The Lord Is My Shepherd (16 page)

Jeremiah smiled as a small child, barely four, finished asking the final question of the first telling of the Passover story. Choosing him had been simple since the youngest child at a Seder was supposed to ask the questions, and he was the youngest child present who could
remember
the questions.

The second telling involved four older children, and to avoid the appearance of favoritism the teachers had chosen the four children who had had the most exemplary behavior in the preceding month.

He loved this part of Passover. He loved the ritual and the retelling of the story of God leading the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt. It was a story no less powerful for the millennia that had inserted themselves in between that time and the present. He thought of those in his native country, who were a symbol of hope to Jewish people the world over. It was a land plagued by fear and terrorism. Yet it was indescribably beautiful because it was theirs.
Truly the promised land.

As the second retelling began he allowed himself to relax, losing himself in the ancient ritual, living every breath in the moment and shutting out the future, the past, and the world outside the room.

No matter how much she wanted to, Cindy couldn't let the murders go. She sat down at her computer and meant to print out the latest crossword puzzle. Instead, she Googled
religiously
themed murders
. The same references to the Raleigh murders came up. The Passion Week Killer had killed Ryan's family three years earlier, also during Easter week. The more she read about the murders, though, the more confused she became.

There had been the killing of the man on the donkey, the killing that represented money changers, and the killings of the woman washing a man's feet. The woman had been Ryan's wife. She had taken her daughter with her to work that morning, and the child had also been killed.
Probably because she saw the killer's face. Th
en it had just stopped. No one knew why. And no one seemed to have been killed in a church.

Ryan's death had definitely broken the pattern. He must have searched for three years to find the killer and that search had led him to Pine Springs. To First Shepherd. She thought about a typical Sunday morning service and all the faces that she knew so well. Was one of them really a killer?

She stood up and grabbed a deck of cards from the closet and headed for the kitchen. She slid the cards out of the case and sucked in her breath. She could see her other deck of cards scattered around the body of Ryan Bellig, a man who had been trying to get justice for his murdered wife and daughter.

After taking a deep breath, Cindy forced herself to shuffle the deck and then start a game of solitaire while she thought about everything she had read. Evidently, Ryan had tracked the killer to Pine Springs, just in time to confront him after the first murder.

But why not go to the police? Maybe they wouldn't believe him. Or maybe he was looking for revenge. She had assumed the knife belonged to the killer, but it could just as easily have belonged to Ryan.

So why had the Passion Week killer only gotten halfway through Easter week before stopping? Had the police been closing in on him? Had killing the little girl somehow ruined his plan? As much as she couldn't imagine why somebody would kill innocent people, she really couldn't imagine what would make them stop.

The Passion Week killer had never been caught. And now, three years later, it looked like he had started up again across the country. Her game of solitaire ended, one of the worst hands she had ever played. She took it as a sign and headed back to her computer where she sat down and hesitated.

Leave it alone. The police will take care of this,
the rational part of her brain whispered.

You're never going to feel safe again unless you can figure this all out,
the other side countered.

Once again she typed
the Passion Week Killer
into her search engine. After a moment's thought she added the words
my wife's killer
. At the top of the list she found exactly what she was hoping to find—Ryan's blog.

She clicked on the link, and the page came up. It looked like he had created it right after his family was killed. She shivered as she read the last entry less than a week old.

I think I found him, the monster that killed Anna and Rachel. It's been three years, and I had started to lose faith. But I've found him, the man who was like a brother to me. I remember the times he came to our house for dinner, played with Rachel while we talked, and helped Anna in the kitchen. It makes me sick to think about it. How could I let a monster into my own home, under my very
nose? But he will finally pay for his crimes. I will have justice one way or another.

Can you believe it? He's found another church to prey on. How many times evil walks among us, and we never know it! I have to hurry before he starts all over again. Just like I have often speculated but could never prove, this was not the first time he has done this. But I will make it the last.

Cindy reread it. Ryan couldn't have known when he wrote it that the post would be his last.

