Blood On The Sun

9

"YOU KNOW WHERE JACOB IS, DON'T YOU?" asked Kyle Shelton, who spoke slowly, drained.

Mac sat in the chair in the Vorhees living room, a cell phone to his ear. His temporary partner sat silently as darkness fell.

"Yes," said Mac.

"Then I'm going to disappear," said Shelton.

"Not possible," said Mac.

"Then you'll catch me," he said. "I'll tell you then what I tell you now. I killed them, Becky, her mom and her father. My prints are on the knife."

Mac was silent.

"You there, Taylor?" Shelton asked.

"I'm here."

"You think I'm a monster, Taylor?"

There was a touch of pleading in his voice.

" 'He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster,' " Shelton went on. "Friedrich Nietzsche. I stabbed three people to death."

"What monster did you fight?" Mac asked.

Kyle Shelton said nothing. After a long pause, he hung up.

Almost immediately the cell phone in Mac's hand began to vibrate quietly. Mac and Rufus went to the front door and stepped out. When the door was closed, Mac answered the call. Danny told him what he had found on Shelton's blog.

"I followed up and guess what I found?" said Danny.

Mac guessed. He was right.

"You want me there?" asked Danny.

"I want you to get at least eight hours of sleep," answered Mac.

Mac closed his cell phone and said, "It's time, Rufus."

Stella's cell phone rang and someone buzzed her apartment at the same time.

She popped her phone open and moved to the door to buzz her visitor in without asking who it was. She knew who it was.

Before he got up the elevator and to her door, Aiden had filled her in.

"Warrant?" asked Stella.

"This late?" asked Aiden. "It'll take too long. Let's hope he feels like being cooperative. If not, I'll wait there while Flack tracks down a judge who's awake and having a good day. You going to meet us there?"

Now there was a knock at the door.

"It's yours," said Stella. "Someone's knocking at my door."

She hung up, checked the pocket of her loose jeans, resisted the urge to tuck in her blue blouse, and opened the door.

"Agent Harbaugh, I presume?" she asked. "Right on time."

He was wearing a dark suit and tie, the FBI uniform. He was tall and older than she would have guessed from his voice on the phone. His neatly cut hair was white. His skin was weathered less from age than from the sun. He was definitely good looking.

"Come in," Stella said.

He did. She closed the door. There was no need for him to look at the paintings on the wall. He had looked at each one carefully the last time he was here.

"Would you like that Coke?" Stella asked.

"No, thanks. May I?" he asked, nodding at a chair.

"Please," said Stella.

He sat. She sat across from him.

He looked at her with a sad smile and sat back. He had come to kill her, but there was no hurry.

The shop was dark except for two low-wattage night-lights inside.

Flack knocked and looked at Aiden, who shifted the weight of her kit. Flack knocked again harder, much harder. The door rattled. If there were a sensitive alarm it would have gone off by now, but they heard nothing.

Flack didn't give up. More than two minutes passed before they could make out the figure of a man coming down the stairs inside the shop.

Arvin Bloom stopped for an instant at the bottom of the stairs, recognizing the police officers, and then, with what looked like a huge sigh that shook his body, he came to the door and opened it.

"We'd like to take another look at some of your furniture," said Aiden.

"Now?" said Bloom. "You are harassing me. Do you have a warrant?"

"No," said Flack, "but we can get one. Same deal as before. One of us gets the warrant. The other stays with you. How do you want it?"

"Come in," said Bloom, stepping aside. "I'd ask you to be fast if I thought it would do any good."

Flack and Aiden entered. Bloom closed the door behind them and made no move to turn on more light.

Flack stayed with Bloom and Aiden went into the darkness at the back of the shop. She was back in five minutes, saying, "The bloodwood cabinet. Where is it?"

"Sold, this afternoon," said Bloom. "I made a good sale. If I'd waited, I could have done better, but I wanted to get money back to the widow of Asher Glick, aleviah sholom."

"Who bought the bloodwood cabinet?" Aiden asked.

"A couple," said Bloom. "Maybe in their late fifties. Dressed like money. Handed me cash, $25,000. They didn't want a receipt and they had a van parked illegally in front of the shop. I helped them put the cabinet in the van."

"So you don't have a name or address for these customers?" asked Flack.

Bloom shook his head "no" and said, "It's not unusual."

"Where's the money?" asked Aiden.

"Got to the bank before it closed," he said. "You can check with the bank in the morning. I didn't kill Asher."

