Secret Sins: Murder in the Church (14 page)

are full participants
in
the
there
someone claimed that
The 10,000-square foot Lane Mansion sits perched on top of a hill within the
wealthy, gated, cul-de-sac community in the historic community of St. Charles.
Murdock Construction completed the new expansion that included a split-level,
four-car garage and a car elevator.
Our marked police cars and the unmarked from the City of St. Louis dominated the
circle drive, but it came as no surprise when the St. Charles police decided to
join in. Everyone got out of their respective unit and Captain West commented,
“Who sent for them?”
One of the Officers was about six-feet five and his tight fitting uniform made
him look skinny and his size sixteen shoes him walk with an unbalanced rhythm, I
said, “I hope he doesn’t trip and fall.”
The other Police Officer remained silent and I’ve seen his type before. Quiet,
reserved and when he does speak it is something worth paying attention to, and I
almost forgot to mention, make him angry and he’ll put you in your grave.
I
rang
the
doorbell
and
Kristen’s
household Manager Slash Personal Assistant
came to the door. The woman in her early thirties with light brown hair and while
the woman seemed surprised,
I
thought
she
must
have momentarily forgotten
English and reverted back to her native Scottish Gaelic tongue, “Feasgar math.”
Both I and Captain West flashed our badges, and I responded, “Good Afternoon.”
Captain West asks, “Do you speak English?”
She looked at him with a blank expression and said, “Tha, beagan.”
I can hear the St. Charles Police Officers snickering under their breath, and I
looked at her and smiled, “Chan eil aon chànan gu leòr.” The scoffing ended
when
she responded to
me
in
clear
English, “I
guess one language is never
enough.”
“Sometimes it’s more than enough, but I need to speak to Mrs. Kristen Lane.”
She reverted back to Gaelic and instructed us, “Tromhadaibh,” and she lead us
through to a set of elevators and said in English, “Mrs. Lane is in the garage.”
We boarded the elevator and I said, “Tapadh leat,”
but
she
stayed behind.
I
looked at the key pad and there was only one way to go, “Straight up.” I saw her
walk away as the door closed.
One of the uniformed officers looked at me and said, “I used to be a City Cop
and I know they don’t teach Scottish Gaelic at the St. Louis Police Academy-Who
are you?”
I never said a word, but Captain West looks back at both men and said, “Stay out of
this.” The Officer made every attempt to explain himself, “I just wanted to
know. It’s not a common language around St. Louis or St. Charles.”
I asked, “Your family Gaelic?”
“My father-in-law,” responded the tall police officer.
The quiet officer stopped and looked back at the elevator and commented, “The
foreign woman must be new here.”
Detective
West and I looked at one another, but
made
no
comment
as
the
elevator door
opened into a four car garage and we stepped off in front of a classic candy apple
red, 1965
Ford Mustang. We looked around and didn’t see anyone, but there is an engine
running.
We kept walking until we saw someone sitting in a white 1962 Ford Mustang
Roadster. I tilled my head to one side and looked it was Kristen Lane slumped
over in the car. I took off running with Captain West right behind me, and I said,
“No,no,no!”
I tried to open the door, but the Mustang was locked from the inside, and the
quiet policeman walks over with his night stick in hand, “Stand back!”
He swung his nightstick like Japanese Samurai warrior
and
I
could
hear
the
nightstick
slashing the air like a Wakizashi Sword.
It
tried to shield my face from the flying shards
of glass from the shattered passenger window.
We began coughing from the sudden release
of
fumes
from
the
interior
of
the
Ford
Mustang.
The officer reaches his long arm into the car and shuts off the engine. Detective
West
and I walk around the car and look underneath and discovered a russet
potato rammed up the tailpipe.
The tall officer unlocks the car door and opens it and he knew as did everyone
present, Kristen Lane is dead. I stood there looking at the empty backseat then I
looked at the passenger side of the car and saw a note. I pulled a tissue from
my pocket and unfolded the note, “It’s a suicide note.”