She scrolled down the page, clicking on different posts and checking out the comments. From what she could see Ryan had several hundred readers. Most of those who had posted seemed, like him, to be mourning loved ones whose killers had never been brought to justice.

JuliaN
had lost her mother.
Bitter_and_angry
had lost his fiancée.
Nomoresmiling
's son had been murdered. They and so many others posted again and again, sharing their own stories, their own struggles.

One person who had posted,
carlsbad10
, in particular seemed to have been egging Ryan on and encouraging him in his search. He had written,
I know you'll find the guy; I just wish I could be there when you do.

“I wish you had been there, too,
carlsbad10
,” she whispered out loud. It was painful to put a life and a voice to the face on the floor with the cold, dead eyes.

Then she saw a comment that had been posted by
bitter_and_angry
about two weeks earlier.

Dude, cops just arrested Shari's killer. This dude knows everything. See if he can't help you with your search: www.askgoliath.com.

Cindy clicked on the link. After a quick review of the site she learned that Goliath seemed to be some sort of forensics expert who knew something about any given topic. She was amazed at the ego the guy had and even more amazed at some of the questions people had asked him on the boards.

She found the link to email him directly. She took a deep breath and then typed:
I wanted to know if you helped a man named Ryan Bellig within the last few days whose wife was killed by the Passion Week Killer in Raleigh three years ago. Ryan's been murdered. I think he found the killer, but we're trying to figure out who it is.

She added her name and email address and hit send. She glanced at the clock on her computer and realized it was getting late. There was probably no way she would get a response in time to help, but at least she had tried. She briefly considered posting a comment to the last entry, letting people know what had happened to Ryan. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, but she couldn't do it. All these people were lost and searching for justice. To tell them about Ryan would make nothing better, only worse. No, when this was over and the police had caught the killer, then maybe she'd return and let them know.

“Sorry, everyone. Better luck in your own searches for closure,” she whispered. She sent a quick prayer heavenward for all those lost and heartbroken people.

“Children, you know that at the end of the meal you have dessert, right?” Jeremiah asked.

Eager heads bobbed all around the room, several of them belonging to the adults. “The meal cannot be completed
without it. We have hidden the afikomen somewhere in this room. Go and search for it!”

Children leaped up from the tables and scoured the room, looking under tables and chairs, searching corners for the piece of matzah set aside to eat at the end of the Seder meal. Several older children fidgeted nervously, unable to decide whether they were meant to look or to wait with the adults. Jeremiah walked by the tables. One more year as a child would not hurt any of them. He tapped each on the shoulder and sent them on the hunt, explaining that he thought the young ones needed “help.”

When the children finally found the afikomen and scurried back to their tables, they each found a silver dollar on their chair as a reward. The children who had been coaxed were especially excited to see the money.

Jeremiah smiled. It was the small things, the simple things that mattered. It's what helped his people survive their adversity through the centuries.

Cindy walked around the house, double-checking doors and windows before getting ready for bed. When there was nothing left to do, she checked her inbox.

Goliath had emailed.

She opened the message.

Yes, Ms. Preston. I had talked to Bellig. Sorry to hear he's dead. He wanted to know if there had been any other killings similar to the Passion Week killings. I told him yes, two years earlier in Boston and the year before that in Texas. I told him if the killer had changed hunting grounds again that in my opinion he would most likely have gone to the West Coast. Good luck.

G
OOD LUCK.
CINDY STARED AT THOSE TWO WORDS FOR A LONG TIME as she processed what Goliath had told her. He had added several links to the bottom of the email, and she clicked on the first one. It was a newspaper article about a politician who had been found dead on Palmer Street in Boston five years earlier. The second link produced an article about vandalism and murder at three different pawn shops two nights after the politician died. The next article told about a couple who was found dead in a fountain. The woman had drowned, and the man had been stabbed and was found with only his feet in the fountain.

The next was from a Texas newspaper. She clicked back to do a little more research on the Boston killings first. After thirty minutes surfing the Web, she was pretty sure the police hadn't connected any of the deaths, and none of the accounts even hinted at a religious theme, even though they occurred the week before Easter.