The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller)) (8 page)

She looked at the caller ID and asked, “Where’re you?”

Lyle Johnson sat in his car in the parking lot of a closed post office.  He sealed an envelope and began writing an address on it.  He said, “You sound jumpy.”

“Phone scared me.  Lyle, a priest got blown away in a church tonight.  Happened at St. Francis, right off Tilton Road.  That’s not far from here.  Judy takes her kids there.”

“Criminals don’t have boundaries.”

“Where’re you?  Dinner’s cold.”

“Gonna be late.  Might have to work a few more hours at the hospital.  They’ll probably rotate me out tomorrow.  County will keep a deputy on Spelling.”

She was silent.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.  Got to work.”

“On the TV news they said Sam Spelling died.  If your prisoner’s dead, why are you still at the hospital?”

Johnson ran his hand over his scalp.  His voice softened, “Anita, look baby, I know I ain’t been much of a husband recently.  I want to make it up to you.  I’m sorry about the other night.  I’m swearin’ off booze.  Look, I ran into something.  I can’t tell you over the phone, but it’s gonna take care of our money problems.”  He paused, sighed and said, “If you really think about it, the lack of money has caused all our problems.”

She bit her lower lip and said nothing.

“Anita, I want to make things up with you.  I’m doin’ a deal, all legit, with a guy that will help us get our finances straight.”

“What deal?  What guy?”

“Can’t go over it on the phone.  I just happen to have some information dropped into my lap that he’s willing to pay for.  It’s that simple, baby.  He gets what he wants.  I get paid.  But it’s got to happen tonight.  I’ll be back by one-thirty.”

Johnson got out of the car, held the phone to his mouth, and walked to a postal box.  He dropped the letter through the slot.  “Love you, Anita.  Everything is gonna be beautiful, just like you.  You wait and see.” 

“This don’t sound right.  I’m taking Ronnie to Mama's for a few days—”

“No!  That’s not gonna happen.  Nothin’s more important than family.”

Anita touched her trembling fingers to the bruise on her face.

Johnson lowered his voice.  “Anita, listen.  We’ll go away.  Spend some time in Florida.  Take Ronnie to Disney.  Things are about to change.  I don’t want to worry you, but anything worthwhile has risks.  If I’m not home tonight…you go on tomorrow and take Ronnie to your mother’s.  But make sure you check the mailbox after the weekend.”

“What do you mean?  I don’t like the way you—”

“Just do it, okay?  Now I gotta go.”  Lyle Johnson hung up, got back in his car, turned on a country radio station, and drove off in the night.

Anita moved to the tattered couch.  She lay in the fetal position, knees pulled up to her breasts.  A single tear rolled down her swollen cheek and was absorbed by worn cloth on the couch, the tiny spot indistinguishable from the others before it.   

#

DETECTIVE ROBERTO VALDEZ stopped and made the sign of the cross as he approached the body of Father John Callahan.  Valdez said, “Holy Mother of Christ…”

The forensics team, the detectives and the coroner all worked in hushed tones, a sign of reverence for the place and what occurred in it.  They snapped digital photos and

examined the body.  Father Callahan’s head was bent at an odd angle, his eyes fixed on the stained glass window.  A pool of blood had seeped into white grout.

Detective Dan Grant stood next to O’Brien and looked down at the message scrawled in blood.  Grant said, “Six-six-six...I’ve tracked a lot of criminals.  Met a lot of degenerates along the way, but I’ve never had to hunt the devil.”

TWENTY-TWO

A dark cloud passed overhead and moonlight beamed through the chuch skylights.  O’Brien looked at the body and said, “Father Callahan left us the first clue, the three sixes might be a reference to Satan.  What does that drawing mean?  The letters P-A-T could be a name or someone’s initials.  The symbol Omega is the last letter in the Greek alphabet.  If I remember my ancient Greek history right, Omega means the end.”

“Definitely the end for the priest,” said Grant, his voice almost a murmur.

“But it might be the beginning—the clue that points us to the start of this,” O’Brien said.  “Father Callahan was a linguistics and art history genius.  Let’s put ourselves in his shoes—his frame of mind after he was shot twice.  He’s dying and he knows it.  Probably going into shock.  Doesn’t have much time, a minute or two.  He struggles to write this.  Probably began with the drawing—could be a cloaked figure against the moon or sun.  Then the six-six-six…followed by the Omega sign…ending with P-A-T…after making the T, it looks like he lost consciousnesses.  The T is closest to his fingers.”

