Reverend Waldo’s secretary looked at Harry as though he had just crawled out from under a rock.
“Do you realize what we’re doing here?” she asked. “We are all in working early on a Saturday morning to prepare for Reverend Bobby Joe’s funeral. We do not have time to waste satisfying the curiosity of a police officer.”
She was a slender woman somewhere in her mid-fifties, with a flat chest and a pinched face. Her graying hair matched her dress and was worn in a tight bun, and her dull, brown eyes were obscured by rimless glasses. There was no wedding ring on her finger and Harry doubted anyone had ever given her one. The name plate on her desk said Emily Moore.
Harry placed his hands on the edge of her desk and leaned in toward her. He kept a smile on his face but it was not a warm one. Emily Moore inched her chair away from him.
“Ms. Moore, Reverend Bobby Joe didn’t die of a heart attack. He didn’t die of cancer, or as the result of an automobile accident. Someone came to his home and sliced his throat open with a very sharp knife. He was murdered, Ms. Moore, and I’m the police officer who’s been assigned to find out who butchered him like a Christmas turkey. So you stop whatever you’re doing, and you go find me a copy of that church bulletin, or I will slap handcuffs on you, put you in the back of my car, drive you to headquarters, and charge you with obstruction of justice, after which you will be strip-searched, photographed, fingerprinted, and put in a holding cell with some very unpleasant people. Do we understand each other?”
The woman’s lips began to tremble as she tried to speak, but no words came out. Her eyes filled with tears. Harry leaned in a bit closer. “Now,” he said. His voice was little more than a whisper.
Emily Moore began opening drawers in her desk; then the cabinet behind her. She rose from her chair and went to a small closet that seemed to hold an abundance of office supplies and began rummaging through them.
Harry thought about what he had said to the woman. He had little doubt Rourke would hear about it sooner or later. He always seemed to hear about Harry’s indiscretions. He’d probably think that threatening a spinster church lady with a strip search was a bit over the top. A smile began to form on his lips. It probably made her whole day, he told himself.
Emily Moore came out of the supply closet with her eyes brimming with tears again. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “We always have copies left over, but there aren’t any.” She stared at Harry, as if she expected him to whip out his handcuffs.
“You think someone took them or tossed them out?”
“I can’t think of anything else that could have happened. But they’re not supposed to be thrown out. We always overprint so we have a supply. I also always keep a few back issues in my desk. But everything is gone.”
“What about getting one from someone who still has a copy at home?”
“The issue is several months old, but it’s possible. Some of our older parishioners do keep them. I could make a few calls and see if I could find one.”
“I’d appreciate it.” Harry tried a genuine smile, but Emily Moore still looked tearful.
You’re an ogre, he told himself. His cell phone interrupted the thought.
“Doyle,” he said.
Vicky’s voice came over the line, sounding a bit shaky. “You better get over to Nick Benevuto’s condo,” she said.
“Why? What happened?”
“I just found his body. Oh God, Harry. He ate his gun.”
Nick’s body was slumped in a chair, his head thrown back, the ultra-suede upholstery soaked with his blood. Harry stepped in close. Nick’s mouth was open, showing several broken teeth and badly burned tissue. A Glock 9mm automatic lay at his feet.
Harry had seen the bodies of other cops who decided to eat their guns; civilians as well. The back of Nick’s head was gone, the exit wound having blown out a section of skull the size of his fist. He looked up at the ceiling. Blood and bone and brain matter were spread over a three-foot swath. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves as he studied Nick’s face. Normally the face of a victim spoke to him; told him things. Not this time. Nick’s features were distorted, the eyes bulging almost to the point of coming out of their sockets. The broken teeth and burnt tissue indicated he had placed the barrel of the Glock into his mouth, which had internalized the explosion of gunpowder to the point that it distorted his features. He looked down at the weapon, noting that it was still cocked and ready to fire, something the pistol did automatically whenever it was discharged.
“There’s still a live round in the chamber. As soon as it’s dusted for prints let’s remember to put the safety on.”
“You should come and see this, Harry.” Vicky was standing next to a computer that was set up on a small desk. Even from across the room he could see a message printed on the screen.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s a confession. It covers all three murders-Darlene, the cowboy, and the Waldo kid.”
Harry walked to the computer, but before he started reading he checked a nearby printer, making sure it was loaded with paper. Using a pencil to move the mouse he hit the print tab. “I want a hard copy, just in case we lose what’s on the screen.”
