San Francisco Night (9 page)

Nightingale got back to San Francisco at three o’clock in the afternoon.  He drove to Mission Street library and found a free computer. He needed to recharge his crystal before using it again. There were several options including burying it in the Earth for twenty-four hours or leaving it soaking in sea salt for a whole day, but the quickest was smudging and smudging was best done by a professional. He Googled crystal smudging and came up with a shop called Crystal World on Market Street and a contact name - Rowena Feinstein.

Then he went to Wikipedia for a list of the Apostles. Much to his surprise, there was no definitive list of Christ’s original twelve followers. The names varied from one Gospel to another, and John’s Gospel only mentioned eight of them. Matthew in one gospel equated to Levi in another. Thaddeus could be Jude. But it wasn’t the names that Nightingale was interested in, so much as their deaths. But Father Benedict had been right, as far as he’d remembered. St Andrew had been martyred on an X-shaped cross, and St Peter had also shared Christ’s fate, reputedly asking to be crucified upside down, so as not to be compared with his master. Simon had been sawn to pieces. Thomas had been killed with a spear, while Bartholomew had been flayed alive with a knife. Thaddeus, or Jude had been shot to death with arrows, while John had been poisoned. The only one of the original Apostles not to have been martyred was Judas Iscariot, who was generally thought to have hanged himself in remorse for taking his thirty pieces of silver to betray Christ.

He printed out the information he had and then spent the next half hour researching the career of Lucille Carr, and another half hour watching YouTube videos of Kent Speckman. ‛The Specter’. He was tall, lithe and muscular with zig-zags shaved into his short hair.  With his gold helmet on, there was nothing much to distinguish him from his scarlet and gold uniformed team mates. Until he started to run. Then everything changed. Nightingale watched, fascinated, even though he was no fan of American football. He didn’t seem any faster than anyone else, or any stronger, but according to the commentators he’d broken records for rushing and touchdowns that season. The more Nightingale looked at him, the more he thought that the other team had just agreed not to get in his way. When he was carrying the ball, he seemed to be able to sway round any attempts to tackle him. Rarely did any of the opposition manage to lay a hand on him. When he was running to catch a pass none of the defensive team looked as if they wanted to block him. The man seemed almost to have an exclusion zone around him, as if all the other players just moved according to his wishes. But that would be quite impossible. Wouldn’t it?

He went outside, programmed the SatNav with the shop’s address and fifteen minutes later he was talking to Ms Feinstein, who was around forty, small with long gray hair, dressed in something long, flowing and purple. Nightingale explained what he wanted.

“Of course, sir,” she said. “We can do that while you wait.” Smudging meant fanning incense over the crystal for thirty minutes, and Nightingale decided to use the time replenishing his wardrobe. He’d arrived in San Francisco with only the clothes on his back. When he returned half an hour later with new socks, underwear and a couple of shirts, his crystal was ready for him.

“That’s rather an unusual piece, Mr...er...”

“Jack. Yes, a gift from a friend,” replied Nightingale.

“It’s always hard to date a crystal, but the bag is very old, isn’t it?”

“I’m told so, yes.”

“You use it for healing?” she asked.

“No, it’s for divining. Thanks.”

He paid and left before the woman could ask any more questions

Back at his hotel, Nightingale showered, twice, and slipped on the white cotton robe, before lighting his two white church candlesand taking out the crystal and Brother Gregory’s rosary. He placed the rosary on the floor, knelt down before it and said a prayer with the crystal between his palms. The prayer finished, he let the crystal swing free over the rosary as he repeated the name of Brother Gregory West over and over again. The crystal remained motionless.  Nightingale took a deep breath, said another prayer and tried again as he visualized a pale blue light around his body. Still the crystal refused to move. Eventually he gave up – Brother Gregory was most certainly dead.

Nightingale arrived at the Raw Bar at around eight. It was a large room, furnished in dark bare wood throughout, a long bar at one end, with doors to a kitchen on the left and the restrooms on the right. The remainder of the room was filled with tables and chairs, a couple of waitresses in white T-shirts and short black skirts threading their way between them with drink orders. There were around twenty people inside, mostly at the bar, but Nightingale sat at a table and ordered an Anchor.

