Until Judgment Day (4 page)

T
UESDAY
A
FTERNOON
, D
ECEMBER
24

B
ENEATH A GRAINY PHOTOGRAPH
of a Catholic priest with a bald head and thick horn-rimmed glasses, the Teen Beat Section of the
Santa Rita Centennial
's Christmas Eve edition carried an article that read:

“These are sooo yummy.”

“Don't talk with your mouth full, please.”

Emma swallowed her cookie and washed it down with a sip of milk. “Can I have another cookie?”

“Where do you learn that grammar?” Kathryn Mackay asked her daughter.

“Huh?”

“May
I have another cookie?” Kathryn corrected.

“Sure, go ahead,” Emma told her, “but if you get to eat another one, so do I.”

Kathryn smiled. “Deal, but only if you promise not to tell Dave how many I had.”

Emma grabbed a frosted bell with red sprinkles, broke off a corner, popped it into her mouth, then handed her mother a green Christmas tree. “Cross my heart.”

The kitchen was warm and cozy, filled with the comforting aroma of cinnamon, almond, and vanilla. As the late winter sun melted into the horizon, its rays refracted through the tiny prisms formed on the fogged-up window, and fractured into tiny rainbows that splattered the walls and ceiling with dots of primary colors.

A rack of brightly decorated Christmas sugar cookies cooled on the counter while a timer on the range ticked off the minutes until the dozen baking in the oven would be ready.

Kathryn Mackay wore Ann Taylor jeans and a black T-shirt, both spotted with flour and powdered sugar. She hummed softly.

“I like cooking together, Mom,” Emma said.

“Me, too, honey, but with work and all I never seem to have time. I'm sorry.”

“That's okay, I understand.”

“Thanks.”

Emma contemplated the likelihood that she might be able to compound her mother's goodwill into one final treat.

Kathryn spotted her daughter coveting the plate. “I know what you're thinking, young lady. Forget it.”

“Jeez, I thought we were having a Hallmark Moment. They're better with a cookie in your hand.”

Kathryn laughed. “You crack me up. That's worth one more, but that's it. I don't want you to spoil your dinner.”

“What're we havin'?”

“After Dave finishes his last-minute shopping, he's picking up French bread and a deli tray for us to nibble on while we decorate the Christmas tree.”

Kathryn retrieved the last tray from the oven and slid the cookies onto a cooling rack.

As Emma savored her cookie and prolonged the pleasure, she glanced at the newspaper that lay on the table, left over from breakfast. It was turned to the Teen Beat Section, where she had left it. “I'm sure glad I don't go to high school till next year.”

Kathryn shook multicolored sprinkles over the fresh, steaming, star-shaped wafers. “Why?”

“When me 'n' Ashley 'n' Lindsey go to high school, our basketball team's gonna win the state championship every year.”

Kathryn arched her eyebrows but resisted the urge to correct her daughter's grammar. “Really?”

“Yup, but they won't win it this year.”

“They won't?”

“Nope, listen to this.”

Emma read the article about Benedetti and his players out loud. “Those guys're so dumb.”

“Those boys are doing a fine thing. You should be proud of them.”

Emma shrugged. “I s'pose, but I'd be a lot prouder if they won the state championship.”

“Emma—”

The phone interrupted her. “That's probably Dave, wanting to know what we want for Christmas.”

“Let me get it!”

Emma picked up the phone, listened, then a frightened look crossed her face. Wordlessly, she handed the phone to her mother.

Kathryn frowned, wiped her hands on a paper towel, and held the handset to her ear.

“Hello?”

“I have a message for Sheriff Granz.”

The hair on Kathryn's neck bristled when she recognized the eerie monotone generated by an electronic voice changer. The artificial voice was high pitched, like a female, but that told her nothing about the real caller's identity.

“Who is this?” she demanded.

“I have an urgent message for Granz,” the falsetto voice repeated.

“How did you get this number?”

The caller ignored her question. “I need to talk to Granz immediately.”

“That's not possible.”

“Why not?”

“He's not here,” Kathryn said.

“Where can I reach him?”

“You can't. Give me your number, I'll ask him to call you as soon as possible.”

“That'll be too late.”

“Too late for what?” Kathryn asked, but the line was dead.

“Who was it, Mom?” Emma wanted to know.

“I don't know, honey.”

“What did she want?”

“To talk to Dave.”

“'Bout what?”

“She didn't say.”

“She had a weird voice. What was wrong with it?”

Kathryn absently sprinkled powdered sugar on the final batch of Santa Claus cookies. She picked one up and nibbled off Santa's head.

“I don't know.”

