to. His eyes were filled with remorse as he glanced at James and quickly looked away. The life support machines beeped and ventilated.