ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) (42 page)

“
Timothy Krauthammer. He’s a priest at St. Margaret’s.”

“
A priest.” Norris frowned at him, squinty-eyed. “You can prove this?”

“
Burke, hear me out, okay?”

On the way to the command center he had marshaled his case, modeling it on arguments he’d heard prosecutors use to present their case to Judge Salvatore Renzi, evidence his father dissected before rendering a verdict on whether their case was strong enough for a conviction.

“
This better be good, Renzi. And make it fast. I’ve got a meeting with the governor in fifteen minutes.”

“
Melody Johnson was one of his parishioners. She was the DJ for a dance at St. Margaret’s school the Friday before she was murdered. A nun saw him talking to her.”

Norris glanced at the clock. “What else have you got?”

“
Krauthammer graduated from Georgetown University. A D.C. homicide detective checked the cold case files for the years he was there and found an unsolved murder. The woman’s tongue was cut, pre-mortem, lots of blood at the scene. I think it might have been his first.”

“
Can you tie him to the murder?”

“
Not yet, but there’s more—”

“
Then tell me! You’ve got two minutes.”

Anger knifed his gut like a scalpel.
I told you about Kitty, but you didn’t believe me. You refused to protect her, and Krauthammer killed her.

But he couldn’t say this. He might win the battle and lose the war, and he could not afford to lose this war. Lisa Sampson’s life depended on it.

Norris glanced at the clock again. Time was running out for all of them, for Norris, for him, and most of all for Lisa. He gritted his teeth, knowing he needed Norris’ help, knowing he would have to eat crow to get it.

“
Rona showed me the dead bird and the threatening note she got before her house was firebombed.” Norris opened his mouth to speak but Frank cut him off. “I should have told you, but I was afraid you’d be pissed that I talked to her. I think Krauthammer sent the note and torched her house.”

Norris glowered at him, lips clamped in a line.

“
I also got a tip from an elderly priest. Lynette Beauregard was in his parish. He said he saw her at Lakeside Mall talking to Krauthammer the day before she was murdered.”

“
Jesus Christ! And you kept this information to yourself?”

“
You wouldn’t listen when I told you Kitty Neves thought her attacker was a priest.”

“
She was a prostitute.”

“
So? You think prostitutes lie and priests don’t?” For thirty years Sean Daily had lied about being a priest, but he couldn’t say this. No way was he going to rat out the old man.

Norris leaned back in his chair, his eyes full of skepticism. “Some of this is rather persuasive. But it doesn’t prove that this priest is the Tongue Killer.”

“
Krauthammer kidnapped this runaway girl I’m hunting for.”

Norris stared at him, an angry flush staining his cheeks. “What runaway girl? You’re on the street? Dupree assigned you a case?”

He had expected this reaction, had prepared an excuse to let Dupree off the hook. “It’s an emergency. She’s Danny Sampson’s daughter. He’s in town for a movie—”

“
Danny Sampson? The guy that used to do Elvis impersonations?”

“
Right, and his daughter’s missing. Lisa Sampson. Krauthammer’s got her. He’s using her to escape. She’s got a rental car. Krauthammer’s car is at St. Margaret’s, but he’s not. I checked. I can prove he knows her.”

“
Stop wasting my time, dammit! Can you prove he killed these women?”

“
I’m trying to stop him from killing another one! You didn’t believe what I said about Kitty and she wound up dead. He killed her. When Rona demanded DNA samples from all the priests, he firebombed her house.”

“
But you can’t prove it.”

Can’t prove it, can’t prove it. Norris’ mantra. He was down to his trump card, which really didn’t prove anything either. His big gamble.

“
I tracked Lisa Sampson to a bar. When I showed her picture to the barmaid, she said Lisa had been there two nights running with a guy. I got the security videos. Captain Dupree and I watched them. It was Krauthammer.”

Norris bolted upright in his chair. “You’ve got him on a security video?”

He didn’t dare explain about the Mickey Mouse watch. Norris would never believe it.

