Callie decides to let it go. “What else?”
“The florist is cute. I mean super cute. I’ve been curling his toes for the last few nights—and he’s been curling mine too, let me tell you. Anyway, point is—he’s giving us a deeper discount now. I don’t want to brag or anything, but”—she bumps her hip into mine—“I’m pretty sure it’s because of the deep discount I’ve been giving him.” She giggles, almost girlish. “Deep discount. Get it?”
Alan groans. I shake my head and smile. Callie takes it in stride; the pragmatism of a bride to be.
“Slut it up if it will save me another few hundred dollars,” she chirps. “Anything else?”
“Nope.”
“Thanks for the update. Keep me apprised, please.”
“Yep.” She turns away and heads back down the hall.
“Oh, and, Kirby?” Callie calls after her. “Keep the gun out of sight for any expense under a thousand dollars.”
“You got it, Callie-babe.”
Alan shakes his head. “Doesn’t it bother you that she’s fucking your florist for a discount?”
Callie reaches up and pats him on the cheek. “Alan. Flowers are expensive.”
“NICE OF EVERYONE TO SHOW up.”
James is glaring at us all in disapproval.
“Don’t get your pink panties in a twist,” Callie replies, breezing past him. “I got as much sleep as you did. Besides, it’s Smoky’s fault.”
“And?” he challenges Alan. “What’s your excuse?”
“Same answer as always: none of your business.”
“I imagine the AD is going to be calling soon,” I say, interrupting this friendly chatter, “so let’s have a meeting in five minutes.”
James glowers, but shuts up. I head to my office.
Death Central is really just two big rooms. The largest is a wide open space where James, Callie, and Alan have their desks. I rate a small office with a door. The arrangements are spartan but functional.
I sit down in my chair and dial Bonnie’s cell phone number.
“Hi, Smoky!”
Bonnie’s voice gives me the lift I had searched for last night in work and a tequila bottle. She sounds so happy to hear from me, her pleasure is so genuine and unconditional. Men can come and go, but your child is forever.
“Hi, honey. How are you?”
“Pretty good. Elaina and I are about to start my math lesson. Bo-ring.”
“Hey, no dissing the three R’s.”
I can almost hear her eyes rolling at my attempt to speak the lingo. Dissing, indeed.
“Are you going to come and get me today? I want to see you. Besides, we’re supposed to try that steak recipe thingie.”
Bonnie and I made a pact a few months ago. We agreed that the microwave, while wondrous, was a limited tool when it comes to food. We decided we would take a night a week—it didn’t matter which one—and try to actually cook something. I purchased a bunch of cookbooks and we’ve had a good time filling the house with smoke and the smell of burning meat. We’ve even managed to create something edible a few times.
“I’ll get the steaks before I come and pick you up, sweetheart.”
“Cool.”
“Back to math, honey. I’ll see you this evening.”
A noisy sigh. I am heartened by it, as I am by any sign of normal behavior in Bonnie. When she’s an official teen and starts to talk back to me, I’ll probably rejoice.
“Okay. ’Bye.”
I consider giving Tommy a quick call, but decide against it. I want to talk to him just a little too much right now.
I leave my office and head into the main room. We have a large dry-erase board that we use when we’re brainstorming. I uncap a marker while the others look on.
“First let’s go over what we know,” I say. “We know we have two victims: Lisa Reid and Rosemary Sonnenfeld.” I write their names on the board. “We know that they are in different geographical areas.”
“Means he travels,” Alan says. “Question is, why?”
James nods. “Right. Does he travel because he likes to spread his destruction over a wide area, or because he followed his victims there?”
“I think it’s the latter,” I say. I tell them about my theory, the sin collector.
“Creepy,” Callie offers. “But interesting.”
“Strip away the non-commonalities,” I say. “One was a woman, one was a man transitioning into a woman. Lisa Reid was the daughter of a wealthy, connected family, while Rosemary was an ex-prostitute ex-drug addict. Rosemary was a blonde, Lisa was a brunette. The only things they had in common were manner of death, and, perhaps, things from their past.”
“Explain that again?” James asks.
“Lisa’s diary. She mentions some big secret, is about to reveal what it was, and then the pages are torn out. He leaves his little message. We already know that Rosemary led a questionable life before her conversion.”
“You’re saying the only thing they have in common is that they were sinners?” Alan asks.
“Well, that narrows the victim pool,” Callie mutters.
“What about forensics?”
“I have bupkes at the moment. We have a bag of trace we vacuumed up from the plane. We have the bloody cushions, but I imagine all the blood will turn out to be Lisa’s. We have smudges but no prints from the armrests. Perhaps the trace will show something, but…”
“Probably not,” I say. “He’s older and he’s practiced. I don’t see him making stupid mistakes.”
“I’m going to have the cross analyzed,” she continues. “Metallurgy is virtually untraceable, but it is our most direct connection to the perp.”
She’s right. The cross is his symbol. It’s important to him. When we touch it, we are touching him.
“Good. What else?”
“You know,” James muses, “going with the religious motivation—which I agree with, for now—there’s another ‘known’ that’s very significant. The manner of death.”
