Alex Kava - A Necessary Evil

O'Dell moved to the doorway and stood, looking out. "There's nowhere to go except down the hallway to the terminal, right?"

"Not that I know of. Other than the women's restroom next door, there's a locked supply closet. We checked it that night to make sure he didn't have access to the closet to dump a weapon, his clothes, anything else."

"What about cameras?"

"No cameras except at the security checkpoints."

"I saw one in the bookstore," she told him. "It looks like it's set up to cover the entrance. It may be a stretch, but I wonder if it catches anything beyond the entrance? If it does, it might show people turning to come down this hallway to use the restroom."

"Usually store cameras are pretty crappy, but I'll check it out."

"Speaking of cameras, what have you released to the media?" O'Dell asked.

"Released to the media?"

"Has anyone openly made the possible connection between the three murders? There are three that we know of, correct?"

Pakula nodded. "Yeah, three. The monsignor, an ex-priest in Minneapolis and one in Columbia, Missouri. The Minneapolis one happened over the Memorial Day weekend. The Columbia murder was about twenty-four hours after Monsignor O'Sullivan. There are similarities, but I don't think anyone can say for certain that they're all connected." Pakula didn't like where this was going, Ramsey had brought in the FBI to squelch any political rhetoric and media sensationalism. What exactly did O'Dell expect them to release?

"Whether there's a connection or not is what you want me to figure out, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Three priests dead in a coupla months, all in the Midwest, you gotta wonder if there's a serial killer on the loose."

"Is there a reason why you haven't talked about this in public?" O'Dell asked.

"You mean like a warning?"

"Yes, partly a warning."

Pakula wondered what Ramsey had shared with his old buddy Cunningham. Evidently it hadn't been enough to convey how sensitive the power structure in a city the size of Omaha could be. Ramsey may have beat around the bush with Cunningham. Pakula wasn't about to beat around any bushes.

"How's the media breathing down my neck and screwing around with my words going to solve any of these cases?" he asked, and he let her hear his contempt.

"Ah, but you see, Detective Pakula, what you do is screw with them before they screw with you. If we take a proactive role, we might just be able to get them to do our dirty work."

She was ready to leave now, but stepped back to let two men in golf shirts come into the restroom. They stopped in midstride and midsentence when they saw her.

"Hello, gentlemen," she said as she started around them. "Welcome to Omaha."

Pakula smiled and followed her out. He still wasn't happy about her wanting them to cozy up to the media.

"I'm not buying your logic on opening the door to the media. And I'm thinking Chief Ramsey's gonna have a massive hemorrhage."

"I'm not saying you open up the door or the case to them. But I do think if there's something that connects these three cases, the media might be able to bring a few things to the surface that would take us months to dig up."

"There's no abuse, scandal in the Omaha Archdiocese, if that's where you're headed." He kept his voice down, pointing to the escalators and letting her go first.

"You sure about that?"

"A reporter from the Omaha World Herald"? been digging and nagging vice to nose around. Nothing so far." After this morning's exchange with Archbishop Armstrong, Pakula almost wished there was something to dig up.

She stepped onto the escalator, maneuvering the rolling computer case beside her. She turned her body toward him so they could still talk on the way down.

"And the other two cases?" she asked. "Anything to dig up there?"

"Not sure about those yet. But what do you think the media can get at that we're not gonna have access to?"

"Remember when the Boston Globe blew the top off Cardinal Law and the abuse throughout his diocese? There didn't seem to be enough evidence for law enforcement agencies to do anything for decades. I'm just saying if there's some dirt, who better to dig it up than professional dirt diggers?"

Pakula thought about Armstrong's smug threat. Why bother to make a threat if there wasn't something to hide? He followed her off the escalator. "Baggage claim is down to the left here."

They stayed off to the side when they realized her luggage wasn't in yet. Pakula kept his eyes moving and his voice low. "From what you saw in the files, you think there's any chance these cases might have been random?"

"You obviously don't think they are or you wouldn't have called in a profiler." She waited for his eyes to meet hers and confirm it before she added, "However, I'm not convinced they're the work of a serial killer."

"Excuse me?"

"All three of these… " She stopped short of using the word murders now that they were surrounded by more people. "All of them have been done in very public places with people coming and going. This guy either gets a kick from the huge risk factor or he's meticulous in his planning. I'm guessing it's the latter. But from what I know about the three, they look more like cold, calculated executions."

"Executions of priests," Pakula said in almost a whisper. He had already thought about that. It wasn't one of those ideas he necessarily liked having validated.

"You may have an assassin on your hands. Either way, it doesn't much matter, we need to find out the similarities and figure out who might be next. The media may actually be able to help us with that."

"Maybe it was just these three and that's it"

"That would be great if it was. But I'm guessing there's a list and the killer's going down it, one by one."

Washington, D. C.

Gwen slowed the car, braking enough to send Harvey's front paws slipping and readjusting on the passenger seat next to her.

"This is crazy," she told him as she started searching the brownstones, keeping the address on the dashboard, now rewritten on a Post-it; the original index card was back at her office in a plastic bag.

Her heart pounded in her ears. It hadn't stopped since she opened the box. She was trying to stay calm, trying to think instead of run on emotion, but all she had to do was look at Harvey's brown eyes watching her to know she wasn't very successful. The dog could sense the panic. He could probably smell it on her. Every once in a while he licked her hand or arm as if that was his way of comforting her.

"We make a good team, Harvey, but just between you and me I certainly wish Maggie was here, too." Even as she said it, she wondered if she would have finally given in and told Maggie if she was still here. Would she have confessed it all? She was running low on logic and professional ethics. Right now the panic and fear of what she may have allowed to happen closed in around her. The cairn and logical psychologist in her was having a difficult time hearing over the screaming woman who seemed to be much closer to the surface.

"There it is," she said, braking again, only this time Harvey was prepared.

She waited for a delivery truck to leave and squeezed her car into the last parking space on the street. Then she sat there, looking up at the brownstone. She double-checked the numbers again, but she knew this was it. Earlier in the day, when she hadn't been able to reach Dena by phone, she'd pulled her file, jotting down her home address on a Post-it note just in case she decided to drop by and check on her. Why hadn't she recognized that first lone earring as Dena's when he left it for her on Saturday? Would she have been able to stop him? Could she have saved Dena? Jesus! Was he the new man in Dena's life? Had he gone that far? Maybe this was all some elaborate hoax. It was so different from the others. Could he simply be warning her, playing with her? Back at the office when she recognized the address she had actually pinched herself, hoping it was all a nightmare.