The printer started whirring as Harry began reading Nick’s confession. It essentially followed Vicky’s theory that Nick had fallen in love with Darlene Beckett only to find that she cheated on him every chance she got. He began following her, the confession said, and when he came upon her on a small beach in Tarpon Springs he lost his temper and killed both her and her lover. He had then moved Darlene’s body to the Brooker Creek Preserve to make certain county homicide detectives were called in to handle the case. Later, he learned that Bobby Joe had also been romantically involved with Darlene, and that Harry Doyle was pressing him for information. He was certain that Darlene had told Bobby Joe about him-about their affair and subsequent threats he had made against her. He went to see Bobby Joe and tried to coerce him into silence. But he soon realized how weak the young minister was and decided that sooner or later he would spill everything he knew to save himself. Bobby Joe had left him no choice. The confession ended with Nick’s name printed at the bottom of the two-page statement.
Harry walked back to the body without saying a word. Vicky followed, a quizzical look on her face.
Harry removed the camera from his crime scene case and took photos of the body, the gun, and the blood splatter on the ceiling. He then began to carefully search the body.
“Harry, talk to me,” Vicky said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Harry turned to the sound of the front door opening. Jim Morgan stood in the doorway staring at the body. He looked shaken and Harry wondered if it were due to the fact that he had never seen this type of head wound before, or if it was because he was seeing it on a brother cop, someone he had known.
“I called Jim and told him what happened,” Vicky said.
“Put on gloves and shoe coverings before you come in,” Harry warned. He looked at Morgan closely. “If you think you’re going to be sick don’t come in here.”
Vicky went to Harry’s case and retrieved the necessary materials and brought them to Morgan. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Morgan nodded absently. “Yeah, I’ll be alright. I just feel responsible, like I helped push him into this.”
“If you want to stay in homicide you better change that thinking,” Harry snapped. “This state executes people. You can’t do your job if you’re going to worry about people ending up dead.” He watched Morgan nod a weak agreement and turned back to his search of Nick Benevuto’s body.
Harry removed and bagged all the items in his pockets; checked his wallet and bagged it as well. Vicky stood at his side writing each item in her notebook. Harry then began a close examination of Nick’s clothing, carefully searching for any hairs or fibers he might want to point out to the forensic team that was now on its way. Nick was dressed in a T-shirt and baggy khaki cargo shorts. His feet were bare.
Harry caught a glimpse of something in Nick’s gray hair. He leaned in closer to get a better look, holding his breath to keep away the smell of blood and brain matter.
“What is it?” Vicky asked.
“A feather,” Harry said.
“Is it from the chair?”
Harry looked at the chair. “No. The chair’s filled with foam.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I don’t like it.”
Harry began walking around the room, taking a mental picture of his surroundings. “How did you find the body?” he asked Vicky.
“It was my turn on the surveillance. Jim had done the first six-hour shift and I came in and took over about five a.m. We figured we’d get our shifts out of the way first so it wouldn’t interfere with other stuff we had to follow up on. Anyway, about seven-thirty this neighbor starts banging on Nick’s door, but he doesn’t answer. After she leaves, I went up to see what the problem was and I hear loud music coming from inside-I mean really loud, louder than any adult is going to want to listen to, and certainly nothing a person could sleep through. At that point I knocked too, and got nothing. So I asked the manager to open the door. As soon as it swung back the smell hit me and I knew. I went in, saw him, checked his pulse- pretty needlessly-turned off the CD that was playing, and called you. Then I secured the scene, radioed in a report, asked for uniform backup, and notified forensics.”
Harry looked around the room again, found the location of the CD player. He didn’t touch the machine, or any of its settings, leaving that for the CSI team. “The CD in there is the one that was playing when you came in?”
“Yes, it is.” A note of concern crossed Vicky’s face.
“What is it?” Harry asked.
Vicky shook her head. “It’s gospel music. I just never figured Nick for gospel.”
Harry went to the cabinet that held Nick’s other CDs and began looking through them. “There’s no other gospel here,” he said.
“That doesn’t prove anything in itself,” Vicky said.
Harry let it go and began to look through the apartment. Nick had picked it up considerably since his earlier visit. He entered Nick’s bedroom and immediately noticed that the television set opposite the bed was on and in a paused position. He recognized the format as a pay-per-view movie. He located the remote and using a pencil hit the play button. The TV restarted a Bruce Willis film that Harry had seen. Nick had been almost halfway through the film when he’d hit the pause button.