"We will," said Aiden, starting toward the door. Flack wanted to keep Bloom talking, but Aiden was now on the street, so Flack followed her, closing the door behind him.

"What's up?" he asked her.

They both looked through the window at Bloom, who looked back at them. Aiden and Flack moved toward their car.

"I picked up what looked like fresh latent prints on the wall the bloodwood cabinet was against. Two different sets."

"One Bloom's," said Flack. "The other the customer who bought the cabinet."

"Or the person who helped Bloom get it out of his shop," she said. "One more thing."

As they walked Aiden pulled a see-through packet out of her pocket and held it up for him to see.

"What is it?" asked Flack.

"Sawdust," said Aiden, smiling.

FBI Agent Harbaugh sat comfortably, legs crossed in the chair facing Stella.

"I like the paintings," he said, looking around the room. "That's an Andre Danton, isn't it?"

The painting he was looking at on the wall behind Stella was a scene of a narrow cobblestone street with houses seeming to bow toward the lone old woman on the sidewalk with a kerchief over her head and a basket of flowers under her arm.

"Yes," said Stella, without turning to look at the painting.

She examined Harbaugh again. He was lean, sat straight and was in obvious good shape, but she could see now from the age spots on his hands, the hair growing on his ears, that he was at least in his mid-sixties. His teeth were white, even and definitely his own. His face was weathered, the stereotyped image of a cowboy.

"Yes," he said, seeing the question in her eyes. "I'm a temporary retread, brought back as a consultant because this guy was mine until I retired. Nine people over a fifteen-year period. Texas, California, Illinois, Tampa. Stopped three years before my retirement."

Stella nodded, hands folded in her lap.

"Pattern," said Harbaugh. "Kills three. Gets his fix and goes underground till he has to start again."

"The crucifix? The victims? The words in Hebrew?" asked Stella.

Harbaugh shrugged and said, "All of his victims have been religious, not just Jewish. I think the last one in this cycle will be a Christian minister or a Catholic priest."

"Just a hunch?" asked Stella.

"Fits the previous pattern," he said.

"Is any of that true?" she asked.

For a few seconds they both sat silently and then Stella reached into the lacquered red box on the table next to her. She pulled out a small gun and a bottle and held them up for him to see.

The bottle was the antihistamine syrup from Stella's bathroom cabinet. The gun was her.38, and it was aimed at him.

"You were careful," she said, "but you moved a few things, not much, but enough for me to notice. A lot of my job is to notice small things."

"You think I moved your pill bottles?" he said.

"I know you did," she said.

He nodded, now understanding, and said, "Fingerprints."

"And two strands of hair in my bathroom drain where you poured the poison into my antihistamine bottle."

The man remained rigid, eyes on Stella.

"You're not and never were in the FBI," she said. "Your name is George Melvoy. You were born in Des Moines seventy-three years ago. You were a medic, an infantry corporal with MacArthur when he landed in Korea in 1950. After the war you went to Iowa State University, majored in pharmacy. You've had your own successful drugstore in Des Moines for more than forty years. Wife died six years ago. No children. I've got a photograph of you faxed from the Des Moines Register four hours ago."

Melvoy didn't move.

"You're losing hair," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"You know why?" asked Stella.

"Yes," he said.

Stella nodded and said, "Aluminum levels in your hair are high. The DNA we got from your hair shows three tiny abnormalities on some of your chromosomes, abnormalities that may be a sign of Alzheimer's."

" 'Tough old bird,' " he said, almost to himself. "And 'sharp.' That's what my customers say. In a year or so I'll be a grinning, helpless rag doll who doesn't recognize anyone. Well, I don't plan to be around when that starts happening. I'm glad you didn't use that medicine. It was a coward's way of killing."

"A capful wouldn't have killed me," she said. She had couriered the syrup over to the lab earlier, had them run an emergency analysis on the doctored syrup. "It might have made me sick. It would take the whole bottle to kill and even then it wouldn't be a certainty."

Melvoy shook his head and said, "Good thing I'm retired. I could probably kill a customer with a wrong prescription."

Stella put the bottle back in the open box on the table.

"Why didn't you arrest me when you found out?" he asked.

"I want to know why you want to kill me," she said.

"Don't anymore. I did when I walked through that door, but… Remember Matthew Heath?" he asked.

"Tall, thin, red hair, worked in the lab for a few months," she said. "He had a seizure. When he came back from the hospital, he was wearing thick glasses and found he couldn't look at the computer screen for more than a minute or two before he felt a seizure coming on. He just quit one day. I heard he was going to cooking school."