The elevator door opened and I heard a woman’s voice calling out, “Anyone in
here?”
I was still holding the note when I yelled, “Police!”
As she was walking over, I recognized her from the first night came to inform
Kristen about
the blood
name is, “Julia.” The
tall
Julia kept asking over and over again, “How did you get in here?” and “Where
is Mrs.
Lane?” Captain West is so robust that he was
able to block Julia’s view of Kristen’s body.
Captain
West
motioned
for
one of
the
officers to go over and keep Julia calm, the
smaller of the two officers said, "I know her, I'll do it. He rushes to Julia, and she
called his name, “Dave! The taller of the two officers stood a little further away
taking on his radio and Captain West is on his iPhone in another corner of the
garage. Within a few minutes I heard sirens from a distance. I looked
at the
suicide note: I’ve finished killing Tyrone and now I have overstayed my welcome. I
enjoyed being rich and pretty. Kristen Lane.
Police Officers from St. Louis City and St. Louis County crowed into the parking
garage. I placed the note back on the seat of the Ford Mustang.
I walked over to Captain West and said, “I’m going downstairs to talk to Julia,”
and he followed me onto the elevator. The elevator stopped on the main floor
adjacent to the living room, and I found Julia sitting on the sofa in tears. I could
tell that Officer Dave had told her about Kristen.
and bullet holes in

Officer
Dave informed me, “This is Mrs. Lane’s cousin Julia Nichols.”
“I’m sorry for your lost, but I need to talk to Mrs. Lane’s Assistant,” I said.
“She does not have a personal assistant-just me,” she said.
“The foreign lady that just started working here,” said Officer Dave.
Julia looked at me and said in no uncertain terms, “There are no foreigners that
work on the Lane Estate.”
The tall officer walks over and hands me the suicide note and it was in a plastic
evidence bag. I read the note again and Julia asked, “What is it?”
I showed it to Julia and immediately she said,
“This not Kristen’s handwriting.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of
course,
I can get
some of
Kristen’s canceled checks to prove it,” said Julia.
Captain West asked Julia, “Do you have any idea why she would do this,” he asked.
Julia thought long and hard for a split second, “She caught Tyrone with another
woman.”
I asked, “Who was it?”
“Nichelle Graves,” answered Julia. I asked, “You sure about that?”
“As a matter of fact she said the Nichelle’s daughter, Jenna is Tyrone’s,” she said.

I tried to get some sleep, but my mind kept hitting the auto-play of the events
of the last few days. Just as I about to drift off to sleep, my minds needle
got
stuck on Sunday. My mind went over a list of things to do: One, prove Shawn
Graves
is really
Eric
Campbell. Captain
West
and
I
Lane’s suicide
note
under wraps for the time being.
theory as who the killer could be, but proving it can be something different all
together. My subconscious just flipped the auto-play fast forward
in
time.
The
second most important element on that to-do-list, smoke out the killer of Ray
Murdock. I floated from here to dreamland and paradise as my mind concocted
the perfect dish to bring the sadistic maniac out into the open.
The ringing of the iPhone awakened me from a deep slumber. I checked the clock:
Six- fifteen Saturday morning. It was Captain West, “Have you ever heard of A.C.
Automotive?
“No,” I answered, still feeling tired sleepy. “It’s
a
subsidiary
of
Carney
Steel
Industries, Inc.”
The name Carney hit me like sledgehammer, “Alvin Carney a.k.a The Junkyard
Prophet.” “That’s him…I need for you to go back out there and search Shatoya
and Jade’s car again.”
decided
to
keep
Kristen
It
is one thing to have
“Not much left of it, but I’ll do it.”
“I
need
to
warn you…Carney,
the
businessman is a ruthless cutthroat, so watch yourself,” said Captain West.
“I will,” I said nonchalantly.