O’Brien hovered over the bloody message, and then he knelt down and touched the back of Father Callahan’s left hand.  “The killer’s identity is in there before us, written in the blood of a priest before the altar of God.”  

The medical examiner’s team lifted Father Callahan’s body, sat it down carefully on the gurney, and started to pull a white sheet over the face.

“Wait a second,” said O’Brien.  He stepped to the gurney and used two fingers to close Father Callahan’s eyes.  “We’ll find him…I promise,” O’Brien said in a low voice.

The forensic crime scene investigators took a few more photographs of the blood smears and patterns as the coroner made notes on a clipboard.  One of the forensics investigators said, “There was nothing on the body.  Found his wallet about ten feet over there.  Money and credit cards are gone.”

O’Brien knew the answer to the question before he asked it.  “You found no papers in his pockets, a letter maybe?”

“He was clean.”

The corner stepped over to the detectives and said, “You don’t have to be a religious man to know whoever did this has a date with the devil.”

Dan Grant looked at the body.  “May have been the devil himself—sis-six-six, the initials P-A-T, a drawing and some Greek letter.”

O’Brien said, “Father Callahan has already given us a big clue.”

“And what would that be?” Detective Henderson asked, his tone skeptical.

 Valdez said, “Maybe the priest didn’t know the perp’s name.  Otherwise he’d have written it, or at least part of it, right?”

“Not if Father Callahan thought the killer might see it,” said O’Brien.

“What about the initials?” Henderson asked. “Could be the perp’s.”

O’Brien squatted down near where the body had lain.  He was silent for half a minute, his eyes locking on every detail—blood patterns, religious relics scattered across

the floor.  O’Brien stood and followed the blood trail away from where the body was found.  He walked slowly, tracking, his eyes looking for the smallest specks of blood. 

When he was about forty feet away, heading in the direction of the rear exit, he turned and said, “Father Callahan was shot about here.  This is ten to fifteen feet from the first sign of blood.  After he was shot, he turned and started in the direction of the altar.”  O’Brien walked back toward the detectives.  He knelt down.  “He fell here first.  There’s a bloody palm print.  Then he got up and staggered toward the altar.  He crawled to within a few feet of the steps—his last breaths were taken at the first marble step.  That’s where he died.  Why would he crawl in this direction?”

“Maybe to get to a phone,” Detective Valdez said.

O’Brien looked to his left.  “The church offices are that direction.”

“Cell phone,” Detective Grant said.

O’Brien lifted the cell phone off his belt and punched in numbers.  A phone rang.  The detectives looked in the direction of the sound.  Detective Grant walked toward a small antique table in a dark corner of the vestibule, near the entrance door to the church.  The cell phone was sitting at the base of a large silver bowl. 

O’Brien disconnected.  “If Father Callahan’s cell is lying over there on the table, why wasn’t he crawling in that direction?  Why wasn’t he trying to dial 911?”

The detectives were silent, and then Henderson mused, “Phone was too far away.”

“Then why was he here?  Why was his body at the base of the altar?”

Detective Grant said, “When you are dying—right at the cusp of death—people try to get right with God.”  Grant gestured with a hand in the direction of the burning

candles, the statue of Mary, and the figure of Christ hanging from a cross above the altar.  “Maybe the priest was saying his last prayers in a place that he knew best.”

O’Brien said, “Why would a man so close to God feel a need to redeem himself in his last minute of life?”

No one spoke.

“I think he was crawling in this direction for another reason,” O’Brien said.

Detective Valdez said, “Maybe the Father was crawling in that direction because he was in shock.  And as Dan said, he was trying to get in the vicinity of the altar—a very holy spot to pass into Heaven.” 

“Those things are symbols.  I knew Father Callahan well,” O’Brien said.  “He could be as close to God on a boat as he would in his own church.”

O’Brien stepped up onto the altar.  Except for the artifacts tossed on the floor, all else appeared intact.  He looked behind the dais and beneath it.  There were two incense burners, half a dozen church books, and a stack of printed agendas from last Sunday’s mass.  He removed a pen from his shirt pocket and used it to leaf through a few pages of the large Bible that lay open on the dais stand.

