The Chosen (9 page)

 

The Sisters of Mercy Shelter for the Indigent and Homeless never closed its doors to the needy. It kept the nuns on their toes, trying to make do with never quite enough food or beds to go around. Still, it didn't stop them from doing God's work. From time to time, Mother Mary Theresa pulled double duty by not only being in charge of the distribution of charity benefits, but also taking her turn at serving in the food line.

January knew Mother Mary Theresa personally, having volunteered to help serve Thanksgiving meals to the homeless for the past three years. Mother Mary T., as the street people called her, knew more about what went on in the streets than any local drug dealer, and was less likely to give the wayward a break. She didn't believe in excuses and prayed for the souls of the lost only because it was her duty. She was a little woman with a mighty presence and held the respect of all who knew her.

So when January appeared at the homeless shelter to find Mother Mary T. going through a truckload of donated items, she knew that if she wanted answers, she would have to work through the questions.

 

Mother Mary Theresa was holding a lamp base, giving the wiring a critical look, when January walked up.

“Hello, Mother Mary T. Looks like you've hit pay dirt.”

The nun frowned as she turned to see who was speaking, but when she recognized January, she greeted her by losing the frown and waving toward the back of the truck.

“Yes, and I could use some help. Get yourself up here with me. We can talk while we work.”

“Now why did I know you were going to say something like that?” January asked, as she climbed inside.

Mother Mary T. snorted lightly. “I expect that's because you've heard it before.” She handed January a lamp shade. “See if this fits that lamp over there, and what's on your mind?”

January took the shade to the other side of the truck and began unscrewing the finial as the tiny nun picked up a huge stack of bedclothes and tossed them out to a helper who was standing on the street below.

“You know what makes me tired?” Mother Mary T. asked.

“What?” January replied, as she screwed the shade to the lamp base.

“People that donate dirty things to the poor…as if they're not good enough to warrant a wash and tumble dry before giving the stuff away. Just look at those sheets. Dirty. Stained. Some of them in rags. If it was me, I'd be ashamed.” Then she sighed. “However, it is my lot in life to make sure God's lambs are not shamed. Therefore, my fellow sisters and I will be washing away other people's filth before dispensing these very generous gifts.”

January grinned. “You know, Mother Mary T., you're one of the few people I know who can be truly sarcastic with a straight face.”

The little nun sighed. “It wasn't very godly of me, was it?”

January lost the smile.

“On the contrary. You're one of the most godly people I know.”

Mother Mary T. fidgeted at the unexpected praise, then took the lamp out of January's hands and pointed to a couple of broken-down recliners.

“Have a seat, girl. I've a mind to take a breather, and I don't want to be looking up at you while we talk.”

January sat, and Mother Mary Theresa sat next to her.

“So what's on your mind? I know you well enough to know this isn't a social visit.”

January leaned forward with her elbows resting on her knees. Subconsciously, she lowered her voice, unwilling for anyone else to hear what she was going to say.

“Have you ever heard of a street preacher who calls himself the Sinner?”

Mother Mary T. frowned. “Sinner. Hmm, yes, that sounds familiar, but I've never met him. Why?”

January hesitated, then spoke.

“During the past few months, I've been hearing talk that some men—men from the shelters and the streets—have disappeared. Have you heard anything like that?”

The little nun crossed herself before speaking and, like January, lowered her voice.

“I hear all manner of things,” she said. “Most of it the devil's work.” Then she added, “But, to answer your question, yes. Some of the regulars here at the shelter talk about people having gone missing. Why?”

“I have a theory that may or may not tie it all together.”

“Tie what together, girl?”

“The preacher and the missing men.”

Mother Mary T. threw up her hands. “Saints above, January. You can't possibly take any of that seriously? The homeless are already missing when they come here from somewhere else. Often, they leave as anonymously as they came. Besides that, none of them are in good health. I can't bear to think of how many die alone in sewers and abandoned buildings and are never found.”

“I know, but—”

“But nothing. If you want to do a story on something, focus on the fact that we're short of money. We need donations for the upcoming winter. Coats, blankets, food…you name it.”

January sighed. “I will. I promise I will, but humor me on this, will you?”

“You promise you'll do it in advance of the cold weather?”

“Yes, ma'am,” January said.

“Well, that's that, then. Exactly what do you want to know?”

“Names. I need names,” January said.

The aging nun frowned. “Of those who've gone missing recently?”

January nodded.

Mother Mary T. leaned back in her recliner, folded her hands in her lap and then closed her eyes, as if she was about to take a nap. January knew better. This was her thinking mode.

