Mortal Sin (16 page)

Two hours ago they had been enjoying an intimate breakfast together. They’d reconnected after weeks of distance. And now it was gone. How could she forget how close they were? He couldn’t turn off his emotions like that. But the way she looked at him, as if she didn’t trust him. Why couldn’t she trust him? Hadn’t he proven himself to her many times over? Some things could not be explained. Should things shouldn’t
have
to be explained.

“I haven’t lied to you,” he said as they walked up the stairs to the apartment above Mrs. Martinez’s garage where Juan had been living for several months.

She stopped on the small landing outside the door. They had to stand close to both fit. He wanted to touch her, but didn’t.

“Lies of omission.”

She was hurt. It was in her eyes.

“Perhaps,” he relented.

She was surprised.

“I haven’t spoken a falsehood, Skye. But yes, I haven’t shared everything. Some things are complicated, difficult to explain. I thought you trusted me.”

“I do! But all the time you’re spending at the mission… and then you don’t tell me anything when you are home. Then you try to bribe Bertrand when I told you and Rafe to stay away from him. Whatever is going on with Juan—”

“It’s spiritual, Skye. Go inside. You will understand.”

She hesitated, perhaps from fear. She should be afraid. These were dangerous times. And the things Anthony was being called to do were dangerous. Why couldn’t she understand that he needed to protect her? She might be brave in the face of danger, but she was still a novice in all things supernatural. She still held firm to the laws of man, the black and white of human disobedience.

Why was he so angry with her? She hadn’t been raised—hadn’t been trained from a young child—to face the darkness beneath the surface. She’d only seen a small part of the evil that lurks around them, threatening humanity, slowly, insidiously taking over the world.

She turned from him and opened Juan’s door. Anthony had seen it before, so he let her enter first.

Maybe then she would understand.

Her only physical reaction was a sharp intake of breath. Skye stepped across the threshold and Anthony stood behind her.

Paper was strewn everywhere, covered with tightly written words in a foreign language. Crumpled papers on every surface, the floor, piled into the corners. Stacks of loose paper, of notebooks, on the tables and floors and couch. The unmade bed was littered with pages torn from books where Juan had written in the margins when he had run out of paper.

Skye picked up a sheet. “What language is this?” she said, her voice a whisper.

Anthony peered over her head. “That one, Aramaic.”

“You mean there’s more?”

“I’ve read Aramaic, Latin, Greek, and languages even I don’t know.”

“Juan doesn’t know those languages.”

“You have heard of speaking in tongues?”

“What’s this? Writing in tongues?” she said.

Anthony’s anger bubbled at her sarcasm. “He doesn’t know what he’s writing. But I believe he’s writing what he absorbed while he was possessed. Ianax, the demon who possessed him, deposited a copy of all his memories in Juan. Seared his brain. It’s why he’s not been himself. At least, he’s not the way he remembers himself. He writes down words, and I’m only beginning to make sense of it. Most of this is repetition, and while I can translate the words, the statements are out of context. Skye, Juan was getting better until the Seven were released. You know that. But since, he’s been worse. Ianax must have been connected to the Seven on a primal level, and Juan has absorbed that. He’s anguished.” How could he make her understand when he, who has studied demonology since he was a child, barely understood what they faced?

Anthony crossed the room and picked up a notebook. “Before, he wrote everything in these notebooks. Maybe spending an hour or two a day. Now, he can’t sleep more than an hour or two, he can barely eat, he writes in a trance.”

“Is he possessed again?” Her voice cracked.

“No. But he’s straining under the weight of this knowledge.”

“Little sleep, little food,
this
.” She swept her arm to take in the thousands of pages of ramblings. “He’s snapped.”

“He’s suffering. He’s not lost forever.”

“He’s over the edge, Anthony! Can’t you see that?”

He bristled. “Juan is repentant.”

“Over what?” she demanded. “Because of what he did when he was possessed?”

“That is not his fault, and you know that.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You sound like you do.”

“Dammit, Anthony, do not put words in my mouth!”

His jaw clenched and he stepped away from Skye. It was this… this
attitude
that caused his irritation to grow. Why couldn’t she just listen to him without constantly questioning?

