The Templar Chronicles (55 page)

“So you know this guy, Burke?” Riley asked.

Cade nodded. “He worked Bunko when I was with Homicide. We did a few task forces together. Decent guy overall. Takes the job a bit too lightly for my taste, but he was never a bad cop.”

Olsen spoke up from the back seat. “Think he’ll help us?”

“Only one way to find out,” Cade replied.

He took out his cell phone and dialed a number.

“Detective Burke, please” he said to the woman who answered.

CHAPTER NINE

Cade stepped inside the diner and looked around. Burke, a heavy set man with a close-cropped shock of white hair that always made Cade think of the white apes of Barsoom, waved to him from a seat in the back corner. Cade threaded his way through the other diners and slid into the booth opposite. The two men shook hands.

“Good to see ya, Williams. How are the Feds treating ya these days?”

Shortly after Cade had left the force, Burke had come under the mistaken impression that Cade worked for a super secret arm of the federal government, the NSA or the DIA, something along those lines, and Cade had never disabused him of the notion. It had been helpful to have someone on the inside over the years and right now, Burke was their best chance of getting a line on what was going on.

“Good as can be expected, I guess,” Cade answered, as he signaled the waitress for a cup of coffee. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“No problem.” He waited until the waitress had brought Cade’s coffee, refilled Burke’s own, and walked over to take care of another customer at a different table before continuing. “You here about that priest down in Southie?”

“Yeah. Word on the street says it was a burglary gone sideways?”

Burke nodded. “Damnedest thing, too. I mean, the guy was old, right? All the perp had to do was push him out of the way. Instead he grabs a butcher knife from the block in the kitchen and stabs the guy to death.” The detective took a sip of his coffee. “Professional interest?” he asked.

“Nah. Personal. I knew Father Martin from back in the day. Used to see him at church when I was a kid. He came to see me at the Deaconess a few times, during my recovery.”

He knew he didn’t have to explain just what he was recovering from; for a cop who’d known him as long as Burke had, there could be only one incident he was referring to, the assault on Cade and his wife by the Dorchester Demon seven years ago. “Last I’d heard he’d retired.”

Burke nodded. “Retired from the hospital, but not from active ministry. He went back to working as the assistant pastor at St. John the Divine, back where he started all those years ago.” He picked up a dark folder from the seat beside him, looked at it without speaking for a moment, and then seemed to come to a decision. He passed the folder to Cade. “Figured this was what you were calling about, so I brought the file.”

Cade opened the folder and a deep sense of trepidation unfolded in his gut. He hadn’t known Thomas well, but the man had been kind to him in a time when kindness was more precious than life itself and so he’d always had a soft place in his heart for the tough old soldier of Christ. Inside were several 8.5 x 11 full-color photos. The first showed Martin where he had fallen on the floor of rectory kitchen, his blood staining the cracked linoleum and his face turned toward the camera as if his unseeing eyes were staring deep into the lens. The black handle of a carving knife protruded from his back. The second was a closer view of Father Martin’s back, showing several slashes in the fabric of his shirt, evidence of other entrance wounds. Cade counted ten without even trying.

The other photos showed the body from various angles, but didn’t give him anything new.

“Any witnesses?”

Burke shook his head. “The rectory houses two other priests, but both were away at an archdiocesan conference and the housekeeper had the weekend off. She was the one who found him when she came in this morning.”

“How about trace evidence?”

“I’m still waiting for a few tests to come back from forensics, but as of right now we’ve got nothing. The knife, doorknobs, and sink were all wiped clean. Hair and fiber came up empty as well. I’m having the blood splatters typed, hoping we get lucky, but I’m really not counting on it. Whoever the guy was, he played it cool and seems to have gotten away without leaving anything behind.”

Cade knew there was more to it than that, but he couldn’t say so to Burke. If Bishop were involved, as Cade suspected, things might just get a lot uglier.