Melvoy was shaking his head "no" and said, "Matt went to a cooking school in Switzerland someplace. I paid. Matt's grandfather was my best friend. You've heard of the USS Walke?"

"Saw it on your cap in the videotapes at the two crime scenes," she said.

"Matt's grandfather died when the Walke was hit off the coast of Korea. He had one son and the son had one son, Matt. When Matt's parents died, the boy came to live with me. At the end, we were the only family we had."

"The end?" prompted Stella.

"Matt shot himself. At first I was angry with him for doing that to me, leaving me alone. Then I was relieved, relieved of the responsibility of propping him up. Then came the guilt. I loved the boy."

Melvoy laughed.

"Yes?" asked Stella.

"You're the first person I said that to," he said. "Never said it to Matt. Said it a few dozen times maybe to my wife. Saying 'I love you' doesn't come easy in my family."

He pulled himself together and sat up straight, letting out a deep breath and saying, "Ask it."

Stella knew what he meant.

"Why did you want to kill me?"

"Because you killed Matt," he said. "A good, happy kid who wanted nothing more than to please you. He wanted to be like you. Worked days without sleeping. Started to get headaches. Doctors warned him, told him to get another job. I told the boy I'd take him on as my partner and leave the drugstore to him when I died. Turned me down, talked about you. You never told him he was doing a good job, never encouraged him, kept pointing out the mistakes he was making."

Stella knew there was definitely some truth in what the man was saying, but there was also some ignorance.

"That's the way we work," said Stella. "It was the way I was treated when I started with the CSI unit. We see things, do things no one should have to see or do."

"And you like it," said Melvoy with a challenge.

"Yes," said Stella. "But it was the wrong career choice for Matt."

"He stayed with it because he wanted your approval," said Melvoy. "And it killed him."

There wasn't much more for Stella to say, at least nothing that would help the man across from her. Melvoy's face had gone slack and his eyes were focused somewhere in the past.

Stella had treated Matthew Heath exactly as she had treated at least a dozen other incoming lab techs before him, lab techs who aspired to be in the field. The strong and the smart made it, many of them moving to other cities where there were jobs a step up on the forensic ladder. Stella had been sure the second day he was on the job that Matthew Heath was not going to make it, that the longer he stayed the more the job would get to him.

Melvoy forced himself back into the present, stood and began to reach into his pocket.

"Don't," said Stella firmly, the service revolver in her hand.

Melvoy slowly slid a small spiral-bound notebook from his pocket.

"I fill these things all the time now," he said. "Have a drawer full of them. I write down just about everything I have to do."

He flipped open the notebook, turned it so Stella could see the large block letters: KILL STELLA BONASERA.

"You're going to have to shoot me. Now's as good a time as any, just be sure to shoot to kill."

He put the notebook back in his pocket and stood.

"No," she said.

"For the past few months I've been having short blackouts, loss of memory. It's starting."

He closed the distance between them and Stella stood. "I won't shoot to kill," she said. "And I don't think you'll hurt me."

"I'm tired," said Melvoy, sitting again, eyes closed. "I'll make a trade."

"A trade?" asked Stella.

"I tell you who the next crucifixion target is and you shoot me," he said. "You a good shot?"

"Yes," she said.

"Deal?" he asked.

"No deal," she said.

"Didn't think so," he said with a sigh. "I can see why Matt wanted to be like you. Okay, I was watching you at the second crime scene. A priest in black, white collar, walked behind the crowd. I glanced at him. He looked at the storefront and crossed himself. When he walked past, a man at the rear of the crowd moved after him; only saw the back of him but he was definitely following the priest. Later, when the body was taken away, I went in the direction of the priest and the man who had followed him."

"Why?" asked Stella.

"Had the idea that if I came up with something I could get close to you."

"No," she said. "There's something else."

He didn't answer.

"You're a Catholic," she said.

"Was," he said.

"So am I," she said. "You wanted to protect the priest."

"I don't know," said Melvoy. "God, I'm tired."

"The priest," Stella prompted.

"Father William Wosak," said Melvoy. "Parish priest at St. Martine's. Sometimes I think there is a God. I've got the feeling that he stopped me from killing you. I'm really glad I didn't."

"So am I," said Stella. "You're a combat veteran. The Veterans Administration will take care of you."

"I've got enough money and nobody to give it to but doctors," he said. "But I meant what I said. I don't intend to be here when it gets worse. I intend to commit a mortal sin."

