A Perfect Evil (52 page)

T
he smell of coffee nauseated Maggie, though it seemed to be the only thing to combat the effects of the Scotch. She picked at the scrambled eggs and toast while she watched the door of the diner. Nick said it would take only ten to fifteen minutes. That was an hour ago. The small diner was beginning to fill with its breakfast rush, farmers in feed caps next to business men and women in suits.

Maggie had hated leaving Christine this morning, though she knew she wasn’t much of a comfort. She had never been good at offering words of reassurance or doing the hand-holding routine. After all, her only experience had been as a twelve-year-old, a small, gangly child struggling with and dragging a drunken mother up a flight of stairs to their run-down apartment. No words or courtesies had been necessary when dealing with someone who was half-conscious. Even as an FBI agent, etiquette skills were unnecessary. Most of the people she dealt with were corpses or psychos. Questioning the victims’ families didn’t require anything more than polite condolences, or so she had convinced herself long ago.

Last night she’d simply felt paralyzed. She hardly knew Christine. One dinner surely didn’t enforce any obligation of friendship. Yet, Timmy’s small, freckled face remained etched in her mind. In her eight years of tracking killers, no one she had known personally had ever been a victim. However, every corpse stayed with her, their ghosts a permanent part of her mental scrapbook. She couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to imagine—adding Timmy to that portfolio of tortured images.

Finally, Nick came into the diner. He spotted her immediately and waved, making his way to the booth but stopping several times to talk to customers. He was dressed in his usual uniform of jeans and cowboy boots, only this time under his unzipped jacket he wore a red Nebraska Cornhuskers sweatshirt. The swelling was gone from around his jaw, leaving a bruise. He looked exhausted. He hadn’t bothered to comb his hair or shave after showering. He looked even more handsome than she remembered.

He slid into the booth opposite her and grabbed a menu from behind the napkin dispenser. “Judge Murphy is stalling on the search warrant for the rectory,” he said quietly as he looked at the menu. “He didn’t have a problem with the pickup, but he thinks—”

“Hi, Nick. What can I get for you?”

“Oh, hi, Angie.”

Maggie watched the exchange between Nick and the pretty blond waitress and knew immediately the woman wasn’t used to just taking his diner orders.

“How have you been?” she asked, trying to make it sound like casual conversation, though Maggie noticed she hadn’t taken her eyes off Nick.

“Things have been pretty crazy. Could I just get some coffee and toast?” He avoided her eyes. His discomfort speeded up his speech.

“Wheat toast, right? And lots of cream with the coffee?”

“Yeah, thanks.” He looked anxious for her to leave.

She smiled and left the table without even noticing Maggie, though before Nick’s arrival she had been interested enough to fill Maggie’s coffee cup three times.

“An old friend?” Maggie asked, knowing she had no right to, but enjoying his fidgeting.

“Who, Angie? Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He dug Christine’s cellular phone from his jacket pocket, set it on the table, then twisted out of the jacket. “I hate these things,” he said, referring to the phone and desperately trying to change the subject.

“She seems very nice.” Maggie wasn’t ready to let him off the hook.

This time his eyes met hers, their intense blue looking deep inside her and reminding her once more of last night.

“She is nice, but she doesn’t make my palms sweaty and my knees weak like you do,” he said quietly, seriously, and managing to set that damn flutter going again in her stomach.

She looked away and concentrated on putting butter on her cold toast as though suddenly hungry.

“Look Nick, about last night…”

“I hope you don’t think I was trying to take advantage of you. I mean, you did have a lot to drink.”

She glanced at him. He leaned forward, his entire face serious. He was genuinely concerned. Had last night meant more to him than his ordinary trysts with women? Something made her want it to mean more, but she said, “I think it’s best if we just forget last night ever happened.”

He looked wounded, a slight grimace, then that same intensity.

“What if I don’t want to forget? Maggie, I haven’t felt like that in a long time. I can’t—”

“Please, Nick, I’m not some naive waitress. You don’t have to feed me some line or pretend—”

“It’s not a line. Yesterday when I thought you were leaving and I’d never see you again, I felt as if someone had punched me in the gut. And then last night. Jesus, Maggie, you turn me inside out. I get all weak-kneed and tongue-tied. Believe me, that doesn’t usually happen with me and women.”

“We’ve been spending a lot of time together. We were both exhausted.”

“I wasn’t that exhausted. And neither were you.”

She stared at him. Had it been that obvious how much she had wanted him? Or was it simply his ego?

“What did you expect to happen, Nick? Are you disappointed you’re not able to add one more name to your list of conquests?” She glanced around them. No one seemed to notice her angry whispers.