He turned and saw Vicky and Jim in the bedroom doorway. “He was watching a pay-per-view film and was halfway through it.”
Vicky nodded. “So that means he paused the film, got up, went into the living room, wrote out a confession, turned on the CD with the volume way up to cover the sound of a shot, and then sat down and blew his brains out. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?”
“What do you mean?” Jim asked. “Nobody came in here during the six hours I was watching.”
“Well, about five-thirty I did drive up to that all-night gas station to take a pee.” She looked at Harry and Jim in turn. “Hey, I can’t pee in a bottle like you guys can.”
“So you were gone how long?” Harry asked.
“Fifteen, twenty minutes tops.”
Harry turned to Jim. “And you’re certain nobody could have gotten in while you were outside?”
“Sure, it’s possible if they came in and went out through a rear window. We were concerned about Nick leaving with evidence, so I was positioned where I could see his front door and his car. I wasn’t worried about anybody climbing in.”
“Did you talk to the neighbor who was knocking on the door?” he asked Vicky.
“No. There hasn’t been time.”
“Let’s do it now. Jim, you stay on the front door, make sure nobody comes inside except the CSI team. When the uniforms get here tell them to secure the scene, including Nick’s car in the parking lot. Show them which one it is.”
“You got it,” Jim said.
The neighbor’s door was answered by a woman in her mid-thirties, who looked as though she had not had a good night’s sleep. She was a tall, slender blonde with large, clearly augmented breasts, and Harry wondered how many times Nick had hit on her during the time they’d been neighbors. The woman gave her name as Terry Hogan and said she had lived in her condo for three years and had known Nick well.
“Yeah, that was me pounding on his door,” she said. “All of a sudden this music started, like real loud, you know. And it wasn’t even dawn yet. I tried calling him, I mean he’d given me his number and all, but I couldn’t get an answer.”
“What time was it when the music started?” Harry asked.
“It was like three a.m.,” she said. “I put up with it for a couple of hours, threw a pillow over my head, and went back to sleep, but it kept waking me up. Finally I just went over there and started pounding on the door, but he never answered.”
“Did you go outside, or look out the window when the music first woke you?” Vicky asked.
“No, should I have done that? I mean did Nick get robbed or something?”
Harry found Pete Rourke standing over Nick’s body when he returned to the apartment.
“This isn’t the way I wanted this case to end,” he said. “Not with a confession and suicide by one of my own men.”
“I’m not sure it’s a suicide, or that the confession is legit,” Harry said.
Rourke’s head gave a quick jerk and he threw a questioning look at Vicky.
“I’m not sure it’s legit either. I want to wait for CSI to have a look, but I agree with Harry. It just doesn’t smell right,” she said.
Rourke turned back to Harry. “Talk to me.”
Harry went through the evidence he’d found at the scene. Rourke nodded as Harry explained each contradictory piece. When he had finished Rourke shook his head.
“Harry, I’d give anything to have it not be one of my guys, but if we can’t prove this isn’t a suicide, we’re not going to be able to ignore a written confession found in a locked room with a cop who blew his own head off. Let’s see if CSI can come up with anything that will nail this down as a homicide.”
Marty LeBaron arrived with his CSI team a half hour later. He listened to Harry’s concerns, did a quick turn of all the rooms, and then motioned Harry to follow him outside.
“I see what you’re getting at, Harry. You’re right on every point, except one.”
“The surveillance,” Harry said.
“That’s it. Now unless Nick didn’t shoot himself until Vicky was on watch, and went off to have a piss, we’ve got a situation where a killer would have had to break in through a rear window. There is an open window in Nick’s bedroom, but I can’t imagine Nick laying there watching a movie and not doing anything when some asshole starts climbing in his window.”
“He could have been in the bathroom,” Harry said. “He could have gone into the kitchen for a beer. There are several viable scenarios.”
“Yeah, there are, Harry. But each one’s a stretch.” Marty rubbed his chin. “Nick was a cop and a good one. If some asshole climbed in his window, my bet is he’d either be in cuffs, or stretched out in a morgue wagon.”
Marty and his team spent the next two hours going over Nick’s condo and car. Mort Janlow arrived when they were halfway through the crime scene and began a thorough examination of the body. Harry decided to wait for preliminary results from each of them. Janlow finished first.