Stella said nothing. The decision was his. She couldn't stop him and maybe, given his pride, it wasn't an unreasonable choice to make.

"Could you recognize the person who followed the priest?" she asked.

"No," he said. "His back was to me. He was tall, heavyset, wore a dark blue shirt with short sleeves. My money's going to Alzheimer's research. It's all arranged. Now you better go save a priest."

Stella took out her cell phone, moved to the window and made her call. She kept her gun in her hand and didn't turn her back on Melvoy, whose eyes were closed, mouth open, head back against the chair.

He moved quickly. Stella was in the middle of a sentence. Before she could reach him, Melvoy had taken the antihistamine syrup bottle from the box, opened it with a quick twist and gulped the thick liquid down. He handed Stella the empty bottle.

"Don't call for help," he said, moving back to the chair.

"I have to," said Stella.

Stella dialed 911, identified herself and asked for an ambulance. When she turned off the phone, Melvoy was having minor convulsions.

Jane Parsons brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, popped the two aspirin into her mouth and washed them down with room-temperature bottled water. She had a headache and may or may not have been hungry. She wasn't sure.

She checked the clock on the wall of the lab. Ten forty-five. She had been working for the past fourteen hours.

Her time had not been wasted. After examining the DNA sample Aiden had given her, Jane had gone to the Internet and followed link after link, most of them leading nowhere, all of them interesting. She had also sent eight e-mails and made four phone calls.

The rough draft of her report was on the screen in front of her. She scrolled down, being sure that she couched her conclusions with protective phrases, including: "It appears to be," "Research at the following laboratories and universities supports the conclusion that…" and "Therefore, it is almost certain that…"

When she was reasonably satisfied with the report, she printed four copies, one for Aiden, one for Stella, one for Flack and one for Mac. They'd have them in the morning.

She stood up, moved the mouse and put the computer to sleep. It needed the rest. She screwed the cap back on the water bottle.

DNA did not lie. It did speak a foreign language, which Jane had been taught to read with reasonable fluency. In her mind, there was no doubt. The person whose DNA she examined had lied.

Why the lie? Jane didn't know. That was a job for the Crime Scene Investigator in charge of the case, Stella.

Jane looked around, almost-empty bottle in hand, took off her lab coat and draped it on the chair, walked to the door and turned off the lights.

The thought came to her fleetingly. She realized it wasn't the first time. What was the relationship between Mac and Stella? All business? Friends? Something more? It really wasn't Jane's business and normally she saved her curiosity for the secrets the microscopic strands of DNA could reveal. Each day she learned something new. Some days she discovered something new.

Mac's office was dark. She didn't look at it as she headed for the elevator, deciding that she was more hungry than she was tired. Whatever was in the refrigerator or pantry would have to do.

"Find 'em," said Mac.

There was enough light from the street lamps and the almost-full moon for Mac and Rufus to make their way up the stairs, past the room where the Vorhees massacre had taken place, and into the room of Jacob Vorhees, where Mac took separate pieces of cloth from two evidence bags. He placed the first piece of cloth in front of Rufus, who smelled it and began to move around the room. He picked up Jacob Vorhees' scent almost everywhere. Then Mac placed the second piece of cloth in front of Rufus, who turned, bent his head to the floor and immediately moved to the partially opened closet door. Mac followed, paper bag in hand. Mac pushed the door open and reached up to pull the chain that turned on the hundred-watt bulb in the ceiling.

Mac took out his flashlight and pointed it upward.

"Jacob," he said. "My name is Mac Taylor. I'm with the police."

No response.

"You must be hungry. I've brought sandwiches, an egg salad, a tuna salad and a chicken salad. Choice is yours."

Still no response.

Mac looked at Rufus, who continued to look up at the ceiling inside the closet.

"We'll wait here till you make up your mind," said Mac. "But I don't see that you have much of a choice."

It took about two minutes. Mac was sitting on the bed when he heard the sliding sound. He moved to the closet and looked up. A wooden panel was moving, revealing darkness behind it and then the face of Jacob Vorhees. The face was dirty. A red bump stood out on his left cheek. His thick glasses were smudged.

The boy looked down at Rufus and Mac and saw something reassuring in Mac's face. The space in the ceiling was small, but there was enough room for the boy to ease his way through it, put a hand on the hanger rod and drop gently to the floor.

"Show me your badge?" said Jacob.

Mac removed it from his pocket and held it up. In his years on the job three people had actually examined the badge. Jacob Vorhees was the fourth. When he was reasonably satisfied, the boy nodded and Mac put the badge away.

