J. Jance - Until Proven Guilty

“They’re dead. Brodie and the woman are dead! Somebody found them both at the church.”

I eased away from Anne. “Both of them? Have you called Peters?”

“Yeah. He’s on his way.”

“Tell him to meet me at the Warwick. I’ll go there to check on Carstogi.”

“You’d better have him under wraps, Beaumont.”

I looked out the bedroom window and could see the silhouette of the Warwick against a gradually graying sky. “Snug as a bug,” I said lightly.

“I hope to God you’re right,” Powell muttered, “for your sake and mine.”

Anne Corley was wide awake by the time I hung up the telephone. Wrapped in the voluminous robe, she looked wonderful, with that special glow a woman’s skin has after lovemaking. “Good morning,” she said, smiling.

I kissed her on the forehead, barely pausing in my headlong rush to the shower. “I’ve got to hurry.”

“Trouble?” she asked.

I nodded. “Emergency call. I need to be out of here in about ten minutes.” I left her standing in the bedroom and hurried into the bathroom. By the time I finished showering and shaving I could smell coffee. A steaming cup was waiting for me on the dresser. Anne Corley was back in bed, propped on a pillow, coffee mug in hand. She watched me thoughtfully as I dressed.

“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.

“No.” I planted a quick kiss on her forehead as I sat on the bed to pull on my shoes. “Thanks for the coffee,” I added.

“Consider it payment in kind for services rendered.” I looked at her, gray eyes alive with laughter over the top of her cup. She had evidently taken no offense at my not telling her what was going on. I appreciated that. “Do you mind if I stay for a while, or do you want me to leave when you do?” she asked.

“Make yourself at home,” I said. “Stay as long as you like.”

She lay back on the pillows, luxuriating. “Thanks. Any idea when you’ll be done?”

“None whatsoever.” I shrugged my way into the shoulder holster and pulled on a jacket. I bent over her. She pulled me down on the bed beside her and gave me a lingering kiss. I wanted to crawl back into bed with her and forget the world, the department, everything.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You’re more than welcome.” Reluctantly I pulled myself away. There was no mistaking that what had passed between us had been good for both of us. “You’re a very special lady,” I said as I straightened up to leave.

Euphoria lasted for a little over three minutes. I rode down the elevator in my building, walked the half block to the Warwick, and rode that elevator up to the seventh floor. I knocked on Carstogi’s door to no avail. When he didn’t answer the third barrage of hammering, I went looking for a night clerk, who used his passkey to let me into the room. Carstogi wasn’t there. The bedspread was rumpled, as though someone had lain on top of it to watch TV for a while, but the bed had not been slept in.

I left the room as I found it and returned to the hall, where the night clerk hovered nervously, wringing his hands. He was anxious about adverse publicity. I assured him that whatever had happened was no reflection on the Warwick. Asking him to keep me informed of any developments, I went downstairs to wait for Peters. I had the sickening feeling that we’d been suckered, that Carstogi had played us for a couple of fools. Peters’ Datsun screeched to a stop about the time I hit the plate glass door. He hadn’t taken time to go by the department for another car. I gave him a couple of points for that.

“Carstogi’s not here,” I said, folding my legs into the cramped front seat. “We’d better go straight to Faith Tabernacle.”

Two uniformed cops were standing guard when we got there, holding off a horde of media ambulance chasers, to say nothing of neighborhood curiosity seekers. We hadn’t discussed it during the drive to Ballard, but I knew that getting the recorder out of Faith Tabernacle undetected was imperative. Whatever was on it would be totally inadmissible as evidence, but it might provide vital information. Information that would lead us to the killer.

We found Suzanne Barstogi near the pulpit at the front of the church. She lay on her left side with one leg half curled beneath her, as though she had been rising and turning toward her assailant when the bullet felled her. She was still wearing the same dowdy dress she had been wearing earlier in the day. It had been ripped from neck to waist. Her bra had been torn in two, exposing overripe breasts. In addition to the bullet hole that punctured her left breast, her upper torso was covered with bloody welts. Before she died, Suzanne Barstogi had been the victim of a brutal beating.

There was little visible impact damage. The bullet had entered cleanly enough, but behind her, where the emerging slug had crashed out of her body, Suzanne Barstogi’s lifeblood was splattered and pooled on the pulpit and altar of the Faith Tabernacle.

Peters looked at her for a long time. “He didn’t nickel-dime-around, did he?”

No one was in the church with us right then, but they would be soon. Peters quickly retrieved the recorder and put it in his pocket. We found Pastor Michael Brodie in the middle of his study. He was sprawled facedown and naked on the blood-soaked carpet. Peters and I theorized that he had heard noises in the church and come to investigate. Again there was only one bullet hole.

Shooting at such close range doesn’t require a tremendous amount of marksmanship, but you’ve got to be tough. Tough and ruthless. A hand shaking out of control can cause a missed target at even the shortest distance. Then there’s always the chance that the victim will make a desperate lunge for the gun and turn it on his attacker. And then there’s the mess.

“I would have bet even money that Carstogi wouldn’t pull something like this,” I said.

“I hate to be the one to break this to you, Beau, but you did bet money. We both did. Our asses are on the line on this one. Your friend Max will see to it. You just hide and watch.”

There’s an almost religious ceremony in approaching a crime scene. First is the establishment of the scene parameters. In this case, to be on the safe side, we included the entire church. Then come the evidence technicians with their cameras and measurements. They ascertain distances, angles, trajectories. They look for trace evidence that may be helpful later. The secret, of course, is approaching the scene with a slow deliberation that disturbs nothing. This is one place where peons take precedence over rank. Sergeant Watkins paced in the background, observing the technicians’ careful, unhurried efforts.

The medical examiner himself, the white-haired Dr. Baker, arrived before the technicians were finished. He made the official pronouncement of death. A double homicide was worthy of his visible, personal touch. Considering the accumulation of people, I was grateful Peters had gotten the chance to stash the recorder when he did.

A uniformed officer told Watkins that the church members were gathering outside and wanted to come in. What should he tell them? The sergeant directed him to assemble them in the fellowship hall, where we could once more begin the interviewing process.

I was a little puzzled when I saw the whole Faith Tabernacle group, as much as I remembered them, file into the room. After all, it was Tuesday morning and presumably some of them should have gone to work. It turned out that they had been scheduled to be there at five o’clock for a celebration breakfast. It was the traditional ending to a successful Purification Ceremony, and would have marked the end of Suzanne Barstogi’s ordeal of silence, fasting, and prayer.

Without Brodie’s looming presence in the background to enforce silence, it was easier to get people to talk. It was plain that they were shocked by what had happened, and talking seemed to help. They were getting better at it.