A Necessary Evil (11 page)

CHAPTER 25

Omaha, Nebraska

T
ommy Pakula knew he'd be making up for this one for months. It didn't matter that it was a holiday. His wife, Clare, was used to him working plenty of holidays. However, he and Clare had agreed long ago that Sunday mornings would be family time. He had even signed up to be an usher at Saint Stan's to prove to her how serious he was about keeping that pact. They'd all go to early Sunday mass, and then out for brunch. He actually looked forward to it every week.

There had been three times he had been called away on a Sunday morning in the last several years since the pact was made. But being called away could and had been forgiven easily. This time was a bit harder to forgive. He had tried to explain the urgency to Clare. When that didn't work, he'd tried joking that he was missing mass for a private consultation with the monsignor.

Now as he looked down at Monsignor William O'Sullivan's gray body laid out on the stainless-steel autopsy table, Pakula realized it wasn't much of a joke. This was sort of a private consultation in which Pakula hoped the monsignor would tell him what happened in that airport bathroom.

Martha Stofko, Chief Medical Examiner for Douglas County, had already taken the external measurements and samples. Before she made the Y incision, she inspected the old priest's chest, taking several pictures and now sticking a gloved finger into the wound.

"Tell me again why we're doing this on a Sunday morning," she asked, looking up at Pakula.

"You can thank Archbishop Armstrong. For some reason he's got the chief convinced expediency equals respect." Pakula wasn't sure Stofko would understand. She was a transplant from somewhere in California __ not a hometown kid. It took firsthand experience to realize the politics and power of the archbishop.

"So Chief Ramsey is Catholic?"

Maybe Stofko understood better than Pakula gave her credit for.

"Supposedly the monsignor's sister wants him back home in Connecticut as soon as possible." Pakula repeated the request, or rather the demand, word for word, just as Brother Sebastian had ordered over the phone.

However, this time Martha Stofko looked up at Pakula over half glasses that sat at the end of her nose.

Pakula simply shrugged. "You know me, Martha. I just do as I'm told."

"Yeah, right. In that case, come over and take a look at this."

Pakula watched her poke at the wound, separating the flaps of skin.

"See how the wound is crisscrossed?"

"It looks like an X."

"Or a cross. You usually get a cross-shaped appearance like this when the knife is twisted as it's pulled out. It was a double-edged blade, thick in the center, but less than an inch wide. I should be able to tell you how long once I dissect and follow the path."

Stofko stuck her index finger into the wound again, this time making her finger almost disappear.

"It was an upward thrust. I can be more definitive once I see the tract."

"Right-handed or left?" Pakula asked.

"I'm not sure."

Stofko started examining the monsignor's hands, lifting each and checking all the way up the arms.

"There doesn't appear to be any defensive wounds."

"I noticed that," Pakula said. "We found him by the sink. I think the killer came up behind him. Probably took him by surprise."

"If that's the case, I'd say the killer's right-handed. He may have come up from behind on the monsignor's right side, leaned around and stuck him up and under the rib cage."

"Just lucky, or how hard is it to know where to stick so you don't hit bone?"

"It's a fifty-fifty chance," Stofko replied. "Your guy used enough force to better his odds. Take a look at the bruising below the wound." The two-inch mark was a straight, narrow purple line. "The hilt of the knife left quite an imprint, which means there was considerable force to the thrust."

"Could that tell us anything about the size of this guy?"

"Not necessarily. It has more to do with rapid movement than bulk or strength. This whole area," Stofko said, waving her gloved hand across the priest's abdomen, "is fairly vulnerable. The skin is the body's most resistant tissue. Once it's penetrated it takes almost no additional force to penetrate the other tissue or organs, especially if the weapon doesn't encounter any bones. Knowing that the hilt of the knife was pushed against the body will give me a better idea of how long it was, although with this kind of forcible thrust the depth of the wound usually exceeds the actual blade length. So I take that into consideration, too."

