MASS MURDER (60 page)

“Our killer took a big chance if Levinsky’s door was open,” Rocky speculated.

“Yes, but if he used the secret door, he wouldn’t have had to pass Levinsky’s door
.
And he may not have been dressed in his robes.
So, he wouldn’t have raised suspicion.
”

“Right, but then he must have drugged Olsen first so there wouldn’t be any noise, killed her, wrapped her in a blanket
,
and carried her out
through a secret door
after Levinsky left, down the
back
staircase and around the exterior of the building to the kitchen?  Pretty gutsy,” Rocky said skeptically.

“But only a monk would know that much about the property and everyone’s routine
.
Olsen was petite
.
Wrapped in a blanket, no one outside would have been able to tell what he was carrying
.
”

Rocky leaned back in his chair, finishing his drink
.
“Still pretty gutsy
.
There’s a light outside the kitchen door
,
and someone could have seen him go to the closet.”

“The backdoor is blocked by the bend in the hallway
.
His only risk was if someone was going out to the parking lot.”

“Which in the case of Colin Jewett was a pretty big risk!”

“Yes, but our monk didn’t know that,” Giorgio emphasized with a raised finger
.
“This monk was not only gutsy, he was extremely lucky
.
He could’ve run into Colin Jewett, Anya Peters, Corey Poindexter
,
or Jeff
Dorman
.”

“Not to mention Father O’Leary smoking his lungs out.”

“
I don’t think Tommy Tune could’ve choreographed it any better
,” Giorgio laughed
.
“
He must have hit the perfect time window.”

“Of course,” Rocky began twirling the straw in the bottom of the cup, “he could have been seen by
all
of those people and they just didn’t report it
.
O’Leary was killed before he could tell us anything useful
,
and none of the others would have said anything because they would have incriminated themselves if they did.”

“Poindexter was the only one who tried and he botched it.”

“And remember, O’Leary was taken ill that night
.
It’s just possible our man made sure O’Leary would be out of the way.”  Rocky took a last drink and began a loud slurping noise
.

“You know, if you rip the cup apart you could lick the sides clean,” Giorgio smirked.

Rocky smiled as he threw it away
.
“Very funny.
Okay,
s
o
h
ow do we figure out which monk we have to arrest?”

Giorgio was already heading for the living room
.
“I want to go back through Olsen’s box and see if we can find anything that would lead us to the
old friend
she mentioned
.
”

The brothers spent the next hour re-reading old love letters and searching through photo albums
.
Giorgio recognized several individuals from pictures on the wall in Olson’s home, but very few were identified by name
.
They thumbed through college annuals reading the notes written by friends
.
It seemed Olsen was popular, especially with young men who often referred to her smile lighting up a room
.
Giorgio suspected they really meant she had big breasts
.
There was nothing that would lead them to one of the monks.

By eleven o’clock they were both rubbing their eyes
.
Rocky got up to stretch his legs and was about to go to the kitchen when Giorgio called out
,
“Ah! Ha!”

“What is it?” Rocky asked, coming back to look over his shoulder.

“Look at this kid.”

Giorgio was sitting on the ottoman and held a picture taken on the steps of a gothic looking fraternity house
.
Three rows of young men grinned into the camera, each wearing dark fraternity sweaters
.
He pointed to the middle row where an athletic-looking kid with glasses and brown hair
stood next to a gothic column.

“I’ll bet next month’s salary that’s Father Frances.”

“Frances has
blonde
hair.”

“Easily fixed
.
It’s obviously a younger version, but he’s the same, I’d swear it
.
And one more thing,” Giorgio went to the box and took out the picture Tony had found of Mallery Olsen with the Basset Hound
.
“Here he is again
,
and in this picture he’s
blonde
.”  He pointed to the kid sitting next to Olsen.

Rocky studied the two pictures
.
“Wait a minute, Joe
.
They look alike, but not exactly alike
.
It’s hard to tell because in this picture we only see
the
blonde
from the side
.
I wonder, though
…
.”  Rocky picked up a college annual from the floor and flipped to the back
.
“I saw a guy that might be a match to the brunette.”  He spent several minutes going through Mallery Olsen’s senior yearbook
.
“I thought so
.
Here, take
a look.”

He handed the book to Giorgio who peered down at a picture of the college theater club
.
The picture was a scene from Camelot in which Lancelot sings his heart out to Guenevere
.
Giorgio could almost hear the words from, “If Ever I Would Leave You,” as the young man playing Lancelot stood center stage, one hand on the hilt of his sword, his mouth open in song
.
Although his hair was tied back into a pony tail
,
and he wore stage make-up, he looked just like the brunette in the fraternity picture.

“This guy’s name is Marino,” Rocky said, readin
g the caption
.
“Danny Marino.”

They looked back and forth between the
blonde
and brunette
.
“They look almost exactly alike,” Giorgio muttered
.
“And look at this.”  He pointed to Guenevere
.
“That’s Mallery Olsen
.
Damn!  See if you can find a name for the
blonde
.”

Rocky searched through the book again, coming across a picture of the college president with three student officers
.
“Hold it!  Here’s the
blonde.
This is a better picture, too.”  Rocky took the book to the light
.
“Give me your magnifying glass.”

Giorgio rummaged through a drawer and pulled out an old magnifying glass
.
Rocky leaned in to study the photos, flipping back and forth
from one picture to the other.

“It’s uncanny,” Rocky murmured, holding the book out for his brother
.
“They do look like twins, or at least brothers
.
They’re about the same height and same build, although the
blonde
is slightly taller
.
And, they have the same general facial features.”

“The brunette seems a little stockier and more muscular, with a fuller jaw line and he wears glasses, although on stage he was probably wearing contacts.” Giorgio said, peering through the glass. “And, here,” Giorgio exclaimed, reading the small text beneath the picture of the
blonde.
“This guy was Senior Class President
.
His name is Jack Brye.”  Giorgio felt a familiar tingling sensation as his eyes sh
ifted back to the Camelot page.

“The question is,” Rocky started, “which one do we have?”

Giorgio stared at the picture of Lancelot, his eyes riveted on the tattoo on the back of the ac
tor’s hand grasping the sword.

“I think I know
.
Let’s go find out.”

Chapter Forty-One

He sat in t
he garden at the foot of Christ
,
where he’d seen another monk sit on the night he’d killed the girl
.
He wasn’t looking for any kind of solace, just a quiet place to think
.
His room had become claustrophobic
.
Out here the air was crisp and cool, allowing his lungs and mind to expand
.
Dressed as he was, fully clothed beneath his robes, he didn’t feel the cold
.
He felt invigorated and ready to take this little saga to the next level.

Things at the monastery were coming to a close
.
He could feel it
.
The police had found the secret door; confirming the killer had to be a monk
.
He’d attempted to frame Father Damian, but the evidence against him was weak
,
and the police would quickly eliminate Damian as a suspect
.
Father O’Leary was dead and couldn’t tell what he knew, but the two had worked closely together in the library
.
Eventually, they would make the connection and come looking for him
.
Perhaps that would be soon
.
Perhaps not
.
Either way, s
omething was about to break.

He
stroked the tat
t
oo
and
contemplated his options
.
He needed to create a distraction, something to lead the police away from him
.
Mailing the package to the police station hadn’t worked
.
None of the media outlets had run the story
.
That bothered him
.
Maybe the police had never received it
.
Maybe they’d received it but sent it off to a lab somewhere
.
Either way the things he wanted, recognition and chaos, had been withheld
,
and the sour taste of disappointment roiled in his
belly.