“Juan is a suspect in a murder investigation. He’s my
only
suspect.”

“You can not lock him up, Skye. It will kill him.”

“If he’s guilty, I damn well will!”

He saw the pain and conflict in her expression, but he couldn’t let her arrest Juan. Anthony didn’t know what the evidence proved or disproved, but Juan needed help, not imprisonment. He wasn’t possessed. He would not have killed Bertrand or anyone. He was weak and barely surviving.

“How can you be so callous about a man you once called friend?”

She stared at him, mouth open. Anthony realized he’d said the wrong thing, but it was what he believed, and she wanted honesty.

Deep inside, a nugget of fear grew. That he’d made a grave error here, a mistake that would be impossible to fix. The weight of his responsibilities suffocated him. Did this woman not know what he’d sacrificed to stay here in Santa Louisa with her? That he’d said
no
to the Cardinal? He was torn between two duties, two worlds, and yet she doubted him.

Skye pulled out her cell phone, then turned her back on him.

“Jorgenson, it’s McPherson. Put out an APB on Juan Martinez. Let’s keep this as quiet as possible.” She listened, her entire body tensing as Jorgenson spoke. A minute later, she said, “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

She hung up stared at Juan’s room. Slowly, she turned and stared at Anthony. She’d shut down her emotions, looking at him coolly, just like she had when they’d first met after the massacre at the mission. “The Assistant Sheriff has already put out an APB on Juan,” she said, “and the press are all over my office. I have to go.”

“I am sorry, Skye,” he said. He reached for her, but she walked past him, avoiding his touch.

“Sorry for what? Because you’re certainly not sorry about keeping this from me or for confronting Bertrand when I told you to stay away from him.”

“I love you, Skye,” he pleaded.

She shook her head. “You don’t know what love means, Anthony.”

And she walked out.

Jorgenson had given Skye a heads up while she was driving that D.A. Martin Truxel was already in the middle of a press conference. So she didn’t fully embarrass herself, she drove around back and parked, then walked around the side of the building to listen to Truxel, standing at an angle where she hoped no one would notice her right away.

Truxel was saying, “… And if Doctor Bertrand’s killer is in fact a law enforcement officer, I can assure you that my office will enact swift justice.”

A reporter shouted, “Mr. Truxel, isn’t it true that Detective Martinez has been on disability ever since the fire on the cliffs that claimed the life of another deputy and two civilians?”

“Yes, he has not been an active member of the law enforcement community since the middle of last November. But he’s still a law enforcement officer, and my administration will never act like there are two classes of citizens in Santa Louisa. Everyone must be held accountable for their actions.”

“Mr. Truxel, was Dr. Bertrand one of Detective Martinez’s doctors?”

“According to hospital records, Dr. Bertrand did not treat Detective Martinez at any point in time.”

Another question. “Dr. Bertrand was mentioned as being affiliated with the cult that was responsible for the death of Mayor Weatherby’s daughter, Abigail, last January. Was his murder connected to the same cult?”

Truxel frowned. “There is no evidence that Dr. Bertrand was involved in any cult, or that Abigail Weatherby died because of cult activity. That was a rumor that I had hoped to quell. The M.E. has ruled that Abigail Weatherby died from an overdose of drugs.”

Skye bristled. That was only partly true. It had been easier for Rod to put that as the primary cause of death, but he left it open as to whether there had been foul play involved.

“But she was found at the cliffs with evidence of a Satanic ritual—black candles, satanic markings, and—”

Truxel cut off the question. “I’m answering questions regarding Dr. Bertrand’s homicide and that alone.”

Assistant Sheriff Williams looked a bit uncomfortable in the spot light, and he moved away from the podium a step. Skye wondered just how close Williams was to Truxel. Maybe not as close as she’d thought.

As soon as the press conference wrapped up, Skye slipped into headquarters undetected. She tried to avoid Truxel, who walked in through the main doors. Unfortunately, he’d already seen her and made a beeline to her location.

“You’ve done a great disservice to our county and our state,” he said in a too-loud voice.

“Let’s take this to my office,” she said.

