Ten Plagues (26 page)

P
ravus blinked his eyes to stop the burning, then he swiped one hand across his forehead. Sweat burned his eyes. It was passion. It was suffering for his art.

He looked from his new creation to the tainted woman who needed him so much. It was a shame he’d had to stop the screaming, because he had a sense that the screams let the evil out. And naturally, no one could hear her. Pravus was too smart for that.

But the noise had violated the art, stopped its flow.

Now she lay there in silence and Pravus loved her. She needed him. Poor thing. Needed him to purify her, create something beautiful out of her ugliness.

Turning back to the gown, he remembered the substandard dress he’d made for Melody. But the paint. Dead women don’t bleed. What other choice did he have?

Looking down, he saw the slits in his own arms. He’d given. He’d done his best without Melody to help. Now, this new woman was generous.

The last one he’d hurried. It hadn’t satisfied him for long, hadn’t quieted the beast for long, but while he was creating, there had been peace and pleasure sufficient to be worth it. Especially after he’d thought of leaving her at the reverend’s home. That was a second type of brilliance. A different type of art.

The brush trembled. His hand shook worse. The beast prowled inside him and told him it was because the reverend hadn’t suffered enough. Because he hadn’t known Melody.

This one would be better. Not perfect, but the reverend would know.

He watched his hand shake and heard the beast pacing and growling and saw no reason not to be painstaking with this gown.

Laughing, he looked at the woman who’d fallen so easily into his hands. He’d done her a favor, using her to create. But the dress, it wasn’t his best work.

Father would be furious.

But this victim wasn’t worthy of his art, so why bother?

Then he knew how to make even this meager creation one of his worthy people.

His laughter rose higher until it echoed off the walls.

Time for Kerenhappuch to get involved.

The tough cop who’d been waiting in the hallway crumbled into a gentle, wounded pastor.

“It wasn’t murder.” Paul covered his face with one hand. “It’s not even in my case files, because I didn’t handle the case.”

She’d talked to a few people who remembered Paul Morris from his days at Chicago PD. The main word they used to describe him was
tough
. As cold-blooded as any cop you ever met. Not violent, not if he could avoid it, but when he couldn’t avoid it,

he was as ruthless and unfeeling as a robot. Most of this was said with a fair amount of respect and even some affection.

“What? Tell us what this is about!” Agent Higgins demanded.

Dyson’s eyes seemed to glow.

She’d also heard from a few people who weren’t fans. One guy told her the most dangerous place in Illinois was standing between Paul Morris and a television camera. That Paul was the one who’d done a good impression of a jackbooted thug when he dealt with her years back, and he was the one who’d been standing in front of his door when she got here. That side was a good cop. Having him working this case, in his cop mode, greatly improved their chances of bringing Pravus to justice.

The trouble was, she couldn’t stand that man.

The cool, analytical police detective seemed to have nothing to do with Pastor P, who felt everything so deeply, he carried the weight on his shoulders from every sin, real or imagined, he’d ever committed. Paul’s wife and daughter had been killed accidentally, and it had brought him to the brink of suicide and ultimately to a faith in God. But now, knowing it was no accident, Keren prayed silently he could handle it.

Paul leaned forward as if he was losing consciousness. He braced his hands on his knees, his head hanging down. All his tough-cop demeanor faded and he was himself again. Or was the cop the real man and Pastor P only a facade?

“His wife.” Paul wasn’t going to be able to answer Higgins, so she did it for him. “His wife and daughter were killed, hit on the road by a man driving by. The man called the ambulance. He went with them to the hospital and showed only concern and regret. And now he must be talking about them, claiming them as his first. The dancer and her mother,” Keren mused. “Herodias telling her daughter to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a platter.”

“The preschool program had a little dance number in it.” Paul spoke to the floor. His shoulders rose and fell as if breathing was all he could manage. “My daughter dressed up like a ballerina for it. She loved that stiff little skirt and she wouldn’t take it off. Or so Trish said. I wasn’t around much.”

His voice broke and even Higgins had the sense to keep quiet while Paul got ahold of himself. “Hannah was wearing it when she died.”

Paul’s legs seemed to give out, and he sank until he was sitting on the floor, his knees drawn up. Keren went to him and rested a hand on his bowed shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”

“I saw her broken body, in that tiny skirt.”

“Pravus knew.” Keren kept her hand on him, trying to share some of her strength. It was hard when she wanted to curl up and cry with him. “Pravus must have stalked them. But why did he choose them?”

“It could have been random. A simple act of madness,” O’Shea said.

“All your wife or daughter would have needed to do was cross paths with him.” Keren rubbed Paul’s shoulders as she thought.

“Pravus calls himself an artist, right?” Paul kept his head down, but his shoulders squared and he sat more erectly, as if he were trying to pull himself together. “My wife worked in an art gallery. Maybe she came in contact with Pravus at work and somehow drew his attention.”

“It doesn’t matter about that.” Higgins clapped his hands together. “We’ve got him!”

Keren rounded on Higgins. “It doesn’t matter?”

Dyson sharpened his gaze, but Higgins didn’t answer her. He was too busy dialing his phone. “We can track him down. What was his name, Reverend?”

“Francis.” Paul’s head came up, and with a single lithe move, he stood, swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, and spoke with a steady voice. “I’ll remember his name until the day I die. Francis Caldwell. He cried. He stood in that hospital waiting room and cried because he felt so bad.” Paul’s eyes narrowed. They still glistened with tears, but he had it under control now.

