The Chosen (10 page)

Rick eyed the flakes, knowing the heat the pepper would add, and then grinned at Ben.

“Looking for a little action, is she?”

Ben set the bottle of pepper flakes down with a thump. The look on his face served as further punctuation.

“Shut up, Meeks. Just for once, shut up.”

Meeks shrugged, but he maintained a smirk, which Ben also resented.

“She called, saying she might have some info on the Scofield murder.”

Meeks's smirk stopped as he let his slice of pizza drop back onto the plate.

“Holy Moses, what are we waiting for?”

“She wants to talk to me alone.”

Meeks frowned. “I hope you told her—”

“I said I would.”

Meeks's frown deepened. “What's that all about? Since when do we let civilians pull shit like that?”

“Look,” Ben said. “She thinks what she knows might amount to nothing, and she doesn't trust the department not to make her out to be some big joke. She doesn't trust us not to screw up her reputation.”

Meeks leaned back, eyeing Ben curiously.

“But she trusts you?”

Ben shrugged. “Little to none, but I guess it's enough. It can't hurt anything, and you'll know everything I know as soon as the interview is over.”

“Whatever,” Meeks said. “But I'm registering a complaint.”

“Duly noted,” Ben said. “Now pass the Parmesan. I'm not going anywhere until I finish my pizza.”

 

It was almost three in the afternoon when Ben pulled into the parking lot of January's apartment building. He got out with somewhat of an attitude—a “How dare you demand my presence under your terms?” set to his jaw. But by the time he was ringing her doorbell, his belly was in knots. When he heard her footsteps on the other side of the door, he jammed his hands into his pockets and thrust his chin forward. He wasn't going to let her get under his skin again.

Then she answered the door.

“Thanks for coming,” January said, as she stepped back and motioned for Ben to come in.

She was barefoot, and wearing something loose and just sheer enough to hint at what lay beneath. The dress was the color of crushed raspberries, and he wanted nothing more than to taste the smile on her lips to see if she was as sweet as she looked.

“Well…are you going to stand out there all day?” she asked.

I probably should.
But he didn't voice the thought. Instead, he nodded and walked in.

He followed her from the small foyer into the living room.

“Sit anywhere,” she said.

He chose the largest easy chair.

There was a satisfied look on her face as she plopped down in one opposite.

“I knew you'd pick that one,” she said.

“I better not be here because you've suddenly decided you're psychic,” Ben drawled.

January laughed. The sound wrapped around Ben's heart and gave it a gentle squeeze, as if to remind him that she was already an irresistible force.

“Oh, definitely the contrary, although I have to admit that in my job, it could sure come in handy,” she said.

Ben began to relax.

“Okay…but we can both agree on the fact that you're very astute. Yes?”

She grimaced. “I used to think so, but lately I've begun to doubt myself.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Talk to me, January. Tell me why I'm here.”

Her shoulders slumped, and for a moment Ben saw weakness and what appeared to be fear in her eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

“Promise you'll hear me out before you make any judgments?”

“I promise,” he said.

She nodded, then folded her hands in her lap.

“I'm not sure where to start.”

“Start where stories always start. At the beginning.”

She grinned wryly. “Well, it was not a dark and stormy night, however…” The smile disappeared. “You've heard of near-death experiences, right?”

“Yes, but what—”

“You promised to hear me out first, remember?”

“Sorry. Please continue.”

“Near-death experiences have always intrigued me, so I try to follow up when I hear about one. That's what started me down this path. Last Thanksgiving I was down at the Sisters of Mercy shelter, helping serve dinner to the homeless when I heard two men talking about this street preacher who called himself the Sinner. They said he was claiming that he'd died while in a hospital, then was resurrected, only his story had a different twist. That's when I started looking for him.”

“What made his story different from all the others?”

“He claimed that when he died, he didn't experience any bright light or tunnel to glory. He said he'd gone to hell.”

Ben straightened abruptly.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, but I don't know if he is. I've been trying to find him for months now, but with no result. Until recently.”

“You've found him?”

“No. I think he's found me.”

The expression of interest on Ben's face turned hard.

“Have you been threatened?”

“Not exactly…Well, sort of, but not seriously.”

“Damn it, January, either he did or he didn't. Which is it?”

She looked up, then away, staring past the dining room table to a point outside the window.

Ben could see the reflection of a vase of flowers on the table behind him in January's eyes. Mesmerized by the sight, he wasn't really listening when she finally answered.

“The first time he called me, I was at work. He said he heard I'd been looking for him. He told me to stop.”

Breath caught in the back of Ben's throat. He'd never considered the thought that what she did could put her in danger.

“Did he threaten you?”

“Not really. I asked him if it was true that his near-death experience had taken him to hell.”

“He didn't agree with you, did he?”

“He never came out and admitted it that time. What he did say was that I needed to leave him alone so he could do what he needed to do.”

“And that was…?”

“It was all very esoteric, but he kept saying something about ‘walking in his shoes,' or ‘living as he lived,' words to that effect.”