“
Right. Not only that, I think he attacked the priest that gave me the tip. Someone attacked Father Daily this morning and put him in the hospital. Burke, you’ve got the manpower to find Lisa Sampson. I checked the motels on Airline Drive and got nothing, but she might have a fake ID. Find Lisa and her rental car, you get Krauthammer. He’s the Tongue Killer.”

Norris punched a button on his intercom. “Meredith, I want every member of the taskforce in the conference room
right now
! We may have a suspect, and I want everyone on the street hunting for him.”

Frank felt a momentary surge of triumph. He had managed to convince Norris that Timothy Krauthammer was the killer without revealing how shaky his evidence was. But attaining his other goal might be more difficult.

He had to find Krauthammer before he killed Lisa.

_____

“
Your real name is Lisa?” The sinner extended his legs into the passenger foot well and turned in his seat, watching her. “Lisa Sampson?”

“
Just call me Marie.” She looked at him, her mud-brown eyes replicas of his father’s but set closer together. She returned her gaze to the road, her face grim, holding the car steady at sixty-five miles per hour. “Don’t ever call me Lisa Marie, or I’ll kill you.”

He studied her face, wondering if she was capable of it. Killing a person required a certain amount of strength, not physical force necessarily, but great determination. He eyeballed the wing-mirror—no cruiser behind them—and watched the scrub pine alongside the road flash by as he calculated how long it would take to drive to St. Louis. Almost two hundred miles from New Orleans to Jackson, Mississippi; another two hundred to Memphis, three hundred more to St. Louis. Roughly seven hundred miles. It would take at least twelve hours if they made a few pit stops. He didn’t want to stop at a motel, which meant they would have to drive in shifts.

Did he dare sleep while she was driving?

“
Is there a Nordstrom’s in St. Louis, or a Saks?” Marie waved a hand over her loose shirt and faded blue jeans. “So I can buy some new clothes?”

“
We might not have time to shop in St. Louis.” When she gave him a questioning look, he smiled. “You might have to wait till we get to the next stop on our vacation.”

“
Why Tim,” she drawled. “I believe you’ve been holding out on me!”

You have no idea
.

“
How would you like to go to London? Plenty of shops there.”

“
Whoa! London? Won’t we need passports?”

He had his, of course. Marie might be smarter than he’d thought.

“
We’ll figure that out when we get to St. Louis,” he said, infusing his words with cheery confidence, confidence that faded when he checked the wing-mirror. Behind them the two-lane highway stretched out straight as an arrow, but in the distance, perhaps a half mile back, a State Police cruiser was pursuing them, dome and headlights flashing.

Marie was oblivious to it. How naïve. Instead of checking the rearview for police cars, she was relaxed and happy, tooling along in her cheap Ford rental as if it was a Ferrari and they were touring Italy. She thought the cops were hunting a little girl runaway, not hell bent on capturing a man who had killed so many women he’d lost count.

A nice normal sort of guy.
Marie’s words that first night at The Cockpit. She wanted someone ordinary and harmless. Safe.

Useless, if she wanted to escape her life of misery.

“
There’s a State Police car chasing us.”

She glanced at the rearview and bit her lip, which made her receding chin look even weaker. “Well, damn it to hell. I guess we better go faster.”

Much faster. As fast as possible.

She accelerated to seventy, then seventy-five. He wondered how long her innocent sense of adventure would last. How long before she figured out he was no innocent bystander, aiding and abetting her runaway?

This morning after Mass he had collected the newspapers from the stoop, brought them into the rectory and put them on the kitchen table. No headlines about him, but tomorrow there would be. Sister Mary Joseph stood at the stove, frying bacon and eggs. Repulsed by the odor, he went to his room, unlocked his armoire and studied the contents.

Evidence of his mission. But what was his mission, exactly? Searching for some woman to love him, punishing those who didn’t, all the while pretending he was doing God’s work?

You’re sick,
the voice had said, rendering judgment. An accurate one.