Keren was shocked at how cold he sounded. He’d gone back to cop. Maybe it was all too much for him to stand without turning off his emotions. It was almost too much for Keren, and they weren’t talking about her family.

“I knew at the time he was an amateur artist, but no connection between him and my wife was ever found. Why would it be found? No one looked. Not even me. He was so kind.” Paul slammed a closed fist against the wall behind him. His sudden fury made Keren jump.

“That little murderous demon
cried
and begged me to forgive him. I was insane with guilt and grief and rage. I jumped on him, and the EMTs had to pull me off. I—I think I’d have killed him with my bare hands, but I never once believed it was
deliberate
. Caldwell quoted scripture to me. He asked for forgiveness. He prayed out loud, almost rambling. He seemed so distraught, he was on his knees part of the time. It seemed a little extreme, but he’d just killed two people.”

“Extremely religious is a long way from a demon,” Keren said.

“Demon?” Dyson’s head came up and he looked at her hard.

“Demon,” Keren repeated, “or evil. Latin for Pravus, the name he calls himself.”

“Pravus, is that like depravity? Depraved?” Dyson asked.

Keren exhaled slowly. “Maybe. Latin root words aren’t exactly part of my skill set. We can look it up. It fits, doesn’t it?”

“Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” Paul quoted scripture, and it gave Keren hope that the pastor was still in there somewhere. But Paul’s voice was so cold she was frightened for him. “I came down hard on Caldwell. He had a couple of minor charges—one was reckless driving. He had an assault charge he’d pled down to a misdemeanor. I put it in the worst light possible to make it look like he was a repeat offender, pulled strings, called in favors. He got a couple of years.”

Higgins got off his phone. “We’ll throw everything we have into locating Francis Caldwell. I’ve already started the wheels turning. Maybe we can get to him before he hurts anyone else.”

Paul’s jaw tightened, and he didn’t respond.

“We’ll go through the records and find Caldwell’s current address. And if he’s hanging around the mission, we should be able to find an up-to-date picture and pick him up.”

“Wait a minute.” Paul’s eyes sharpened. “I know what Caldwell looks like. I’d have recognized him if he was hanging around the mission.”

“A disguise,” Higgins said. “Maybe even plastic surgery. Maybe lifts in his shoes. A full beard like so many homeless men wear. He could have changed his appearance radically.”

“That must be it.” Paul stared sightlessly. Probably running faces through his mind, searching for the one that could be Francis Caldwell.

The ME team got there. Keren felt sorry for them as they entered the swarming apartment.

Keren and Paul got back to the station house just in time to be informed that another woman was missing, Katrina Hardcastle.

Francis Caldwell had vanished off the face of the earth.

He’d taken all his money—a sizable amount—out of the bank, in tidy, nine-thousand-dollar chunks so he wouldn’t alert any officials. He hadn’t filed a tax return, registered a car, or used his social security number since the death of Paul’s family. There was no record of his existence for the last two years. Keren spent another day tracking down the men who lived near the mission. She stopped in at the mission near mealtimes when she could manage it and got no further sense of Caldwell being near.

But the word was out on the street about the danger circling Paul and the mission, and many of the regulars were missing.

She and Paul spent another night in the hospital with LaToya. And as they worked, they waited for a phone call or another plaque.

She’d gotten copies of all the pictures Higgins had, plus the ones Paul had added of those who hung around the mission, and she and Paul eliminated all the ones Keren was sure she’d been close to.

There were still too many. But Keren kept coming back to those five men who’d driven away together in Murray’s car Sunday morning. It had to be one of them. It had to.

Dawn broke over the hospital ward after another lousy night’s sleep.

Keren said, “I’ve used up all the clothes I had at the precinct. I’ve got to go home. I’ve been showering at work, living out of my locker, but it’s crunch time for human hygiene.”

“You’re not going to your place alone.” Paul looked as if he was prepared to be very stubborn.

“Good, I can use a bodyguard.”

A smile bloomed on his face. One of the few she’d seen since they’d realized what had happened to his wife and little girl. Then it faded.

“I know what you’re up to.”

“What?”

“You think that if you let me play bodyguard for you, then I’ll be a good sport about it when you reciprocate.”

With a quick tilt of her head, Keren said, “Maybe. But I still want you to come with me.”

Rosita arrived at the hospital and they left her to sit with LaToya.

“Do you really want me as a bodyguard?” Paul asked. “Are you scared?”

Keren studied his face. It was cool, the cop, and it irked her.

“He was at your place, not mine.” They rode the El while Paul flipped through the pictures for what had to be the one hundredth time.

“You’re driving yourself crazy with that.” It was too early for rush hour, so Paul could spread the pictures out. The steady roar of the El was such an everyday sound, Keren barely heard it as they rushed along.

“Why can’t I recognize Caldwell?” Paul flipped to the most recent photo they could find of Francis Caldwell. It was over five years old. A skinny little man. Short, weak chin, eyeglasses, painfully short dishwater-blonde hair.

Caldwell would be in his thirties by now. He’d gotten a few paintings carried in a smaller art store before he’d killed Trish and Hannah Morris. The photo was a publicity shot, and Keren had to assume it was the best picture the little weasel could get of himself.