“A FedEx package arrived for you a couple of days ago, but if you came into the
office more often you wouldn’t need to be reminded,” he said sarcastically.
I arrived at A.C. Automotive at eight this morning. I showed my badge to the
receptionist at
the desk and she quickly directed to follow the arrows that are
marked on the floor to the salvage yard. As soon as I walked into the salvage yard
the scent of motor oil and axel grease hit my nose and I felt as though I had
just stepped into a car cemetery. It only took to whiff before I realized the oil,
grease and gas is where the cars life comes from. Tossed carelessly to the ground
is a mournful teardrop headlight from a 1959 Chevy. This was the first time I
have ever been to an auto-salvage yard, and this looks to be the size of four football
fields and all the cars are lined up neatly in roles that seem to go on for miles.
I notice small wooden crosses planted on the driver’s side of the ground and other
cross has staked its claim in the gas tank of a 1962 Oldsmobile Dynamic.

“Hello sweetie, and let me welcome you to my automotive boneyard!”
Startled, I quickly turned around and saw Junkyard Prophet standing behind me
wearing greasy
overalls
and
he
was
carrying
battered Hollander Manual that
looked like it had been one to many rounds and was now TKO, “Good morning,”
I said with a smile.
He smiled as asked, “What can I do for you today?”
I answered, “I need to take a look at Jade and Shatoya’s car.”
“No problem. Follow me,” Junkyard said. Junkyard walks quickly and I tried to have a
friendly conversation, “How on earth did you end up in the auto-recycling business?”
“My father was an auto mechanic, so when he needed a certain part he’d come
here and we would walk, kick tires and search for the make and model until he
found it,” he continues, “When I got older, the owner, Peter Richardson give me
a job after school and on Saturdays and he taught me everything he knew about
the auto salvage business, and when he died, he left it to me,” he said.
Just out of pure curiosity, or just know you don’t get something for nothing,
“Wow. Didn’t his family have something to say about leaving this business to an
employee?”
“Not really…he had no family as far as anyone was
concerned,” he answered,
“A
lawyer from the church handled his entire
estate, and let me tell you something,” he stopped and went silent for a moment
as he
looked around as though he was lost in a cemetery.
I asked, “What is it?”
“Mr. Richardson told me more times than I can count that I needed something I
could fall back on once and my dad were gone and working for other people was
the best way to be poor and stay poor, so he left me this salvage yard, but I had to
rebuild it and expand on it,” Junkyard explained.
“This is it,” I commented.
Junkyard laughed, “This is only part of it,” he continued to explain as we continued
our long hike through the salvage yard.
We finally arrived at a fenced
in area with numerous car that what you could
considered totaled, “Why is this separate from the rest?” He said, “These are still
waiting for the auto insurance company to release the death certificate on all these,
then I can move them to the other area.”
I laughed, “You mean the title?”
He laughs, “Yeah. Insurance companies can be a little slow on this sort of thing.”
“I bet,” I answered.
Junkyard commented, “You guys already search it and released it to me.”
I walked around and looked at the late model Ford Crown Victoria and it looks
like it had been beaten severely by King Kong. The roof is smashed in, part of the
front end is almost twisted, “This is unbelievable.” The passenger door and part of
the back door had been cut and all the seats had been removed.
I stuck my head in to look around and I failed to notice Junkyard when he walked
around to the driver’s side and stuck his head in, “Jade and Shatoya are lucky to
be alive,” he commented as I climbed into the car with a hope against hope of
finding the ticket.
“Sure are,” he said as he props one foot on the edge of the car and leans over and
looks at me and says, “That ticket not in here.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, afraid that I didn’t know Junkyard Prophet as well as
I thought I did and that he may have gotten the drop on me and I attempt to play it
off, “What ticket?”
Junkyard
Prophet
burst
out laughing, “Hahaha…you
know
what
ticket
I’m
talking about,” he said and continued, “Everybody in St. Louis has heard about that
ticket showing up in the collection plate Easter Sunday.”