“That just sucks. What did the thief make off with? A couple of gold-plated chalices and the money from the poor box?”

“Not even. Idiot dropped his sack when he turned to run. Damned shame is what it is.”

They spent another fifteen minutes sharing war stories and catching up on guys they knew. When they ran out of things to talk about, Cade thanked Burke for coming down and paid the bill.

As Burke got up to go, Cade reached out and grabbed his arm.

“Where did they take Martin’s body?”

“The County Morgue was full so they’ve got him over at the Annex, in the basement of Mass General. Gonna go pay your respects?”

Cade glanced away.

“Yeah.” Something like that.

CHAPTER TEN

Cade didn’t have the luxury to take things slowly at this point. He needed a look at Father Martin’s body and he needed to do it now. The fact that it was being housed over at the morgue annex, rather than the primary facility at Boston City Hall was a definite plus. Foot traffic was much lower at the Annex and he knew they should be able to get in and out without too much difficulty. More importantly, the chances of someone from his past recognizing him at the Annex were much lower than they would be at City Hall.

Cade waited five minutes after Burke had left and then returned to the vehicle. A few minutes later Riley opened the passenger door and climbed in beside him.

“Well?” Cade asked.

“Went straight back to his car and drove off. I took down the tags but I don’t think there’s anything for us to worry about. He didn’t have a tail and I don’t see any evidence of a stakeout; the rest of the cars along the street are empty. There wasn’t any activity in the windows of the building overlooking the diner, either.”

“Good.” He’d thought Burke was playing on the up and up, but it didn’t hurt to be sure. Cade sat there in silence for a moment and then made up his mind. He needed a look at that body and there was no better time than the present.

“Get a hold of the other two and let them know we’re headed over to the morgue. We’ll meet up with them back at the hotel once we’re finished.”

“Roger that.”

While Riley was on the phone, Cade opened the storage compartment between the front seats. He pressed a hidden stud and then lifted the compartment out entirely, revealing another, shallower space beneath. He removed several leather identification cases from inside the hollow and flipped through them. Selecting two, he replaced the rest and then reseated the upper compartment.

He waited until Riley had hung up and then handed over one of the sets of ID.

“Who are we this time?” asked the sergeant.

“NSA.”

“Works for me.”

Cade knew the average municipal employee wouldn’t ask too many questions of a representative of the National Security Agency, the arm of the US government responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications, and so it seemed like a good choice. Believed by some to be the world’s largest intelligence-gathering agency, the NSA was a branch of the Department of Defense and with that affiliation came a certain sense that the less one knew about its activities the better. Cade was counting on that reputation of secrecy to allow them to get in and out of the morgue without having to explain what they were doing there.

He knew he could have simply asked Burke for access to the body, but that would have resulted in a paper trail. Right now his meeting with Burke was off the books and Cade intended to keep things that way.

They made the short trip downtown and parked across the street from the Annex to avoid the cameras that Cade knew where set up around the government parking lot adjacent to the building. They showed their credentials to the guard just inside the front door and then took the elevator down to the basement where they let the morgue attendant know what they wanted.

The attendant led them over to the bank of steel drawers built into the far wall and pulled one of them open, exposing the black body bag that lay inside. He deftly slid the bag onto a portable table, wheeled the table over to one of the examinations stations, and then repeated the process in reverse. Once the bag was in place, the attendant unzipped the thick plastic, exposing the body of an elderly man. He checked the toe tag against the clipboard he carried and then removed a file from a nearby cabinet, handing it to Cade.

“That’s him,” he said, indicating the body, “and that’s the autopsy report. Just what are you looking for?”

Cade took the clipboard, smiled at the attendant, and said, “Thanks. Now if you wouldn’t mind waiting in the hall?”

The attendant smiled back. “Sorry, no can do. Rules say I’ve got to be here.”

“Riley?”

