Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection) (43 page)

But it did about as much good to voice those thoughts as it did to ask Jeremy to help out around the house.

Instead, she wiped the tears from her eyes, put on her “good girl” smile, and shouted back, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll find them.”

* * *

Detective Paxton Prover tried to get out of his car, but three coffee cups, two crumpled fast food bags, and a donut wrapper fell out first. The irony of the last item was not lost on him. He hurried to cram the stuff back into his car, but sure enough, his partner was already heading his way.

“Breakfast of champions?” detective Ruth Matte asked, a grin on her lips.

“Like I’ve had time to grab something to eat,” Paxton mumbled as he finished picking up the litter. He had really hoped to have a few seconds to himself before joining his partner.

Ruth smiled as he brushed beer nuts and pretzel crumbs off his jacket. “Looks like you’ve got a pretty good start right there.”

“Funny,” he said as he pulled the jacket on. There was no point in trying to pretend that these were fresh clothes. Clearly, they were the same clothes he wore yesterday—and they hadn’t even been that fresh then. Trying to avoid the subject, he put his head down and walked toward the large church up the block.

Out of the corner of his eye, Paxton watched Ruth. Her dark ponytail swayed as she walked. The scent of strawberries and cream wafted over to him. Obviously, Ruth not only had fresh clothes on, but had showered as well. All this, and she was the one with a kid. Paxton barely had time for a stupid cockatiel.

Which—note to self—he needed to swing home and feed at some point.

“Looks like we’ve got plenty of company,” Ruth stated as they neared the church.

He did not know this neighborhood well, but Paxton could guess that the huge crowd gathered around the entrance was not there for services. Crime brought out way more people than contrition.

Ruth proved why she had made detective as she indicated a mustard stain on his cuff. “So, I take it you hit the precinct poker game last night?”

“Ugh. And into the morning,” Paxton said, really wishing he had brushed his teeth at some point in the last twenty-four hours. “Had I known we were going to get called in so damned early—”

“It’s after 9:00 in the morning.”

Paxton stopped as he tried to straighten his tie. “Yeah, well, 9:00 a.m. on your day off is like 5:00 a.m. on a workday.”

Ruth shook her head, tucked the file she was carrying under her arm, and “shushed” his hands away. Efficiently, she re-knotted the tie and made sure it was centered perfectly. While she seemed all about business, had there been something tender in the way she patted the tie after she was finished?

He would never know, as she headed toward the church once again. Paxton trotted to keep up.

“So what’s so important that the captain okayed overtime? For
us
?”

“Don’t know,” Ruth said as they made their way through all of the looky-loos. “Just got told to meet you here, pronto.”

When the crowd did not part, Paxton took the lead, gently nudging the thrill-seekers out of the way. Finally, they made it to the stark yellow tape that announced, “Crime Scene.”

Paxton pulled the tape up to let Ruth pass beneath it. He may not have showered in the last twenty-four hours—all right, make it forty-eight—but he could still act the gentleman.

As they approached the stone steps of the church, a young patrolman stepped in front of them. “I am sorry, but this is a restricted area.”

No kidding
.

Paxton moved his jacket out of the way, but when the patrolman looked at his belt, there was no badge. Damn! He must have left it in the car. Or at home. Or at the poker party. At some point he was going to have to remember the last twelve hours.

“Sir, like I said, I need you to step back.”

Really? The kid couldn’t tell they were detectives? Okay, maybe not Paxton—at least not this morning. But
Ruth
? The chick oozed detective. From the finely tailored suit to the attractive, yet sensible enough shoes, she could outsprint a meth addict. She was true blue, through and through.

Ruth sighed, probably more at Paxton than at the patrolman, and flashed her badge. “Detective Matte.” She nodded to Paxton. “And Prover.”

The young kid blushed a bright crimson. “Oh, I am so, so, sorry! I did not mean any disrespect. I was just told to hold the perimeter,” he stammered.

Had Paxton ever been that young or enthusiastic? The kid’s black uniform looked not only ironed, but starched as well. The silver badge on his chest glittered in the early morning light. He must have just polished it.

“No, you were doing your job, officer.” Her eyes slid over to Paxton even though she was talking with the kid. “Don’t ever lose your sense of dedication and thoroughness.”

