The Killing Room

FIFTY-FOUR

Jessica could not find Byrne. She tried every cell, landline, pager number, text. Nothing. She had not told Maria of Mateo’s call — indeed, Jessica had asked Mateo to keep it to himself as long as he could. She couldn’t ask him to lie or erase the footage of Kevin, but Mateo was a stand up cop, and agreed to follow her lead on this. He promised not to say anything. For the moment.

St Simeon’s was now crowded with personnel. Jessica had seen the look on Dana Westbrook’s face when she pulled up, and it wasn’t good. Their killer had committed a crime, right under the noses of two detectives, and this would not play out well with the media.

Jessica decided to worry about the wrath of her boss later. Her immediate concern was Kevin Byrne.

What had he been doing at the church?

Jessica walked out of St Simeon’s. Her phone rang. It was Maria.

‘Yeah, Maria.’

‘I’m checking the cars on the street. There’s a compact car about a half-block from your location.’

Jessica recalled the car from when she entered the church. ‘What about it?’

‘It looks like we’ve got a second victim.’

‘There’s a body in that car?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s DOA?’

‘Oh, he is definitely DOA. There’s something on the seat next to him you should see, though.’

Jessica jogged down the alley, turned the corner. She saw Maria a half-block away, standing near the car. She walked the remaining distance, thinking there was no need to run. A DOA tended to stay dead.

When she arrived she looked in the driver’s window. The victim was a white male, late twenties, early thirties. His head was back on the headrest. A thin trickle of vomit leaked from the corners of his mouth. Jessica shone her Maglite into the car.

‘Ah, Christ,’ she said.

‘What? You know him?’

‘His name is Shane Adams. He’s a reporter. He tried to shadow me earlier today.’

Jessica ran her Maglite around the inside of the car. The backseat was full of junk, the kind of stuff you’d have if you lived half your life inside your car — extra clothing, fast-food trash, Handi-Wipes.

‘You are not going to believe this,’ Maria said. With her gloved hands she took a digital video camera off the front seat and put it on top of the car. ‘This was playing when I walked up to the car.’ She hit a button, turned the LCD screen to face them.

At first the image was out of focus. Soon it became clear. It was the image of a cross. It was hard to tell on the small screen what the cross was made of, but the closer Jessica looked at it, the more she realized it was made of glass.

‘Is that a window?’ Jessica asked.

‘I’m pretty sure it is,’ Maria said. She froze the image, pointed at the screen. ‘It looks like this is tinted glass, doesn’t it?’

The two detectives looked at each other at the same moment, understanding flowing between them.

‘Stained glass,’ they said in unison.

‘Keep playing it,’ Jessica said.

Maria hit the button. The video continued. The stained-glass image of the cruciform began to lose focus again, and Jessica soon realized what was happening. There was an image behind the glass that was starting to come in to focus. A few seconds later she saw what it was, and her heart skipped a beat. There, on the other side of the cross, was a person, perfectly framed, as if on the cross.

There could be no doubt. The person was Kevin Byrne.

Jessica ran back down the street, up the alley. She looked at the side window next to the door that gave entry into the church. There was a cross in the stained glass. It was identical to the crucifix in the video.

The killer had just shot this footage.