Ten Plagues (36 page)

“Is that admiration I hear?”

“Of course I admire him. He’s …” Keren caught herself again and fell silent.

“He could rejoin the force,” O’Shea said. “I’ve asked around. He was a good cop. As good as it gets.”

Keren shook her head. “I’d hate to see him do that. He has such peace in his life at that mission.”

“ ‘I did not come to bring peace, but a sword,’“ O’Shea said.

Keren was always startled when O’Shea came up with something Christian. She knew he was a man of faith, and she’d especially liked him because he respected her own strong beliefs, but he didn’t wear it on his sleeve.

“And we’re the sword, is that what you’re saying?” She was used to the idea that she battled evil, but she’d never heard it put quite that way before.

O’Shea hunched one shoulder. “On this case, with Caldwell, I’d say for sure we’re the sword. Somebody’s gotta be the sword, cuz this guy needs a sword taken to him—bad.”

Keren nodded and stared into space, thinking about how desperately they needed to stop Caldwell.

Finally, O’Shea broke the silence. “So what’s the deal with you and the preacher?”

Keren threw her coffee cup at him. She wished it was stoneware full of boiling hot coffee instead of Styrofoam and empty.

Keren crawled out of the lousy cot in the police lounge the next morning around five. “I want my apartment back,” she growled to no one, because no one else was stupid enough to sleep here.

Except she didn’t want her apartment back. No way did she want to sleep in that room with her memory of Katrina Hardcastle and all those flies.

She showered at the station house. She’d brought half her wardrobe in by now, and when she got out to her desk, O’Shea was waiting for her like the specter of death.

“Another one?” Keren should have saved her breath. The answer was obvious.

“I just got the word that a body was dumped. I don’t have any details, just an address.” O’Shea headed for the door. “A half a block from the mission.”

“We’ve got cops all over that area! How is he getting in?”

O’Shea shrugged and kept moving.

Keren fell into step alongside him. “Why do you suppose he writes in Latin?”

O’Shea said, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe when we get him, we’ll find a connection in his twisted brain to explain it. Maybe, in the end, he’s just a loon.”

“Boils this time,” Keren remembered. “Pestus ex ulcus, isn’t that right? The plague of boils?”

O’Shea didn’t answer her, and she didn’t want him to.

“Should I call Morris?” O’Shea had his phone out of his pocket.

“Leave him for now.” Keren started jogging down the stairs. “It’s so early you might wake him up. If he’s sleeping for once, let him get another hour or two. There’s no rush. We can just walk over and talk to him from the dump site. There’s nothing he can do anyway.”

“Identify her.”

Keren sighed. She was all too sure Paul would be able to identify her.

Keren moved faster, but what she wanted to do was run away.

P
ravus crooned to the woman in front of him, “I’ve got the perfect place for you. It’s going to be cold, but you won’t care for long.”

He was finding his work to be more of a chore. Eluding the police was heady, but the beast told him his victims were unworthy.

He didn’t even bother to call the preacher this time. Pravus hated to admit it, but he was becoming bored with his creations and living now only for the kill. He worked away, but he couldn’t put the love he needed into his art.

And then, like any true artist, he was inspired. He needed to pick a moment when the reverend was distracted, and he knew just how to do that—how to listen in on his room. Strike while the reverend slept.

He went to the window to look down on the mission, and the final piece of the next child he’d create came to him instantly, when he saw pretty little Rosita.

In spite of all the nickel-sized burn marks on her, Paul easily identified the schizophrenic Hispanic woman who came and went from the mission.

He had to fight back his rage when he stood over her, thrown away like garbage in an alley.

“I should be praying,” he said to O’Shea. “Or crying.”

O’Shea shrugged.

“If I look in a mirror, will my eyes be as detached and cool as yours?” Paul shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them from hitting something.

O’Shea looked away from the mutilated body. He stared at Paul but didn’t say anything.

Paul could feel his own cold-blooded cop personality oozing out of him. “Let’s get this over with.”

“The FBI just pulled Keren aside to ask her some questions. She’ll be back in a minute. She’ll want to hear your statement, maybe ask some questions.”

“I’m not waiting around.” He gave his statement, then he went straight back to the Lighthouse.

He went later to visit LaToya. She lay immobilized in the hospital bed. The beeping monitor was the only thing that proved she was alive.

Caldwell didn’t call.

The streets around the mission were so heavily patrolled that the vagrants and gangs were driven inside or underground. By the end of the day, there wasn’t a single person in the mission. No one showed up for the evening meal.

