The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller)) (33 page)

“Dan, you don’t have time.  An FBI agent, Christian Manerou, killed Alexandria.  And he killed Sam Spelling, Johnson, Johnson’s wife, and Father Callahan.  He knows Spelling’s mother’s address.  You’re closer to St. Augustine than I am.  Take back-up with you.  Go!”

#

O’BRIEN CALLED TUCKER HOUSTON.  “Tucker, FBI managed to pull an address from the sheet of paper under the letter Sam Spelling wrote.  It’s his mother’s address in St. Augustine.  The knife is probably there.”

“Excellent, Sean!  CNN is using Six’s studio to do a live interview with me.  I’m getting Charlie William’s name across the nation.  It’s now in the hands of the nine justices, or the Governor of Florida. “

“Listen Tucker.  I believe an FBI agent, Christian Manerou, killed Alexandria Cole.  He had a secret affair going on with her.  I suspect he’d cut a deal with Russo.  Once Manerou had access to her, he got her strung out on heroin, and when things

became testy, he stabbed her and framed Charlie Williams.  He’s gone on a killing spree eliminating anyone with a tie to his name.”

“Can you prove this?”

“We’ve collected possible DNA samples from three of the four crime scenes.  It’s being processed now.  All we need is a sample from Manerou.”

“Is he here in Miami?”

“He was.  But one of the agents in the bureau shared Spelling’s mother’s address with Manerou before she knew he was the killer.”

Tucker was silent for a moment.  “What are you going to do now?

“I’m going to get to Spelling’s mother’s place before Manerou does.”

“I can’t incriminate this Manerou until I have something solid.  But Sean, you’ve given me a lot to throw at Governor Owens.”

“Throw a fast pitch because they strap Charlie to the gurney in eleven hours
.”

NINETY

Dave Collins was about to open a bottle of wine when he looked out toward his cockpit and saw O’Brien walking fast with Max under his arm.  Through the open sliding-glass doors, Dave said, “Come on in, Sean.  Cracking a bottle of cab.  A Foxen Canyon, ninety-nine vintage.  A good year for Californian cabernet.”

“A bad year for Charlie Williams.   But now I know who did do it.”

“Who?”

“An FBI agent.  Name’s Christian Manerou.”

“Good Lord, Sean.  Every crime talk show in America’s running stories about the case.  You must have just spoken with Tucker Houston.  With his Texas tie and slight southern drawl, he’s become the darling of CNN.  He was just saying how a new development in the case would definitely point towards a killer who used his position to shield the truth.  He called it a ‘legal, moral and ethical obligation to seek the truth in William’s case.’  An FBI agent.  Who would have thought?”

“It explains why I jumped to conclusions during the original investigation.  I wasn’t following a sloppy trail left by Charlie Williams, I was following a well-thought-out trail laid by a man who knows forensics.  He probably used a Ziploc bag to collect a few drops of Alexandria’s blood after he killed her.  Sprinkled them into the front seat of   William’s truck…it was a trail that made it a slam dunk in Charlie William’s face.”

O’Brien told the story as Dave sipped from a glass of cabernet.  O’Brien concluded by saying, “If we can find the knife he used, the one that Spelling found and

hid, we might find something on it to connect Manerou.  The location of Sam Spelling’s written statement lies in the bloody message, or code, Father Callahan left behind.”

Dave sat back in his chair and looked at the fog drifting over the docks like smoke from a smoldering fire.  He said, “The name Christian Manerou.  Sounds French, could be Greek, and you said he was born on the island of Patmos in the Greek Isles.  The same place depicted in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting—St. John on Patmos.”  Dave paused, sipped some wine and said, “If we go back to Father Callahan’s hieroglyphics, if we look at them now in light of what we’ve discovered about Bosch, the painting, Omega, and Patmos…that leaves us with one thing…”

“The six-six-six,” said O’Brien.

“Precisely.  Can we connect our latest eye-opener, Manerou, to these numbers?”

