Lisa Miscione - Angel Fire

He realized that his uncle was sitting in the pew in front of him but hadn’t said a word since they had been alone. “Uncle, will you be all right?’’

The pause was pregnant with sorrow, and when the priest spoke, his words were taut with tears. “Yes. But it is not for myself that I am afraid.’’

“Of course.’’

The priest rose and left Juno alone in the church. In the silence Juno contemplated Lydia and Jeffrey. The rising temperature in the church told Juno that it was nearing noon. Jeffrey’s tone had been quiet and professional but the sound of Lydia’s name on his tongue was liquid with love. In the way Jeffrey’s lips touched those three syllables, Juno could feel his passion for her, taste Jeffrey’s painful restraint.

At wedding services, Juno often played guitar. Seated on his wooden stool, he perched at the altar, to the right of Father Alonzo. He could hear the bride and groom exchange their vows, and could sense almost instantly who married for money, for fear, for lack of any better opportunities. On only a few occasions had he heard the sound of fierce, tremulous love in the voices of both being joined before the eyes of God. Only rarely had he heard the melodic pitch of two souls bound long before they had reached the church to exchange their earthly vows.

He detected such a bond between Lydia and Jeffrey. But the chorus of her fears was louder.

Lydia dragged on her cigarette, face like stone, eyes staring at the road in front of her. She drew smoke into her lungs, its drug soothing her, cooling her agitation like ice water in her veins. Jeffrey rolled down his window as he watched her slender arm move from the steering wheel to her lips. It was a graceful, sensuous movement – more so because it was unconscious.

“I want to stop by the station and see what they’ve come up with on that list of park visitors. I want to cross-check it against that list of volunteers,’’ Lydia said, again driving too fast up the winding road away from the church.

“And I want to go talk to that slow kid,’’ said Jeffrey, forever politically correct.

“So, what do you think?’’ she asked him.

“I’m not sure. That priest has something to hide, though.’’

“I picked up on that, too. You think he’s involved?’’ she answered, her words punctuated by a sharp exhalation of smoke.

“He drives a green minivan, he made the crosses that were found at each scene, he had knowledge of and proximity to all the victims. If he wasn’t a priest, I might have taken him in,’’ Jeffrey said, only half joking. “I don’t think he’s involved directly. But I think he knows something. I’m going to have Morrow put some men on the church, have them lurk about, make people uncomfortable and see what shakes loose. We also need to get a tech out to that minivan.’’

“Jeffrey?’’

“Yeah?’’

“How long are you going to stay?’’

“As long as I need to.’’

A leaden silence fell between them. He waited for her to say something to clarify the meaning of her question. But she just reached for the ashtray and stubbed out her cigarette.

“Why?’’ he asked finally. “Do you want me to get a room somewhere?’’

“No,’’ she said quickly, sharply, glancing over at him. “Of course not. Don’t you dare.’’

“Then why?’’

“I was just wondering,’’ she said, quickly lighting another cigarette with one hand. After she took a drag, she added, “I just don’t think I can get through this without you.’’

“Well, you won’t have to. In fact, you never have to get through anything without me, if you don’t want to. As you well know.’’

He stared out the window as he said this, and she looked over at him, her heart tight in her chest. He put his hand on her knee and she did not remove it. Why are you more afraid of him than you are of serial killers?

The minivan lead was a weak one but it was all they had right now. So Lydia sat in an uncomfortable orange plastic chair, in a rickety carrel housing a computer that might have been older than she was. The sun beating in through a window in the police station’s computer center warmed her back as she entered into the Division of Motor Vehicles database the license-plate numbers of vehicles that had entered Cimarron State Park in the hours between Maria Lopez’s time of death and the discovery of her body.

This was grunt work pure and simple but she had wanted to do it. Jeffrey and Morrow went with forensics to the service station to have a look at the priest’s minivan. It was a reasonable thing to do, but it just didn’t work for her. She couldn’t reconcile the priest she had met with the killer in her mind. However, maybe the killer had access to the van, had been using it without the priest’s knowledge. It was certainly worth looking into. But her time was better spent going over what they had. Morrow had been surprised that Lydia wanted to run the lists. But she knew that no one would be more likely to pick up an inconsistency or make a match than she would.

Meanwhile, the only prints recovered from the Lopez crime scene were Maria’s and those matching Mike Urquia, who they already knew had been there. The killer must have been wearing gloves. It was also likely that he had worn gloves when delivering Lydia’s “gift’’ last night, as no prints or DNA had been found. A local homicide detective was visiting area shoestores and searching the web for boot treads that matched the footprint left at the dump site. In the absence of any substantial physical evidence, the best they could hope for was a lucky break. And that Lydia’s “buzz’’ would lead them to it.

So, she started with the list of 123 vehicles that had entered the park on the day following the Lopez murder. Of those cars, 60 had been rented from Albuquerque Airport rental-car offices, two were school buses shuttling kids in for a nature walk, and the remaining 61 belonged to private citizens in the area.

Going down the list of vehicles, she punched each plate number into the DMV database. On the screen before her a name, picture, and address popped up. She checked each name against the list of parishioners, then plugged it into VICAP, the FBI’s database of violent offenders. If the plate was a rental, she would check the lists already delivered from the rental-car offices this morning to find the corresponding driver and go through the same cross-referencing process. She wanted to see faces, look into eyes – even if they were just license photos.

Armed with the list of church parishioners and volunteers, the log of visitors to Cimarron State Park, and lists of rental-car customers, Lydia had felt the “buzz’’ big time. She had known there was something hiding in the lists in front of her. But now nearly done with the list and no minivans, no matches with VICAP, and no church parishioners matching visitors to the park, she was starting to feel tired and frustrated. None of the people whose pictures popped up on the computer screen had a big tattoo on their forehead reading “Serial Killer.’’ You’re missing something. Something so obvious.

She entered the next plate number and it turned out to be a rental. She crossed-referenced it with the lists and found that it was a green 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee picked up at Avis at six p.m. the night Maria Lopez was murdered. It was rented to a Vince A. Gemiennes of 124 Black Canyon Road in Angel Fire, New Mexico. It wasn’t a minivan but he was the only local resident to have rented a car that day. She entered his name into the DMV database and was surprised to be informed that there were no matches. It must be a fake name. She entered it into VICAP, hoping that it would pop up as an alias but she had the same results…no match. She sat for a moment, tapping her pen against the side of the carrel. She reached for her cell phone to call Jeffrey and then changed her mind. Instead, she wrote down the address Vince A. Gemiennes gave to Avis and left the station without a word to anyone.