“Yes, sir.” The big man stepped up, took the attendant by the arm and led him toward the door. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, speaking over the man’s protests, “but this is a matter of national security. You are going to have to wait in the hall until we’re finished.”

“National security? What the hell does the death of a priest have to do with national security?”

“Sorry, sir, but I can’t tell you that. Your government appreciates your assistance in this matter, however, and I’m sure that…”

Riley’s voice faded as he escorted the man out into the hallway. Moments later he stepped back inside the room and then shut and locked the door behind him. He took up a stance in front of it, just to be certain they wouldn’t be interrupted.

Satisfied, Cade turned back to the autopsy report in his hands. He leafed through it for a few moments, noting the time of death as having been between late last night and early this morning. The pieces seemed to fit together. He could see Martin making the drive to Connecticut, dropping off the package, and the returning early that morning only to find the intruder in the midst of the burglary. Surprised, the thief reacts without thinking and suddenly he’s got a murder rap to add to his breaking and entering and burglary charges.

Cause of death was listed as exsanguination, caused by multiple knife wounds to the chest. Father Martin had bled to death alone there in the early morning darkness, unable to call for help. Cade found himself hoping the old man hadn’t suffered too much, that his faith had allowed him to face death with the same bravery and determination with which he’d faced life.

The report noted that the wounds were caused by a common kitchen knife, that the weapon had been recovered at the scene, and that the nature of the wounds matched the size and shape of the blade. The knife itself had been sent to the lab for analysis, so Cade was not going to be able to examine it for himself.

But he had the next best thing.

Martin’s body.

He put the report down and turned to Riley. “M.E. puts his death sometime last night, early this morning, which means we’ve still got time to give this a shot.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

“All right. You know what to do if anything goes wrong.”

Knowing he was in good hands, Cade turned back to the body and took a few deep breaths, preparing himself mentally for what was to come, and then removed the thin cotton gloves that he habitually wore, the gloves that kept him functional and sane.

Seven years before, back when Cade worked for the Boston police department, he’d come face to face with a supernatural entity he’d come to know as the Adversary. That encounter had scarred his body and his soul, and had left him with a few unique abilities. He was about to use one of them now.

Cade called it his Gift, though for years he had considered it more a curse than a benefit. Still, there was no denying its usefulness at times like this. By touching an object with his bare hands, Cade could read the psychic impressions that had been left on it by the last person to handle it. Thoughts and feelings poured out in his head as if he were actually experiencing them. They didn’t last long, a few seconds at most, and the impressions faded from the object over time so that after forty-eight hours or so he was unable to get anything worthwhile from them. But if he got to the object in time, he could learn a tremendous amount of useful information.

If he used his Gift on the deceased, he could “experience” their last moments just as they had. If Martin had gotten a glimpse of his attacker, Cade would see the same thing. In addition, he’d have access to whatever Martin was thinking at the time, allowing for an even greater understanding.

The technique wasn’t without its dangers, however, for Cade not only saw what the deceased had seen, but experienced it as well. If the priest had been scared, Cade would be scared. If the priest had been injured, Cade would feel his pain; his body would react as if he himself had been injured. Occasionally the wounds themselves would manifest on his body, which made every use of his Gift a potentially deadly one.

Riley would be his backup. If it looked like Cade was in trouble, he would break the connection by pulling Cade away from the body. That was usually enough to prevent further harm, though occasionally more forceful measures were required. Cade hoped today wouldn’t be one of those times.

With a final nod to Riley, Cade reached out and touched Father Martin’s face.

Darkness.

The sense of being followed, no, hunted, as he scrambled up a long incline, the rocks sharp against the flesh of his hands.

Had to warn them.

Had to warn them all before it was too late!

His breath came hard and heavy, his ankle hurt where he’d twisted it earlier, but he dared not stop. If he did, they’d kill him. There was no question in his mind.

A strange baying sound reached his ears and his heart leapt into his throat. It wouldn’t be long now; they’d released the hounds.