“You mean is Christian the devil?  As oxymoronic as those terms sound…”

Dave wrote Christian Manerou’s name in large block letters on a piece of white paper.  He said, “Since we’re talking numbers here…the ancient Greeks used numerology a lot in connection to their alphabet.  They gave letters a numerical value.  In the case of Omega, the last latter, it had the greatest value, eight hundred.  You mentioned an oxymoron, well as we said the other night, today our scientists give Omega the value of one in trying to find the equation to the fate of the universe, but two thousand years ago, the Greeks gave Omega the princely weight of eight hundred.”

O’Brien said, “Alpha was the value of one.”

“Absolutely.”  Dave sipped and smiled, his teeth purplish from the dark wine, his eyes alive with discovery.  He said, “I’ll go online to find the numerical value of the twenty four letters in the Greek alphabet.”  Dave typed, and the Greek alphabet and the

story of Greek numerology appeared.  “Take a look at this, Sean.”  Dave positioned the laptop screen so O’Brien could get a better view. 

alpha = 1 (A)

beta = 2  (B)

gama = 3 (G)

delta = 4 (D)

epsilon = 5 (E)

zeta = 6 (Z)

eta = 8 (H)

theta = 9 (Q)

iota = 10 (I)

kappa = 20 (K)

lamba = 30 (L)

mu = 40 (M)

nu = 50 (N)

xi = 60  (X)

omnicron = 70 (O)

pi = 80 (P)

rho = 100 (R)

sigma 200 = (S)

tau = 300 (T)

upsilon = 400 (Y, U)

phi = 500 (Ph)

chi = 600 (Ch)

psi = 700 (Ps)

omega = 800 

Dave stared at the screen, his brow furrowing, the light playing off his eyes.  He picked up his pencil and began writing.  “The numerical value of your first name, Sean, could be S at 200, plus E at 5, plus A at 1, plus N at 50 equals 256.  There was always a lot of ancient mysticism with numerology.  Some alleged it could be tied with fortune telling, as in Omega, it can be connected to the universe.  A Greek philosopher named Pythagoras was convinced the entire cosmos could be expressed with numbers...which brings us to the elusive number six-six-six.”  Dave wrote the numbers on the paper.  He said, “To this day, many people often those even found high up in the Catholic church, believe six-six-six is synonymous with a guy who killed a lot of Christians—Nero.  Nero alone won’t equal six-six-six in value.  But the ancient Greek spelling of Nero was Neron.  If memory of Greek numerology serves me well, if you add Neron and Caesar together, they total six-six-six.”

O’Brien stared at the name, Christian Manerou, and said, “Dave, look at this.”  He wrote out
MANEROU
in block letters and underlined four letters. “There’s your Nero today:
MA
NERO
U
.”

Interesting,” said Dave.  Let’s add them up to see of it gets even more interesting.

M  =    40

A  =     1

N  =    50

E  =     5

R  =   100

O  =    70

U  =  
400

666

NINETY-ONE

Nick Cronus stepped onto
Gibraltar
with three Greek sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil.  He carried a six-pack of Bud, one of the six MIA.  His dark hair feathered out from a baseball cap, his red swimsuit faded the color of salmon.  No shoes. He said, “I smell no spaghetti comin’ from your boat, so I say to myself, tonight would be a good night for grouper, lettuce, tomatoes, feta cheese, Nick’s special sauce, all folded in a warm pita bread sandwiches.”

“Big, fat Greek sandwiches,” said Dave.  “Very nice!”

Nick said, “Hot dog, I save some fish for you, too.”  Nick had a small piece of grouper wrapped in foil for Max.  “Sean, you want a beer.  Look to me like you need one, man.”  As Nick ripped off a can of beer, O’Brien’s cell rang.  It was Detective Dan Grant.

“Did you reach Spelling’s mother?” asked O’Brien.

“Fed’s may have read the imprint, but somehow they missed the message.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Tranquility Trail.  It’s not a house.  It’s a freakin’ cemetery.”

“What?”

“Maybe Spelling’s mother is buried there.  Evidence could be buried with her.”

