Alex Kava - A Necessary Evil

The long table filled one side of the room. The other side had an easel-back chalkboard already filled with three columns, three lists of evidence, one list for each of the cases. A large bulletin board took up the wall. On one half were photos of the three victims along with crime scene photos. On the other half was a map of the Midwest, colored pushpins marking Omaha, Columbia and Minneapolis.

Around the table Pakula introduced his group. Maggie couldn't help thinking they looked as though they had been taken directly out of a diversity training video: Terese Medina, a black woman from the Douglas County crime lab who looked as if she belonged on the cover of Vogue; Detective Carmichael, a short, stocky Asian woman; Chief Donald Ramsey, a middle-aged guy in wrinkled khakis who was a contrast to his counterpart, young Detective Pete Kasab in a suit and tie. At the head of the table, looking like the matriarch of this eclectic family, sat Martha Stofko, the Douglas County medical examiner who managed to make a well-pressed white lab coat look chic with a royal-blue dress and pearls.

Terese Medina passed out copies of her detailed reports along with Stofko's autopsy report, a set for each. In the middle of the table she left what appeared to be evidence samples and also an assortment of digital photographs.

Detective Carmichael _ whose first name Maggie noticed Pakula had never mentioned __ had a pile of information stacked in front of her that, when she sat, almost towered over her. Without breaking her constant frown, she teasingly announced that somewhere in "this pile of crap" were answers that would solve the "whole damn thing."

Chief Donald Ramsey shook Maggie's hand, thanked her for coming at such short notice, then propped himself in a chair and let Pakula run the show. He looked tired, the creases in his forehead permanent worry lines. Sitting next to Kasab, the earlier contrast Maggie had noticed was even more pronounced. Chief Ramsey wore khakis and a knit polo shirt with an embroidered Omaha Police Department patch on the pocket. Detective Pete Kasab wore what looked like a tailored suit, creased trousers and starched shirt collar, perfectly knotted silk tie and salon-styled hair. Unlike Ramsey, who brought only a mug of coffee, Kasab had a bottle of water and granola bar. His small spiral notebook was open, his gold pen ready in hand.

"I've filled in Agent O'Dell and brought her up to speed," Pakula said. He remained standing. "I'm hoping there's new stuff. Anything from toxicology?" And he looked to Terese Medina.

"O'Sullivan's blood alcohol content was at point zero five, so he had a couple of drinks in the hours before. Nothing to impair him. No traces of any other chemicals in the blood. The wound, however, showed residue of ammonia and an aliphatic petroleum distillate."

"And in English that would be… " Pakula prodded her.

"Aliphatic petroleum distillate is like a Stoddard solvent found in a lot of household cleaning products. The combination with the ammonia would most likely make it a common metal polish of some sort."

"So our killer has a fetish for cleaning his knives," Carmichael said. "No wonder he didn't just toss it afterward."

"Or if the weapon is, indeed, a dagger or letter opener as I suspect," Stofko offered, "it may be valuable to him. Perhaps sentimentally, if not financially."

"Anything else new?" Pakula asked Medina.

"The canine hairs found on the back of his shirt were from a Pekingese."

"Holy crap!" Pakula said. "You can tell that?"

"In this particular case I can." Medina smiled at him.

"I already checked," Carmichael offered. "O'Sullivan didn't have a dog."

"Any chance the dog hairs were already on the floor?" Pakula asked.

"Anything's possible," Medina said. "But there weren't any on the floor around him. Just his shirt. And just the back of his shirt."

"That makes sense. Martha thinks the killer came up from behind," Pakula said, waiting for her to nod in agreement. "The dog hairs could have been on the killer's shirt and transferred to the victim. Locard's Principle," Pakula continued, leaving it for everyone to fill in the blank. Maggie looked around the table as each of them seemed to agree in some way with a nod of the head or a wave of the hand. They all knew and expected that there would definitely be some transfer of debris, just as Locard had predicted.

"So we just need to look for a guy who has a fascination with knives and Pekingese dogs," Carmichael said, picking up her own profile. "Should be a piece of cake. What the hell does a Pekingese look like?"

"Small, long-haired, no nose," Medina offered.

"You looked at the other two cases," Pakula addressed Medina. "Either mention dog hair?"

"No, but they could have easily missed it, especially since both were outdoors. Minneapolis's M.E. notes some ammonia residue in the wound. Could be the metal polish." Medina flipped the pages in front of her. "Columbia guys told me they found bread crusts, not crumbs, in Kincaid's shirt pocket."

"You're kidding," Pakula said.

"What's with the bread crumbs?" Maggie asked, speaking for the first time since the meeting started.

"Crusts," Medina corrected her. "It might not mean anything. He was at an outdoor picnic. He may have put some bread or something in his own pocket. It's just that I found bread crumbs all over the front of O'Sullivan's shirt, too."

"Dog hair on the back of his shirt and bread crumbs on the front?" Maggie wondered if the monsignor was a sloppy eater. Maybe his housekeeper owned the Pekingese. None of these things made much of an impression on her, except to note that Terese Medina was very good at her job.

Almost as if she sensed Maggie's skepticism, Martha Stofko looked at her and said, "O'Sullivan's stomach contents didn't include any bread. Looked pretty much like meat loaf and mashed potatoes."

"Yum," Pakula said and drew a few laughs. Then he turned to Carmichael. "So what goodies do you have in that pile?"

"I might just have us a suspect," Carmichael told him, pausing to finish a mouthful of peanut M amp;M's. "Remember our friend, Father Tony Gallagher? Seemed a bit… evasive, but oh so polite."

Carmichael reminded Maggie of a stand-up comic, her statements short punch lines all delivered with a poker face and an even tone. The pile was for show. She didn't refer to it or to notes. She didn't need to.

"I did some checking just because he kinda pissed me off. About seven years ago he was an associate pastor for a short time in Chicago at Saint Stephen of the Martyr. Just so happened he was replacing none other than a Father Gerald Kincaid who was being reassigned."

'That's interesting," Pakula said and sipped what Maggie thought had to be his third cup of coffee, not counting the airport brew.

"It gets even more interesting," Carmichael continued. "Father Gerald Kincaid recently went away for a while. The Catholic Church has a cute little term for it, 'in between assignments.' He spent six months at a treatment center in Jemez Springs, New Mexico."

"What was he being treated for?" Chief Ramsey asked. This information seemed to have caught the chief's attention. He sat forward, elbows on the table.

"A Father Quinn at the center told me they treat priests who suffer from a variety of conditions including what he referred to as 'challenges with alcohol' and, of course, any mental or emotional problems."

"And Father Kincaid's problem?" Maggie found herself sitting forward, too, anxious that her early gut reaction to this case might be true.

'That was a confidential matter," Carmichael said, but held up her hand to stop several groans. "However, I waited and called back a little later. This time I didn't ask for anyone of an official capacity. I Just chitchatted with the volunteer answering the phone. She had lots to tell me."