"Any guess on what kind of knife?*'

"It's a wide hilt for such a long, narrow blade. I haven't seen anything quite like it. My initial guess would be some kind of dagger. And you see this darker, larger bruise in the center of the hilt?" She pointed it out, and Pakula was surprised he hadn't noticed it earlier.

"What the hell is it?"

"Again, it's just another guess, but I'm thinking the hilt and the handle might be decorative. Which would make sense with a dagger or perhaps a fancy letter opener."

Stofko made the Y incision on the Monsignor's chest and began pulling back the layers of skin and fat, careful not to disturb the wound's path until she was ready to dissect it.

Pakula hated the snap of cartilage, but he didn't look away as Stofko took what looked like garden clippers to the rib cage and started snipping. He had gotten the information he needed, but he'd stay and keep her company for a few minutes before heading over to the Douglas County Crime Lab. Hopefully they had found something, anything that would shed some light on who the killer was.

Brother Sebastian and the archbishop seemed content with the monsignor being a victim of unfortunate random violence. They seemed more concerned about what happened to the leather portfolio than they did the monsignor. But Pakula's gut told him there was nothing random about this murder. If that was true, then there were more secrets being kept than what was inside that missing portfolio.

"This is interesting," Martha Stofko said, getting Pakula's attention.

Stofko had been hunched over the chest cavity, but now stood back, scooping out a yellowish glob and placing it on the scale. "Fifteen hundred grams," she mumbled, jotting down the information quickly then moving the glob to a dissection tray.

"Okay, what are we looking at?" Pakula asked, coming up beside her. Try as he might, Pakula still saw just a glob of tissue where M.E.'s saw tumors or nodules.

Stofko grabbed what looked like an ordinary butter knife and began slicing into and sectioning what resembled chicken fat.

"A healthy liver usually has the texture and color of calves' livers. You've probably seen them in the supermarket."

"This sure doesn't look like a healthy liver." Pakula grimaced at what looked more like a soft, yellow mush of tissue. "So what was wrong with Monsignor O'Sullivan?"

"I'd say the good monsignor liked to throw back a few. Actually, more than a few and over a very long period."

"Oh, great, an alcoholic priest," Pakula said as he wiped his hand over his shaved head. Just one more secret to add to the mess.

CHAPTER 26

Venezuela

F
ather Michael Keller folded the vestments and placed them in his special wooden box alongside the newspaper clippings. He was quite pleased with himself. The Sunday-morning mass had gone better than expected, despite his nausea. He only wished he could figure out what was making him ill.

By now he had grown accustomed to the heat and humidity. He had gained control over the insects, rarely sharing his home with them anymore. And although there was no end to the mosquitoes, he thought he had developed an immunity to their venom, unless... unless he had contracted malaria or West Nile Virus. Was that possible?

He felt his forehead again, wiping the dripping sweat off, then placing his palm flat against his hot brow. Definitely a fever: Perhaps he needed to fix himself another cup of tea.

It certainly had soothed him earlier and gotten him not only through the mass but the meet-and-greet afterward.

He hated the meet-and-greet, smiling and nodding, pretending he understood their crude English. He had come up with the perfect response, one they all seemed pleased with, one that sent them away smiling and nodding __ "I'll keep you in my prayers." It worked every time. Poor wretches needed to be in someone's prayers. And after all, he was here to help them, to be a part of their miserable little community.

He had grown weary of picking up in the middle of the night and moving to a new location. And for that reason, this place was supposed to be different, though it wasn't much different than any of the others. In fact, they all looked the same, the same weathered shacks and huts kept together by the grace of God. And the villagers were the same, too, apparently content with their rags for clothes and gruel for food, but so desperately needy for attention and praise, especially from God, and so of course, especially from him. He was, after all, the next best thing in their minds. And to some __ the dying old women and the innocent little children __ he was God.