“Sean, I might have blown off a judge’s signature for a search warrant.  But to start diggin’ a coffin out of the ground we need a court order to get it exhumed.  I know we’re under the gun for Charlie Williams.  The death penalty crowds are already

gathering at Starke, those for and against.  But I’m not about to start diggin’ up graves to find something I don’t even know is buried in one of them.”

O’Brien said nothing.

Dan said, “Keep in mind, that’s a damn old graveyard.  Goes back to the Spaniards and French Huguenots settling Florida.  Finding her grave at this hour—with a storm coming through—would be like a needle in a haystack thing.”

“I’ll call you back, Dan.”  He disconneted.   “Nick, you said you were on Patmos as a child.”

“Yeah, man.  It’s a religious experience.  I feel the need sometimes to return.”

“The Bosch painting—Saint John on Patmos—looked like John was taking notes.  The Virgin descending, an angel pointing to her, a ship burning in the harbor.”

Nick took a long pull for his beer.  He said, “Rome kicked the holy man out.  He lived on Patmos.  God told him, either mankind—we get our shit together and learn to get along, or face the end—Omega.  Apocalypse.  It’s all there in the book of Revelation.”

“That’s it!”  O’Brien said, his fingers flying on the computer keyboard.

Nick said, “Sean, relax. You need to go to Patmos, learn to find you inner peace.”

“Right now I’d rather find Sam Spelling’s letter.  I know where it is!”

“Where?” Dave asked.  He and Nick looked at the computer screen.

“It’s where Father Callahan hid it.  He left a direct key to the last book in the Bible: Revelation.  Father Callahan somehow knew Manerou was born in Patmos.  Look at the screen.”  O’Brien pointed to a passage from the Book of Revelation.  He said, “In Revelation 13:18 it says: 
‘Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred

 threescore and six.’ 
 Manerou’s name totals six-six-six in Greek numerology.  Father Callahan, an art expert, drew a symbol from Bosch’s painting as he lay dying.  Saint John on Patmos.  He tried to write Patmos, getting out the first three letters before he died.”

Nick said, “I’m going to mass.  This is spooky stuff, man.”

O’Brien pointed to the screen.  “The sign of Omega that Father Callahan drew, it’s right there in Revelation 22:13. 
‘I am Alpha and Omega.  The beginning and the end.  The first and last.’
  Again, Revelation—the end of the Bible.  Omega—the end.  I was looking everywhere but there.  I bet that Father Callahan hid Sam Spelling’s letter in the Revelation—in a Bible on the sanctuary dais.  Less than fifteen feet from his body.”

Dave said, “Maybe Father Callahan didn’t write out the location because he thought the killer might return.  He put a lot of stock in you, Sean, to figure this out.”

“I almost didn’t.”

“But you did it, man!” Nick said, tossing a piece of pita bread to Max.

“Charlie Williams as very little time left.  I have to go.”  

Dave said, “Sean, the riddle of the Sphinx was less of a challenge.  But you, my friend, had to travel through all nine circles of Dante’s hell to get to the Elysian Fields.”

“I’m not there yet,” said O’Brien, getting up to leave.

Nick said, “Man, it’s eleven thirty—where you gonna go this hour?”

“To church.”         

NINETY-TWO

It was almost midnight when O’Brien parked his Jeep in the back lot at St. Francis Church.  The fog had cleared and its wake a cold front was building, the smell of rain coming across the sea of urban sprawl.  He took a small flashlight and a leather pouch out of his glove box.  O’Brien searched the exterior of the building, found the electric breaker box, and shut off the power.

At the back door, he held the flashlight in his teeth, took a pick from the leather pouch, and worked the lock.   There was an audible
click,
and he opened the door.  The inside of the church smelled like candles, incense, and old books.  He shined the flashlight on the marble floor, the area he’d found Father Callahan’s body.  The bloodstain was gone but the memory was there.  Father Callahan dying in front of a podium where he had stood for sixteen years.  Stood and spoke of the love of God.  Spoke about the line between good and evil.  The temptation to cross the line—the will not to, the bridge to come back.  The bridge over the river Styx, thought O’Brien.