There was a pause. “I knew it.”
“What?”
“You aren't done trying yet. I can hear it in your voice. You old Devil. You're going to corrupt that poor woman, aren't you?”
“I'm not going to corrupt anyone, Kwon.”
“You know what kind of hard time you'll do for that, Curran? The man upstairs will bust your ass big time for messing with one of his ladies.”
“And I suppose that foul mouth of yours will get you a pair of wings?”
“Hey, I'm not freaking a nun.”
“I'm not freaking a nun!” He glanced around, but fortunately no one seemed to be paying attention. He turned back to the phone. “Jesus, Kwon, lay off, would you?”
“Yeah, whatever. I'll be waiting for the full report when you do, you dog. Call me if you find out why this dude's brain turned green.”
Curran hung up the and hauled out the pile of old case reports. Photographs, files, maps and assorted evidence came out in a jumble.
So did the memories.
Years of busting his hump to make heads or tails of this serial killer. Years of trying his damnedest to figure out the connection. The pain, the late nights, the unyielding complexity. Everything all at once came pouring out of him.
And the frustration, the final frustration at being heaved out on his ass when things didn't pan out.
That took the cake, he thought.
He sighed, God I need a smoke. But he wasn’t allowing himself a cigarette every time he felt the craving. He had to wean himself off those things. He wasn’t going to smoke for at least — he checked the wall clock — another ninety minutes.
Instead, he took another swig of juice and then began sorting things into piles. Maybe a fresh look at it would jar something lose. Some small piece that would connect everything.
Curran sure hoped so.
But he secretly doubted it.
After all, how long had he spent searching through this material when he was back in the Bureau? And at what cost?
His mind jumped back to the image of his ex-wife. Back to when they both seemed so young and carefree. And so in love. Evenings back then were spent in pursuit of whatever sexual antics ruled the day. Nights of passion and of whispered words of devotion and tender caring.
And then the case arrived.
Suddenly, the bizarre nature of the deaths absorbed Curran like a black hole suckling the light out of every nearby living thing. The names of the victims, the dates, the backgrounds, the abject surprise etched — frozen — into their dead visages.
Everything.
Curran became the case. He lost interest in anything else.
He shook his head like a dog trying to shed water after playing in a lake. That was the past, he thought. Surely, I paid for my overzealous enthusiasm enough.
Now, what hadn't he looked at yet?
What was the clue he needed?
He glanced at Gary Fields' picture again. The grim mug radiated a calm defiance and a cold confidence Curran found unsettling. The picture of pure evil, he thought. He smirked; for the first time, it's a bad guy getting killed and not some innocent bystander.
He stopped.
Miami.
Dallas.
The names. The rap sheets.
My god, he thought, they’re all like Fields.
They’re all evil.
He dug into the piles and began yanking out the backgrounds of all the previous victims. Within minutes, he knew he’d found a connection. He almost hit himself for not finding it before. He’d heard that happened sometimes. You got too close to a case and couldn’t see the most obvious thing of all.
But it raised a question.
Was the killer just a simple vigilante? Was he out to right the wrongs of society by killing off its dregs?
Curran frowned. Was killing justified if the victims were all evil?
Not for a civilian. He felt pretty convinced about that.
But what about for him — an officer of the law?
He didn’t know.
He’d killed before.
Each time in self-defense. Each time he’d been exonerated. But that didn’t necessarily make it feel all right when he lay awake at night reliving the scenarios over and over again.
Especially when he woke up bathed in a pool of sweat sucking in lungfuls of oxygen as if he was suffocating.
He looked back down at the piles before them. It was all there. Each of the victims had all been bad seeds. The worst men and women in their respective cities.
And each and every one of them had died at the hands of the man Curran knew must now be lurking around Boston.
But how was Curran going to protect the evil people in this city?
He frowned. Cripes, did he even want to?
Instinctively, he reached for the phone. Before he realized it, he had pressed out the numbers and heard the ringing. When the soft voice on the other end of the phone spoke, Curran cleared his throat.
“I may need your help after all.”
Chapter Five
Lauren glanced up at the crucifix hanging on the wall opposite her in the room she sat in. Shelves sprang up around the room, each filled to capacity with thousands of books. Around her, men and women pored over thick books. Each of them a scholar of some sort devoted to the Church. Lauren saw a few other women that were preparing to enter a convent like her.
She sighed. Since receiving Curran’s call, she’d felt excited at first at the prospect of helping him with the case. Part of her wondered whether she was doing it to make peace with her brother’s death. Even though she’d hated him for most of her life, there was still something about him — about her last remaining family — being killed that angered her.
Another part of her thought she might have a small crush on the handsome detective. She frowned and pushed that thought out of her mind. Lauren’s romantic experiences could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And besides, she had important work to do for the Church. There was no time, she chided herself, for entertaining such silly notions of lustful dalliances.
The initial excitement at helping had also begun to wear off. Despite spending almost a full day in the divinity school’s library, Lauren had been unable to find anything that could shed some light on the mysterious deaths that Curran had occupied so much of his life with.
She shut the book and slid her chair back, its legs squawking against the polished wooden floor. She needed some fresh air to clear her head.
Outside, November winds blew hard around her, tossing the flaps of her overcoat about in the gray daylight. She shivered instinctively and closed her eyes as a blast of wind sent dirt flying at her face.
She walked across the campus with its rolling green lawns. Tucked away on the underside of Brighton, a few miles outside of Boston, the school’s buildings sheltered a select group of people who still wished to enter the service of God in an age of sexual abuse scandals and political infighting.
Even here, she thought, evil could reach in and disrupt the work of God.
At the administration building, she stopped. A lone beam of sunlight pierced the gray sky and broke over the carved statues of saints on either side of the building. She smiled once. And then climbed the steps toward the front door.
Inside, the quiet seemed almost overpowering. A door to her left beckoned and she wandered through it.
The old nun at the front desk looked up and smiled. “Can I help you?”
“Is Sister McDewey in?”
“Yes. Do you have an appointment?”
Lauren stopped. She didn’t. “No. But she was my advisor last year and I was hoping I could get her advice about something.”
The nun smiled and lifted the phone. “Let me just check, dear. I don’t think there’s any reason why she couldn’t spare a few minutes for you. Sit down if you like.”
Lauren took off her overcoat and sat on a long wooden bench running along one side of the office. She looked at the pictures of the Pope on one wall. Across from him, a beautiful painting depicting the Last Supper featured prominently. Otherwise, the contents of the office with its desks and stacks of paper and books and reports, looked like most other academic offices she’d been in throughout her life.