Stuart Kaminsky - Blood On The Sun

The Shelton figure stabbed the girl, hurried toward the stunned wife, stabbed her and the door opened. A figure representing the father stood there, struck with horror. Before he can move, Shelton strikes.

"The stab in the back," Mac said.

The father figure, now with blood coming from his chest, turns, reaches for the door. The killer plunges the knife into the dying man's back.

"Won't play," said Mac. "The man's body was found at the foot of the bed. No blood by the door. He came all the way into the room."

Three dead figures on the screen. Danny manipulated the images and watched Shelton remove the knife from the dead man and place it in his belt. Then he laid the women out on the bed.

"The boy had to hear," said Mac.

No image of a boy appeared on the screen.

"Maybe," said Danny, "the boy heard, even opened the door, saw and ran for his bike. Shelton heard him and went after him."

"The boy was fully dressed at two in the morning?" asked Mac.

Danny shrugged and adjusted his glasses.

Mac sat silently, thinking about the knife, the problems with the scenario he had just witnessed, the leaf of the linden tree in the boy's bedroom, the leaf with the tiny bite marks of a cankerworm.

For more than an hour, in a small interrogation room, Flack talked individually to all of the nine people who had gone to lunch in the park. Many of them cried, not just the women.

One man, Morley Solomon, in his forties with curly white hair, a weathered face, and a deep white scar on his nose, said, "It's a test of our faith."

"By whom?" asked Flack.

"Perhaps Yeshua," said the man. "Some human instrument of his power, his dominion over the earth. A few will quit, but just a few."

"Not you," said Flack.

"No," said Solomon. "What proof is there of the power of one's beliefs unless those beliefs are tested? Like science."

"Science?"

"I used to be a physicist," said Solomon. "Princeton, theoretical research. I was a Jew. I remain a Jew. I will always be a Jew, but my faith will determine what a true Jew is, not the mandates and dictates of others. We observe the holy days, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year; Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; all of them."

There was only one person remaining to talk to. Flack told everyone that they could go. All of them looked at Joshua, who nodded, smiled, made it clear that he would be all right.

"His name was Joel Besser," said Joshua in the interrogation room when the others were gone. "He was twenty-one years old."

As the others had said, Joshua confirmed that Joel had volunteered to stay behind only minutes before the others had left to have lunch in the park. Joshua also confirmed that Joel was more than liked. He was loved.

"He was murdered not for personality or spirit," said Joshua, "but because of what he represented."

"Which was?" asked Flack.

"Heresy in the eyes of the closed-minded and ignorant," said Joshua. "He was a Jew for Yeshua and that threatened people."

"People?" asked Flack.

"Need I say it?" said Joshua, closing his eyes. "The Orthodox, not two blocks from here."

"We'll look into it," said Flack.

"When can we have Joel's body?"

"Up to the medical examiner," said Flack. "Would you please pull your hair back from your forehead?"

Joshua complied.

There was a swollen and cut red bump at the man's hairline.

"When did you get that and how?" asked Flack, indicating that Joshua could release his hair.

"About an hour ago," said Joshua calmly. "I beat my head against the wall. You can see over there."

Flack turned and saw the indentation in the plaster board. He also saw what appeared to be a slash of blood.

"Why?" asked Flack.

"To show my grief over our loss," Joshua said. "The congregants watched and wept. When one of our people die, we want to share their pain. The Orthodox tear their clothes.

"We are Jews," Joshua said, his voice starting to rise, "Jews who suffer from discrimination by other Jewish denominations and by Christians."

"Where were you when Joel Basser was murdered?" Flack asked.

Joshua smiled knowingly and said nothing.

"Every person in your congregation says you left after five minutes in the park and didn't come back till it was time to head back to the synagogue."

"I left Morley Solomon in charge to talk about Einstein and the Messiah," said Joshua. "It's a passion of his."

"And where did you go?"

"A bar," said Joshua. "Babe Bryson's. You can ask the bartender. I was there for about forty-five minutes."

"Doing what?" asked Flack.

"Drinking," said Joshua. "I'm an alcoholic."

The well-worn wooden floor was decked with numbered red cones, which Aiden Burn had carefully placed around the chair where Joel Besser had been shot, as well as in a semi-regular line along each side of the continuous blood trail that led back to the storage room where the victim lay crucified on a cross drawn in chalk on the floor.

There was a single, creaking overhead fan turning slowly, producing nothing but noise. The smell of blood was warm and thick.

Aiden had taken photographs and blood samples and sprayed for fingerprints, although both she and Stella were reasonably sure the killer had worn gloves, an assumption supported by the fact that Aiden had found no prints on any of the four bolts driven into the dead man's hands and feet.

Stella leaned close to the body of the young man and used a Sirchie vacuum on his shirt, pants, arms. Back at the lab they would compare the photos of the chalk marks at each of the crucifixion murder scenes. Stella could already see that the marks were a match, but with a difference. These chalk marks were done more evenly, straighter.

The words in Hebrew were printed with much more care than at the earlier crime scene. The killer had taken some time.

As for the finger-thick nails through the dead man's palms and feet, they were much larger than those that had been used on Asher Glick. But they were driven in deeper. She had no doubt that Sheldon Hawkes would come to the same conclusion: the nails were driven in by someone using his left hand, someone powerful.

Aiden stepped into the storage room and looked around, taking more photographs. They had found no hammer, no extra nails. This time the killer had come prepared, brought his own tools.

Stella stood up and said, "He came through that door and went right up to Besser and shot him twice. Daylight. Windows uncovered. Could have been seen. Then he dragged the body back here. He picked a bad time and place to kill."

"Killing Glick and crucifying him in a synagogue on a weekday morning took time. That was a bad time and place to kill too, but he got away with it," said Aiden. "At least for now."

"He likes to take chances," said Stella. "Why?"

"Let's go back to the lab, wait for the ME's report and see what we've got," said Aiden.

Stella nodded her agreement.

The paramedics were parked on the street. The street was full of people of various colors, sizes and ethnic clothing. Aiden had taken photographs of the crowd. Not likely the killer would be out there, but she would check them against the photographs of the crowd outside the synagogue in which Asher Glick had been murdered.

Aiden knew it was possible that several innocent, curious people in the photographs were at both crime scenes. The murders had taken place only a few blocks from each other.

Aiden signaled to the paramedics, who came in with a body cart. She guided them around the cones to the small back room. One of the paramedics was a woman, black, pretty, no more than twenty-five. Her shoulders, arms and legs were well-muscled. The man was about the same age, white, big, strong.