“I’m sorry, detective.”
He was out of sight before Lynch had a chance to react.
“Father, wait!!”
Aiden found the door to Leo’s office open. The room was empty.
“Your Grace? Your Grace!”
The muffled answer came from father Leo’s bathroom.
“I’m in here, Father. It’s okay. Come on in.”
The urgency of the moment disallowed Aiden to notice the voice’s unfamiliar timbre and missing accent. He barreled forward and gripped the door handle for dear life.
He wrenched his wrist to the right.
The latch popped.
The door opened…pushed ajar by the body resting on the other side.
Aiden stepped back and froze in horror. What lay before him made no rational sense. There was blood. There was a man in a black shirt lying face down with his body twisted in the doorway. There was a crossbow bolt in the back of the man’s head.
When the surreality of the scene subsided, and Aiden fully realized what he was looking at, he sunk down to the floor burying his face in his hands.
He started to scream.
“Father!! Detective Lynch!! Holy mother, full of grace!!”
Archbishop Fellini had been assassinated…a single shot to the base of the skull…painless, but tragically undignified.
7. Just Driving Around
Eric was good at getting stuff. He made another call to Arthur.
“We’re set on this end.”
“Eric, you’re the man.”
“A few more things have to fall into place, but it should be a very interesting evening.”
“It’s going to fucking rock.”
“Out of curiosity, Artie, we’ve got Traci; we’ve got my girl. Who’s the third?”
“Brother, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Eric was not set on his end. The idea was crazy. The plan was ridiculous. It should have failed miserably.
8. Outside St. Aloysius RCC
Gomez met Lynch in the church courtyard. Crime scene had not yet arrived. Lynch was standing under a tree located near a partially opened window. He was looking up in disbelief at an ambiguous apparatus stuck into the trunk about ten off of the ground. Sirens filled the air. All available uniformed members of the Potterford P.D. locked down the church and closed off Prospect Street.
Ernie spoke.
“They’re on their way.”
“I know.”
There was a bullet placed in plain sight by the roots. It had been through a gun.
“That’s weird.”
“Yup, and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts ballistics matches it to our bullet.”
“Holy shit, the guy wants us to know he did both shootings.”
“So it would seem.”
Twenty minutes later, the FBI arrived.
9. Under a Tree
Thank you.
Philip sat in his uncle’s woods gazing upward.
So much, thank you.
The recon that he’d done leading up to his perfect moment was nothing short of pure artistry. The floor plans of Cardinal Romero High School and St. Aloysius Church were easily found on the internet. He trashed the former. The latter saved him a great deal of time when he did his walk-thru and wound up in Father Pascucci’s confessional.
Thank you.
He allowed himself full credit for the preparation but not the killing itself.
Dear Father, thank you.
It was no secret that Archbishop Fellini was leading all St. Al Masses over the upcoming weekend. Philip figured that His Eminence would be hanging out at the church at some point during the week. He also figured that the man would eventually have to defecate, and while the toilet in the (former) Pastor’s Office wasn’t the only place to poop, it was certainly the most private. Philip’s investigation of the tiny bathroom yielded two astonishing bits of luck.
First, there was the tree.
The tree itself was not a surprise. He’d seen it when he compared the church floor plan to the satellite rendering he’d printed from eMaps. Still, the wide and towering maple couldn’t have served more perfectly. The middle branches were long and strong. The leaves were big and provided ample coverage from trunk to top.
Then, there was the swollen window. Its position was satisfactory for a headshot, but its frosted glass made it impossible to tell who was on the other side. He dreaded the thought of jamming the thing open, until he discovered that the century-old building and years of moisture had done half the job for him. A little hand soap between the pane and the frame guaranteed that the window wouldn’t budge.
The unknown quantity was the timing.
Man…the first day! He was at the church the first day! I was in the tree; he was right there…on the crapper! There wasn’t a thing to stop me! Not a thing! The path of frikkin’ Moses wasn’t clearer!
Some would have called it fate; others would have called it a progression of logical circumstance; still others…like Philip…divine intervention.
From the bottom of my heart and soul, thank you.
The plan’s only glitch was fixed by a priest.
Philip guessed that the Archbishop would be guarded. He dismissed it as a non-issue, believing that everyone would scramble to the body once the deed was done, thus leaving his exit clear. The problem was the body had to be discovered in order for this to happen.
No one knew the killing had taken place.
When he asked his uncle for a silencer that would fit his nine, the old man laughed in his face.
“You’ve been Hollywooded boy! Silencers don’t work like that. You’re going from freight train to jackhammer. You want silent? This is silent.”
His words were true. The crossbow pistol did the trick. The tradeoff was a dead Archbishop that no one knew about, and a goon blocking the way out.
Until the young priest showed up.
Philip let out a snicker and recreated his estimation of the Archbishop’s voice.
“I’m in here. It’s okay. Come on in.”
The rest played out according to design.
No pain; no fear.
Philip tilted his head back as far as he could. His face showed no expression. It was the first time in his life that he’d experienced absolute euphoria. No facial expression or kinetic activity could do the feeling justice. So, he sat…and listened to the birds.
10. Father Karney’s Office
Leo had been offered medication by one of the EMTs. He refused it. It was a time for faith, not drugs. With closed eyes, he searched the Gospel, the Psalms, and all
