Alex Kava - A Necessary Evil

"Julia will probably fill you in on everything, but I have something I thought I might fax you directly. If I fax it to Julia and she faxes it to you, we'll lose too much detail."

"Hold on a minute. Let me find the hotel's fax number." She crawled out of bed, careful not to spill her loaded tray. She had gone a bit overboard and ordered too much.

"So you're not in bed yet?" He sounded disappointed. "I was hoping I'd catch you in your skivvies."

"My what?"

"You know, your… your pj's."

She immediately felt her face flush, but she certainly couldn't let him know that. "What makes you think I wear any pajamas?"

"I… ah… excuse me?"

She laughed, thinking neither one of them was very good at flirting. She'd let him off the hook this time. Before he could say anything more, she said, "So what's the something you want to fax?"

She found the hotel's service guide and started flipping the pages, waiting for him to get back on the business track.

"I was able to clean up the tattoo. There's a lot more of it than we expected. Once I removed some of the epidermis, the colors started to pop. That's usually the way it works with tattoos."

"Instead of a fax, maybe it would be better if you e-mail a digital image of it to me. That way I can see the colors, too."

"You're right. That's a better idea."

There was an awkward silence.

"I don't think I have your e-mail address," he finally said.

She gave him an address he could use, but she didn't want to wait. "Are you able to make out what it is?"

"The very bottom of it is missing, but there's a tattoo parlor here in West Haven. When I called the guy who owns it, he recognized the design right away from my description. He faxed me the whole image. I'll e-mail that to you, too. It's a long-stem red rose intertwined around a pink-handled dagger."

"A dagger? And this is what she had tattooed on the back of her neck?"

"More on the right side of her neck toward the back."

"Is there a way to track what other tattoo parlors offer this design?"

"Good question. I'll ask," Bonzado said. "One thing the guy did tell me is that it's been a popular design for him with what he called D and D chicks."

"D and D?"

"Dungeons and Dragons. You remember that?"

"Yes, but I thought the game was sort of passe."

"Actually some of the college kids around here have started playing the game again, only it's a computerized version. I've heard some of my students talking about it, but they don't call it Dungeons and Dragons anymore. There're all sorts of versions and spin-offs, ones that they can pretty much design themselves, creating characters by using profiles of real-life people they know, people they'd like to knock off. I've heard that one of our English professors seems to be a popular target. You know, just for pretend, to blow off steam. I don't know if that helps you, but I thought it was interesting."

"One of the other victims was a Virginia Tech student," Maggie told him. "That might explain how he meets them. May even explain why they might trust him enough to go someplace private with him."

"Do you think the killer might be a student, too?"

"A student seems too young to pull off these murders. Although his rage certainly comes out of some part of him that he has no control over, as if he. reverts to adolescence. But I'm thinking he has a maturity that kicks in when he needs to hide his slip-ups."

"I'll ask some of my students how they hook up to play. If it's by invitation or if anyone can join in."

"That's a good idea. Hopefully you won't find out there's a character profile for a Professor Bonzado."

"Nan, couldn't be. My students adore me. I have them all under an ancient anthropological spell. Now if only I could do the same to a certain FBI profiler."

She said goodnight without a follow-up comment. Maybe he was better at this flirting thing than she was. As she clicked off her cell phone, she realized she was smiling.

Venezuela

Father Michael Keller stared at the computer screen. With only two citronella oil lanterns lit, the computer screen reminded him of a beacon in the dark room, bringing to light answers he wasn't sure he wanted. He had been knocked off the Internet connection several times and had long ago used up his allotted time. But like an addict, he signed on again and again, impatient and frustrated with the long dial-up and many interruptions.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to make the blur go away, trying to make the emotional sting go away. Why hadn't he thought about it before? Why had he been so stupid, so naive? Why hadn't he suspected something? Instead, he wanted so badly to have a friend, someone he could trust, that he ignored glaring signs. After all, who in the world uses such an e-mail name as The Sin Eater? And here he had simply thought it clever, taking a term from an arcane Catholic legend. He'd never felt threatened because his friend, or rather this person who lured him in pretending to be his friend, had never given him reason to feel suspicious, let alone threatened. No reason at all. Until now.

He had read the articles about the two murdered priests over and over again. Monsignor O'Sullivan was someone he had met briefly while he himself was a pastor at Saint Margaret's in Platte City, Nebraska. Yet he didn't understand the connection. Why had his friend e-mailed him these articles with the warning "You may be next"? Why did he believe Keller was in danger? Did his "friend" know about the Halloween mask? Was he the one who had sent it? Was it meant to be a warning as well and not a prank he'd hoped it to be?

He had sent back an e-mail asking his so-called friend just that:

WHY DO YOU BELIEVE I MAY BE NEXT?

He hadn't received an answer until this evening. And the answer had hit him like a bullet through his heart.

I KNOW BECAUSE I EXECUTED EACH OF THEM. AND YOU'RE ON THE LIST.

The e-mail came with an attachment, the list, and yes, his name was there, just under Monsignor William O' Sullivan's.

He had to wait until the shock and betrayal finally diminished to an ache instead of the debilitating throbbing in his temple. Then he could begin his defense the only way he knew how: know thy enemy. He started with a mad search, looking up and reading anything and everything he could find on the ancient practice of sin eating, finding only bits and pieces. At one Web site, he read: "Traditionally, each village maintained its own sin eater who lived a reclusive life on the outskirts of the village."

At another Web site he found a description of the sin eater's duties: "The sin eater came after nightfall, after all had left the dead one's side. He would eat the bread left on the chest of the dead one, thus removing the sins of the dead and consuming their sins, taking them into his own soul." The early Catholic Church called it an "illicit practice" especially when used to provide absolution to those who had "committed crimes the church considered unforgivable," crimes such as "suicide or the assassination of church officials."

So this sin eater had taken on a double role. How clever. As an assassin he was not only killing church officials, but he was also eating, or rather consuming, the sins of those he was killing for. He had become a mediator of sorts.

Father Keller wiped his sweaty face with the sleeve of his white shirt. When that wasn't enough, he yanked out the shirttails and pulled them up to wipe again. Yet the sweat seemed to keep pouring out of him. And the throbbing in his temples would not go away. It banged against his skull until he wanted to rip out the pain with this fingers when rubbing wasn't enough anymore.

He was exhausted. The panic had drained him. Even the ' tea, the wonderfully comforting tea, continued to make him nauseous. Then it hit him and he stared at the cup of steaming tea as if for the first time seeing it for the Judas cup that it might be. Was it possible? Had his friend _ no, not a friend at all. Had his enemy sent him a wonderful gift of lovely teas and cookies that were actually poisoned?