S
HINY POOLS OF STANDING WATER
left over from a rain storm littered the empty parking lot in the early evening darkness. On the far side, a mercury-vapor light lit up the side entrance to Holy Cross High's gymnasium.

He crossed the abandoned school grounds, stopped beneath the light to glance briefly at Reverend James Benedetti's photograph on the cover page of the
Centennial's
Teen Beat Section, then wadded up the newspaper sheet and dropped it in a deep puddle of muddy water.

The door was locked—no problem for professional tools. With expert manipulation, three carefully selected picks inserted into the pick gun and stuck in the key slot released the tumblers with a gentle
snick.

He replaced the tool in his pocket, cracked the door to listen, stepped inside, eased the door shut, and paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light.

The baskets used for varsity games, at opposite ends of the main court, had been winched up into the open-beam ceiling by steel cables, and two sets of cross-court intramural baskets lowered.

Except for one ten-foot section that remained open, the built-in retractable wooden bleachers that paralleled both sidelines of the main court were nested into the walls. A gym bag, a heap of clothes, and a spare basketball sat on the lower bench of the open bleachers section.

He watched the lone man in gym shorts and sweat-soaked Holy Cross Mustangs T-shirt mop his shiny, hairless pate and brow on a towel with one hand, and bounce a basketball with the other. He was tall, skinny, and stooped, but looked to be in good shape and wasn't wearing glasses.

Clamping his palms over his ears to drown out the sound didn't work—the bouncing ball's deafening echo slammed around the huge room like marbles in an empty bucket, landed on his head, and amplified through his brain.

 

Benedetti tossed the towel to the floor.

“On this holiest of Holy nights—” the Reverend spoke aloud, putting the final touch on his Christmas Eve sermon in his most efficacious pulpit voice, “let us learn from the example set by our selfless basketball players, who have sacrificed an extremely important event in their young lives to help less fortunate people in Afghanistan.”

Benedetti stopped preaching to concentrate on basketball. He bent at the knees, dribbled to the paint on the far end, finger-rolled in a left-handed lay-up, and raised his clenched fist over his head.

•   •   •

When the priest ran to the opposite end, he strode purposefully but silently across the court, pulled the priest's horn-rimmed glasses out of the gym bag, and crushed them on the floor with his shoe, then sat on a bleacher seat near the top.

 

Benedetti dribbled the basketball back toward the near basket, reciting the sermon under his breath, pulled up, and launched a jumper from beyond the three-point line. The ball whispered through with a swish and bounced back to him on the backspin.

 

“Father Benedetti?”

“Yes.” The priest stopped. “Who's there?”

“May I talk to you?”

“I suppose so.” Benedetti picked the towel up off the floor, wiped his face, and trotted toward the bleachers. “Is it important?”

“Very.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“I called your secretary. She told me where to find you.”

“How did you—” Benedetti paused, confused. “I locked the doors.”

“I let myself in.”

“I don't understand. Where are my glasses?” Benedetti fumbled in his gym bag, then dumped its contents on the seat and squinted toward the voice. “Do I know you?”

“It's possible.”

“I'm not sure I like this.”

Benedetti frowned and took a step backward, but pulled up abruptly when he stepped on the remains of his eyeglasses.

“What do you want to talk to me about?”

“Business.”

“What kind of business?”

He reached under his jacket and pulled out a 6-inch .357-magnum Colt Python.

“The unfinished kind.”

Benedetti involuntary gasped. “Wha-what are you doing?”

“Finishing business.”

“Don't do that!”

He aimed the Python, tightened his sphincter muscle, and squeezed the trigger.

The high-velocity slug ripped through Benedetti's left hip, spun him around, tore his femur out of its socket, and shattered his pelvic bone, releasing great rhythmic spurts of blood.

The priest collapsed, groaning, falling onto his back, his left toes still pointed unnaturally down toward the floor. Blood coursed down his thigh and pooled under his buttocks.

The shooter clomped down the bleachers and stood over the priest, his right hand dangling at his side, still grasping the pistol.

Clutching his thigh, Benedetti tried to crawl away, but made it only a few feet before the shooter stuck the bottom of his shoe against the top of the priest's bald head.

“Help me, please,” Benedetti looked up at his attacker and pleaded.

“Go to hell.”

“My God, I'm bleeding.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Why do you want to hurt me?” Benedetti whimpered.

“I don't want to hurt you, I want to kill you,” he spat, then blew away the top of Reverend James Benedetti's head.

The shooter stared at the twitching body for a moment, dropped the pistol, and strode across the shiny hardwood floor. He pulled out his tools, locked the door behind him, tugged off the latex gloves, and shoved them in his front pants pockets with the pick gun.