Yes, he was tired of moving. He had come to that decision, even after hours of panic over the Halloween mask, that death mask from the past. He had convinced himself that it was someone's idea of a bad joke. It had to be. There was no way anyone could have tracked him here. It was impossible. Besides, he wasn't about to let anyone scare him into the night ever again.

The tea kettle began to hiss just as the rains started, again. He tried to remember how long it had been since he had seen the sun. It was beginning to take its toll. The familiar throbbing in his head was starting again, too. Maybe it was simply sinus problems, the humidity making it impossible to feel any relief. Could that be the reason for his fever? For the nausea? For the damn throbbing.

He poured the tea, inhaling its therapeutic aroma and already feeling better. It was times like this when he felt a bit vulnerable, that the tea reminded him of his mother, his dear saintly mother. Hot tea and cookies had been her one indulgence, which she hid from her husband lest he take that away from her, too. The day she shared it with him, treating him to the whole ritual __ the entire experience, including the secrecy __ he felt an eternal bond. It had been their special treat, their special time with each other. Perhaps that's why it was still such a comfort to him. It had become a way to conjure up those few good memories from his past.

He checked the time and brought his cup of tea to the wooden table with the laptop computer. The computer had been an enormous splurge, beyond a guilty pleasure, but also a godsend. It had become his connection to the outside world, to civilization, oftentimes restoring his sanity with a press of a button. And always, there was someone in the village who, no matter what cost or inconvenience or magical skills, was able to get an Internet connection for him as long as there was a phone line close by. However, the dial-up speed was slow and the time frame to access it annoyingly short.

He waited patiently for the computer to boot up and then for it to go through its tedious process of trying to locate and make the Internet connection. He sipped his tea and sat back, listening to the rain. The computer prompt asked for his password and he punched it in. Then he sat back again, expecting to wait some more. The connection came up immediately.

"YOU'VE GOT MAIL," the computerized voice told him and it brought a sense of comfort almost as strong as the tea. His friend from the States, it had to be. It was the only person he had given out his e-mail address to. Although they had exchanged very little personal information about each other, they had shared some wonderful in-depth discussions on current events and moral quandaries. It was the closest to a friend that he had had in years... actually, maybe ever.

He clicked on New Mail. Yes, it was his friend, the clever e-mail tag always making him smile: [email protected].

There were never greetings, a detail he appreciated, not wanting to waste time on pleasantries that were no longer necessary. This message contained two separate links that looked like news articles. It was something they did quite frequently, drawing each other's attention to particular events and starting a whole new discussion. At the end of the message his friend simply wrote: YOU MAY BE NEXT. Probably another attempt at humor; he liked his friend's dry sense of humor, their occasional exchange of playful barbs.

He clicked on the first link and again sat back to wait for the ever-slow connection. When the page finally came up, the headline startled him enough that he jolted upright, almost spilling his tea: Omaha Monsignor Knifed To Death In Airport Restroom.

CHAPTER 27

University of New Haven
New Haven, Connecticut

M
aggie stood back and watched Professor Adam Bonzado turn the flesh-eaten skull around in his hands, holding it and examining it as if it were a jeweled treasure. She had never realized before how strong his hands looked. The long fingers like that of a piano player, careful and gentle yet probing the loose flesh, inquisitive without hesitating and without cringing. Gwen had given her a hard time, suggesting she had met her match with Bonzado __ finally a man just as obsessed with evil as she was.

"I know there's not much to go on with either of these " Racine said, also standing back. She had placed the metal cooler on one of his classroom lab tables and let him open it Maggie wondered if it wasn't a professional courtesy so much as Racine wasn't anxious to handle a human head with or without maggots.

'These are in much better shape than some of the ones that pass through here," Bonzado said, lifting and looking at it from all angles. "I enjoy teaching, but this is the stuff I live for. Keeps me on my toes. Besides, I get to take two attractive women out to lunch."