“You know that’s not what this is.”

“Then maybe it’s simply the thrill of being forbidden. I
am
married, Nick. It may not be the best marriage in the world, but it still means something. Please, let’s just forget about last night.” She stared at her coffee, feeling his eyes on her.

“Here’s your toast and coffee,” Angie interrupted, and Maggie found no relief in ending the subject. Maybe she didn’t want to forget it, either.

Angie set the plate and cup in front of Nick, forcing him to sit back, though his eyes stayed on Maggie. She wondered if the pretty waitress could feel the tension.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked only Nick.

“Maggie, do you need anything?” He purposely drew attention to Maggie, and Angie immediately looked embarrassed.

“No, thanks.”

“Okay,” Angie said, now anxious to make an exit.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

“You said Judge Murphy is hedging on the rectory warrant. Why?” Maggie tried to focus, still avoiding his eyes and pouring more sugar into her coffee. She waited out his silence, then finally she heard a sigh of resignation.

“Murphy and my dad come from a generation that believe you just don’t mess with Catholic priests,” he said, slathering his toast with quick, jerky swipes of butter.

“So is a warrant even possible?”

“I tried to convince him that it’s Ray Howard we’re after.”

“You still think it is Howard.”

“I don’t know.” He pushed the toast aside without taking a bite and scratched at his bristled jaw. She noticed the bandage again.

“What did you do to your hand?”

He stared at it for a moment as though he couldn’t remember.

“It’s no big deal. Look,” he said, leaning toward her again, and she could smell the faint hint of his aftershave lotion though he obviously hadn’t shaved. Behind the exhaustion in his eyes, Maggie could see the beginning panic he was so desperately trying to hide. Suddenly, she realized he was waiting for her attention.

“Sorry,” she said, putting down the spoon, folding her arms and giving him her attention.

“Father Keller told me last night that Ray Howard left the seminary last year. While I was waiting on Murphy I did some checking. Howard was at a seminary in Silver Lake, New Hampshire. It’s just across the border to Maine and less than five hundred miles from Wood River.”

Now he did have her attention. She sat up and stared at him.

“How long was he there?”

“The last three years.”

“Well, that rules him out on the Wood River murder.”

“Maybe, but isn’t that just a little too strange of a coincidence? Three years in the seminary, he should know a little about administering last rites.”

“Was he here during the first murders?”

“I’m having Hal check it out. But I did talk to the head guy at the seminary. Father Vincent wouldn’t give me the details, but he did say Howard was asked to leave due to improper conduct.” He said it as if it were some sort of proof.

“Improper conduct at a seminary could be anything from breaking a vow of silence to spitting on the sidewalk. I don’t know, Nick. Howard just doesn’t seem sharp enough to pull this off.”

“Maybe that’s what he wants everyone to believe.”

Maggie watched Nick fold his paper napkin over and over again, his fingers revealing his internal turmoil. Underneath the table, she heard his foot nervously tapping.

“Both Howard and Keller would have had the opportunity to get rid of Father Francis.”

“Jesus, Maggie. I thought you believed that only because you were drunk last night. You really don’t think it was an accident?”

“Father Francis told me yesterday morning that he had something very important to tell me. I know someone was listening in on our conversation. I could hear the click.”

“So maybe it’s a coincidence.”

“I learned a long time ago that there are few coincidences. An autopsy might show whether he was pushed or whether he simply fell.”

“Without any evidence, we can’t just order an autopsy.” Nick fidgeted with the cellular phone, and Maggie could feel his restlessness.

“Maybe I can talk to Father Francis’ family. Or the archdiocese.”

“Thing is, Maggie, we don’t have time to wait for permission or for autopsies or even search warrants. I’d like to just scare the living crap out of Howard.”

She couldn’t believe he still thought it was Howard. Or was it simply his desperation, grabbing for easy answers. Instead of arguing, she said, “Whether it’s Howard or Keller, we need to be very careful. If he panics…”

She stopped herself, remembering this was Timmy, Nick’s nephew, they were talking about and not an anonymous victim. She hadn’t shared with Nick her discovery of the killer’s acceleration. She glanced at him and saw the realization there in his eyes. Somehow he already knew.

“We don’t have much time,” he said as though reading her mind. He was getting good at it. “He’s speeding things up, isn’t he?”

She nodded.

“Let’s get out of here.” He threw a wad of bills on the table without counting it out and wrestled back into his jacket, waiting while she did the same.

“Where are we going?”

“I need to impound a pickup, and you need to apologize to Father Keller for last night.”