While the patrolman answered, “Yes, ma’am,” Paxton was pretty damn sure those words weren’t meant for the kid, though.

As he followed Ruth up the steps, Paxton was about to say something, but why bother? Ruth, a single working mom, had every reason to chide him. She was more put together than he ever was. And compared to his sister? Paxton wondered if she had even gotten his niece and nephew off to school this morning. He kept meaning to go over there and check on them, but his work, or a game of Texas hold ’em, got in the way.

Two uniformed officers opened the stout church doors for them. As they crossed the threshold, Paxton saw Ruth make the sign of the cross, but then stop halfway. Her hand lingered in midair, as if she were uncertain of what to do. Then, she suddenly became extremely interested in the file she was carrying.

He wanted to reach out, but for as much time as they spent together on the job, they never really talked much about their personal lives. There was always the station scuttlebutt, though. Paxton knew of the bitter divorce after her theological-scholar husband chose God over his wife and son. It looked like Ruth had lost faith in far more than men.

“Ruth,” Lieutenant Tyner said, as he approached from deeper within the church. Warmly, he shook Ruth’s hand. “So glad you could make it on such short notice.”

Paxton waited for some acknowledgment that he even existed, let alone that he was working on the case with Ruth. But why was he surprised? The lieutenant had eyes only for Ruth. Hell, if he hadn’t been her direct supervisor, the lieutenant probably would have proposed by now. He and just about everybody else on the force. Ruth, however, had kindly, but ever so firmly, let them all down gently.

Like now. Ruth gently pulled her hand from the lieutenant’s. “I hear we’ve got a high-profile murder?”

“Yes, of course. The body was discovered—” The lieutenant’s cell phone rang. Specifically rang with the
Star Wars
theme. His fingers fumbled to answer it quickly. He listened for a moment, and then frowned. Covering the mic, the lieutenant whispered, “We’ve got a five-car pileup on Lakeside Freeway. Just follow the cones. The ME is on the scene and can brief you.”

Oh, how it must have been killing Tyner to have to attend to actual police business, when he could have spent the next hour “briefing” Ruth. Paxton let himself gloat for a few moments before following Ruth. The cone path took them behind the pews and to a side aisle. Whatever happened must have at least started down the central aisle.

The interior of the church randomly burst with light as the CSIs’ strobes burst to life, capturing images. There were maybe a few dozen markers on the ground, indicating possible forensic evidence. Not many for what looked like such a high-priority case.

The main cluster of personnel was up at the altar, though. Paxton couldn’t see past the wall of black uniforms. Whatever happened up there must be pretty interesting to gather this many uniforms.

“Excuse me,” Ruth said as she tried to squeeze her way past the crowd.

When the men parted, Paxton stopped short.

“Dear God…” Ruth breathed out next to him.

Before them, a naked man hung upside down from the cross in a reverse crucifixion. Worse, there had to be at least a hundred wounds scattered over the poor man’s body. His skin was sallow and sagged against his bones. Exactly how long had the man been left like this?

Paxton wasn’t a religious man, but damn! There was something fundamentally wrong with anyone who could do such a thing.

Ruth’s voice seemed to shake a bit as she approached the medical examiner. “Time of death?”

The tall man turned around and smiled way too widely for such a scene. “Hey, Ruth! I didn’t think you were on today.”

She did not return the smile. “Neither did I. Any idea who the vic is?”

It wasn’t the ME who answered, though. It was one of the uniformed cops. “Father Gonzales. The parish priest here.”

And this was a priest? The news just kept getting worse.

“Time of death?” his partner asked.

Either he did not understand that Ruth was not in the mood for frivolity, or the seriously socially challenged ME didn’t care. “Well, which do you want answered first?”

“I’m sorry?” Ruth asked, clearly not amused.

“Do you want to know when all of this began, or his ultimate time of death? The two events are hours apart.”

Paxton sighed. “Tortured, then?”

The ME nodded. “By someone experienced. See all those wounds?” He pointed to the myriad cuts. “They’re just flesh wounds. None were deep enough to kill him. As a matter of fact, they were shallow enough that someone had to hang around and keep them open—otherwise, they would have clotted closed.”

