Robert Walker - Blind Instinct

“Ahhh, St. Albans, a wonderful old lady, she is,” the cabby said of the church.

“Yes, beautiful really,” she agreed.

“Married me wife in that church, twenty-six years ago, God rest her soul.”

Jessica tried to formulate what she would say to Father LucSante, how to arrange the list of coincidences, the list of questions and suspicions so as to best checkmate the man. She feared she would botch it, but she realized now that the entire time they had spent together in the past, the old man meant to recruit her, to win her over and to make her his newest convert, that he indeed had some sort of strange power over her as he did over others, and that he ran some sort of cult following somewhere out of the light of the Catholic church, out of the light of all other judging bodies and out of sight of people he could not control. But what to say to this man, and how to say it… How to trap him in his own lair, using his own lures…

Slowly, Richard Sharpe had begun to win young Stuart Copperwaite over to the idea that somehow Luc Sante had been connected with the violent deaths of the crucifixion victims all along. Sharpe had spent the morning trying to convince Copperwaite of the weight of the evidence pointing to the old man and minister.

Together now, in a stairwell, Richard wanting no one else to overhear, he forced the issue onto Stuart who had raged at him for having disappeared.

Copperwaite could hardly believe his ears on hearing of the underground trek Richard and Jessica Coran had taken in the company of the RIBA man the day before. He could hardly believe that both Sharpe and Dr. Coran had, independently, arrived at the same conclusion, that somehow St. Albans and Luc Sante had become focal points in some sort of bizarre, twisted Second Coming-Millennium cult. He haltingly said, “I cannot begin to believe that the two of you, M.E. and inspector, as levelheaded as you are, have concocted this incredible theory-not from whole cloth but from cheesecloth, this 'fantabulous' idea,” as he put it.

However, Sharpe persisted, laying out the number of bizarre crossovers and connections and coincidences involving Luc Sante. Someone pushed through the stairwell door just below them, and Sharpe put a finger to his lips, not wishing for anyone to hear Copperwaite's pronouncements. When it became clear that they were alone again, Sharpe continued, saying, “He's bloody protected not only by his sterling reputation, but by the bloody church,” Sharpe barked in ending. “But I've spent hours piecing it together, and there is a major organization behind all the smaller organizations to which each victim has left his worldly goods. It's St. Albans itself. With the help of computer sleuth Gyles Harney, I just got that piece of the puzzle today.”

“That is remarkable,” Copperwaite agreed, astonished.

“The organization and care with which the donations from the victims were masked, that took some expertise in computers, but Gyles managed to unravel it for me. No one can unravel like Gyles.”

“And none can unwind so well as Gyles.”

Sharpe managed a smile, the first he'd shared with Copperwaite since the falling out. “Aye, Gyles likes his pint.”

Copperwaite bit back his confusion, gnarling on his lower lip. “And so, we're caught out. We can't bloody get a search warrant against St. Albans.”

“Nor is it likely we'll get one for Saint Luc's house or office-being attached to the church-either.”

“And in the meantime, what do we do? Wait until another victim shows up in another body of water somewhere around town?” asked Copperwaite, exasperated, pounding a closed fist into the wall.

“We take no bloody action until we can prove what we now merely think, Copperwaite,” warned Sharpe. “Our hands are tied.”

“Unless we can get Luc Sante on tape, admitting to his new cult following, and the fact he's involved in these deaths,” suggested Copperwaite. “And just how do you propose doing that?”

“He seems to've been working overtime to convert Dr. Coran.”

“No, I won't endanger her, Stuart.”

“You're bloody in love with her, aren't you?”

“We share a great deal. Love, I don't know that I would go that far.” Sharpe's inner mind mulled the question over. It hadn't occurred to him to call it love. Certainly, Jessica had not ever used the word, and he had been careful not to, and it all seemed somewhat of a younger man's game, this thing called love. Still, he found himself thinking of her always, to distraction, he warned himself now.

“But it may be our only hope. Have Coran wear a wire, with us nearby. Suppose I'm right?”

“Right about Luc Sante's wishing to win her over to his new world order and religion. I can see that now. He's been building up to it all along, but I daresay she's given him no encouragement.”

“She encourages by her very being, by her engaging him, returning to him, don't you see?” Copperwaite next suggested they walk up a flight for the exercise and so that they didn't appear too damnably suspicious here. Sharpe agreed, and they trekked up a flight.

“By God, Coppers, you are going to make a fine full inspector, one day. That's rather an insightful point you've made, perhaps one I've been blinded to, being… Since I've become so fond of Jessica.”

“If you take it a step further, Richard, if what you suspect Luc Sante of, then it follows that he may well see Dr. Coran as… well, as a perfect candidate for crucifixion?”

“Thanks for that, Coppers. You've the target in the crosshairs indeed.”

“What will you tell Dr. Coran?”

“I'll tell her what she wants to hear, that we're going to move on Luc Sante, one blasted way or another.”

“Then you will propose her wearing a wire device?” asked Copperwaite, standing still now at the top stair.

“Yes, if it's the only way. Can you arrange for the device, the surveillance van, all of it?”

“Consider it done, Sharpie.”

“I must contact Jessica. See if she is willing to become the sacrificial lamb.”

“She's not likely to say no to you, Richard. She hasn't so far.”

“Curb your tongue, Coppers. She's every bit a lady.”

“Meaning no harm, Sharpe.”

“Good, keep it so, and get the surveillance team together, then.”

“Right-o.”

Copperwaite disappeared through the door to their right, while Sharpe took the stairs back down for another exit. He'd decided that Luc Sante had too many friends on the force, too many eyes and ears. He wanted the element of surprise to be on their side when and if he decided to arrest. “Arrest for what?” he asked himself now. “On suspicion of being the Crucifier? On the suspicion the man had wantonly killed five human beings? That he showed a depraved indifference to human life?” Precisely what could he make stick to a priest of Father Luc Sante's standing in the community?

Luc Sante looked up from his scribblings to confront the shadow that suddenly lengthened and scurried across his desk. He half expected to look up and into the eyes of Satan himself, for so many years his archrival and enemy, but instead he found a stem-looking, somber Dr. Jessica Coran firmly rooted before him. “Ahhh, Dr. Coran, amazing you should show up this way. I was just wondering how I might entice you back through request or invitation. I have so enjoyed our talks, and you're such a wonderful conversationalist.” Flattery, she thought, will get you everywhere you want to be, if the target of flattery is weak-minded, weak-kneed, feeble, or strung out on drugs. How many poor slobs had Father Luc Sante lured into his cult through the kind word? “I hardly call what I did conversing, Dr. Luc Sante.”