“Let's see,” the nun muttered. “A month or so ago, Delroy…” She opened her eyes and pointed to January. “You remember him—the big man with no legs, scoots around on a couple of modified skateboards.”

“Yes…yes, I do,” January agreed.

Satisfied, Mother Mary T. continued. “Anyway…Delroy came to the center in a terrible mood. Said someone had stolen his best friend. I didn't think much of it at the time, but then I remembered a similar complaint a month or so before that. Red Susie, the black girl with a patch on her eye, claimed that her friend had disappeared. She was blaming alien abduction. You can see why I don't pay much attention to their rambling.”

“Were there more?” January asked, taking notes as they talked.

Mother Mary T. frowned. “It seems there was one other person I heard some of them talking about, but I can't recall the—Oh! Wait! I remember. It was the fellow who won't sleep inside. No matter what kind of weather, he won't go indoors. They say he was a POW in Vietnam and that enclosed spaces make him crazy.”

“Their names, Mother Mary T. Do you know their names?”

Her forehead furrowed as she began to count them off on her fingers.

“Delroy's friend is Simon. I don't know his last name. None of them have last names, you know. And as far as that goes, I have no way of knowing if the names they go by are their true given names, either.”

“It doesn't matter,” January said. “Simon, you said. Do you know the others?”

“Hmm, I think Red Susie called her friend Andy, and she mentioned something about Andy's friend Jim.

“Andrew? James?”

Mother Mary shrugged. “She never used those names, but I suppose that's right.”

“And the vet? Did he have a name?”

“They called him Crazy Matt. I thought that was harsh, but he answered to it, just the same.”

January wrote down the name, then, beside it, the formal version. Matthew.

She glanced down the list, and as she did, the hair rose on the back of her neck.

Simon

Andrew

Matthew

James

She remembered the man who'd gone missing and then turned up dead.

Bart. Bartholomew.

If this was a coincidence, it was pushing the boundaries. The names of five of Christ's disciples from the Bible.

“Did Delroy or Red Susie ever mention the street preacher?”

“Not that I know of,” Mother Mary T. said.

January frowned, her shoulders slumping.

“Have they said anything—anything at all—about where they saw their friends last? Maybe who they were with? Something like that?”

Mother Mary rolled her eyes. “Well, remember, Red Susie blamed the aliens.” Then she chuckled. “Only these aliens, I believe, were driving cabs.”

January stifled a gasp as Mother Mary T. suddenly frowned.

“Now that's strange,” she said. “I never put that together before.”

“Put what together?” January asked.

“If I remember correctly, Delroy also said something about Simon getting into a cab. He was angry because they drove off without waiting for him.”

January looked down at the list of names. Was this the connection? But how did this tie into the Sinner? Frustrated, she leaned back in the old recliner, and dropped her notebook and pen back into her purse. Maybe there wasn't a connection. Maybe she was trying to make a story out of coincidences.

She sighed.

She knew better. It was the first rule of thumb for reporting. Stick to the facts. Don't twist them to make them fit something else.

“Is there anything else, dear?” Mother Mary T. asked.

January sighed.

“No, I guess not.”

“Was this of any help to you?”

“Yes. Thank you so much for your time.”

“You're welcome, dear. However, if there's nothing else I can help you with, I need to get back to work.”

“Okay, sure,” January said, as she got up. She stepped down from the truck, then straightened her clothes.

“Goodbye, January. Don't be a stranger,” the little nun called.

“Okay,” January said, waving as she walked away.

T
he phone was ringing as January walked in the door. She dropped her purse on the hall table and then moved toward the kitchen, intent on letting the answering machine pick up. The machine kicked on, and her message began to play. It wasn't until she heard the caller's voice that she stopped. A chill of foreboding made her slow to react, but as the man continued to talk, she moved to answer.

 

As soon as Carpenter heard January's cheery greeting and invitation to leave a message, he leaned back against the inside of the phone booth and closed his eyes. It was the answering machine. He needed a warm body, not a machine. He cursed before he could stop himself, then silently begged God's forgiveness.

The pain in his head was worse than it had ever been. The stress and grief from what had happened to Scofield were weighing heavily on his conscience. He wanted to believe that he'd read the signs wrong, that just because a man named Bart had gotten into his cab didn't mean he was “the one” God meant for him to claim. But what if he was wrong? What if he'd just damned himself to an eternity in hell because he'd killed one of God's disciples?