“Pardon me,” said a woman dressed in a navy blue jump suit with letters CSI Volusia County on it.  She held two boxes of fingerprint equipment. Another investigator climbed up from the back of the altar.  He held a portable light and stand.

O’Brien nodded and moved to the front of the altar, then slowly descended the steps.  He looked at the message written in blood.  “What was he trying to tell us?  The rough drawing—could be a circle and face.  Who?  The Greek letter Omega—the end?  The letters…P-A-T.  Is it the name Pat?  Patrick?  Patricia?  Or is it something else?”

“Could be a warning,” said Grant.  “But if it is…then who was he warning?”

“Dan, you said that Spelling told you if something happened to him to see Father Callahan immediately.”   O’Brien stared at the message in blood.

“He was adamant about it.”

“Meaning, as Father Callahan told me, the identity of the killer is on that written statement.  If Spelling happened to use a pad of paper when he wrote it, he might have pressed down hard to leave an impression on the next page.  Even if it’s only a few words—enough letters to spell a name—we might have something.”

“You mean as in P-A-T?” asked Grant.

“Exactly.  We need to get to the hospital now.”

“I was just heading that way.  The ME is a busy man tonight, too.”

“Call your officers.  Don’t let them remove any notepaper.”

“Paper?”

“The killer’s ID could be on the sheet of paper that was under the original—the one he wrote for Father Callahan.”

 O’Brien looked at the figure of Christ on the cross.  He watched as a dark cloud passed over the moon.  He thought about Charlie Williams locked in a place where light from the moon, stars, or the sun never penetrates.   O’Brien walked faster.

 TWENTY-THREE

Lyle Johnson pulled off Highway 29 onto the gravel road leading to the old pioneer village, reached across the seat and felt for his pistol.  He turned off the headlights and slowly made his way about a half-mile until he came to the entrance.  There was no gate, only an old Florida farmhouse the Volusia County Historical Society used for an office.  The faded sign read:

Volusia Pioneer Village & Museum

An Authentic 19
^th
Century Replica of a Florida Farm Community

Open Monday – Saturday 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m.

Johnson was an hour early.  He wanted to arrive in plenty of time to stake out the grounds.  One street lamp hung near the office, the light illuminated a few of the old buildings scattered nearby.  The rest of the grounds and buildings were in black and white and shades of gray, silhouettes standing under the oak trees in the moonlight.

From the gravel road, Johnson could see the replica of and old country store, a Burma Shave sign painted on one wall.  Not far from the store was a cypress-hewn barn.  A steam engine sat frozen in time on rusty rail tracks beside a reproduction of a train depot.  The sign hanging from the side of the depot read:
DeLand, Florida, Pop. 319
.  The rest of the grounds consisted of share-cropper shacks, a tiny white clapboard church, a one-room schoolhouse, and a small barnyard where a cow and a pony stood quietly. 

Johnson could see two large peacocks pecking at a cornhusk.  A few chickens roosted under an A-frame platform that looked like a doghouse for birds.

Johnson parked behind some bushes, beneath a lone pine tree.  He pulled the overhead bulb from the dome light in his pickup truck.  He worked the pistol under his belt, gently opened the door, and got out. 

There was movement.

A bat flew in and out of the light cast from the streetlamp.   It attacked large moths that orbited the light.

Johnson’s heart beat faster.  His hands were damp and clammy as he folded a copy of Sam Spelling’s letter and put it in his button-down shirt pocket.  He walked across the gravel road to the side entrance.  His eyes scanned the shadows.  The gate was unlocked.  Johnson pulled it toward him.  The rusty hinges made a squeaking noise.  An owl, sitting on a wooden fencepost, lifted its wings and flew into the dark.  The pony snorted and walked a few steps before standing like a statue in the long shadows.

Johnson swallowed dryly, a mosquito whining in his ear as he walked through the open gate and headed toward the general store.  He hesitated when he came to the store’s front porch.  On the heart-of-pine porch were three chairs and a long wooden bench.  There was a bushel of Indian corn near one chair.  Garden tools from a century ago, the metal ends turned up, sat in a wooden barrel.  There was a hoe, shovel, and a pitchfork.