He was halfway through his beer when Amy Chen walked in, flanked by two tallish guys in dark suits. Chen noticed him as she walked towards the bar, but a curt nod was all he rated. She and her colleagues ordered a pitcher of draft and took stools at the bar. They talked and laughed together. Chen had a sexy, throaty laugh which carried across the room.

Around ten minutes later, Chen picked up her glass, held up a hand to her colleagues and walked over to Nightingale’s table. “Not stalking me, are you?” she said.

He raised his glass. “You said you might be here, remember?”

“I remember.”

He waved at an empty chair. “Can we talk?”

“I guess so,” said Chen. She sat down. “You eaten?”

“Not yet, no.”

“How are you with oysters?”

Nightingale shrugged. “I’ll give them a go.”

Chen waved a waitress over.  “Sue, bring us a dozen raw. And another Anchor.”

“You’re buying me dinner?” asked Nightingale.

“No, you’re picking up the tab,” said Chen.

“No problem,” said Nightingale.

 The gun wasn’t on her hip and she caught him looking at the place where it had been. “I changed holsters,” she said. “Off duty it’s under the arm.” She pulled open her jacket to reveal the butt of her Glock.

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“I’m a cop. That’s my job. So, you were a cop, before you were a private eye? I was right about you having a cop’s eyes?”

Nightingale nodded. “I was a beat cop for a while, walking around London in a pointy hat.”

“They really wear those? I thought that was just a tourist thing?”

“Only when you’re on foot,” he said. “They’d keep getting knocked off if you were in a car. Then I joined the armed response unit.”

“Yeah, I never understood why most of the British cops go out unarmed.”

Nightingale shrugged. “They call it policing by consent. The idea is that the public respect cops and do as they’re told.”

Chen laughed. “And how does that work?”

“In the good old days it worked just fine. These days, not so well. There isn’t the same respect that there used to be, and a lot more gangbangers carry guns.”

“So they should give all the cops guns too.”

“It’ll come,” said Nightingale. “But at the moment guns are only carried by Specialist Firearms Officers. That’s what I was. I carried a Glock and an MP5 mainly.”

“Ever fire a shot in anger?”

“I never shot anyone, if that’s what you’re asking. I was a negotiator, too.”

“Talking to would-be suicides?”

“People in crisis is what we called them. Sometimes suicides, sometimes people with weapons who’d got themselves into a situation, more often than not domestics.”

“And you gave it all up to become a gumshoe?”

“Cops in the Met are swamped with paperwork these days. A lot of the fun has gone out of the job.”

“The Met?”

“Metropolitan Police. It’s what they call the London police force.” He smiled. “Actually it’s not a police force any more. Hasn’t been for a few years. It’s a service. And the criminals are clients. You couldn’t make it up.”

“And you make a good living as a private eye?”

“Sure. I do a lot of legal work, a fair bit of checking on businessmen and companies, and I get a lot of cases that the cops can’t be bothered to do.”

He sipped his drink and wondered if she would mention that she had gone to Father Mike’s retirement home.

“And you got a pension?”

“I wasn’t in long enough,” he said.

“It’s one of the best thing about this job,” she said. “Do your thirty years and you’re set for life.”

“You’ve a long way to go,” he said.

“I’m getting there.”

“And you chose Missing Persons?”

She shook her head. “It’s not what I want to do. Robbery Squad is what I’m after but that’s very much male-dominated and apparently I don’t have the required testosterone levels.”

“You seem quite feisty to me,” said Nightingale, and her eyes narrowed again.

“You do like using that English charm, don’t you?” she said.

“I just meant that you could hold your own in a male squad, that’s all.”

Nightingale was saved any further embarrassment by the arrival of their waitress with a platter of oysters on ice and a fresh beer for Nightingale.