Jacob was wearing faded blue jeans, a pair of Nike shoes with no socks, and a loose-fitting blue T-shirt that needed cleaning. His arms, neck and face were spotted with red bumps. Jacob knew what Mac was looking at and said, "Bugs up there. Lots of them. I kept killing them but they kept coming. Rats too, but they didn't bite, just ran past me or even over me."

Rufus moved next to the boy and rubbed against his leg. Jacob looked at Mac for permission. Mac nodded and the boy reached down to pet the dog and said, "Bloodhound."

"His name is Rufus," said Mac. "Let's go down to the kitchen and have a sandwich."

When they got to the kitchen and Mac turned on the light, Jacob said, "Tuna."

"Tuna," Mac repeated, removing a wrapped sandwich from the bag he was carrying. He handed it to Jacob.

They sat at the table. Mac took the chicken salad, unwrapped it, removed the top slice of bread before putting it on the floor for Rufus, who was waiting patiently.

"Some of those sores on your arms and neck are infected," said Mac. "We'll stop at the hospital on the way back."

"Am I going to prison?" asked Jacob, before taking a bite of sandwich.

"Tell me what happened," said Mac.

Jacob understood. He finished the mouthful of sandwich, adjusted his glasses, looked up and began.

Joshua walked down the dark street, passing a few people, determined. He came to the steps of St. Martine's, went up and tried to open the door. It was locked. On the wall to the left of the door was a button. Joshua pushed it. Nothing. He pushed it again and kept pushing till someone inside opened the door.

Father Wosak was in sweatpants and a Fordham T-shirt. He wore sandals.

"I want to talk," said Joshua.

The priest saw the clenched fists, the tight jaw of his visitor and stepped back to let him in. Then the priest closed the door.

There were a few dim lights, enough to see by, enough to walk down the aisle toward the altar, where a crucified Christ was illuminated by a small yellow light at his feet. Joshua moved quickly, the priest following him.

Joshua stepped up on the low platform, disappeared for an instant behind the statue and found the tote bag just where he had been told it would be. He unzipped the bag, reached in, came up with a sharpened iron bolt, put it back, came up with a heavy-headed hammer, reached in again and came up with a thick piece of white chalk. He held each item up for the priest to see. Finally he came up with a small gun, which he held in his right hand and pointed at the priest.

"Kneel," said Joshua, bag in one hand, gun in the other.

"No," said Father Wosak. "If you plan to shoot and crucify me, I will not cooperate. I will pray." The priest had clasped his hands and added, "Pray with me in the name of Christ our savior."

"Hypocrite," said Joshua.

"And what does that make you?" said the priest. "You preach. You pray. You murder. Why are you doing this?"

"You know," said Joshua, aiming the gun at the man before him.

"No, I don't," said Father Wosak.

Joshua shook his head. He didn't know how much time he had. There was no time for discussion. This was a Jesuit. If Joshua let him talk, answered his questions, he would be caught up in an explanation, a discussion of religious ethics he would almost certainly lose. No time.

"I didn't lock the door," said the priest. "I pretended to. Someone could walk in any time."

Joshua willed himself not to panic. He stepped closer to the priest, aiming at his chest.

The door to the church did open, with a bang. Flack, Aiden, Stella and two uniformed police officers, all with weapons in hand, stepped in.

"Put it down," Flack called out to Joshua.

Aiden had taken the call from Stella, the call that told her that the man who had called himself Harbaugh had followed a man who had been stalking the priest.

"You don't understand," Joshua said. "This has to be."

"No it doesn't," said Flack, gun aimed straight, held in two hands.

Father Wosak was no more than three feet from Joshua. He held out his right hand. The gun in Joshua's hand was now aimed at the priest's head.

"God is not speaking to you," the priest said. "It's a devil or a demon."

"You believe in devils and demons?" asked Joshua.

"They live inside our heads. They speak to some of us, tell lies. But not often. Usually the voices we hear are our own in disguise."

Joshua laughed. The police had moved forward. Flack was sure he could take Joshua out with one shot.

"Does God also live in my head?" asked Joshua.

"Joshua, God lives in our heads, our bodies, the universe."

"And he speaks to you?" asked Joshua.

"Not in words."

Joshua handed the gun to the priest. Flack, Aiden and the two policemen moved forward with Aiden, who said, "Don't touch that bag. Father, put the gun down on the bench next to you."

The priest did, and turned to put his hand gently on Joshua's shoulder. Joshua wept.