MASS MURDER (42 page)

Giorgio felt a strange sense of calm he knew others didn’t share.
He’d worked a serial murder case in
New York
where seven prostitutes had shown up dead, one by one, over a six-month period.
He’d been here before.
The anxiety almost bristled in the air around him
,
and he could see fear reflected in the eyes of the people whose job it was to document the facts.
Sierra Madre averaged less than one murder a year.
Now, there had been three in a matter of a few days.
He would have to find answers
and find them soon.

“I don’t know,” he replied.
“But do me a favor and shoot the path and sight lines up to the monastery.”

“Sure.
No problem.”

Getting back to business and avoiding speculation seemed to help
,
and Mulhaney went back to work.
Giorgio turned to find Father Daniel sitting on the cement bench, his hands in his lap.
Daniel was probably only five-foot ten or eleven, but had the compact build of someone who worked out with weights.
His dark hair was a shade lighter than his eyes
,
and he had the smooth, burnished skin of an Italian.
Actually, he looked like every male Giorgio had ever wanted to look like.
Before Father Daniel said a word, Giorgio knew his voice would sound like an idling car engine.
Giorgio walked over silently hoping Daniel would turn out to be the murderer.

“Father Daniel?”

“That’s right.
I was told you wanted to speak to me.”

Giorgio was wrong.
His voice sounded like a cello in perfect tune.

“What were you doing out here this morning?”
Giorgio immediately regretted the question because the answer was obvious.

“I came out to jog,” Daniel replied politely, apparently unaware that Giorgio had stumbled.
“I run two or three times a week, usually around the lower fields.
I’m afraid I’ve almost beaten down a narrow track out there.”
He smiled casually.

“Why
did you come down by the pond?”

“That’s how I get to the lower fields.”
He gestured to the sloping path above them.
“I stop to stretch here.
It was still dark
,
and I couldn’t see anything clearly
. I
use the lip of the pond to stretch out my calves.
That’s when I noticed Father O’Leary.”

His manner didn’t change even though he’d just described finding a dead body.
I
n fact, he displayed no emotion of any kind.
Giorgio eyed him wondering if he was just the kind of person who didn’t relate to others misfortune, or if he was unconsciously expressing the fact he didn’t care about Father O’Leary’s fate.
Perhaps he
was
the killer.

“It’s not every day one finds a dead body,” Giorgio offered.

The monk smiled briefly as if Giorgio had made an endearing remark.

“No, it’s certainly not,” he replied.

“What did you do when you realized it was Father O’Leary?”

The perfect features rearranged themselves into a curious expression.
“Actually, it was still dark.
All I saw was the outline of the robe.
I wasn’t even sure it was a body – that is until I reached out to grab the material and grabbed
a hand instead.”

He shuddered, but it seemed manufactured and passed al
most as quickly as it appeared.

“I went immediately to find Father Damian.
By then, it was starting to get light
,
and Father Damian identified him.”

“I received a message that Father O’Leary wanted to see me.
You don’t know what that was about, do you?”

Daniel’s brown eyes popped opened like a child caught pulling his sister’s hair.
“No.
I can’t imagine why he’d call the police.
He was a gentle soul.
I can’t even imagine why anyone would kill him
.”

“Do you have a theory about any of this, Father?
Why so many people have been murdered here at the monastery?”

“Me?
No.”
For the first time, Daniel showed signs of anxiety by flicking his thumb against the back of his index finger.
“I’m fairly new here.
Perhaps this all has to do with something that happened before I arrived.
I really couldn’t say.”

“Why did you become a monk, Father?”

The question caught him off guard
,
and he looked up.
Giorgio noticed he continued the ne
rvous mannerism with his thumb.

“I suppose I
…
uh
…
felt the need to serve God.”

“There are many ways to serve God.
Why become a monk?”