T
he smell of coffee nauseated Maggie, though it seemed to be the only thing to combat the effects of the Scotch. She picked at the scrambled eggs and toast while she watched the door of the diner. Nick said it would take only ten to fifteen minutes. That was an hour ago. The small diner was beginning to fill with its breakfast rush, farmers in feed caps next to business men and women in suits.

Maggie had hated leaving Christine this morning, though she knew she wasn’t much of a comfort. She had never been good at offering words of reassurance or doing the hand-holding routine. After all, her only experience had been as a twelve-year-old, a small, gangly child struggling with and dragging a drunken mother up a flight of stairs to their run-down apartment. No words or courtesies had been necessary when dealing with someone who was half-conscious. Even as an FBI agent, etiquette skills were unnecessary. Most of the people she dealt with were corpses or psychos. Questioning the victims’ families didn’t require anything more than polite condolences, or so she had convinced herself long ago.

Last night she’d simply felt paralyzed. She hardly knew Christine. One dinner surely didn’t enforce any obligation of friendship. Yet, Timmy’s small, freckled face remained etched in her mind. In her eight years of tracking killers, no one she had known personally had ever been a victim. However, every corpse stayed with her, their ghosts a permanent part of her mental scrapbook. She couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to imagine—adding Timmy to that portfolio of tortured images.

Finally, Nick came into the diner. He spotted her immediately and waved, making his way to the booth but stopping several times to talk to customers. He was dressed in his usual uniform of jeans and cowboy boots, only this time under his unzipped jacket he wore a red Nebraska Cornhuskers sweatshirt. The swelling was gone from around his jaw, leaving a bruise. He looked exhausted. He hadn’t bothered to comb his hair or shave after showering. He looked even more handsome than she remembered.

He slid into the booth opposite her and grabbed a menu from behind the napkin dispenser. “Judge Murphy is stalling on the search warrant for the rectory,” he said quietly as he looked at the menu. “He didn’t have a problem with the pickup, but he thinks—”

“Hi, Nick. What can I get for you?”

“Oh, hi, Angie.”

Maggie watched the exchange between Nick and the pretty blond waitress and knew immediately the woman wasn’t used to just taking his diner orders.

“How have you been?” she asked, trying to make it sound like casual conversation, though Maggie noticed she hadn’t taken her eyes off Nick.

“Things have been pretty crazy. Could I just get some coffee and toast?” He avoided her eyes. His discomfort speeded up his speech.

“Wheat toast, right? And lots of cream with the coffee?”

“Yeah, thanks.” He looked anxious for her to leave.

She smiled and left the table without even noticing Maggie, though before Nick’s arrival she had been interested enough to fill Maggie’s coffee cup three times.

“An old friend?” Maggie asked, knowing she had no right to, but enjoying his fidgeting.

“Who, Angie? Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He dug Christine’s cellular phone from his jacket pocket, set it on the table, then twisted out of the jacket. “I hate these things,” he said, referring to the phone and desperately trying to change the subject.

“She seems very nice.” Maggie wasn’t ready to let him off the hook.

This time his eyes met hers, their intense blue looking deep inside her and reminding her once more of last night.

“She is nice, but she doesn’t make my palms sweaty and my knees weak like you do,” he said quietly, seriously, and managing to set that damn flutter going again in her stomach.

She looked away and concentrated on putting butter on her cold toast as though suddenly hungry.

“Look Nick, about last night…”

“I hope you don’t think I was trying to take advantage of you. I mean, you did have a lot to drink.”

She glanced at him. He leaned forward, his entire face serious. He was genuinely concerned. Had last night meant more to him than his ordinary trysts with women? Something made her want it to mean more, but she said, “I think it’s best if we just forget last night ever happened.”

He looked wounded, a slight grimace, then that same intensity.

“What if I don’t want to forget? Maggie, I haven’t felt like that in a long time. I can’t—”

“Please, Nick, I’m not some naive waitress. You don’t have to feed me some line or pretend—”

“It’s not a line. Yesterday when I thought you were leaving and I’d never see you again, I felt as if someone had punched me in the gut. And then last night. Jesus, Maggie, you turn me inside out. I get all weak-kneed and tongue-tied. Believe me, that doesn’t usually happen with me and women.”

“We’ve been spending a lot of time together. We were both exhausted.”

“I wasn’t that exhausted. And neither were you.”

She stared at him. Had it been that obvious how much she had wanted him? Or was it simply his ego?

“What did you expect to happen, Nick? Are you disappointed you’re not able to add one more name to your list of conquests?” She glanced around them. No one seemed to notice her angry whispers.