A sudden pain went from one eye to the other. It was so sharp and unexpected that he screamed. At that point, his ears began to ring, as if someone had hit him hard at the back of the head. The air inside the booth was hot, accentuating the odor of stale cigarettes and unwashed bodies that lingered there, but he had to pull himself together. When the prerequisite beep sounded, signaling for the caller to begin speaking, he took a deep breath and made himself concentrate.

“January DeLena. Always on the prowl for that story, even though I asked you to leave me alone. Don't deny that you're still looking for me, because I saw you today. I heard you. You and that nun. Why won't you leave me alone? I have things to do that don't concern you.”

January grabbed the receiver.

“Hello? Hello?”

Tears were streaming down Jay Carpenter's face. The pain in his ears was so severe that, at first, he didn't hear her answering.

“Hello? Are you there?” January repeated.

Jay shuddered, then closed his eyes, making himself focus.

“Leave me alone.”

“Tell me about the missing men,” she demanded.

He flinched. How could she know? He made himself calm. She didn't know anything. She couldn't possibly. For whatever reason, she was just guessing.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said.

January
was
guessing, but she wasn't going to pass up this opportunity to push a few buttons just to see what popped up.

“Matthew, Simon, James, Andrew and Bart. Those are their names, aren't they? What did you do with them, and what was wrong with Bart? Why did you kill him?”

“He was the wrong one,” Carpenter muttered, unaware that he'd just given himself away.

January gasped. She had not expected that.

“What do you mean, the wrong one? Are you admitting that you abducted, then killed, Bart Scofield? Why? Why did you do it, and where are those other men?”

Carpenter shook his head like a dog shedding water, but it didn't stop the pain, and the buzzing in his ears became worse.

“I didn't say that.” He slid to the floor of the phone booth as his legs gave way.

“Yes, you did,” January said. “Why was Bart Scofield wrong?

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Carpenter said, and wondered if that was himself he heard whining. “I called to tell you to stop looking for me. You're messing everything up.”

January could tell something was wrong with the man. His voice was shaking, his words slurring.

“Messing up what? What are you doing?”

“Saving myself,” Carpenter said. “Why can't you understand? I'm walking in His shoes.”

“Whose shoes?”

“His,”
Carpenter yelled, then began rocking where he sat, unaware that with every backward sway of his body, he was bumping the back of his head against the wall of the booth. “I have to. I have to. I can't go back. Not there. Never there again.”

“Go where?” January asked.

“Hell. Don't you understand? I can't go back.”

“I don't want to talk about hell. I want you to tell me where the other men are. Did you kill them like you killed Scofield?”

“Shut up!” Carpenter shouted. “Stop saying that! You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Then tell me,” January begged. “Tell me.”

Someone knocked on the door of the phone booth. Carpenter squinted his eyes and looked up. A couple of young black women were staring down at him from outside. He struggled to his feet.

“Just stop it. I'm warning you,” he mumbled, then hung up the phone and pushed his way out.

As he bumped into one of the women, he grabbed his head.

“Hey, mister, are you all right?” she asked.

Carpenter was holding on to his head with both hands, as if it would fall off his neck if he turned it loose.

“God is with me,” he said, and staggered toward his cab.

“That's good to know,” the other girl muttered. “I been wondering where the hell He went.”

“Hush your mouth, girl. That's blasphemy,” her friend said.

“Don't you be throwing words at me that you can't even spell,” the first girl responded.

It was the last thing Carpenter heard before he got in the cab and drove away.

 

January was shaking when she hung up the phone. She had no idea what the man who'd just called her looked like. Was he the same one she'd seen in the rain, then in the park? She didn't know and couldn't prove it. She didn't even know for sure if he was the man who called himself the Sinner. Even though he'd unintentionally admitted knowing of Bart Scofield's death, he hadn't said enough to incriminate himself.

Still, she couldn't ignore what had just happened. But what should she do? Tell the police? What could she tell them?

Almost immediately, she thought of Ben North. Maybe she could talk to him in an unofficial capacity. He would know whether there was anything valid in the two phone calls.

Yes. She had to do that much.

She reached for the phone, then realized she didn't know Ben's number, home or cell. After looking for him in the phone book with no success, she realized that her only option was to call the department and have them relay a message, which she hated to do. In her job, staying objective was imperative. Having a personal relationship with a cop, no matter how vague, could put both of them in a precarious position. Still, she couldn't sit on the little bit of information she had about a murder investigation. Before she could talk herself out of the impulse, she picked up the phone.

 

It was five minutes after one in the afternoon before Ben and Rick had a chance to stop for lunch. Ben was all for grabbing something at a drive-through before following up on a lead regarding the Scofield murder. Some cab company had reported an outlaw cab had picked up one of their fares. But Rick didn't want to eat in the car.

