The Killing Room

THIRTY-NINE

Jessica and Byrne stood at the foot of the mattress. Next to them stood Maria Caruso and Josh Bontrager. The sight before them was horrific beyond imagining.

The dead woman was white, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. She was naked, except for a cloth that covered her eyes.

The old mattress beneath her body was soaked with blood. The woman’s throat had been slashed. No, slashed was too kind a word, Jessica thought. Her throat had been savaged. The action had left the muscles in the woman’s face in a rictus of terror.

‘Detectives?’

It was a CSU officer in the small room off the main section of the basement. The four detectives walked across the room. The first thing Jessica noticed as she got closer were the dozen or so small yellow cones on the floor, placed there by crime scene officers, noting where blood evidence had been dropped. The drops led to the old stone archway.

Jessica stepped in first. There was something on the floor. When she knelt down to get a closer look, she realized what it was. Bile rose in her throat.

It was the woman’s tongue. The killer had cut out the woman’s tongue, and pulled it from her throat.

Jessica looked overhead, and saw the rusted iron pipe coming through the floor. They were below the sacristy.

Look to the sacrarium.

While the CSU began to process the basement, Jessica walked the first floor, made some rough measurements. Josh Bontrager drew the sketch. He would be the lead investigator on this case.

Four churches. Four brutal murders. No suspects.

Jessica knew this case would be folded into the task force, just as she knew that status reports on these murders had already reached the inspector level, most likely the commissioner.

She also had the feeling that whatever overtime money was needed to put the rest of the shuttered churches in Philadelphia County under twenty-four-hour-a-day surveillance would now be appropriated.

By early afternoon they learned that, unlike the other cases, they already had an ID on the victim. A car parked directly in front of the chapel was registered to a woman named Michelle A. Calvin. A PCIC check provided a photo ID, and showed that a few years earlier Michelle Calvin had been arrested in a prostitution sting, and as a result served four months in jail. The search also yielded the woman’s current employer, Rudolph Realty. Josh Bontrager put in a call and spoke to the owner of the victim’s firm, Raymond Rudolph, who agreed to come down to the crime scene to talk to investigators.

As Jessica and Byrne emerged from the church, they saw Rudolph standing next to one of the sector cars, talking to Bontrager. Rudolph was clearly shaken. In his late thirties, standing five-eight or so, Rudolph was dressed conservatively in a black trench coat, white shirt, maroon club tie. He turned a BlackBerry over and over in his gloved hands.

Introductions were made.

‘You were her boss?’ Bontrager asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was.’

‘Do you know what brought her here today?’

‘She had an appointment with a buyer.’

‘This property is for sale?’

Rudolph nodded. ‘It’s been on the market for a long time.’

‘What do you know about the buyer?’

Rudolph reached into his pocket, brought out a printout of an email. ‘Michelle was here to meet a woman named Mara Reuben.’

Jessica looked at Byrne. Mara Reuben. The woman Jessica had talked to across from St Adelaide’s. The phantom who was not on the video recording.

‘Did you ever meet this woman?’ Bontrager asked.

‘No,’ Rudolph said. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Do you know if this woman ever called Ms Calvin, ever left a voicemail?’

‘I don’t know, but I can check.’

‘We’d appreciate that,’ Bontrager said. ‘Also, do you know if the woman ever visited your office? If, perhaps, someone else there has ever met her?’

‘I don’t believe so. Again, I’ll ask. But keep in mind we’re a small office. There are only five of us.’ The expression on Rudolph’s face said that it suddenly occurred to him that there were now only four.

‘Can you think of anyone who might have had a problem with Ms Calvin?’ Bontrager asked. ‘Any deal that might have turned sour?’

Jessica knew that Josh knew that this murder was part of an ongoing ritual, not a personal vendetta, but it was a question that had to be asked.

Rudolph shook his head. ‘Not really.’

They gave the man a moment to clarify his answer. He did not.

‘Is that a no or a maybe?’ Bontrager asked.

The man looked up, clearly conflicted about something. ‘Look, it’s not really my business what a person does, or what they used to do. I know Michelle had some … difficulties in life before she came to work for us. But she was bright and smart and, by all accounts, had turned her life around. I was happy to work with her, and happy to have known her. God judges, detective. Not man.’

Rudolph began to mist up. He turned away. Bontrager gave him time.

Jessica figured the man was talking about Michelle Calvin’s arrest and conviction for prostitution, but maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe there was much more.

Because of the ever-widening scope of these related murders, everything was passing through the commanders of the various units. On scene now was the day work commander of the Crime Scene Unit. Sergeant Terry O’Neal was a veteran in his fifties, a jovial father of six, but heart-attack serious about his job. He had worked as a patrol officer when Byrne was coming up, and the two men had a long relationship.

Jessica overheard bits of their conversation.

‘Every inch, Terry. Every fucking inch,’ Byrne said, sotto voce. ‘I’ll pay for the overtime myself.’

‘You got it.’

‘There is something in this building that is going to lead us to the next scene, and I want to find it before he gets to the next church.’

And the next body, Jessica thought.

She took out her iPhone, opened a browser. On a hunch she did a search for names of people in the Bible. Before long she was rewarded. Of all the women in the Bible, there was one named Mara, and one man named Reuben. She called Byrne and Bontrager over. ‘Look.’

The two men looked at the screen.

‘In Hebrew, Mara translates as sad, and Reuben means vision of the son,’ Jessica said. She put her phone away. ‘I think I’m going to get together with a sketch artist today.’

‘Good idea,’ Bontrager said.

Twenty minutes later, as the investigators began the process of collating the details of a new homicide, Jessica looked out the window of the chapel, saw Byrne talking to a paramedic, a woman in a blue windbreaker. Jessica soon recognized her as one of the paramedics who treated Danny Palumbo.

Jessica observed the woman’s body language and noticed that there were private signals happening between her and Byrne. She couldn’t see the woman’s face, which would have helped, but it looked like there was something between the two of them that transcended the job.

Something intimate.