“Stuck in the side,” Alan offers.
“Stuck in the right side,” James corrects. “From a religious perspective, that’s relevant.”
I stare at him in sudden understanding. I wonder why I hadn’t thought of it myself.
“The lance, Longinus,” I say.
“Very good,” James replies.
“Sorry,” Callie says, “but you’ve lost me. Can you explain it for the heathens in the room?”
“Longinus was the Roman soldier who pierced Christ’s side with a lance to make sure he was dead,” James explains.
“‘But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance, and immediately there came out blood and water,’” Alan intones.
I look at him and raise an eyebrow.
He grins. “Sunday school, Baptist-style. My friends and I liked Revelation and the story of the crucifixion the best. Dramatic and bloody.”
“Kind of missing the deeper meaning,” I say.
“I was ten. Sue me.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” James continues, impatient. “The point is, it’s generally agreed that Longinus pierced the right side of Christ with the lance.”
“Just like our victims,” Callie observes.
“The biggest question remains,” he continues. “Why is he killing them?”
“Easy,” Alan offers. “Because they’re sinners.”
James shakes his head. “But they’re not if they confessed. Which, per the debrief you gave us on your interview with Father Yates, Rosemary did.”
“Whoa,” I say. “Lot of assumptions there. Maybe he just thinks Rosemary was a sinner because she used to be a hooker. Lisa Reid was changing her sex, which I’m pretty sure is a universal abomination.”
“True,” James says, “but that doesn’t fit with his methodology. If he’s outraged by their actions, why is there so little violence? The killings are neat, functional, and symbolic. They lack passion.”
“No torture either,” Callie muses. “It’s almo
st as if the victims were necessary more than anything else. Props in the play.”
The lack of anger continues to resonate. Sex crimes violate the victim; our victims were not violated. Rosemary was posed, but not in a degrading way. The fact of their deaths were more important to him than anything else.
“So,” James says, “different victim types, not sexually motivated, religious theme, what does that tell us?”
“If it’s not about sex,” I muse, “then it’s either about revenge or sending a message. He’s either getting back at someone, or he’s telling us something by killing them.”
“It’s not revenge,” James says. He delivers it as a flat statement of fact.
“I agree,” I say. “There’d be more anger.”
“So what’s he telling us?” Alan asks.
“I don’t know. Something important to him, though. Did anything else come up on the VICAP search for similar crimes, Alan?”
“No.”
Callie whistles. “Wow. We’re nowhere.”
I scowl at her. “Very helpful.”
“I call it as I see it.”
My frustration is not caused by Callie so much as the truth of what she’s saying. And its consequences.
“You know he’s already picked his next victim,” James remarks, reading my mind. “Maybe the one after that.”
I give him a sour look.
“You and Callie should hit the forensic bricks.”
“And us? Or me?” Alan asks.
“I need to fill in AD Jones and do a follow-up call to Rosario Reid. After that you and I are going back to see Father Yates. I want to interview anyone and everyone that knew Rosemary and had anything to do with her in the last few years.”
He gives an approving nod. “Good detective finds his own leads.”
“That old chestnut,” Callie says with faux scorn. “You two have fun. Damien and I are going to the lab.”
“Stop calling me that, you drug addict,” James says.
It’s hard to tell with James. Is he poking fun at Callie? Or really trying to skewer her?
Callie takes it in stride.
“Touché, Priscilla. Now get those ruby slippers in gear and let’s go to work.”
They head out the door insulting each other.
“He seems to be adjusting to Callie harassing him about being gay,” Alan observes.
“I think he’d be more disturbed if she didn’t. This way he knows she really couldn’t care less. Besides, he knows she’d never do it around anyone but us.”
“Yeah. You going to run those other errands?”
“Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
17
“NOTHING’S HIT THE NEWS YET ON LISA REID,” AD JONES tells me.
“I’m impressed. Even without the fact of her being a congressman’s kid, murder mid-flight should have gotten someone’s attention.”
“Director Rathbun knows how to handle the press. It won’t last forever, though. Where are we at?”
I fill him in on everything that’s happened since we last spoke, including the various theories that we’re batting around.
“What’s your feeling on this?” he asks me when I’m done.
AD Jones got where he is by working his way up the ranks. He’s done the work, put in the time. He’ll never be a “suit.” When he asks a question like this, he asks it because he respects my views and he wants the unvarnished truth.
“I think we’re going to hit a dead end very soon unless we find a new lead or…”
“He kills someone else,” AD Jones finishes for me.
There it is again, that pause in the earth’s rotation. The killer is out there, and he’s hunting. Maybe a woman died last night while I was sleeping. Maybe a woman died this morning while I drank my coffee and joked with Callie.
I force these thoughts from my head.
“Yes, sir. This is a very methodical individual. He’s confident and a risk taker, but he’s not crazy. He’s not fighting sexual urges or hearing voices. He’s pursuing a course in the direction of a known goal. Exactly what that goal is, we haven’t figured out yet.”