They left the body to the morgue attendants and went out to Harry’s car. Janlow rested his considerable bulk against the left front fender.
“I love being called out on a Saturday morning,” he groused. “I work sixteen hours a day, five days a week, and half the time I end up working part of the weekend.”
“Yeah, but you get the big bucks,” Harry said.
Janlow gave him a fish-eye. He toed the ground and began to study his shoe. “Harry, why do you think this isn’t a suicide?” He raised a hand. “I’m not rejecting the idea. I just want to hear your reasons.”
“You noticed the feather in his hair, right?”
“Yes, I did. But he was lying in bed watching a movie before he… died. We’ll have to compare that feather to the type of feathers in his pillows.”
“They’re foam pillows,” Harry said. “I already checked them.”
Janlow nodded, conceding the point.
“It also bothers me that the next-door neighbor, who was already awake because of the music, didn’t hear a shot,” Harry said. “A 9mm Glock is a noisy weapon. But if you place the barrel in somebody’s mouth and a pillow over the receiver, the noise can be reduced significantly.”
“Did you find a pillow with gunshot residue, or scorching?”
“No.”
“So you’re thinking the killer took it away with him-another assumption we can’t prove.”
“That’s right.”
“What else?”
“The neighbor was awakened by the loud music, that we assume was turned on to cover the sound of the shot. Why cover the sound of the shot if this was suicide?”
Janlow nodded, but said nothing.
“Nick had just ordered a movie on pay TV, so if we buy into a suicide scenario we have to assume that he reached a decision to kill himself in the middle of a movie he was watching, that he left his bedroom, turned on the CD player at high volume, and ate his gun.”
“It’s possible.”
“He paused the movie, Mort… just like someone would if they had to go to the bathroom, or to the kitchen to get themselves a beer.”
“It’s still possible he did it that way. I mean suicides can be irrational, but okay, that’s another point in your favor.”
“And finally there’s the confession. It’s too well written, Mort. I’ve read a lot of Nick’s reports over the years, and frankly, like a lot of cops, he wasn’t that articulate. The confession doesn’t say anything about the masks that were used to cover the faces of the victims, or the words carved into their foreheads. Nick was a homicide detective, Mort, and homicide cops don’t like loose ends. He would have told us why he did what he did; he would have told us all of it.”
Mort Janlow issued a heavy sigh. “Alright, you’ve made your point. There are some legitimate concerns so there won’t be any rush to judgment on my end. I’m scheduled to do Bobby Joe Waldo’s post early this afternoon, and I’ll do Nick’s right after that. You’re welcome to be there, or you can check in with me about four o’clock.”
“I’m going to send Jim Morgan down to observe the posts. Vicky and I are going to canvass the neighbors, and then I’ve got to get Pete Rourke to buy us some time. If news about this confession leaks to the media, all hell is gonna break loose.”
When Harry returned to the condo Nick’s body had already been loaded on a gurney. He told the morgue attendants to take a break so he could make a final examination of the body, then undid the straps holding down the covering sheet and pulled it back.
Nick’s features were even more grotesque lying on his back. His bulging eyes had begun to cloud, and the facial features seemed even more distorted. Beneath the clouding in his eyes Harry thought he could detect a strong sense of fear. He leaned in closer studying them more carefully. Yes, it was there. He was certain of it. He had seen many suicides by gunshot. Fear had been there when the fatal wound was to the victim’s torso and death was not immediate. But not when death came quickly. Not when death came from a head wound. Everything he had read, every psychologist he had ever questioned about suicide, agreed that a great sense of calm came to the victim when that final decision had been made. From that point fear was seldom a factor. But Harry felt fear here. Nick had not been seeking his own death. It was not something he welcomed.
Who was it, Nick? Who scared you before you died? He placed his latex-covered hands on Nick’s chest but no sensation came to him. He looked up and saw members of the CSI team watching him. Marty LeBaron was smiling.
“Doing your dead detective thing, Harry?”
Harry ignored him, turning his attention back to the body. Staring down at Nick’s swollen, deformed face he recalled the first time the cop had been braced about his relationship with Darlene Beckett. He had been peppered with questions from the four of them-Rourke, Vicky, Jim, and Harry, himself. The questions had produced concern, embarrassment, and anger. But beneath that montage of emotions there had been a hint of fear as well. It was the same fear Harry had seen so many times with suspects he was out to nail, suspects who had come to the realization that nothing they said or did would get them off the hook.