“Walking in whose shoes?” Ben asked.

January glanced up, gauging the expression on Ben's face as she answered.

“I think he was referring to Jesus Christ.”

“Look, January. I hate to poke a hole in your story, but there have been hundreds of crazies on the street who think they're Jesus. Besides that, what does any of this have to do with Bart Scofield's kidnapping and murder?”

“I'm getting to that, and you're the one who told me to start at the beginning, so I did. Now shut up and let me finish. After that, feel free to see yourself to the door.”

Ben regretted his outburst, but it was too late to take it back.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

She rolled her eyes but resisted the urge to give him another dig.

“Anyway, as to Bart Scofield…I think the street preacher, the man who calls himself the Sinner…I think he did it.”

Ben held up his hands, then stood.

“Okay. Wait. How in hell do you get from a near-death experience in hell to kidnapping and murder? No wonder you didn't want anyone else to hear this.”

January shot to her feet and shoved a finger into Ben's chest.

“He called me again today. He was pissed off because I'd been down to the Sisters of Mercy shelter asking about some missing men.”

Ben's eyes bugged. “There's more? Missing men, I mean?”

January sighed, then threw her hands into the air.

“Oh Lord, haven't I mentioned them before?”

“No.”

“Okay…well, here's the deal. Street people have been going missing. In each case, the last time they were seen was getting into a cab, and the homeless don't take cabs. Understand?”

Ben's eyes narrowed. Now she had his attention. Scofield had last been heard from in a cab.

January didn't wait for him to answer.

“I went to see Mother Mary Theresa. She belongs to the Sisters of Mercy and runs the shelter where I volunteer. I asked her if she'd heard about the missing men. Long story short, she had. When I heard about Scofield going missing, I wondered if he was a victim of the Sinner, too, although he was anything but homeless. Then Scofield turned up dead, and I dropped the notion that the Sinner was involved. You see, none of the other men have turned up dead…at least, I don't think they have, although it's careless of me to assume that, because they could be lying in some morgue now, unidentified.”

Ben sat back down. He was so damn confused that it didn't bear thinking about.

Then January added, “What I've been trying to get said is…the same man, whoever he is, called me today. Again he told me to leave him alone, and this time he wasn't only angry, he seemed ill, or in pain. I asked him point-blank if he had anything to do with the missing men. He sort of went off his rocker. I asked him if he had taken Bart Scofield, too, and do you know what he said?”

“I don't even know what
you've
been saying,” Ben muttered.

January glared.

“He said that Scofield had been the wrong one.”

Suddenly she had Ben's attention.

“What?”

“The wrong one. He said Scofield had been the wrong one. I asked him if he'd taken the other men. He told me to leave him alone, that I was messing everything up.

“I kept asking him why he was doing it and he said he couldn't go back. I asked him back to what, and he said hell. He said he was walking in his shoes so he wouldn't go back to hell.”

“Okay, so you got a phone call from a nutcase who said a murdered man was a mistake, which is certainly suspicious. However, if you don't know who this Sinner is or what he looks like, then how are we to find him and interrogate him?”

“Well, that's your job. Mine is news. I felt it was my duty to tell you about the phone calls.”

“Do you really believe he's responsible for all this?”

January hesitated, then nodded.

“Yes.”

“Why? Nothing you've said, except for that bit about the cab and Scofield being the wrong one—which, by the way, could be interpreted a couple of different ways—ties a street preacher to a kidnapping and murder.”

“Would it change your mind to know that the names of at least four other missing men are Simon, Matthew, Andrew and James?”

“I don't see what you're—”

January ticked the names off again, adding one other bit of her theory to the pot.

“If you knew that a man who was trying to recreate the life of Jesus Christ had begun kidnapping men with the names of Simon, Matthew, Andrew and James, and one named Bart—Bartholomew—whom he called the wrong one…what would you think?”

Ben felt the blood draining from his face.

“The disciples…Christ's disciples. But why?” he asked.

“Remember how he said he was ‘walking in his shoes'? What if he was being literal? What if he thinks that recreating Jesus's world and walking the same path that Jesus walked—in
His
shoes—will keep him out of hell? He kept saying he couldn't go back to hell.”

Ben got up and paced toward the window, then stopped and paced back to where January was sitting.

“How much of this can we prove?”

“None of it.”

Ben stared at her as if he hadn't heard her correctly, but her expression never wavered.

“You're serious, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, now I know why you didn't want to make this an official statement, but you did give us somewhere to start, and that can be made known. We can say that you got an anonymous call from a man who said that Scofield's murder was…a mistake. That's close enough. Officially, we won't mention the possibility of a connection between the other missing men and Bart Scofield, but trust me, I won't forget it.”

January felt a huge sense of relief. Finally someone besides herself was in on the theory.

“There are a few other weird things that the Sinner is reported to have done.”

“Like what?” Ben asked.

“Several months ago, there was a lot of talk about a street preacher passing out coupons for a free fish sandwich at Captain Hook's Fish and Chips to everyone who stopped to listen.”