start a real family, she told her cousin.”
“Her cousin?”
“Her cousin's the authority in Diamondback, Louisiana.”
“I see.”
“Max Sanocre had only been missed by people in his biker gang, but word had been put out that he'd gone to Utah to allow both John Law and rival gang members to cool off, because he had-according to an elaborate story circulated by his children-somehow pissed both parties off, so that no one had the least suspicion that Cassie's father, Maxwell 'Abominable' Sanocre was even dead.”
“ 'Abominable'?”
“It's what he went by.”Sounds like you did one hell of job on this one, J. T.”
“Thanks. I am feeling pretty good about now. Chillin' in Naw'leens, right now.”
“Great, but tell me, J. T., how'd you get all these people to confess down there in Diamondhead?”
“Back. Diamondback. And 1 did it by just showing up.”
“Showing up what?”
“Just showed up on their doorstep. It seemed like the girl and the boy, they just expected me, and when they saw me standing there, they just gave it up.”
“Maybe that's what I need to do on this case.”
“What do you mean? You have a suspect, and you think if you just showed up on his doorstep that a guy like this serial killer Crucifier guy is going to just give it up? London's a far cry from Diamondback, and I suspect Londoners are a bit different than Diamondbackers, Jess, so I'd be a bit more cautious than-”
“Than you were? You could have just as easily disappeared in that remote area of Louisiana as not, J. T. But hey, don't worry about me. I'm not going to do anything foolish to endanger myself. Hell, look how long I've gone without any scars. I've got a record to maintain, and a pool to win back at Quantico,” she joked.
J. T. laughed, finding this amusing, adding, “Hey, who do you think started the pool?”
They parted with good-byes and well wishes, and Jessica started anew for Scotland Yard, but at the cab stand, rather than walk over to the Yard, she made a detour.
“I'll just show up on Luc Sante's doorstep,” she told herself. “See what gives if he knows that I know.” The doorman hailed the next available cab in line to come forward to pick Jessica up. When she climbed inside, she announced, “St. Albans, the Marylebone district, please.”
“Ahhh, St. Albans, a wonderful old lady, she is,” the cabby said of the church.
“Yes, beautiful really,” she agreed.
“Married me wife in that church, twenty-six years ago, God rest her soul.”
Jessica tried to formulate what she would say to Father LucSante, how to arrange the list of coincidences, the list of questions and suspicions so as to best checkmate the man. She feared she would botch it, but she realized now that the entire time they had spent together in the past, the old man meant to recruit her, to win her over and to make her his newest convert, that he indeed had some sort of strange power over her as he did over others, and that he ran some sort of cult following somewhere out of the light of the Catholic church, out of the light of all other judging bodies and out of sight of people he could not control. But what to say to this man, and how to say it… How to trap him in his own lair, using his own lures…
TWENTY
The lie has seven endings…
Slowly, Richard Sharpe had begun to win young Stuart Copperwaite over to the idea that somehow Luc Sante had been connected with the violent deaths of the crucifixion victims all along. Sharpe had spent the morning trying to convince Copperwaite of the weight of the evidence pointing to the old man and minister.
Together now, in a stairwell, Richard wanting no one else to overhear, he forced the issue onto Stuart who had raged at him for having disappeared.
Copperwaite could hardly believe his ears on hearing of the underground trek Richard and Jessica Coran had taken in the company of the RIBA man the day before. He could hardly believe that both Sharpe and Dr. Coran had, independently, arrived at the same conclusion, that somehow St. Albans and Luc Sante had become focal points in some sort of bizarre, twisted Second Coming-Millennium cult. He haltingly said, “I cannot begin to believe that the two of you, M.E. and inspector, as levelheaded as you are, have concocted this incredible theory-not from whole cloth but from cheesecloth, this 'fantabulous' idea,” as he put it.
However, Sharpe persisted, laying out the number of bizarre crossovers and connections and coincidences involving Luc Sante. Someone pushed through the stairwell door just below them, and Sharpe put a finger to his lips, not wishing for anyone to hear Copperwaite's pronouncements. When it became clear that they were alone again, Sharpe continued, saying, “He's bloody protected not only by his sterling reputation, but by the bloody church,” Sharpe barked in ending. “But I've spent hours piecing it together, and there is a major organization behind all the smaller organizations to which each victim has left his worldly goods. It's St. Albans itself. With the help of computer sleuth Gyles Harney, I just got that piece of the puzzle today.”
“That is remarkable,” Copperwaite agreed, astonished.
“The organization and care with which the donations from the victims were masked, that took some expertise in computers, but Gyles managed to unravel it for me. No one can unravel like Gyles.”
“And none can unwind so well as Gyles.”
Sharpe managed a smile, the first he'd shared with Copperwaite since the falling out. “Aye, Gyles likes his pint.”
Copperwaite bit back his confusion, gnarling on his lower lip. “And so, we're caught out. We can't bloody get a search warrant against St. Albans.”
“Nor is it likely we'll get one for Saint Luc's house or office-being attached to the church-either.”
“And in the meantime, what do we do? Wait until another victim shows up in another body of water somewhere around town?” asked Copperwaite, exasperated, pounding a closed fist into the wall.
“We take no bloody action until we can prove what we now merely think, Copperwaite,” warned Sharpe. “Our hands are tied.”
“Unless we can get Luc Sante on tape, admitting to his new cult following, and the fact he's involved in these deaths,” suggested Copperwaite. “And just how do you propose doing that?”
“He seems to've been working overtime to convert Dr. Coran.”
“No, I won't endanger her, Stuart.”
“You're bloody in love with her, aren't you?”
“We share a great deal. Love, I don't know that I would go that far.” Sharpe's inner mind mulled the question over. It hadn't occurred to him to call it love. Certainly, Jessica had not ever used the word, and he had been careful not to, and it all seemed somewhat of a younger man's game, this thing called love. Still, he found himself thinking of her always, to distraction, he warned himself now.
“But it may be our only hope. Have Coran wear a wire, with us nearby. Suppose I'm right?”
“Right about Luc Sante's wishing to win her over to his new world order and religion. I can see that now. He's been building up to it all along, but I daresay she's given him no encouragement.”
“She encourages by her very being, by her engaging him, returning to him, don't you see?” Copperwaite next suggested they walk up a flight for the exercise and so that they didn't appear too damnably suspicious here. Sharpe agreed, and they trekked up a flight.
“By God, Coppers, you are going to make a fine full inspector, one day. That's rather an insightful point you've made, perhaps one I've been blinded to, being… Since I've become so fond of Jessica.”
“If you take it a step further, Richard, if what you suspect Luc Sante of, then it follows that he may well see Dr. Coran as… well, as a perfect candidate for crucifixion?”
“Thanks for that, Coppers. You've the target in the crosshairs indeed.”