He leans back in the brown leather chair that he’s had since I’ve known him. It is worn and cracked in places. He’s been told on more than one occasion to get rid of it, orders he’s ignored. He can be stubborn like that. He gets away with it because he’s good at what he does.
“Okay,” he says, “then what’s left? What’s the plan of attack?”
“Callie and James are dealing with the trace. Perhaps we’ll get a break there.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No, sir, but…” I shrug. “Assume making an ass of u and me and all that.”
“And? What else?”
“Alan and I are returning to Father Yates. We’re going to interview all of Rosemary’s known associates and see where that takes us.”
He taps his fingers on the desk. Nods. “I’ll fill in the Director. Keep me in the loop.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And call Rosario Reid, Smoky. Keeping her in the loop and on our side is a good idea.”
“That was the very next thing, sir.”
“NOTHING NEW? NOTHING AT ALL?”
Rosario’s voice sounds far away. I don’t hear the strength I’d seen in her car that night.
“No, I’m sorry. But it’s early, Rosario, very early. Sometimes this is how it goes.”
“And that other poor girl he murdered? Does she have a family too?”
“Not that we’ve found. She did have her church, though.”
Silence.
“Lisa’s funeral is tomorrow.”
I hear the edge in her voice, the desire to crack warring with her own control.
“I’m sorry.”
“Can I ask you something, Smoky?”
“Anything you like.”
“How was it? Burying your Alexa?”
The question has scalpel precision; it cuts through my defenses in a blink.
How was it? The memory is as vivid now as then. I buried them at the same time, Matt and Alexa, my world. I remember that the day was beautiful. California sun lit up the coffins till the metal on them gleamed. The sky was cloudless and blue. I heard nothing, felt nothing, said nothing. I marveled at the sun and watched as my life was put into the ground, forever.
“It was like a horror movie that wouldn’t end,” I tell her.
“But it did end, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And that was even worse, wasn’t it? That it ended.”
“That was the worst of all.”
I promised her truth, always, and I have no qualms about delivering it. Rosario Reid and I are sisters in spirit. We don’t really have it in us to take our own lives in despair, or to turn into raging alcoholics. We’re built to grieve and scream and then, when it’s over, to carry on. Changed and heavier, but alive. She wants to know what is going to happen; I’m telling her. I can’t save her from it, I can only prepare her for it.
“Thank you for keeping me up-to-date, Smoky.” A pause. “I know, you know, that finding him is not going to make it better. It’s not going to bring her back to me.”
“But that’s not the point, Rosario. I understand, believe me. He has to pay.”
He has to pay for what he did, not because it will bring Lisa back, not even because it will diminish any of the pain her death leaves behind, but because he killed Rosario’s child. No other reason is needed, it stands alone. Eat a mother’s children and pay the price, a law of the universe that must be enforced.
“Yes. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Rosario.”
I realize, after we hang up, that I had been lucky, in a way. I got to kill the man who killed my child. It changed nothing. My Alexa was still dead. But…when I think of him, dying at my hand, a lioness purrs inside me, satisfied and terrible. That blood on her whiskers always tastes divine.
18
 
; THE SUMMER DIES HARD HERE, HOLDING ON TO SUNLIGHT with its last gasp. The air this morning had been crisp, cool but not cold, and now the temperature is heading into the high sixties.
The traffic is not bad. Alan is able to keep the speedometer above seventy-five. This can be a minor miracle on the 405 freeway any time of day. You’re never lonely on the 405, no matter when you drive.
I watch as Los Angeles proper morphs into the San Fernando Valley. It’s a subtle change but a change nonetheless. If Los Angeles were an apple, it would be rotting from the inside out, with downtown as its core. The Valley is blighted as well, but flowers still grow through the cracks in places. There is just a little bit more space, just a little less dirt.
We pull into the parking lot of the Holy Redeemer.
“Not much to look at, is it?” Alan observes.
I hadn’t gotten a good look at the church last night; it was dark and I’d been tired. Alan is right. It’s small, probably poorly funded. No rich parishioners to keep Father Yates in real butter, here. This place is strictly margarine. Water from a tap, not a bottle.
“I trust it more this way,” I say.
Alan smiles. “I know what you mean.”
We learn, in our line of work, that clothes don’t make the man. You can kill in a T-shirt or a three-piece suit, you can be rich and kill or poor and kill. A knife is a knife is a knife. I don’t trust any church completely, but I trust the gold and gilded ones the least of all. Piety, in my opinion, is an ascetic activity.
“I called ahead,” Alan says. “He’s expecting us.”
I GET TO SEE THE interior of the church with new eyes as well. And a new nose; I smell bleach. The pews are wooden and well worn. The floor is concrete, not marble. The altar at the front is small. Christ hangs in his usual position looking down on us all. Our savior needs a paint job, he’s flaked in places.
His image still makes me quiver inside. I don’t know if I believe in Him anymore, but I believed in Him once. Him and the Virgin Mary. I prayed to them, begged them to cure my mother’s cancer. Mom died anyway. That betrayal was the end of my relationship with God. How could He forgive me for my sins when I’d never forgiven Him for His?
Father Yates sees us and comes toward us with a smile.