Nightingale had never been a big fan of oysters, but he figured that he needed to keep her company. Chen squeezed some lemon onto an oyster, held it to her mouth, sucked and swallowed. Nightingale followed suit. He tasted the lemon, felt a slippery sensation in his mouth, then his throat, and that was all.

“Good?’ asked Chen.

“Hits the spot,” lied Nightingale. A salty taste had kicked in but he still wasn’t over-impressed. Chen was already on her second.

“I’ve been Googling,” he said.

“Have you now?”

“And I’ve come up with a few more Christians that have gone missing.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Christians. Father Mike, Sister Rosa, Suzanne Mills, their Christianity was a common thread.”

“They were all white, too. And probably right-handed. Why have you singled out their religion?”

“Maybe I’m clutching at straws.”

“But it’s Father Mike you’re interested in. Why are you bothering about other cases?”

“Because it’s starting to look to me as if Father Mike isn’t just missing.”

“You think he’s dead?”

“I do, yes.”

“But you need proof because that’s the only way his relatives are going to get paid out?” She took another oyster, squeezed lemon on it and swallowed it in one smooth motion.

“If I can show that a serial killer has targeted Christians then I could possibly get him declared dead and that’d be a result for me, yes.” He didn’t like lying to her, but Nightingale didn’t see that he had any choice.

“Tell me about the other cases,” she said.

Nightingale reached into his coat and pulled out the sheets that he’d printed in the library. She flicked through them, nodding slowly. “Morton Steele only went missing last week.”

“He was a regular church-goer, according to the paper. And Caroline Shaw was a church organist and a devout Christian.”

“That was some time ago.”

Nightingale nodded. “Six months.”

“You think this has been going on for some time?”

“I don’t see why not. If there is a serial killer targeting Christians, he could have been doing it for a while.”

“Shirley Davenport. It doesn’t say she was a Christian.”

“Seventy and unmarried. Spinsters tend to be religious.”

“And a monk.”

“Yeah. He just vanished.”

“Five months ago?”

“Yeah, vanished into thin air. You tell me, how often do monks go missing? It’s not as if they have families to run away from, is it?”

Chen put the sheets of paper down on the table and tacked another oyster. She washed it down with beer and then cocked her head on one side. “What is it you want from me, Jack?”

“I can only get so far on Google,” he said. “I really need a look at the California Missing Persons’ Register.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“No, but you can access it.”

“And do what?”

“See if there are more that I haven’t found.”

“Missing Christians?”

“I’m looking for a pattern. One a month, maybe.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Just a hunch. And I think they might be going missing in the run up to a full moon.”

Her eyebrows shot skywards.  “Why would you think that?”

“Because Father Mike went missing a week before a full moon. So did Sister Rosa.”

She shook her head. “You’ve got to be careful extrapolating like that.”

“I’m looking for patterns, that’s all.”

“I can see that, but focusing on patterns that don’t exist can mean that you blind yourself to real connections. If there are any. You might be chasing shadows.”

“It’s worth a try. An hour or so on a computer.” He smiled. “Pretty please.”

“And then what? Assuming there are more?”

“We look for a link.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you? You think there’s a serial killer targeting Christians?”

“You don’t think it’s a possibility?”

“I think you’re grasping at straws, that’s what I think. If there was a serial killer at work, I’m pretty sure PCD would know.”
“PCD?”

“Personal Crimes Division. Part of the Investigations Bureau. They investigate homicides.”

“If whoever is doing it is covering their tracks they’d stay under the radar.”

“That’s one hell of an ‘if’, I have to say.”

They were interrupted by one of the men she had walked in with shouting her name. Chen looked over and the man mimed playing a pool shot.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. She swallowed a last oyster and stood up. She took out her phone. “You’ve got a cell?”

Nightingale told her the number and she keyed it into her phone. “If I find anything, I’ll call you.” She pointed at the rest of the oysters. “They’re aphrodisiacs, you know?”

‘Wasted on me then,” said Nightingale.

“You never know, the night is young,” she said. She laughed and went off to join her companions.