Giorgio had a feeling this guy didn’t belong here and was merely playing a charade of some kind.
Father Damian said the young initiates came for one or two
-
year periods to train.
Giorgio had to assume that by the time they got this far they had already passed many theological and personal tests of strength.
Although clearly
well-
educated, Giorgio couldn’t believe Father Daniel had ever passed a personal test of value in his life.
He was as shallow as the pond in which Father O’Leary now floated, but Giorgio would never hear the answer to his question because Barnes interrupted him.

“Detective?
We found
this tossed behind the roses.”

Barnes held out a gloved hand.
In it was a heavy jagged rock streaked with blood.

Giorgio spent the rest of the morning taking statements.
None of the monks had seen or heard anything unusual.
Father O’Leary had worked late in the library trying to catch up after his illness.
He hadn’t seemed agitated lately or spoken of anything that might indicate he was having a problem with anyone.

Rocky showed up within the first hour.
He hadn’t bothered to shave and looked red-eyed and disheveled.
Giorgio avoided a comment, choosing instead to drive down to the gated entrance to make a brief statement to the press.
At
noon, they met back by the pond.

“Why do I feel old before my time?” Giorgio lamented as he slumped onto the bench. “This isn’t a puzzle anymore, it’s a test.
Figure out the answers before someone else drops dead.”

Rocky stood a few feet away with his hands
stuffed into his jean pockets.

“You’re taking it too personally,” he countered.
“It has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with the people who were killed.
I mean, think about it.
If the first two murders were committed on the same night, then why would a monk be killed several days later?”

“Because he knew something.”

“Bingo!
O’Leary knew something in advance or saw something he shouldn’t have.
The question is what?”

“
He called me, you know. Yesterday afternoon.”

“Maybe he wanted to tell you something.”

“
Something else is bothering me,” Giorgio s
aid
as Rocky lit a cigarette and took a draw.
“McCready made an observation about the first two murders.
He said they seemed like they’d been committed by different people because of the way the bodies were left.
Mallery Olsen was left where she would be found.
Jeff
Dorman
was buried.
Whoever killed him didn’t want him to be found.”

“So?”
Rocky egged him on.

Giorgio squinted up at his brother.
Roc
ky’s six-
foot two
-inch
frame blocked the little sunlight there was.
“Father O’Leary was left in the same bold way as Mallery Olsen.
Almost like a statement.
It reminds me of New York.”

“Mafia?” Rocky asked alarmed.
“C’mon,” he waved it away.

“Don’t you think there’s a certain arrogance to both murders?
It’s as if the killer was bragging.
Yet, Jeff
Dorman
was buried so that no one would find him.”

“So, you think two of the murders have something to do with the mob?
What?
The Sierra Madre mob?”

“No.
Of course not.
It just seems all too familiar.”

Rocky rolled his eyes.
“But what about the finger?
O’Leary had all ten of his.”

“Yes, but something just tells me O’Leary’s death is linked to Olsen’s.”

“If the mob is involved, and I think it’s a really big if, where do you go with something like that?”

Giorgio sighed and stretched his legs out in the grass.
“I don’t know, but Father Daniel is the only one from
New York
.
And he’s a new recruit.
I think we’ll do some background checking on him.”

“He’s a cocky bastard anyway.”

“And he was the one who found Father O’Leary.”
Giorgio looked up at Rocky again. “Besides, when was the last time you saw a Catholic monk out jogging?”

They both laughed as Giorgio stood up and Rocky threw his cigarette to the ground.
Giorgio eyed the butt and then looked at his brother.

“You want to be brought in for questioning when they pick
that
up as evidence?”

The younger Salvatori winced and bent to pick up the trash before the two brothers started back up the slope.

“So, one of us has to get to know Father O’Leary
…
posthumously,” Rocky said.
“Sounds like a job for me.
I’ll start asking around.”

Giorgio cocked his head.
“Why you?”

“Because I can get more out of people than you.
Face it, you offend people.
People will tell
me things they don’t even know they’re saying.”

“And why is that?” Giorgio asked
cynically
.