The Executioner

Twenty-Four

Hunter and Garcia were studying the forensic photographs taken at the church when Captain Blake entered the room without knocking and closed the door behind her. Her eyes rested on the piles of leather-bound notebooks on both detectives’ desks.

‘Are these the priest’s journals?’ she asked, approaching Garcia’s desk, picking a volume up and flipping through the first few pages.

Hunter nodded.

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Depends what you consider interesting.’

Captain Blake gave Hunter a look that told him she didn’t have time for bullshit.

‘We’re going through them as fast as we can,’ Hunter explained. ‘But there’s a lot of stuff in those books. They’re not proper journals or diaries. They’re just books the priest used to write his thoughts, the way he felt, things he’d done… There’s no sequence. Most of the entries read like dissertations, and they go back a long way.’ He walked back to his desk. ‘The problem is we’re not really sure what were looking for. It could be anything, a word, a phrase… or it could be hidden between the lines. If Father Fabian feared for his life, we were hoping to find something in the most recent diary, but they aren’t dated. The idiots who brought them over after forensics were done dusting them didn’t think to number the books in the same order they were found on the shelves inside Father Fabian’s room.’

‘They’ve been shuffled like a deck of cards,’ Garcia commented.

‘So if by interesting you mean stories of a tormented priest, then yes, they’re very interesting,’ Hunter continued. ‘But if you mean “have we found something that might give us a clue why he was murdered?”, then the answer is – not yet.’

Captain Blake closed the diary and placed it back on the pile. Only then she noticed how neat and tidy Garcia’s desk was. Nothing was out of place. No clutter. All the objects on it were arranged symmetrically. ‘What do you mean by a tormented priest?’

‘It seems like he’d questioned his faith more than once,’ Garcia offered.

‘We all do that every now and again,’ she replied with a shrug.

‘That’s true.’ Hunter looked for something inside his top drawer. ‘But it looks like what Father Fabian saw and heard over the years made him doubt priesthood was really his call.’

‘Why?’

‘You need to believe in God if you’re gonna be a priest. At times he questioned God’s existence.’

‘Plus, there’re a few passages that make it clear that he was struggling with the whole celibacy concept,’ Garcia noted.

‘How many of these have you been through so far?’

‘Three each, and we’ve been reading through the night.’ Hunter answered.

The captain folded her arms and exhaled a deep breath. ‘Bishop Clark is worried about these journals.’

‘Worried how?’ Hunter cracked his knuckles and Captain Blake cringed.

‘He fears Father Fabian might’ve written things he shouldn’t have.’

‘Can you be a little more specific, captain?’ Hunter asked. ‘We don’t have a lot of time for guessing games.’

‘The celibacy dilemma for one.’

Garcia coughed. ‘So Bishop Clark is more worried that Father Fabian could’ve jumped the fence than with the fact that he was brutally decapitated inside his own church? That’s messed up.’

‘He’s also very worried that Father Fabian might’ve written down things he heard in confessions. To the Catholic Church, that’s like a felony.’

‘Only if Father Fabian had verbally discussed any of his confessions with someone else.’ Hunter disagreed. ‘Writing them down in a private diary constitutes no sin or Catholic crime.’

‘Are you Catholic?’ she asked with a frown.

A shake of the head.

‘So how do you know that?’

‘I read a lot.’

Garcia smiled.

‘I suggest you read faster then.’

‘Why?’

‘Bishop Clark is pressuring to get the journals back.’

‘Let him pressure.’ Hunter wasn’t worried. ‘The contents of these journals may turn out to be evidence in an ongoing investigation. The last I heard the police still had the authority to seize any evidence from a crime scene.’

‘He ain’t going through a court of law.’ Captain Blake faced Hunter.

‘Let me guess. My old friend, Mayor Edwards?’

‘Who no doubt will talk to his old friend, the chief of police. After that it gets complicated.’

‘Complicated is what we do, captain. We need to go through those journals.’

‘Just get through them as fast and as thoroughly as you can, will you?’