rend her garment.” We heard the sound of her dress tearing, the snap of her brassiere, and then, after a pause, the sharp crack of a lash biting into flesh. Reflex made me count the blows, seven in all, each one slow and deliberate. Suzanne made one involuntary cry at the outset. After that she was silent.
The tape went on. There had been an out-pouring of amens and hallelujahs, but now that was silenced. Brodie was speaking. “Sister Suzanne will spend yet another night in prayer, not in the Penitent’s Room, but here, at the altar, where she can feel our Lord’s forgiveness. In the morning we shall come again to welcome her return to the fold. Go with God. It is finished.”
I heard some murmur of talk as people filed out. The next sound was that of someone weeping. “Suzanne?” Brodie’s voice.
She made no response, although the weeping subsided. “Suzanne. Look at me. I have something for you. It’ll make it hurt less.” A pause, then he continued, his voice soft and cajoling. “Don’t try to cover yourself from me, Sister. I’ve come to minister to your wounds. It’s a local anesthetic.”
Again the silence. I could imagine him running a fleshy finger across her bleeding breasts, administering some kind of ointment.
“Thank you,” Suzanne said softly.
“I want you,” he said.
“No, please.” There was no audible spoken answer although we heard the sound of the study door closing. I was taken aback. He had asked, and Suzanne had denied him. Even the pastor himself was subject to some rules and prohibitions. It was obvious what kind of additional comfort and forgiveness he had intended to offer.
The tape clicked on and off, running only when there was sufficient sound in the room to sustain it. There was no way to tell how much time elapsed each time the voices stopped and started.
“…of-a-bitch” The voice was a man’s, muffled and indistinct. It sounded as though it might have been coming through a closed door, maybe the study.
I strained to hear. “Turn it up,” I said to Peters, and he did.
“Get out!” I could recognize Brodie’s voice.
The other man was speaking now. “…her alone. She’s my wife, not one of your whores.”
I heard the familiar menacing tone in Brodie’s voice. “You seem to forget, my word is law here.” The door slammed. The visitor’s hard-soled shoes stormed through the sanctuary. The front door slammed heavily behind him.
Now we could hear the mumble of Suzanne’s voice alone. It rose and fell. It was a prayer of some kind, but the words themselves escaped us. It continued for some time, on and off, intermittently reactivating the machine.
Then suddenly, sharply, “…t do you want?”
A sharp report of a pistol answered her, followed by the sound of an opening door. We could hear Brodie’s voice. “What happened? Suzanne?” A gunshot was his answer too, followed by silence as the machine shut itself off.
The next voice was that of Sarah, the cook: “…my God,” and the sound of hurrying footsteps. Then came the sound of another door and more footsteps, followed by Peters’ voice: “He didn’t nickel-dime-around, did he?” The recorder was switched off before anything further was said.
“That was Carstogi!” said Peters, his voice tense with excitement. “It has to be.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked. “I don’t think it sounds like him at all.”
Just then Anne asked permission to return to the living room. She was wearing the same blue suit she had worn the day before, only now her hair was pulled back and fastened in an elaborate knot at the base of her neck. She looked like a ballerina. The similarity wasn’t just in looks. I knew that her external beauty concealed the finely tuned, well-conditioned body of a professional dancer.
“Beau, I’m going to take off now,” she said, moving toward the door. She nodded to Peters. “Nice to see you again, Ron.”
Peters stood up apologetically. “I hope you’re not leaving on my account.”
She smiled. “No. I have lots to do.”
I followed her to the door. “Can you come back tonight? I don’t know what time I’ll be back, but I can give you a key so you can let yourself in.”
“Do you think you can trust me?” She was laughing as she asked the question. I rummaged through the kitchen junk drawer to locate my spare keys.
I handed them to Anne, and she dropped them into her jacket pocket. “Thanks,” she said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek.
I walked with her to the elevator lobby, where she turned and kissed me, a full-blown invitational kiss that sent my senses reeling. The elevator door opened. There stood three of my neighbors.
“That wasn’t fair,” I protested.
“It wasn’t, was it?” she agreed. The elevator door closed, and she was gone.
Chapter 14
Peters, still intent on the tape, was playing it again as I came back into the room. “So much of what Brodie says sounds like he’s quoting directly from the Bible.”
“Probably was. Taken out of context and given a forty-degree twist, you can use the Bible to justify almost anything.”
Peters’ tea was gone. I brought him another cup. We listened to the tape, not once but several times. “There’s a clue in here somewhere, if we could just put our fingers on it,” Peters said as he switched off the recorder for the last time. He stood up. “I guess we’d better get back over to Faith Tabernacle. The place is probably still crawling with people. Watty will be climbing the walls.”
“What about Carstogi?” I asked.
“What about him? I’m sure the trail leads back to him one way or the other.”
I remained unconvinced. I said, “Let’s get a description of the hooker and put vice on it. Or maybe we could track down that cab.”
“You’re determined he didn’t do it, aren’t you? But you’re right; we should check it out.” Peters glanced down at the tiny machine in his hand. “What about this? Erase it?”
“No, don’t. We’ll want to listen to it again. If there’s something in there that we’re missing, maybe we’ll catch it next time. Leave it here.” I took the recorder from him and placed it in the top drawer of the occasional table beside my leather chair. “That way it won’t leak into Cole’s hands.”
Back at Faith Tabernacle Sergeant Watkins was running the show, directing a small army of officers who scrutinized every inch of the church and took statements from anyone who looked remotely related to the case. At the moment we drove up, Watty was standing next to the front door, supervising a kneeling lab technician who was making a plaster cast of something behind a row of decorative bushes.
“What’s up?” Peters asked him.
Watkins glowered at us. “Where the hell have you been?” He went on without waiting for an answer. “We found some tracks here. The footprints have been obliterated, but we should get good casts of the bicycle tires. Someone parked a bike here during the night.”
“You think the killer used a bike for his getaway?” I asked, shaking my head.
“You have a better suggestion?” Watty snapped.
I had to admit I didn’t have one. “Where’s the father?” the sergeant asked.
“He’s back at the Warwick. We’ve got a guard on him.”
“A guard!” Watkins exploded. “What I want on him are cuffs and orange coveralls. We’ve got three people dead so far. We’d better arrest someone pretty goddamned soon.”
“Carstogi didn’t do it,” I said.
“What? Are you his goddamned character witness? I understand he was out all night. Where was he?”
“He doesn’t know.”