The tongues were proof of the sick obsession that compelled him to find one girl after another, girls who would fall for whatever Big Lie he used to convince them to let him into their homes so he could torture them. Faced with this shameful truth, he’d been tempted to take the lids off the jars, douse the armoire with lighter fluid, strike a match and let everything burn: the evidence, the rectory, and the Monsignor. Let Father Cronin come home to ashes. But he hadn’t. Unable to stop himself, he had confronted the meddlesome priest-pretender and things had spiraled out of control.

Maybe it was foreordained. Philosophy 301, Georgetown University. Does free will exist, or is everything fated? No, he had only himself to blame. Alive, Daily could identify his attacker. If he had finished the old man off, he wouldn’t be fleeing a Louisiana State Police cruiser with flashing lights.

_____

Full of foreboding, Frank strode into the Trauma Unit waiting area, a small sunny room with pale-green walls and an antiseptic smell. An elderly black woman sat in a molded-plastic chair in one corner, weeping into a wad of tissues. In the opposite corner stood Dana and Aurora, talking with a stocky man in blue surgical scrubs. Aurora’s face was pale, and her silvery-gray hair was mussed, as if she’d used her fingers to comb it. Dana’s was pulled into a ponytail, and her eyes were wide and solemn.

He nodded to Dana and Aurora and identified himself to the man in the blue scrubs, who replied, “Doctor David Ornstein.”

“
How’s Father Daily?”

“
He’s in critical condition in our Neuro-Intensive Care Unit. He sustained a serious head injury, and he’s in a coma. Our biggest concern is the intracranial pressure. The blood vessels to the brain are leaking fluid, and that causes the brain to swell.”

“
Can you save him?” Aurora said in a shaky voice.

Ornstein’s expression revealed nothing. “We’ll do our best. Our first goal is to lower the intracranial pressure and normalize his blood pressure. His skull is fractured, but it’s a linear break, not compound or depressed. He’s on a ventilator, and we’re using drugs to control his blood pressure. The Neuro-ICU nurses will monitor him round the clock.”

“
What are his chances?” Frank asked, struggling for an inner calm that eluded him.

“
It’s too early to say, I’m afraid. We’re most concerned with the brain swelling. We inserted a catheter to drain the fluid, which we hope will lower the intracranial pressure. The next forty-eight hours are crucial. If the bleeding doesn’t stop, we’ll need to operate.” Ornstein swept them with a look. “Someone will need to authorize that. Has his family been contacted?”

Before Aurora could answer Frank said, “We’ll take care of it.”

“
Good. I’ll be in touch,” Ornstein said, and left the room.

“
Best I could do, spur of the moment,” Frank said to Aurora. With a discreet nod at the elderly woman in the corner, he said, “Let’s take a walk.”

Halfway down the hall they found a deserted alcove. “It’s okay,” he said to Aurora, “Dana knows. She’s a doctor. A psychiatrist.”

“
I’m helping Frank with a case,” Dana said by way of explanation.

But Aurora seemed not to hear. Her eyes glistened with tears. “I need to call New Hampshire and talk to Mary Peterson. She’s the mother of his son.”

The notion startled him. His main concern had been to conceal Sean’s true identity from the medical staff, but Aurora was two steps ahead of him. He had given no thought to Sean’s son, a grown man who’d never met his father, a man who might meet his father on his deathbed.

“
You’re right,” he said. “His son should be here, in case—”

He didn’t complete the thought, unwilling to upset her. But he could at least reassure her about one thing. “Aurora, I’m not going to tell the feds about Sean. No matter what happens, you can count on that. Go find a private spot and make the call. Want to use my cellphone?”

“
No, thanks. I’ve got my own.” She gave him a tremulous smile. “You’re a good man, Frank Renzi. I’ll call Mary now. If she feels it’s the right thing to do, she can tell Sean’s son.” Aurora locked eyes with him. “That priest did this, Frank. Father Krauthammer.”

Her words and the angry look in her eyes erased any doubt in his mind about who had sent Sean’s altered sketch to Rona.