The Redeemed

  The Redeemed

  by

  Jonas Saul

  Chapter 1

  Sarah Roberts leaned on her crutch as she stood over the decapitated and mutilated body of what was once a man. Written on the note in her hand were her sister’s words. The message was specific, but it meant nothing to Sarah.

  Gaspard de Coligny. Everybody and everything has its time.

  “What is it?” Parkman asked.

  “Nothing, really.”

  Sarah covered her nose as a breeze came up and ushered the thick stench of the dead priest towards her. Crime scene investigators combed the wooded and grassy area of Mulholland Drive where the body had been found. The scattered lights of Los Angeles below covered the landscape as if a giant had spread them out like diamonds on a velvet cloth. The call to her hotel room came over an hour ago. Another body. Another murder.

  Before Detective David Hirst would allow the body to be taken away, he wanted the head found. Detective Hirst also delayed because he wanted Father Adams to examine the victim. There was a chance Adams would be able to ID the body. The previous four men murdered in the city in the last eight days had been Catholic priests, all known to Father Adams.

  Since Parkman and Sarah arrived from Canada yesterday, Detective David Hirst had brought them up to speed on the case. Four dead bodies so far and he anticipated more. All Catholic priests from different areas of Los Angeles, The City of Angels. All four dead bodies bore a cross with the victim’s name engraved along the wooden spine. Each body had the cross nailed into the chest plate.

  “Anything?” Detective Hirst asked as he moved closer to Sarah and Parkman. “Can your sister help?”

  Sarah shook her head and caught the glimpse Hirst shot Parkman.

  She crumpled the note in her hand, eased it into her pocket, then pivoted on the crutch and hobbled toward the darkness that lay between two street lights. Footsteps bounded behind her.

  “Sarah?” Parkman said.

  She kept walking. She needed to be away from this place. The men had work to do, evidence to gather. Unless she could help there was no point standing around the crime scene.

  “Sarah, everyone’s under a lot of pressure,” Parkman said from a few steps behind.

  She wheeled around to face him. The streetlight cast a warm glow across his features and for the first time in a while, she saw his age. The bags under his eyes revealed his lack of sleep. The nervous tick he had developed lately said volumes about his stress level. The toothpick in his mouth was aged and fraying, yet he clutched it like an old friend.

  Sarah hadn’t received a single note from Vivian except for the one crumpled up in her pocket. She knew Hirst was wondering how much help the psychic girl would be. It had only been an hour since the note in her pocket was written. Maybe it wasn’t only Sarah who didn’t enjoy working with the police. Maybe Vivian held a certain dislike for authorities as well.

  “This isn’t working,” Sarah said, a slight ache rising in her shattered ankle. They had repaired it to the point where she would be able to walk again in eight to ten weeks, but that didn’t help right now. Calluses had formed in the palms of her hands after working with the crutches. Tonight she only had one crutch.

  “We had to try.” Parkman glanced over his shoulder, then back to Sarah. “I had to try. I owe David. I felt we could help. He’s really stuck. He has nothing to go on.”

  “Parkman, I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies in my time, even caused a few, but I’ve never seen what was done to that man. His head was cut off. His hands and feet were hacked off and his genitals were missing. Your detective friend isn’t looking for a crazy serial killer. He’s looking for an angry one. The killer is filled with rage. He’s evil incarnate. Lucifer has a special place for this person in Hell, if there is a Hell.”

  Parkman stepped closer. “That’s why we have to help.”

  Sarah adjusted herself on the crutch. “It’s funny.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “I would love to help, but without Vivian, I’m stuck, too.”

  “I know that.”

  “But they don’t.” She nodded toward the men gathered around the crime scene. “I want to help. This murderer is a crazed lunatic. But there’s nothing I can do until Vivian gives me something to go on. People forget I’m not psychic. It’s Vivian who works the magic. I spend most of my time trying to stay alive.”

  Parkman moved in and wrapped his arms around her. “I know,” he whispered. “If Vivian gives you nothing, we’ll leave. If your hands are tied, then they are tied. There’s no way around that.” He leaned back but kept his hands on her shoulders, his head bowed. “At least we came down to L.A. and gave it a shot.”

  “What was that look between you and Hirst?”

  He released her shoulders and stepped back. “You know how the boys in blue look at you. Some of them resent the fact that a woman in her mid-twenties can get access to crime scenes without proper schooling or training. The rest of them don’t believe in psychic abilities. You’re in a no-win situation with most of these guys—”

  “C’mon, Parkman. That’s not it at all. Most of these guys hate me because of my anti-cop reputation. Considering what just went down in Canada, I can see why.”

