“Bernard Hugo,’’ he called. “Police. I’d like to ask you a few questions.’’
The house answered with silence and he heard his voice echo lightly in the nearly empty room. Most of the furniture he remembered was gone. There was just a television, a recliner, a rickety old card table. He took another step inside and pulled out his gun.
The odor assailed him. Garbage, beer, general filth, and something else. Some other odor lingered, mingling with the others. He pulled a surgical glove from his pocket and deftly slid it on his left hand while still holding his weapon with his right. He wasn’t going to fuck this up. The door had pushed open, so he felt it was within his rights to enter. He wouldn’t touch anything. Just look around. If he found anything, he’d call it in right away. At least he would be the first on the scene.
Keeping his back to the wall, he walked down the hallway and looked in the master bedroom, where a bed was the only piece of furniture. The bed was bare except for a crumpled-up beige-and-green top sheet. There was little else to see except a closet that stood open where a few items of clothing were sloppily hung on wire hangers and old shoes cluttered the rack that hung on the door.
The door across the hall was closed and Morrow tried to push it open with his foot, keeping his back to the opposite wall, but he couldn’t. So he moved to the right of the doorjamb, turned the knob, and pushed the door open fast. It banged against the wall inside the room. He entered gun-first. And when he stood in the doorway, he saw what he had come for. And he wasn’t sure whether to whoop with joy or be ill.
As he slid his cell phone from the inside lapel pocket of his suit jacket, he heard cars pull up the gravel driveway. From the window he could see Jeffrey Mark and Lydia Strong walk up to the door. He walked down the hallway to greet them.
“Chief, what are you doing here?’’ Jeffrey asked.
“I was following up on a hunch that proved to be right,’’ he answered, trying not to seem smug. “What are you doing here?’’
“We got a tip on a vehicle and it led us here. Why didn’t you call for backup?’’
“I wasn’t sure there was anything,’’ he answered. “I came here to ask some questions of this guy Bernard Hugo. I just remembered he was working as a caretaker at the church on and off for the last few months.’’
“Is he here?’’
“No.’’
“But you came in here without a warrant? Jesus.’’
“Relax. I didn’t touch anything.’’
“That’s not the fucking point,’’ shot Jeffrey. “If anybody finds out you were here, you’ll lose anything you’ve found in court and this guy will walk. You wanted to handle this without the FBI, and then you pull a stunt like this that could put your whole case in the toilet. What were you thinking?’’
“I was thinking about stopping a guy who has probably killed three, maybe four people, Mr. Mark. Watch your tone. I’m not a rookie. The door was open and there was a notable stench. I had probable cause to enter.’’
Jeffrey stared at Chief Morrow as the four police officers around him shifted uncomfortably and looked away. He reined in his anger at Morrow’s carelessness. And when he spoke again, his voice was more restrained. “Fine. It’s your case, Chief. Let’s see what you got.’’
Simon Morrow was moved to silence by rage as he walked them to evidence he had found.
“Holy shit,’’ said Jeffrey, as he entered the room.
If insanity had a bedroom, this would have been it. The metal gurney where Bernard Hugo had removed the hearts of his victims was scrubbed clean and stood in the middle of a room that looked to have been a baby’s nursery. Beside it was a tray of surgical implements – scalpel, bone saw, and other horrible metal tools Jeffrey couldn’t name but hoped would never be put to use on his body. Powder-blue curtains hung on the window frame, and a wallpaper border with ducks and balloons could still be seen edging the ceiling. The rest of the wall was covered, however, with newspaper articles and photographs. The maniac collage that papered the walls included images of Lydia from the media, articles written about her and by her, covers from her books, articles about Juno, about the death of Robbie Hugo, baby pictures, some of the very articles that Lydia had clipped from the newspaper at the beginning of her interest in this case. Over it all, the rantings of a demented mind were scrawled in blood. Jeffrey saw immediately the message they had found on Lydia’s bedroom mirror among the rest of the deadly graffiti, including: Sinners must die…I am God’s warrior and evildoers shall feel my wrath…She will bring the message of God.
“Holy shit,’’ Lydia said as she walked in the door.
“His name is Bernard Hugo,’’ said Chief Morrow, “and he’s been a volunteer caretaker on and off at the church for the last six months. He used to be an orderly at the hospital, but after his son died and his wife left him, he lost it, stopped going to work, got fired.’’
“I know. His son died after a failed heart transplant,’’ said Lydia; “Juno visited him, supposedly attempted to heal him. And the boy died hours later.’’
Morrow thought on it a second. “You’re right. I had forgotten about that.’’
Lydia wanted to jump on him. How could he have not made these connections earlier? But she knew it wasn’t really fair. The whole thing was so insane.
“The guy doesn’t even have a speeding ticket, you know?’’ Morrow said, as if reading her mind. “There had always been rumors about him, according to my wife. Apparently he had been on track to become a surgeon years ago. But he’d had some kind of mental breakdown. He was on so much medication that he couldn’t even become a nurse after that. So he settled for being an orderly at St. Vincent’s Hospital.
“I remember when the kid died. My wife and I went to pay our respects and he was destroyed, I mean he could barely function. Then I heard a couple of months later from my wife that his wife had left him, went back to her family in Colorado. Then he lost his job. I wondered how he would survive but then I heard that he was doing some volunteer work at the Church of the Holy Name and I figured he’d found God.’’
“But maybe he was just looking for victims,’’ said Jeffrey.
“Or both,’’ said Lydia. “I think we have some more gardening to do.’’
Juno sat alone in the back pew of the church. His hands were neatly folded in his lap and his head hung low. The glow around him that Lydia had always perceived, seemed dim and she was not sure how to approach him. He was fragile and fading like a specter. She stood watching him, listening to the police shuffling around her, speaking in low voices as though mass were in session.
There was a horrific amount of blood splattered on the walls that contained the garden, across the flowers, and even on the face of the Virgin. A rosary lay near the door. Lydia didn’t hold out much hope for Father Luis. She had asked the police to hold off on digging up the garden for a few minutes, until she talked to Juno. And now she stood wondering how she would begin, his fear radiating off him like a visible aura. She approached him slowly.
Juno heard Lydia’s footfalls and sensed her hesitation. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he already knew. But his voice failed him and he sat silent and waiting. She could not know that he had lost not only his uncle this day, the man who raised him, but his mother and father as well.
Sitting in the last pew, praying, Juno had become invisible to the police. They’d rushed into the church just minutes after his call. He heard them run through the living area behind the church and then move out to the garden, where, he noted, the rushing ended and voices became hushed. He could only imagine what they found there, for no one had told him. So he waited. Whispered phrases floated to him on the wind that blew in from the open door; phrases like “blood splatter,’’ “handprint,’’ “blood-soaked cloth.’’