“Where to, then?” Ben asked, as they sat at an intersection, waiting for the light to turn green.

Rick leaned across the steering wheel, pointing to a Chinese restaurant across the way.

Ben's stomach rolled.

“You've got to be kidding,” he muttered.

“What? Why not?” Rick asked.

“I've already seen all the Chinese food I care to look at on Scofield's body. I have no intention of eating any.”

Rick shrugged. “Oh yeah. That. Well, we can—”

“The light's green,” Ben said.

Rick straightened up and accelerated through the intersection. “How about pizza?” he asked.

“Sure, why not?” Ben countered.

A few minutes later they were sitting in a booth, studying the menu, when Ben's cell phone rang. He glanced at the number.

“It's the precinct,” he said.

“So answer it,” Rick said. “Maybe you won the lottery and they're trying to find you.”

Ben grinned. “You order the pizza while I find out what's up.”

He got up from his seat and walked out of the dining area into a hallway leading to the bathrooms as he answered.

“This is North.”

“Detective North, you have a request to call a Miss DeLena as soon as possible.”

Ben frowned. “Concerning what?”

“The caller didn't say, sir.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ben muttered. “Just a second while I get a pen.” He fumbled with his notebook and pen a moment before he spoke. “What's the number?”

The number was relayed. The call ended.

A large metal something hit the floor in the kitchen beyond the double doors where he was standing. Someone yelled. Someone else cursed and slammed a door.

He could smell tomato paste and baking bread.

Some kid was poking quarters in a pinball machine at the end of the hall. Ben thought it was an odd place to put a game. What did the establishment think the patrons would do? Play a little pinball while waiting for their turn to pee?

He stared at the number he'd written down, then at the phone he was holding. What was January up to now? What possible reason could there be for him to call her as soon as possible?

“Are you waiting to go?”

Startled by the question, he turned around.

“I'm sorry. Were you speaking to me?” he asked.

The man pointed to the door to the men's room.

“Is it locked or something? Are you waiting?”

“Oh. No. Sorry, go right ahead,” Ben said, and stepped back.

The man moved past.

Ben absently noted the shower of dandruff flakes on the man's shoulders, then moved toward the exit. Standing here like a fool wasn't getting him anywhere. All he had to do was dial a number, for God's sake. So he did.

 

January was peeling an apple when the phone rang. She saw the caller ID, dropped the apple and knife into the sink, and grabbed the phone on the second ring.

“Hello…Ben, thank you for calling me so promptly.”

Ben was a bit taken aback that she knew it was him, wondered if she was psychic as well as sexy, then remembered caller ID.

“Yeah, well, no problem. What's up? The message sounded serious. Is it?”

“I think so.”

The slight hesitation in her voice made her sound breathless, which threw his mind into thinking about how he could make her lose her breath—and quite possibly her mind. Then he reminded himself that he was on duty.

“What's it about?”

“Bart Scofield's murder.”

The smile slid off his face.

“What the hell do you know about that?”

“It's a little complicated. I'm off today. Could you come by?”

“Give me your address,” he said. “Rick and I will come over.

“Rick? Who's Rick?”

“My partner, Rick Meeks.”

January hesitated. She didn't want to announce her theories to the world without something to back them up, and that had yet to surface.

“Uh…I was wondering if we could talk about this first without involving anyone else, just in case I'm making a big deal out of nothing.”

He frowned. “This isn't a fishing expedition to try and get information out of me for some story, is it?”

There was an immediate shift of anger in her voice.

“You know something, North? I'm not always about the damn story, and I'm no masochist, either. I suspect I'm already the butt of countless jokes at your precinct, and don't bother denying it. I don't need more grief from a bunch of doughnut butts. You can come by yourself, or not at all.”

“Doughnut butts?”

The line went dead in his ear.

“Doughnut butts?”

Before he thought, he ran a hand across his own belly. It was still flat and firm enough to brag about, should the need arise.

“Doughnut butts.”

He started to grin. By the time he got back to the booth and the meal, he was chuckling. He didn't know what was going to happen between them, but whatever it was, it damn sure wouldn't be boring.

“Who was that?” Meeks asked, as Ben reached for a piece of pizza and put it on his plate.

Ben started to make something up, then changed his mind. Just because he'd promised to leave his partner behind that didn't mean he was going to lie to him.

“None other than Miss January DeLena herself,” Ben said, shaking a liberal serving of red pepper flakes over the slice.