  “That was cleared up. The media ran the stories of how Barry Ashford was murdered and the crimes he and his wife were responsible for. It wasn’t enough that he was a cop. He lost all credibility when the truth came out.”

  Sarah cleared her throat. “Some of these guys,” she gestured at the dozen or so men in suits and uniforms, “haven’t read everything in the paper. All they know is that I went to Canada to hunt a cop down and after I kidnapped him, he was tortured and murdered.”

  “These guys aren’t stupid, Sarah. They know that if you were responsible for that in any way, you wouldn’t be here right now helping on this investigation. You’d be behind bars.”

  “I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. Normally I wouldn’t care. But I came here to fix things, to redeem myself with the authorities as well as with you.”

  The building to her right caught her eye. Perimeter lights glowed along its white walls and a large parking lot spread out on the other side of the building.

  “What’s that place?” Sarah asked to change the subject, overly frustrated by Vivian, how the case was being handled, and having to deal with crutches.

  “I overheard one of the officers say it’s a Protestant or Presbyterian Church. Something like that.”

  “Isn’t it interesting that the killer engraves the names of his victims,” she met Parkman’s eyes, “Catholic priests, on a cross and leaves his most recent kill fifty yards from a church?”

  Parkman shrugged. “Sarah, we’re not here to deduce facts, to examine evidence or to be concerned about the killer’s motivation. We’re here to give Detective Hirst something only you can offer him. If you can’t, that’s okay too.” He glanced down at the pocket that held the crumpled note. “What was that paper in your hand earlier, when you were by the body?”

  “A note from Vivian. She caught me in the hotel before coming out here.”

  “Sounds promising.” He raised his eyebrows. “What did she say?”

  “That everything would come in its time.”

  “Okay, maybe that means she’ll give you something Hirst can work with soon. In its time.”

  “Maybe. But I’m worried about something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The first four victims were Catholic priests with a reputation for doing things they weren’t supposed to be doing.”

  “We don’t know that. Sure, two of them were transferred from Boston after allegations they had abused children, but nothing has been proven in court.”

  “I’m
not worried about what can be proven in court or not. If they touched children inappropriately in any way, they deserve to be castrated and then killed. Especially men in such a position of trust. And we’re not talking about a father figure or an employer. We’re talking about a man of God here. That is a horrid crime.”

  She adjusted her collar as the air seemed to thicken around her. The opinion she had of organized religion was one of acceptance. Her opinion of predators who prey on weak and helpless children from a position of trust was one of extreme prejudice. Whoever preyed on the children of the human race didn’t deserve to be a part of that race anymore.

  “So what are you saying, Sarah? You don’t want to stop these murders if the men being killed, whether priests or not, are criminals?”

  “I’m a vigilante. I go after people and stop them, or at least I try to, before they hurt others. That’s why I’m here. But what if I’m tasked to stop a vigilante? How would Vivian respond? In essence, aren’t I attempting to stop the exact thing that I have become? Maybe that was why Vivian said that everybody and everything has its time. Maybe this is the priests’ time to pay for their wrongdoings.”

  “Let me get this straight. Are you condoning murder?”

  “Come on, Parkman. You know what I’m saying.”

  “Just bouncing it back and forth. I need to know if we’re done in this city. If that’s Vivian’s position then maybe we are.”

  Sarah watched the men gathered around the body. “No, we’re not done yet. The last message from her was too recent.”

  A four-door sedan came up the road and parked six cars down from their car. The engine died. The vehicle caught the attention of several officers. After a moment, the driver’s side door opened. A man got out wearing a long black coat. He reached back inside the car and withdrew, a hat in his hand.

  “Is this the Father Adams I’ve been hearing about?” Sarah asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Poor guy. He’s been busy identifying the bodies of his priests. Wonder what kind of sermon one could write about that.”

  The man started across the grass headed for the crime scene, each step seemingly calculated, assessed. He was a tall man. Sarah pegged him as slightly over six feet. His coat went to mid-calf and his hat’s brim kept his face shrouded in shadow. If he wasn’t a man of the cloth, he would come across as someone very rich, someone used to the taste of money. There was an air about him, one of regal confidence, as if it was Prince Charles walking toward the officers simply to ask directions to the local pub.

  “Where do they get guys like this?” Sarah asked.

  “No idea.”

  “Since someone is targeting priests, maybe we should learn a little bit more about the Catholic Church.”

  “You can’t become a specialist on everything. There just isn’t enough time. That’s why they bring specialists in.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Sarah said. “I meant, let’s go back to the dead body and listen to what Father Adams has to say.”

  “Oh,” Parkman said, but Sarah was already hobbling past him, moving fast on her one crutch.