Was that it? Was that what he was seeing in Nick’s dead eyes? He wondered if it was that simple-that in the last moments of his life, Nick had realized that there was nothing he could do to stop his own killer. It had to be, Harry decided. If Nick had taken his own life, his final emotion would have been a sense of resignation, perhaps with a touch of relief-a final release from all the pressure that had driven him to that end. But fear? There would have been some, certainly, but fear would not have been a major part of that final equation.
Harry and Vicky came up dry with Nick’s neighbors. Only a few had heard the late-night music and only the woman who lived next door had made any attempt to stop it. The music apparently had only been loud enough to disturb people in the adjoining apartments-and to cover the sound of one very loud pistol shot.
When they returned to the crime scene the CSI team was just packing up their gear. Mary LeBaron approached Harry with a handful of Polaroid photos in his hand.
“Something new?” Harry asked.
“Yeah, one more complication you’re not going to like,” Marty said. “Or maybe you will.” The photos showed a pair of brown wing-tipped shoes shot from every conceivable angle. “We found them way back in Nick’s closet. I haven’t compared them to the photos from the Waldo murder scene, but I’m pretty certain they’re going to match.”
“Are the shoes the right size?” Harry asked.
“Eleven-C, the same as Nick’s other shoes.”
Vicky took the photos and began looking through them. “So if these are the shoes from the Waldo crime scene, it means he wore them home and saved them for us to find, rather than drop them in some dumpster, right?”
“Right,” Marty said.
“If he wore them home there should be some blood on the driver’s-side floor of his car,” Harry said. “Is there?”
Marty LeBaron gave him a slow smile. “I happened to check that. There was no blood evidence in Nick’s car.”
“So the shoes were planted,” Vicky said.
“I can’t prove that, but it sure would be my guess.”
Harry thought over what he had been told, letting various possibilities run through his mind. “I’d like you to hold back on this for a day,” he finally said.
“Why?” Vicky and Marty spoke the word in unison.
“I want to keep this between us-you and me and Marty and Mort Janlow. It will just be for a few days. But right now I don’t want to tell Rourke or any of the other detectives on the team. I don’t want even the smallest chance that any of this will leak to the press.”
Pete Rourke sat behind his desk and listened to Harry’s plea for more time. Vicky sat next to Harry, uncharacteristically quiet.
“Why don’t you buy it as a suicide, Harry? All the physical evidence fits.”
“We don’t know that yet. We haven’t gotten a CSI report, and Mort Janlow still has the autopsy this afternoon.”
“Harry, I haven’t talked to Mort or Marty LeBaron, but I gotta tell you, as of right now everything I’ve seen points straight at Nick. Plus, there’s the confession.”
“Unsigned, just sitting on a computer,” Harry argued. “Nick was a good detective, Pete. He knew that type of confession wasn’t very solid. He could have easily printed it out and signed it. The printer was working and loaded with paper. But he didn’t.”
“Maybe he just didn’t give a rat’s ass,” Rourke said. “Maybe he just wanted out of this world and didn’t give a damn what he left behind.”
“Then why confess at all? Why rent a movie and watch half of it? Why blast gospel music to cover the sound of the shot?” It was Vicky, and hearing her suddenly list Harry’s concerns startled both men. “There’s even the question of a pillow that might have been used to help silence Nick’s Glock.”
Rourke nodded slowly. “Who’s covering the autopsy?”
“Jim Morgan,” Harry said.
“Alright, if Mort has even the slightest doubt, I’ll hold the confession. Just keep your fingers crossed that somebody else doesn’t release it for me. What are you and Vicky doing in the meantime?”
“I’m going to check in with Mort and then I want to take another look at Bobby Joe’s church.”
“Why take another look at Waldo’s church? You still think there’s a tie between the killer and that church?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Harry said.
“What makes sense, Harry, is that you just don’t like churches,” Rourke said.
“Do I get the time I need, or not?”
Rourke scratched his chin. “For once-and maybe the only time in your police career-the brass is on your side. They don’t like the idea of one of our own being tagged as a damn serial killer, so when I told them that you didn’t buy Nick for the murder, they told me to give you time to prove it.” He watched a smile form on Harry’s lips, then wiped it away with his next words. “You’ve got seventy-two hours, Harry, and not a minute more. And that’s straight from the top. When it’s up, no matter what Mort comes up with, Nick’s confession goes to the media.”