Paul ran down a list in his head of every woman he knew who lived on the streets. He tried to figure out a way to track them down and bring them inside for the night. Even thinking about it was a waste of time. He’d never find them, and if, by some fluke he did, they wouldn’t come with him unless he used force.

He considered using force—considered it hard. In the end he stayed inside and prayed.

His prayers seemed futile, and he thought about the gun permit he’d been issued when he left the force. He was tempted to get one. He was sorely tempted to walk a foot patrol up and down the South Side, hunting Caldwell. Make himself an easy target to see if he could draw this maniac out.

Pounding awakened Paul after only a couple hours of restless, nightmare-plagued sleep.

Coming instantly awake, something he’d learned on the force, he rolled off the mattress, got to his feet, and yanked the door open.

Higgins was in the hall. “We’ve got another one.” He jerked his head toward the stairway. “I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

“What is going on? Why didn’t he call? Why is there no sign delivered to me? Why no threats, no bombs?” Paul took the time to pull on his running shoes and was after Higgins in seconds, wearing the jogging suit he slept in.

Higgins led the way to a seedy bar a block from the mission.

Higgins pushed his way through a crowd, Paul right on his heels, until Paul saw the ghastly contents of the bar’s ice machine.

Paul saw the gaping eyes and the cold blue skin. “Talking Bertha.”

“One of yours?” Higgins asked.

“One of mine.” Paul analyzed the position of the body. The medical examiner, a young black man, fixed plastic bags over the woman’s hands, hoping to preserve evidence under her fingernails.

“Anything?”

“Nope, just routine.” The ME started loading equipment in a kit.

“Okay if I touch her?”

The ME dragged a pair of plastic gloves out of the kit and tossed them to Paul. “Go ahead. I’ve got everything I need. We’re ready to transport.”

“When’d you find her?” Paul glanced over his shoulder at Higgins as he pulled on the gloves.

“The bar has a silent alarm that went off at two a.m. Police response time was three minutes.” Higgins rapped out the details as the examiner left.

“So she was probably dead when he brought her in, not like the first two. Juanita was probably killed on-site, and he was planning to kill LaToya the same way.” Paul crouched down to pinch a clear plastic encased hand, hanging suspended from the wide door of the ice machine. “Those welts on her body look like burns.” Higgins snapped plastic gloves on his hands and ran a finger over the raised welts on Talking Bertha’s neck, just above the words E
AMUS
M
EUS
N
ATIO
M
EARE
, painted on the white dress she wore.

“This is the plague of hail, right?” Higgins flipped open his notebook.

“Yeah, these are probably freeze burns. Liquid nitrogen, maybe.”

“How does she fit the profile?” Higgins lifted an eyelid over Talking Bertha’s slack, lifeless eyes.

“She knows me. What other profile is there?” Paul stood away from the body. His stomach twisted at the casual tone of his voice. He knew it was wrong to work over Bertha’s body without praying, without crying, without feeling for her. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Go then. We’ll send someone over later.”

“You don’t need a statement. You know everything I know already.” Paul turned on his heel and walked out.

Keren showed up at the mission an hour later.

Paul saw the dark circles under her eyes. Her hair looked like she hadn’t done more than run her fingers through it and twist it into her barrette for days. He was tempted to smooth the riotous curls. He wanted to take her in his arms. He wanted to share his strength with her and take some of hers for himself. But was that the cop who wanted that or the preacher?

Because he couldn’t be sure, he led her toward the coffeepot.

He got her a cup and one for himself, and, remembering that Caldwell had been watching the mission, Paul dragged her away from the front windows and they sank down at the table closest to the lunch counter.

“He hasn’t called?” Keren asked.

“I’d have let you know,” Paul said with more bite than he’d intended.

Keren nodded and closed her eyes. She held her coffee cup like her hands were freezing, even though it was seventy-five degrees outside. “Sorry. That just slipped out.”

“I know.” Paul drank his stout, bitter brew until he’d emptied the cup.

“So are you still spending the nights at the hospital?”

Paul shook his head. “Rosita is pretty much living there. It’s safer than her going back and forth.”

“You moved back into your apartment?” Keren asked idly.

“No. I don’t think I ever will. There’s another one on that floor. Not big and not in good repair. But I think I’ll move into it permanently.” He got up to refill his cup. He got back and noticed hers was empty. He refilled hers, too, without asking.