  A couple of officers crowded around Father Adams as he stood over the body. Sarah limped to the side and stood near the victim’s legs. Detective Hirst afforded her a small nod, then stared at Father Adams. Everyone waited. Sarah felt Parkman’s presence behind her.

  “And you are?” Father Adams spoke without looking up, his voice deep, resonant.

  Probably from years of sermons.

  Since no one answered right away, Sarah assumed he was addressing her. “I’m nobody,” Sarah said. “Don’t worry yourself about me. I’m sure you have more important things on your plate. Or, at your feet, to be sure.”

  Father Adams hesitated a moment longer, then slowly looked up. The hat kept most of the top half of his face in shadow, but Sarah could see his left eye. If education, money and stature could be detected in the human eye, this man possessed that ocular device. There was intelligence in his face, a greater intelligence that belied his position with the church. This was the kind of man one would expect to be a cardinal in the Sistine Chapel, voting for the next pope, or maybe the pope himself. Not a priest in Los Angeles attempting to save the souls of a few.

  “How do you find yourself here?” he asked. “What is your purpose?”

  “Same as yours.”

  “And that is?”

  “You’re not sure why you’re here?” Sarah asked.

  She detected Parkman adjust himself from one foot to the other behind her. No one else moved. Detective Hirst and his men were quiet in the Father’s presence, as if a man of God held divine powers of some kind over humans. Sarah held the utmost respect for belief systems and faith, and was quite a spiritual person herself, but organized religion had never enticed her.

  Father Adams’ head lowered. He studied the body at his feet. A moment later he crouched down and took a closer look.

  “This appears to be the body of Father Alvin. He wasn’t seen at his church today. I worried you would locate another body soon.” Adams got to his feet. “Locating the head would allow for certainty, but this is most surely Father Alvin. I saw him two days ago. He wore these same pants.”

  “How can you be so certain?” Sarah asked.

  Detective Hirst shot her a cautious glance. All it did was make her want to ask more questions. Wasn’t that what she was here for? Don’t ask Parkman to bring her along as a favor, then when she shows up, try to quell her.

  “Father Alvin doesn’t shirk his responsibilities. His commitment to the church is quite sound. Missing from his church all day isn’t a habit of his.”

  Sarah turned and hobbled away on the one crutch. Behind her, she heard Father Adams ask, “Detective Hirst, who was that girl?”

  “Her name is Sarah Roberts. I asked her to join us.”

  “And why is that?” Adams asked.

  “She has a certain insight into these kinds of things.”

  Then she was too far away to discern anything more other than the sound of their voices.

  “What was that all about?” Parkman asked as he caught up to her. “It almost sounded like you were challenging the guy.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Sarah said as she slowed down to catch her breath. Walking with a crutch was hard on the uneven ground.

  “Who do you trust?” Parkman asked, his voice lined with sarcasm.

  “Exactly.”

  They got back to their rental car, where Sarah inserted her crutch through the open back window and dropped into the passenger seat. Parkman walked around and got in behind the wheel.

  “Why does trust have to come into it when dealing with a priest?” Parkman asked. “As a man of God, aren’t we all supposed to respect them, trust them?”

  “You’re right. What is there to trust about a priest? All I know about their religion is what I’ve seen on TV, like the horrific molestations. It isn’t fair to judge them all based on that, though.”

  Parkman started the car. “Coffee?”

  She shook her head and stared out the window at the men gathered in the dark. Father Adams had broken away from the group and was making his way back to his car. “No, it’ll keep me awake. I want wine, and then my bed. Research tomorrow. We’ve got two days until another priest is murdered based on the going rate. Unless Vivian gives me something soon, Hirst will ask us to leave in a couple of days since we’re not helping.”

  Parkman pulled away from the curb as other vehicles showed up. “I’d agree with you on that.”

  “But there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?” Parkman asked.

  “Why didn’t Hirst tell Father Adams that the cross in this victim’s chest had the name Alvin scratched into it?”

  “Father Adams is the liaison to the church. Coming out tonight was a formality. They always need someone to identify the body.”

  “Fair enough, but something isn’t adding up.”

  “What isn’t ad
ding up?”

  “No idea, but I intend to find out.”

  Chapter 2

  Mike sat in his car, the engine idling. It was an old car, one with an operational cigarette lighter and a cassette deck. He popped the lighter out and lit his cigarette, puffed hard, pulled the smoke deep into his lungs, exhaled.

  He grabbed the camera from the passenger seat, made sure the settings were right for the night shot without a flash, and snapped a couple of pics of the retreating car with the woman on the crutch and her male companion. He would locate her again and get a proper picture of her face. Something for his collection.