Читать книгу Before He Sins - Блейк Пирс - Страница 9

She walks up toward the church, the blood moon casting a shadow of her body on the sidewalk that looks like a stretched out bug – a praying mantis or a millipede perhaps. There is a bell ringing, a large bell above the cathedral, summoning everyone to come worship and sing and give praise.

But Mackenzie cannot get inside the church. There is a throng of people on the front stoop, congregating around the front door. She sees Ellington there, as well as McGrath, Harrison, her estranged mother and sister, even her old partner, Bryers, and some of the men she’d worked with while still a detective back in Nebraska.

“What’s everyone doing?” she asks.

Ellington turns to her. His eyes are closed. He is dressed in a nice suit, punctuated by a blood red tie. He smiles at her, his eyes still closed, and holds a hand to his lips. Beside him, her mother points to the front doors of the church.

Her father is there. Strung up, crucified. He wears a crown of thorns, and a wound in his side leaks something that looks like motor oil. He is looking directly at her, his eyes wide and maniacal. He is insane. She can see it in his eyes and in the leer of a grin.

“Has thee come to save thyself?” he asks her.

“No,” she says.

“Well, you certainly did not come to save me. Too late for that. Now bow. Worship. Find your peace in me.”

And as if someone has broken her in half from inside, Mackenzie kneels. She kneels hard, scraping her knees on the concrete. All around her, the congregation starts to sing in tongues. She opens her mouth and formless words come out, joining in the song. She looks back up to her father and there is a halo of fire encircling his head. He is dead now, his eyes blank and expressionless, his mouth trailing a pool of blood.

There is the chiming of the bell, repeating over and again.

Ringing…

Ringing. Something ringing.

Her phone. With a jerk, Mackenzie came awake. She barely registered the clock on her bedside table, which read 2:10 a.m. She answered the phone, trying to shake the vestiges of the nightmare from her head

“This is White,” she said.

“Good morning,” came Harrison’s voice. She was secretly rather disappointed. She’d been expecting to hear from Ellington. He’d been sent off on some task by McGrath, the details of which were sketchy at best. He’d promised to call at some point but so far, she’d heard nothing from him.

Harrison, she thought groggily. What the hell does he want?

“It’s way too early for this, Harrison,” she said.

“I know,” Harrison said. “Sorry, but I’m calling for McGrath. There’s been another murder.”

***

Through a series of texts, Mackenzie pieced together all she needed to know. A rebellious couple had pulled off into the shadow of a well-known church’s parking lot to have sex. Just as things had started heating up, the girl had seen something strange on the door. It had spooked her enough to put an end to the night’s planned activities. Clearly pissed, the male who had been robbed of his exhibitionism stalked to the front door and found a naked body nailed to the doors.

The church in question was a fairly popular one: Living Word Community Church, one of the largest in the city. It often made the news, as the President frequently attended services there. Mackenzie had never been (she had not stepped into a church since a guilt-filled weekend in college) but the size and scope of the place sank in fully as she steered her car into the parking lot.

She was one of the first on the scene. The CSI team was there, approaching the main entrance of the church. A single agent was getting out of a car, apparently having been waiting for her. She was not at all surprised to see that it was Yardley, the agent who had handled the first case with Father Costas.

Yardley met her at the sidewalk that led to the main entrance. She looked tired but excited in a way that only other agents would likely identify and relate to.

“Agent White,” Yardley said. “Thanks for coming so quickly.”

“Sure. Were you the first one on the scene?”

“I was. I got sent out about fifteen minutes ago. Harrison called and sent me.”

Mackenzie almost commented on this but shut it down. Strange that I wasn’t called first, she thought. Maybe McGrath is letting her fill in where Ellington would be helping. Makes sense, as she was the first to handle the Costas scene.

“Seen the body yet?” Mackenzie asked as they headed for the front door just behind the CSI team.

“Yeah. From a few feet away. It’s identical to the others.”

Within a few steps, Mackenzie was able to see this for herself. She stayed back a bit, letting the CSI and Forensics guys do their job. Sensing that they had two agents behind them waiting, the teams worked quickly yet efficiently, making sure to leave the two agents some room to take in their own observations.

Yardley was right. The scene was the same, right down to the elongated mark across the brow. The only difference was that this man’s underwear had apparently slipped down – or had been yanked down to his ankles on purpose.

One of the guys from the CSI team looked back at them. He looked a little out of sorts, maybe even a little sad.

“The deceased is Robert Woodall. He’s the head pastor here.”

“You’re sure?” Mackenzie asked.

“Positive. My family attends this church. I’ve heard this man preach at least fifty times.”

Mackenzie stepped closer to the body. The doors to Living Word were not ornate and decorative like the ones at Cornerstone Presbyterian and Blessed Heart. These were more modern, made of a heavy-duty wood that was designed and distressed to look like something akin to a barn door.

Like the others, Pastor Woodall had been nailed through the hands and his ankles had been bound with bailing wire. She studied his exposed genitalia, wondering if his stark nakedness had been a decision made by the killer who had staged the body. She could see nothing out of the ordinary and decided that the underwear must have slid down by itself, perhaps due to the weight of the blood it had collected. The wounds that had shed that blood were numerous. There were a few scratches on his chest. And while his back could not be seen, the trails of blood that smeared along his waist and ventured down his legs indicated that there would be a few back there.

Mackenzie then saw another wound – a thin one that brought back the hellish imagery of her nightmare.

There was a slit in Woodall’s right side. It was slight but clearly visible. There was something precise about it, almost pristine. She leaned in closer and pointed. “What’s this look like to you?” she asked the CSI team.

“I noticed that, too,” said the man who had recognized Pastor Woodall. “Looks like some sort of incision. Maybe made by some sort of crafting blade – an X-Acto knife or something.”

“But these other cuts and stab wounds,” Mackenzie said. “They’re made with a standard blade, right? The angles and edges…”

“Yeah. You a religious woman?” the man asked.

“That seems to be a recurring question over the last day or so,” she said. “Despite the answer, though, I understand the relevance of a cut to the side. It’s where Christ was speared while he was hanging on the cross.”

“Yeah,” Yardley said from behind her. “But there was no blood, right?”

“Right,” Mackenzie said. “According to scripture, water came out of this wound.”

So why did the killer decide to make this wound stand out? she wondered. And why was it not on the others?

She stood back and observed the scene while Yardley chatted with a few of the CSI and Forensics members. The case had already unnerved her a bit but this random wound in Woodall’s side made her worry that something deeper might be going on. There was symbolism but then there was layered symbolism.

The killer has obviously thought things out, she thought. He has a plan and he’s being methodical about it. More than that, the addition of this very precise cut in the side shows that he’s not just killing to kill – he’s trying to convey a message.

“But what message?” she asked herself quietly.

In the darkest hours of night, she stood in the entryway to Living Word Community Church and tried to find that message on the canvas of the dead pastor’s body.