the heinous evil in the dull-eyed killers he tracked down, the death of his wife-somewhere in it all, O’Brien had lost something. Father Callahan had tried to help him find it.
Maybe he still could, O’Brien thought.
Maybe Father Callahan was sitting in his study knocking back an Irish whiskey and didn’t hear his cell phone.
Maybe all of O’Brien’s cop instincts-the signs-were wrong. Maybe Sam Spelling really had died from complications caused by the shooting.
Maybe if he’d gotten it right eleven years ago, he wouldn’t be trying to save a kind, loving man’s life-a priest’s life. God, let me get there in time!
O’Brien shut off the Jeep’s engine and rolled to a quiet stop beneath an oak tree in the east side of the parking lot, the farthest corner away from the sanctuary.
He chambered a bullet in his Glock, got out of the Jeep, and crouched by its rear bumper for a few seconds. He wanted to listen beyond the rain. To listen for anything moving. Someone running. A car starting. A dog barking.
There was only the patter of rain off the canvas top of his Jeep.
O’Brien started toward the annex section of the church, keeping away from the street lights and hanging close to a row of shrubs. He ran along the wall of the building, coming to a breezeway that separated the two structures. Something moved.
O’Brien leveled his pistol as a cat bolted from the breezeway and ran behind a dumpster. He saw Father Callahan’s white Toyota in the parking lot. There were no other cars. There seemed to be a dim light, possibly coming from burning candles inside the sanctuary, the light barely illuminating the stained glass windows.
O’Brien held the Glock in his right hand and slowly opened the sanctuary door with his left. Then he gripped the pistol with both hands. He listened for the slightest sound. Sweat dripped through his chest hair. He moved silently down the entrance foyer and around the atrium that led to the sanctuary. He could smell burning candles. There was the lingering smoky scent of incense and something else. He could almost feel it. It came to him after years of shifting through crime scenes, a sixth sense of sorts-an inner sonar that detected death before he saw it. It was the way time stood still at a murder scene. The spool of life caught in a macabre freeze-frame. The grisly still image often laced with the coppery smell of blood and the inherent odor of death.
O’Brien’s heart raced. As he stepped around the corner of the vestibule, he held his breath and listened. There was only the sound of rain. Nothing he had investigated in the past prepared him for what he saw as he entered the sanctuary.
Father John Callahan was lying face down in a pool of blood.
The flickering candles caused shadows to move eerily across the paintings of saints and angels, a marble statue of Virgin Mary, Moses with the Ten Commandments, and images of Jesus Christ on the cross. Lightning in the distance backlit a stained glass window depicting three wise men following a star in the sky near the town of Bethlehem.
O’Brien wanted to run to Father Callahan. But, even from across the sanctuary, he could tell his old friend was dead.
O’Brien labored to control his breathing. He pointed the Glock in corners and at darting shadows cast from the candles. Nothing else moved. He could hear the rain falling near an open back door, the drops thumping the gutter and falling into parking lot puddles. Instinct told him the killer was no longer in the church. Probably fled the way he’d entered, through the rear door. But he still checked darkened crevices, tried locked doors. Nothing.
O’Brien ran to Father Callahan. He could see the wallet tossed on the floor. A bowl of holy water and a half dozen other bowls on a communion table scattered across the marble. He remembered a gold cross that adorned the altar. It was gone. O’Brien wanted to scream. His head pounded. He felt a wave of nausea travel from his stomach to his throat. His friend was slaughtered in a church.
O’Brien knew it wasn’t a robbery. He knew it because the same man who killed Alexandria Cole eleven years ago had left a deliberate trail to an innocent man. And now he killed one of the most compassionate men O’Brien had ever known.
As he came to within a few feet of the body, he stopped and placed a finger on Father Callahan’s neck. Two bullet wounds to the back. No pulse. O’Brien fought the urge to scream, to curse. How could this happen to this man? A man of God? O’Brien spotted something scrawled near the left hand. Father Callahan’s thumb and small finger were bent under his hand. Only his other three fingers were extended. And next to that was a message Father Callahan had managed to smear in his own blood. O’Brien felt the message was left for him-a clue and warning. The image resembled the outline of a faceless woman wearing a shawl, the number 666, the Omega symbol, and the smeared letters P A T.
O’Brien slowly stood. A milky shaft of diffused light seemed to float through the skylight in the high ceiling. The rain stopped and the dark clouds dissolved in front of the moon. A soft beam fell across a statute of the Virgin Mary near the altar, illuminating the face. O’Brien looked into the unblinking eyes of Jesus’ mother. Then he looked down at the body of Father John Callahan. O’Brien wanted to pray, and he wanted to scream. But he could do neither. He felt empty. Very alone.
His hand shook, eyes now welling with tears, as he slowly reached out to touch the priest’s shoulder. “I am so sorry, Father…sorry this happened to you…it is unforgivable…and I’m to blame.” He stood, holding his clinched fists by his side. His eyes closed tight, trying to shut out the aberrant, the absolute isolation he felt as the horror of Father Callahan’s murder fell around him with a numbing silence of moving shadows cast by candle flames.
A cloud parted from the moon when O’Brien looked up at Mary’s face, the light hitting her eyes. It was a connection that locked into something deep within O’Brien. It was ethereal and yet caring. His eyes burned for a moment looking at Mary’s face, and he felt a single drop of sweat inching down the center of his back.
O’Brien turned and walked out of the church into the cool night air. He lifted his cell off his belt and sat down on the steps to dial 911. Where would he begin the explanation of the scene inside the church? What did the message mean…the circle drawing? The 666 and the letters p-a-t with the letter Omega from the Greek alphabet? Were the numbers, 666, supposed to the biblical “sign of the beast?” Was Pat the killer’s name, or his initials? The crude drawing? What had Father Callahan meant? Think.
The clouds parted and the three-quarter moon revealed itself. O’Brien could see it was slightly more rounded. It would be a full moon this time next week. And unless O’Brien caught a killer, Charlie Williams would be executed as a full moon rose over the Atlantic.
NINETEEN
The howl of a dog was soon replaced with the wail of sirens. Sean O’Brien sat on the church steps and listened to the cavalry approach. They came from all directions, a disjointed parade of blue and white lights-the out of sync blare of police cruisers, fire and rescue trucks, ambulances, and a sheriff’s helicopter.
They were all too late. One was not.
O’Brien watched the coroner’s car pull through the maze of emergency vehicles and stop. He could see a man inside the car with a cell phone to his ear.
Three uniformed officers raced up the church steps. They looked at O’Brien, their eyes wide, breathing heavy, adrenaline pumping. O’Brien said, “Inside.”
One officer stayed on the steps while the others entered the church. He pulled out a notebook. “You call it in?”
O’Brien nodded.
“What did you see?” asked the officer.
As O’Brien started to answer, the sheriff’s helicopter circled the church. The rotor noise echoed off the concrete steps. The sound took O’Brien back to a night rescue in the first Gulf War. He glanced up at the sheriff’s helicopter, the prop blast blowing trapped rainwater out of gutter corners, the smell of rust and decaying leaves raining down on O’Brien and the officer. From the belly of the chopper, a powerful spotlight moved over roofs, trees, cars, apartments, and houses in the surrounding area.
The CSI people, coroner and one of the three detectives, walked past O’Brien. Two detectives didn’t. A
