Tom Lowe - The 24th Letter

Dave Collins sat in a faded canvas deck chair on Nick’s boat and sipped from a mug of black, Greek coffee. He looked over the rim to see O’Brien approaching with Max trotting down the dock behind him.

O’Brien said, “Thanks for taking care of Max and putting her inside Jupiter before you left. Did you fix your daughter’s plumbing leak?”

“After some trial and error. Slept in my clothes on her couch. You were right. You said Father Callahan might be the next target. Nick told me what happened. I’m so sorry to hear that. Although I’d only met him once on your boat, he was the kind of person that made you feel like you knew him a long time.”

Nick yelled from the galley. “Sean, get some coffee. I’m makin’ fish and eggs.”

Max barked once and darted toward the galley, following the smells of frying fish, feta cheese, and black olives. “Good morning, hot dog,” Nick said, tossing Max a small piece of fish.

O’Brien looked at Dave and shook his head. He said, “No leads, at least not yet.”

“How was he killed?”

“Shot to death.”

Dave held both hands around the large mug and inhaled the steam from the coffee. “You saw it coming.”

“But I couldn’t get there fast enough to prevent it.” O’Brien told Dave everything he could remember. He went over the details of the crime scene and Father Callahan’s last conversation with him.

Dave was silent, his mind working. He finished his coffee and said, “The message Father Callahan left…it’s in there…somewhere. I’m wondering why he didn’t try to write out something more definitive. The killer’s name, if he knew it, a physical description. You don’t need to crack a code to save Charlie William’s life. You need evidence. I can see the DA asking, ‘what’s the connection to Charlie Williams?’”

Nick yelled from the galley. “Food’s ready.”

The men sat around a small table and ate pieces of grouper fried in olive oil and mixed with scrambled eggs, feta cheese and onion. Nick poured dark coffee into three cups and said, “I say a prayer for Father Callaghan. Lord, help our friend, Sean O’Brien find the man who did this terrible thing to one of your teachers…amen.” Nick made the sign of the cross and shoved a large spoonful of eggs in his mouth. “I could use a Bloody Mary.”

O’Brien said nothing.

Dave said, “Amen.” He sipped his coffee and leaned back on his wooden bar stool. “Sean, I remember Father Callahan as an excellent art historian and a man with a keen ear for linguistics. There’s something in this last message related to his expertise.”

“What do you mean?” O’Brien asked

“You said the last thing Father Callahan wrote was six-six-six, the letter Omega, a circle with a something that may or may not have been his attempt at a woman’s profile, and the letters P — A — T-the T smeared, indicating he’d lost consciousness at that point.”

Nick chewed his food thoughtfully and said, “Spooky stuff. The six-six-six is from the Bible, the sign of the beast. Omega, well, in Greece it’s our last letter-the twenty-fourth letter. But it’s more than a letter. Like Alpha, which represents the beginning, Omega means the end of something. The end of a love. A life. The end of time, whatever. Gone, man. Poof! Maybe that’s why Father Callahan wrote it…the end of his life.”

“But it doesn’t explain the other things he managed to scrawl,” Dave said. “Do we try and read it left to right, like reading a sentence, or are the symbols and letters emblematic of a whole picture that will point you directly to the killer? Sean, can you sketch it out on this paper towel, as close as you can remember, the way Father Callahan wrote the message?”

“I can do one better than that. I used my cell phone to take a picture of what Father Callahan wrote on the sanctuary floor. I can email it to you from right here. On a larger computer screen, it might make it easier to read.”

As O’Brien reached for the phone on his belt, it started ringing.

“Does that always happen when you retrieve your phone?” asked Dave, as he bit into fish, eggs, and cheese, wrapped in warm pita bread.

O’Brien looked at the caller ID. He didn’t recognize the number.

“Sean, this is Dan Grant. The ME confirms what the surveillance camera pointed us toward when we saw the fake priest enter San Spelling’s room. Spelling was asphyxiated. We have a very smart and extremely dangerous killer out there.”

O’Brien looked over to Dave who raised his eyebrows. Detective Grant continued on the phone, “Normally I wouldn’t think twice about something like this, but under the circumstances-”

“What do you have, Dan?”

“The guard’s name is Lyle Johnson. Tried to reach him at the Department of Corrections. Supervisor said Johnson is on first shift-seven a.m. to three p.m. He didn’t report for work this morning. Super tells me that Johnson is always punctual. But today, no call. No nothing.”

“Did you try to reach Johnson’s home, his wife, maybe?”

“I called her. Didn’t get much.”

“What’d she say?”

“Not a lot. She sounded like she was on some strong medication or coming off a few drinks too many. But she said something odd, too.”

“What?”

“Said she was going to call in a missing person’s report…but she knew the department wouldn’t do anything until her husband had been missing for forty-eight hours. I told her she was correct. Then, out of the blue, she laughed. It was painful laugh, know what I mean? The kind that feels fake and all wrong.”

“I know what you mean.”

“She said she might as well skip the missing persons report and wait for them to find his body because she knew he wasn’t coming back home alive.”

“Did you ask her why?”

“She said it was just a feeling she had.”

“Was the call taped?”

“All our calls are taped. Why?”

“Because she may have incriminated herself in a murder.”

“We don’t have a body. And I doubt that she killed her husband.”

“I do, too,” O’Brien said. “But she’s obviously spoken with him…and he apparently told her something. If he managed to read Spelling’s letter or overhear the confession with Callahan, then he may know the perp’s name. He might have tried to contact him to cut a financial deal like Spelling had.”

“And if he did?”

“Then he might be dead as Spelling. You need to talk to her now. If she thinks she could be tied to her husband’s disappearance, she just might tell us everything he told her. Check phone records, bank accounts. See if Johnson had probable cause to contact the perp, then we’re one step closer to finding this guy.” O’Brien looked at his watch. “We have sixty-nine hours to stop the execution of an innocent man. When I was a detective like you, I’d work an investigation by the book, the gut and the mind. In this investigation we don’t have a lot of time to trace leads.”

“What are you saying, Sean?”

“I’m saying that unless we get something very fast, maybe a read on an imprint from the Sam Spelling paper, or a name that Lyle Johnson may have given to his wife…Charlie Williams is good as dead.” O’Brien paused. “Dan, I’m telling you this because we worked together. I trust you-trust your confidence. I’ll need your help.”

“No problem, but what do you mean?”

“I might have to force some people to talk. It’ll be the fastest way to the truth. I don’t like operating this way, but if I don’t, Williams will die. I can’t let that happen.”

Dan said, “I’m going to question Johnson’s wife. Where will you be?”