Maggie thought she saw Racine blush, but she looked away, pretending to be preoccupied with the contents of the room. Was it possible Racine had a crush on Bonzado? Long before Racine had hit on her, Maggie had heard rumors that Racine was bisexual. Still, it had come as a surprise. At the time, Maggie was married, obsessed with her work and naive __ or perhaps
oblivious
was a better term __ to anyone's advances whether they be male or female. Actually, when she thought about it, that wasn't much different than what she was like now. Except for the married part, she was still pretty oblivious.

"And Maggie, I promise lunch will be much better than vegetable soup on one of my Bunsen burners."

He glanced up at her as if to see if she remembered or perhaps to see if she would catch this one, this advance, this attempt at flirting. Case in point Could he read her mind? Maggie couldn't help smiling. Of course she remembered. The last time she had been to his classroom lab he had a pot of soup cooking alongside a boiling pot of human bones. It had sort of freaked her out when she saw him scooping up a bite. That was before she knew it was his lunch and not more human remains.

Bonzado laid the skull down carefully on the table in front of them and brought out a penlight, bending over to examine the inner orifices. The table was one of only two not filled with boxes of bones or lines of skeletons. Many of the skeletons looked like failed attempts at putting the pieces together, missing major sections.

Last time there had been many more pots, huge ones, boiling on the burners, filling the room with the smell of cooked flesh. Thankfully the burners were empty this time, perhaps because of the holiday weekend. Even the dryers and the sinks in the far corner looked empty, no bony hands waving up at them.

The shelves that lined the back wall, however, were just as crowded as she remembered with jars and vials, bowls and cardboard boxes, all filled with jigsaw pieces of bone, some labeled, others waiting, perhaps forever, to be identified or claimed.

A streak of sunlight came in the classroom's double-paned windows, a yellow-orange splash that cast an eerie tone over the entire room. Maggie couldn't help thinking they didn't need the added sense of drama. Bonzado already looked like an actor out
of Hamlet
with skull in hand and a soulful look. That is, of course, if you could imagine Hamlet in a purple-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt, khaki walking shorts and hiking boots.

"The one we found Friday might be identified by sight. I've got someone checking against the missing persons list. Dental's intact, too. It was in much better shape," Racine explained, and Maggie wondered if she was simply trying to fill the silence. Bonzado didn't seem to be listening. "Well, better shape if you don't count all the fucking maggots it had on it. Jesus! I haven't seen that many in a long time."

"You're lucky in this heat. The little suckers work fast," Bonzado said. So he had been listening, "Where was this one found? Was it close to the water, too?"

"Is that Jane Doe A or B ?" Racine asked, looking for the toe tag Stan Wenhoff had attached to each bag. Without the tags it was difficult to tell the two skulls apart. Racine rummaged through the cooler, searching for any ID that may have been left behind.

"It's Jane Doe A," Racine finally said, pulling out the tag. "This one was found in Rock Creek Park. A wooded area down away from the running trail. A woman and her dog found it. She called it in and gave the directions. Said her dog stumbled upon it."

"It was preserved fairly well for being in the woods."

"It was covered with leaves and dirt." Racine was checking her notes from the file.

"Did you say a woman called it in?" Maggie didn't remember seeing a name in the file and now she realized it may have never been given. "She didn't take you to the site or meet you there?"

"No, she didn't even come in to file a report," Racine said. "Called it in to 911 and the dispatch operator took all the information,"

"And she didn't leave a name?"

"No name." Racine looked up from her notes and met Maggie's eyes.

She could see the detective was thinking the same thing she was. Had it been the same woman caller who directed them to the bank of the Potomac on Friday? To another one of the killer's dump sites?

"Did a woman call in the other one?"

Racine pulled out another file folder and started riffling through it. "Here it is. Jane Doe B was found outside a construction site for a new parking garage. The owner, a Mr. Bradford Zahn, contacted the police. Hmm... no mysterious woman caller." She wasn't pleased and shrugged when she looked up at Maggie. "So much for our theory."