He didn’t budge. “Your deputies should hear how incompetent you are.”

She stood her ground. She’d known this day would come, when she’d have to face Truxel in front of people she respected and who she needed to respect her.

“You’re interfering in a police investigation,” she said quietly. As her volume decreased, so did the noise in the bullpen.

“You’re hardly doing your job,” he said. “That you were able to spread lies about good people to propagate a myth about a
cult.
”

“There was and could still be a cult operating in Santa Louisa. You are privy to the same information I have. If you disagree, disagree to my face, not behind a media shield.”

“Your days are numbered, McPherson. When I take over this station, you will not only be fired, but prosecuted for gross negligence of duty.”

She stepped forward. She wasn’t tall, but she was certainly taller than the D.A., especially in her work boots. “My civics class taught me that the sheriff runs the police department, not the district attorney. If Tom is elected sheriff, it’ll be
his
department, not yours. And I’m comfortable with that. Because Tom has been a cop since you were in diapers and at least he knows how to run a proper press conference without undermining an ongoing police investigation.”

Truxel opened his mouth to speak, but Skye was on a roll and she wasn’t going to stop now. “You risked the lives of my deputies. You spoke about information of which you only have a partial understanding. You’ve undermined the entire department and made all of our jobs more difficult. Maybe there is no
cult
in Santa Louisa, but it’s a damn criminal enterprise and I will put a stop to it. And if I don’t, I’m confident that if Tom is elected to replace me, he’ll do exactly what I would.”

She turned and walked down the hall to her office. She closed the door behind her. She could still see the bullpen through the glass, and she resisted the urge to close her shades. Instead, she sat at her desk and picked up the phone. It was an act; she had no one to call and nothing to say. Her heart beat rapidly. She’d never gotten in Truxel’s face like that before,
especially
in front of others.

She was done.

Her cell phone rang and she dropped the landline and picked up her personal phone. “Skye?”

“Who’s this?”

“Um, it’s uh, Zach Padilla. I, um, am the new, uh, tech with the crime scene unit? Dr. Fielding, he um, he said to call you directly.”

It took Skye a moment to place him. “You’re the kid from Cal Tech I hired last month.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“And?”

“And, um, I love my job—thank you so much for the opportunity. I won’t let you down.”

Skye rubbed her temples. “You called me to tell me you love your job?”

“No. Of course not. I, um, called because I traced the storage unit. You asked Dr. Fielding to assign someone. He assigned me.”

She looked at her watch. It wasn’t even eleven in the morning. “That was fast.”

“I hope it’s okay that I called your cell phone.”

“Yes. As long as you have information.”

“Oh! Yes, of course I do! Okay, well, the bank’s records were incomplete, but I went to the estate manager and talked my way into accessing the original computer records from the storage facility. It took me a while, but I found out that unit 214 had been rented to Paul and Olivia Hangstrom of Santa Louisa. The address for them was old—Mr. Hangstrom died two years ago and the house was sold. Mrs. Hangstrom died at an assisted care facility a year after that. It appears that the unit was paid through the year, but no one renewed it and the bank tried to contact the Hangstroms but couldn’t, and there was no next of kin on the storage records.”

“I’m assuming they both died of natural causes?”

“Yeah—they were in their eighties.”

“I need their last known address, next of kin, anything you can get me. And their death certificates. Can you do that?”

“Uh, sure. Now?”

She paused. “Yes, now would be good.”

“Okay. I’ll email everything I find.”

“Thanks.” She hung up.

A knock on her door startled her. “Come in,” she called.

Assistant Sheriff Thomas Williams stepped in. He closed the door behind him. “Skye, I’m sorry about that press conference.”

She tried to dismiss it, but found that she couldn’t. “Truxel is trouble.”

“I didn’t know about the press conference until they showed up. I tried to stop it. I don’t want Juan jammed up any more than you do. But the evidence… ”

“I know about the evidence, and I’m going to find Juan and figure out what happened.”

“I just want you to know that if I win, I want you here. You’re a good cop, and while I don’t agree with everything you’ve done or how you’ve done it, that doesn’t change my opinion.”