The case against Father Frank Aguilar was strong. Bones from Mootry, Little, Palmer, and the more recently deceased couple in South Dakota were all found in various incinerators around the monastery. One of the hooded four killed alongside Aguilar was a woman, and endless, tireless questioning and probing and threatening began to show that Aguilar and a small contingent of his most trusted followers had acted alone. The Mad Priest of the Church of the Sacred Sepulcher, as the press was now calling Aguilar, had also kept a room filled with ancient weaponry, a collection of weapons with a bloody history, including several crossbows. Of course the five dead, robed bodies in the alley that night had all had crossbows of modem design on them. Further damning information was unearthed on the Mad Priest's computer in the form of a diary detailing his actions and rambling on about a world that resembled and refracted the computer game, Helsinger's Pit. His diary entries named his coconspirators, Brother Lyle, Brother James, Brother Aaron, and Sister Inez. A fifth assassin was also found, a Brother Paul Timmons, who matched the dead man found in South Dakota, stuffed in the trunk of a rental car. All the other brothers were in various stages of indoctrination.
The motives expressed in Aguilar's diary pendulumed between madness and monetary gain. He claimed those selected to die were enemies of his church, vampires who conspired against him. He was obviously a religious fanatic. He described Whitaker, Palmer, Mootry and the others all as various aspects of the anti-Christ, men who worshipped the pleasures of the flesh, wealth, self-aggrandizement, and ultimately Satan. The only way to stop them from reforming and returning to this realm was to behead them, cut off their extremities and genitals and bum the parts, after staking them through the heart by the most modern and efficient method they could find, the crossbow.
Randy Oglesby had been prophetically correct. The cult members had taken as their model of destruction the computer game Helsinger's Pit, and they'd been led to believe, thanks in great part to the FBI Vampire List, that their victims lived lives of extraordinary, supernatural powers from the dark side; by the same token, the vampire stalkers weren't above partaking in a devil's plunder, amassing as much funds as possible from the so-called anti- Christ before dispatching him again and again.
Father Aguilar's diary entries to this end clearly marked him and his followers as religious maniacs. Furthermore, it turned out that there were numerous women among the “brothers” of the Sepulcher, and many of these women were pregnant with Aguilar's offspring.
The good father was simply doing his part to cleanse the earth of the filth and vermin that had proliferated over generations, and he wasn't above taking the ill-gotten demonic wealth in the bargain, to put the ill-gotten money to a pure and holy use. He was also amassing an army of followers who would willingly assassinate the anti-Christ in his name.
From Aguilar's diary came the truth about the assassinations of John Covey behind bars and the Shirleys in South Dakota, who'd been pawns in Aguilar's distorted, aberrant game of who lives and who dies for the greater glory of his fringe religion. He had indeed selected the Shirleys at random, calling them martyrs to his cause.
The Houston Star and Chronicle ate up the sensational story, and every newscast was full of the sordid details. The Order of the Sacred Sepulcher and its cathedral church, monastery, and soup kitchen were closed, the members, some of whom remained behind bars for further questioning and disposition, disbanded, but not without an outcry from civil rights organizations and the NRA, who likened the situation to Waco and Koresh.
Phil Lawrence came to see Lucas in the bowels of the precinct, in the Cold Room, where he'd continued to report since the mass arrests had been made. He had been involved in the interrogation of prisoners; few men in the precinct hadn't interrogated one or more of Father Aguilar's followers. However, the precinct house was slowly coming back around to a semblance of normalcy, and Lucas had been given his orders by Sergeant Kelton that he was to return to the damp little hole where the dead files awaited his attention. Meanwhile, in the newspapers, he and Sanger were being touted as heroes in this hero less story.
He felt like the successful artist whose work was being admired by people walking through the Guggenheim Museum in New York City while the artist stood in the unemployment line, filling out a form that might allow him a subsistence living. He questioned the neat little package, too, of how Father Aguilar masterminded the series of killings, and how the widespread murders, crossing so many boundaries and state lines, could be carried out by Aguilar's monastic brothers alone. What troubled him most was how easily it had all fallen into place after he and Meredyth had stepped into Frank Aguilar's domain-like a house of cards, like someone had pulled out the one card holding everything together, but that card remained elusive, unreturned.
That was the glum mood three days after his release from the hospital, his arm still in a sling, when Captain Phillip Lawrence joined Lucas in the Cold Room. Lucas offered his captain a seat, wary of the other man.
Lawrence began by asking him how he was doing, how he was adjusting after all the excitement, and how his wounded shoulder was healing. Lucas punched himself in the shoulder harness, saying, “It's a piece of cake, compared to what I've grown accustomed to.”
Lawrence laughed lightly. “I'll give you that much, Stonecoat. You're as tough as your name. I'm glad to have you on my team. Wish I had a squad of men as good as you.”
“What's all this leading up to, sir?”
“Well, no easy way to say this, Lucas.”
“Then say it straight out, Captain.”
He gritted his teeth. “They've denied your promotion request to detective status.”
Lucas dropped his gaze. “No big surprise, sir.”
“It's just a little soon, having just Finished basic. They all know how heroically you performed in the Aguilar affair, but this isn't exactly a business here, you know. We are a paramilitary operation, and that, Lucas, that means-”
“Rank comes only with time; I know. I've heard it before, sir. So what will be my duties, Captain?”
“Well, son, you sorta painted yourself into a… a hole here.” Lawrence looked around the dungeon, self- consciously cleaning his hands on his pants legs.
Lucas stirred the dust on the floor as he shot to his feet, swearing, “Damn, damn it to hell. You mean I'm stuck with the Cold Room duty, don't you?”
“I'm sorry, Lucas. I want you to know I went to bat for you, for all the good it did.”
Lucas thought of saying nothing, unsure of Lawrence's sincerity, but seeing the older man squirm where he sat, he replied, 'Thanks for your support, Captain.”
“Don't give up on us, Stonecoat, and we… we won't give up on you. I promise you that.”
Phil Lawrence stood, extended his hand, taking Lucas's firmly and shaking it for some moments before leaving the room.
The meeting added to the insufferable gloom of the place he found himself in. He hadn't seen or spoken to Meredyth since the early days of the mass arrests, which were now turning into mass releases. It did appear that Father Aguilar's clique was small and insulated from his larger flock of followers, by all accounts.
And yet there continued the nagging feeling that Father Aguilar and the four killed with him and the one who'd died in South Dakota had not acted alone. But now the investigation was effectively dismantled, all questions put aside.
Lucas kicked about the confining room, about to run out screaming when his phone rang. He lifted the receiver to the melodic voice of Meredyth Sanger. “How's my favorite Native American detective?”
“Cop,” he corrected her. “Just another cop, Doctor. There was no promotion in this for me. I'm still Officer Stonecoat, still here in the Cold Room.”
He only heard the mutterings, imagining that she'd cupped her hand over the mouthpiece as she swore. Then she said, “Well, it can only be a matter of time. I gave you an excellent report. Lawrence has to. Your jacket will be stuffed to brimming in no time, and-”
“I think they like me just where I am, Mere, the cold file wrangler. But enough about me. How've you been?” He wanted to say that he'd missed her, but he suppressed the words, instead asking her, “Have you missed me?”
“We made a good team, Lucas, and we'll work together again. I just know it,” she countered, sidestepping the issue. “And how's Conrad?”
“He's gotten a bit more used to things, accepting of them.”
“Yeah, he looked pretty shaken the other night.”
She laughed lightly at this. “I was holding him up.”
“He seems a good man.”