Bonzado appeared unfazed by it all. Instead, he had laid the head on its side and was examining the marks at the base of the severed skull.

"I can't be certain what he used to cut off her head, but I'm thinking it was more like he chopped it than cut."

"Chopped and ripped," Maggie added. "The last victim's neck had a lot of rips and tears."

"This reminds me of a case I had a couple of months ago," Bonzado told them. "All that was found was the right leg. It was fairly decomposed, too. Somebody fished it out of the Connecticut River. The chop marks were very similar to this. I kept trying to reproduce the marks, using just about everything I could think of. The closest match was a small hatchet, the kind you'd use for camping."

"So it was literally a hatchet job, huh?" Racine laughed at her own joke.

Bonzado didn't. But he did smile even though he went on to point out gashes on what was left of this victim's split vertebrae. "Usually when a body's dismembered, the joints and bones are sawn or cut with a blade. A sharp, blunt object like a hatchet or ax __ or he could have even used a machete __ leaves gashes in the bone from the attempts that didn't quite slice through. That probably explains the rips and tears you were seeing in the skin and tissues, too."

"There's one thing that bothers me," Maggie said as she watched Bonzado add some cleaning solvent to the bone. The liquid seemed to highlight the chop marks. 'This guy has to be disciplined and organized enough to plan not only the murders, but the drop sites. And yet, it's almost as if he completely loses it after he's killed them. The last victim showed signs of being strangled and hit over the head with a ball-peen hammer. A hatchet or machete just contributes to this idea that he sort of loses it."

"Yeah, and what about that? Why not a saw or knife?" Racine asked. "Is it poor planning? Does he use whatever is handy?" Racine asked, but she was directing her question to Maggie, the FBI profiler, instead of Bonzado.

"He has to take them someplace safe to cut them up," Maggie said. "Where could he go that just happens to have a hatchet or machete handy?"

"My dad keeps a machete in his garden shed," Bonzado offered. "He claims it works for anything from hacking off tree branches to plucking up dandelions. As for the hatchet, someone who camps a lot might actually carry one around in his trunk with other camping supplies."

"Even if he keeps it in his car, where the hell does he take them?" Racine wanted to know. "Cutting off someone's head is a messy job. And it's not like there's a whole lot of gardening sheds in the District."

"We can't assume he kills them in the District," Maggie said. "Just because their heads are dumped there."

"Fair enough," Racine said with no argument. Maggie thought she was awfully agreeable this trip. "So he could possibly have access to a cabin or toolshed, but he probably lives in the District, right? From what I know about serial killers, they don't usually display their handiwork too far from where they live or work."

"Excuse me, ladies." Bonzado now had forceps and was bent over a patch of loose flesh, pulling it away from the base of the skull. "I might have something here. Mind if I pluck this off?"

"Whatever you need to do."

Maggie came in close over Bonzado's shoulder, but she wasn't sure what had gotten his attention. The flesh was so decomposed it had turned gray and black in the areas where it remained attached. Even the cleaning solvent couldn't help here.

"What is it?" Maggie finally asked, thinking something had been embedded in the flesh.

Bonzado carefully ripped off a piece of tissue about two inches in diameter. He held it up in the sunlight, but Maggie still couldn't tell what it was that had gotten his attention.

"The epidermis is gone and I need to clean this up." He was grinning now and it reminded Maggie of a proud schoolboy with a show-and-tell project. "If I'm not mistaken, I think this may be a tattoo from the back of her neck. The killer may have thought he removed it when it ripped off the top layer, but tattoos actually show up better deep under where the ink settles."

"You think there's enough to figure out what it is?'

"Hard to tell." And now he was holding it up under a fluorescent desk light. "But if there is enough, tattoos can be pretty unique. We've identified victims by their tattoos in other instances."

"So maybe the killer slipped up." Racine sounded hopeful.

"Oh, yeah. I'd say he may have made a big-time boo-boo."