“How long did that take?” Ruth asked.

“Hours. This was a long, slow,
brutal
exsanguination.”

Oh, that just wasn’t right. While Paxton didn’t pretend to understand murder, he did kind of understand heat-of-the-moment actions, later regretted. But this? This was thought out—carried out in the coldest, most calculating manner possible. Give Paxton a domestic disturbance case or even a drug turf war over this wacko shit any day.

Ruth circled the body as her frown deepened. “If he died of exsanguination, then where is all the blood?”

“You tell me,” the ME stated.

“Um, isn’t that
your
job?” Paxton countered.

The ME tossed his bloodied gloves into a red biohazard bag. “Sorry. Whatever happens after they’re dead, it’s all yours.”

Ruth looked around at the cops watching as the body was taken down. “Which officer was first on the scene?” When no one spoke, she cleared her throat and spoke louder. “Who found the body?”

An older sergeant blinked twice, then stepped forward. “Yeah, sorry. It was my probie.”

“Where is he?” Paxton asked, looking around.

The gray-haired officer shuffled his feet a bit. “I sent him out on the perimeter.” He shrugged. “He’s just out of the academy, and for this to be his first DB….” The sergeant whistled through his teeth. “I thought he could use the air.” Then he rushed on. “But I know for a fact that he did not contaminate the scene.”

“No,” Ruth answered. “I wasn’t worried about that. I just needed to know exactly how the body was found.”

“I can get him, but he was only a few seconds ahead of me.” From Ruth’s nod, the sergeant went on with the briefing. Clearly this was not his first homicide discovery. “At 7:44 this morning, we got a call about a break-in here at the church. We were a little light on the details since the caller only spoke Spanish, and there was no immediate translator on the 911 switchboard.”

The old guy threw a thumb over to a dark-haired woman sobbing in the corner. “We were just a block away. We approached from the side entrance and found Mrs. Hendes crying hysterically, babbling way too fast and incoherently for me to make out what she was saying. Honestly, I thought it was a smash and grab.”

Gulping, the officer continued. “I feel horrible now, but at the time I thought the harder task was quieting the church’s caretaker, so I sent the probie in. I had line of sight of him. I didn’t know… you know… this was going to be there… Now, of course, I know she was saying ‘the devil’s taken him, the devil’s taken him.’ ”

Ruth broke the heavy silence. “You said you thought it was a smash and grab?”

“Yeah,” the sergeant answered, finally peeling his eyes away from the dead priest. “Last night there were several calls from neighbors that some young gangbanger-wannabes were hanging around.”

“I can’t imagine kids, even ones who want to join a gang, would do something like this,” Paxton stated. Or at least he hoped they couldn’t.

“No, but now we’ve got to track them down.” In a rare moment of anger, Ruth gritted her teeth. “But you’ve got to ask yourself—how could four or five kids be harassing a church at midnight? I mean, where were their parents?”

The sergeant shook his head. “In this neighborhood, you probably don’t want to know. But usually the gangs leave the church alone. Even if any of the kids did try something stupid on church grounds, Father Gonzales liked to handle things himself, because you know, once a kid gets into the system…”

Paxton nodded. Yep, once a guest of the penal system, one usually became a frequent flier. But there were questions that needed to be asked, and for some reason, Ruth still seemed too pissed to ask them.

“You are sure, though, that the priest had no connections to any gangs? The Colombians are known to do some pretty awful crap. Maybe that’s why Gonzales liked to handle things himself? To keep his involvement on the down low?”

“I know you have to run down any leads,” the sergeant said. “But I am telling you, Gonzales would just say, ‘God keeps his own house in order.’ I’ve been on this beat for three decades, and I gotta tell you, I believed him.”

Paxton nodded. He knew these old grizzled beat cops liked to seem all fierce and unyielding, but underneath it all, they felt a deep sense of protection for their streets and the people who lived on them. They pounded the pavement to help—even when a neighborhood was going belly-up, like this one. Paxton was sure that the sergeant’s wife, kids, and hell, even grandkids, had begged him to take a desk job, but the guy just couldn’t. He had to stay to help the people he loved.

They all watched as the priest’s ashen body was loaded into a body bag.