“You know that’s not what this is.”

“Then maybe it’s simply the thrill of being forbidden. I
am
married, Nick. It may not be the best marriage in the world, but it still means something. Please, let’s just forget about last night.” She stared at her coffee, feeling his eyes on her.

“Here’s your toast and coffee,” Angie interrupted, and Maggie found no relief in ending the subject. Maybe she didn’t want to forget it, either.

Angie set the plate and cup in front of Nick, forcing him to sit back, though his eyes stayed on Maggie. She wondered if the pretty waitress could feel the tension.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked only Nick.

“Maggie, do you need anything?” He purposely drew attention to Maggie, and Angie immediately looked embarrassed.

“No, thanks.”

“Okay,” Angie said, now anxious to make an exit.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

“You said Judge Murphy is hedging on the rectory warrant. Why?” Maggie tried to focus, still avoiding his eyes and pouring more sugar into her coffee. She waited out his silence, then finally she heard a sigh of resignation.

“Murphy and my dad come from a generation that believe you just don’t mess with Catholic priests,” he said, slathering his toast with quick, jerky swipes of butter.

“So is a warrant even possible?”

“I tried to convince him that it’s Ray Howard we’re after.”

“You still think it is Howard.”

“I don’t know.” He pushed the toast aside without taking a bite and scratched at his bristled jaw. She noticed the bandage again.

“What did you do to your hand?”

He stared at it for a moment as though he couldn’t remember.

“It’s no big deal. Look,” he said, leaning toward her again, and she could smell the faint hint of his aftershave lotion though he obviously hadn’t shaved. Behind the exhaustion in his eyes, Maggie could see the beginning panic he was so desperately trying to hide. Suddenly, she realized he was waiting for her attention.

“Sorry,” she said, putting down the spoon, folding her arms and giving him her attention.

“Father Keller told me last night that Ray Howard left the seminary last year. While I was waiting on Murphy I did some checking. Howard was at a seminary in Silver Lake, New Hampshire. It’s just across the border to Maine and less than five hundred miles from Wood River.”

Now he did have her attention. She sat up and stared at him.

“How long was he there?”

“The last three years.”

“Well, that rules him out on the Wood River murder.”

“Maybe, but isn’t that just a little too strange of a coincidence? Three years in the seminary, he should know a little about administering last rites.”

“Was he here during the first murders?”

“I’m having Hal check it out. But I did talk to the head guy at the seminary. Father Vincent wouldn’t give me the details, but he did say Howard was asked to leave due to improper conduct.” He said it as if it were some sort of proof.

“Improper conduct at a seminary could be anything from breaking a vow of silence to spitting on the sidewalk. I don’t know, Nick. Howard just doesn’t seem sharp enough to pull this off.”

“Maybe that’s what he wants everyone to believe.”

Maggie watched Nick fold his paper napkin over and over again, his fingers revealing his internal turmoil. Underneath the table, she heard his foot nervously tapping.

“Both Howard and Keller would have had the opportunity to get rid of Father Francis.”

“Jesus, Maggie. I thought you believed that only because you were drunk last night. You really don’t think it was an accident?”

“Father Francis told me yesterday morning that he had something very important to tell me. I know someone was listening in on our conversation. I could hear the click.”

“So maybe it’s a coincidence.”

“I learned a long time ago that there are few coincidences. An autopsy might show whether he was pushed or whether he simply fell.”

“Without any evidence, we can’t just order an autopsy.” Nick fidgeted with the cellular phone, and Maggie could feel his restlessness.

“Maybe I can talk to Father Francis’ family. Or the archdiocese.”

“Thing is, Maggie, we don’t have time to wait for permission or for autopsies or even search warrants. I’d like to just scare the living crap out of Howard.”

She couldn’t believe he still thought it was Howard. Or was it simply his desperation, grabbing for easy answers. Instead of arguing, she said, “Whether it’s Howard or Keller, we need to be very careful. If he panics…”

She stopped herself, remembering this was Timmy, Nick’s nephew, they were talking about and not an anonymous victim. She hadn’t shared with Nick her discovery of the killer’s acceleration. She glanced at him and saw the realization there in his eyes. Somehow he already knew.

“We don’t have much time,” he said as though reading her mind. He was getting good at it. “He’s speeding things up, isn’t he?”

She nodded.

“Let’s get out of here.” He threw a wad of bills on the table without counting it out and wrestled back into his jacket, waiting while she did the same.

“Where are we going?”

“I need to impound a pickup, and you need to apologize to Father Keller for last night.”