Mary Nealy - Ten Plagues

This was their case. O’Shea was the primary. Between the two of them they had nearly thirty years on the force, and both of them had missed it.

Keren reviewed the facts. “Juanita Lopez. Missing. Female. No sign of a struggle. No sign of anything wrong at her place, except for a few words carved into a sign, hung over her front door in the hallway. In that ratty building, no one was even sure if the sign was new. Coworkers reported her missing. No one had seen her for four days. Even so, we didn’t list her until forty-eight hours after they called.”

“A lot of them turn up on their own, Collins. Most of them. You know the drill.” O’Shea watched her intently. She suspected it was to check her for any sign she was a wimp.

“And then that call to Morris and the explosion. And now this.” Keren shook her head. They had come up with nothing. Keren had spent Wednesday at the site of the explosion; this morning she’d questioned witnesses, including Morris, who was due for release from the hospital tomorrow. Nothing. She’d hoped some of the gang members had seen something, but they were all clueless and uncooperative. Keren was afraid the trail was ice cold.

And now this morning, they’d gotten this call about a floater. The first cop on the scene hadn’t been able to translate the Latin words painted on the dress, but he’d heard about the missing woman and her connection to this neighborhood. Reverend Morris’s story had circulated through the department like wildfire.

At last the fountain quit bleeding. Someone had figured out how to turn off the recycling water. They both studied the obscene sight in front of them. Dr. Deidre Schaefer, the precinct’s most experienced medical examiner, pulled up in the county van.

Keren and O’Shea stepped away to give the forensics team room to work.

Dr. Schaefer pointed at the body and spoke softly to a photographer, who clicked away casually, as if he were taking pictures at a wedding.

Keren watched the professional behavior of the ME’s team. “In all this craziness let’s don’t forget routine procedure. We could miss something by putting all our faith in the Reverend.”

“You mean see if she’s got an abusive boyfriend or gambling debts?” O’Shea said with thinly veiled sarcasm.

“Yeah, right.” Keren looked at the bobbing corpse. “Routine.”

Keren washed her face, then she washed it again. She scoured her hands until they were red and raw. She was so obsessed with scrubbing, it took her awhile to figure out that she was trying to wash away the sight of Juanita Lopez floating in the crimson fountain. It didn’t make her feel less violated to realize what she was doing. But it did make her shut off the water.

She wasn’t just trying to wash this morning’s crime out of her head, she was also trying to wash away the desperate evil behind Juanita Lopez’s murder. This was a killer driven by his own personal demon in the truest sense of the word. Even after only one death, she was absolutely sure. Another thing she was sure of—there would be more.

When she came out of the bathroom, O’Shea was sitting behind her desk. Reverend Morris was there with him, looking as battered as ever, but a whole lot cleaner. He had on black sweatpants and a dark-red sweatshirt with a white lighthouse and the words, “Jesus is the light of the world” across his chest. His hair was dark and long enough to brush his collar. All his bandages were gone, including the sling. The three lines of stitches on his face made him look like a kinder, gentler Frankenstein.

She tamped down hard on her knee-jerk resentment.

“I’ve found our expert, Collins.” Mick jabbed his pen at Morris. “He’s agreed to work on the Latin stuff for us.”

Keren stopped so suddenly she almost stumbled over her own feet. She’d planned on a white-haired priest. Paul Morris wasn’t even close. She felt again a level of honor in the man and she remembered him whispering “pretty” while he held her filthy hair.

It wasn’t enough to override her hostility. Her antipathy was audible when she said, “You don’t speak Latin, Rev. You thought that sign was Spanish.”

Morris must have caught her caustic attitude. That didn’t exactly make him a genius.

He raised his eyebrows as if he was surprised, even hurt, by her tone.

“He only thought that for a minute,” O’Shea said. “Once Latin occurred to him, he figured it out. He learned it in minister college.”

Morris, apparently a stickler for honesty, what with his vocation and all, said, “They taught me after a fashion. I have a Latin/English dictionary and I know how to use Google. What I can’t translate, I can find.” His gaze narrowed on her face. He studied her for a while. “Have we met?”

Keren ignored his question. “I don’t think that’s good enough, Rev. We need someone who is an expert. We could buy our own Latin/English dictionary.”

“I’m a little better than that,” Morris said mildly.

“You were supposed to stay in the hospital another day.” Keren whacked O’Shea on the arm and he got out of her chair. “You look like you can barely sit up.”

Morris massaged his left wrist and continued to study her face as if he were sorting around inside his head for a WANTED poster on her.

“The hospital was overwhelmed.” He spoke mildly, pastorishly. “I checked myself out to open up a bed.”

That was generous, courageous, and self-sacrificing. It only made her more annoyed. And knowing that wasn’t fair only made her more annoyed.

“Then you should be at home resting.” Keren slouched back in her chair. “Your translating will slow us down.”

O’Shea gave Keren a look that would have made her squirm a couple of years ago. Now it only irritated her.

“I’m going to make arrangements for a new cell phone, one we can sync with ours and we can more easily record and trace,” O’Shea said to Morris. “It’ll have the same number, in case this nut calls you again.”

O’Shea turned to Keren. “He’s in. We’ve got to figure out why he got the phone call. So, he might as well be our Latin expert while he’s at it. You two work this out.”

He headed for his own desk.

She gave him an angry look that was wasted on his retreating back, but the reverend caught it clearly enough.

“I came in here to help, and Detective O’Shea said you were looking for someone to examine the paintings on…” His voice faltered. “… on Juanita’s dress.” He cleared his throat. “She’s been violated enough. You don’t need to bring strangers in to help if you don’t have to. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be the one.”

Keren opened her mouth to flatly refuse his offer then clamped it shut. She knew she wasn’t being reasonable, although the reverend hadn’t shown that great a skill with Latin. But it was possible that these days no priest spoke Latin, either. Or precious little more than Morris. If they didn’t use the reverend, they’d need to go find a college professor. This was much easier, and the only reason she wanted him gone was because of their past history. A history that he apparently hadn’t cared enough about to remember.

She couldn’t figure out a way to get rid of him. “Fine. I suppose you’re better than nothing. The autopsy’s scheduled for this afternoon. Go home. We’ll call you when we’re finished, so you can examine the photographs.”

“I’ll just sit in on the autopsy.”

The idea galled her. “You will not! I wouldn’t let you within a hundred feet of that girl! You couldn’t handle it.”

“Wanna bet?” Something in his tone made the heels Keren was digging in slip a little. She studied his eyes. They’d gone a flat blue, as cold and dead as the nails in a coffin. She couldn’t believe what a difference it made in him. It changed him into the cop who had run over her. And it reminded her of how much she disliked him. “I know you used to be a cop. But this still isn’t where we need your help.”