I climbed out, “What!”
“Hahahahaha, Yeah and unless God writes me a letter to correct me, people who
haven’t been to church in years are showing up at Spirit Temple Pentecostal Church
tomorrow.” I decided this search was a wild goose chase and that it was time for
a
meeting
of masterminds to hatch a game plan to catch a killer
and find the
lottery ticket in one big sweep, “That unbelievable.”
“I spoke to Reverend Graves and he told me people started camping out on the
church parking lot a couple of hours ago,” he continued, “Money may not grow
on
trees, but
some people sure
as
heck think
God’s going rain money from
heaven.”

After coming up empty handed at the salvage yard, I decided to that this free time
to catch
up
on
some
snail
mail
at
the
office.
Technically I work for the NSA, but only a few people are aware of it and I’d
rather keep it that way for now. I would rather avoid speculation as to why I am
here working undercover as a cop. I work out of the main administrative building
of the St. Louis Police Department. It is now late Saturday afternoon and no matter
when you enter the Public Safety
Operations and Training Facility,
it is always
busy. Some people really are busy while others manage to stay busy looking busy.
The St. Louis facility has been ranked number two in the United States because
of the Training classroom that can accommodate almost ninety people and it is
designed theater style.
It has a fully
equipped
communications and
emergency
operations center, evidence processing and storage, high tech audio visual support
systems that
allow classrooms to provide a variety of training scenarios, but the
best feature of all is the Hot Center with the communications patch consoles. I
walked to the
mailroom
and
the
weekend
dull
looking guy name Charles was
standing in front of a sorting machine when the eye pad scanned my retina.
As soon as the door open the aroma of burnt popcorn hit my nose and I saw the
way he
glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and asked, “What’s up with you this
afternoon?”
“Just
doing
a
little
paperwork,”
I
said
as I walked over to the row of mail
boxes along
the far wall. The building was less than two years old, yet it has too much of a
worked to many hours, and needs to be repainted as well as cleaned up. I passed a
desk with an open bag of smoking,
hot
and burnt popcorn spilling
onto
the
desk. Despite the advancements in technology some people still send typed memos
for the whole world to see instead of using inner office email, so I reached in and
pulled out the stake of papers and quickly fanned though the stake and Charles
said, “I have a package in the back for you, and give me a second and I’ll get it for
you?”
“You could have left it on my desk,” I commented.
He said, “Not this. It came with special instructions. I asked Captain West to have
you stop in.”
“No problem,” I said out of curiosity, “What could be so urgent?”
Charles walked across the room walks over to an
encoded
steel
box
that
is
attached
to
the wall and entered a set of numbers and the box automatically
opened. I walked over to the shredder and turned it on and hand fed each memo
into the crossed teeth, then turning off the machine. He walks over with a flat
Federal Express envelope and a small electronic sign- in pad, “Just put thumb on the
pad.”
I looked at screen and saw a name and tracking number of the package and as
soon
as I
pressed
my
thumb onto
the
screen my picture
popped
onto
the
screen
and
confirmed my identity. Charles handed me the enveloped and walked back to the
mail sorting
machine as I torn open the envelope. I told Charles, “That popcorn’s stinking
up the entire room.”
“Sorry about that,” he said.
I reached into the envelope, “It’s empty!”
“Who would send
an
empty
envelope,”
Charles asks.
I held the envelope open so Charles could see it, “Empty!”
Charles
glances
at
the
open
envelope, “No. There’s a small envelope in the
package.”
I looked inside the shipping envelope this time and so there is, “A small yellow
envelope.”
Charles watched closely as I pulled it out and read the on the envelope and pulled
out the Lottery Ticket and I yelled, “HOLY SHIT!” Charles asks, “What is it?”
It was the elusive lottery ticket and there is a Post-It Note stuck to the front of
the Lottery Ticket that read,