Nora Roberts: Sacred Sins

“Church.” Ben rose and paced to the window.

“Regularly, I’d think. It’s his focal point. If this man isn’t a priest, he takes on the aspects of one during the murders. In his mind, he’s ministering.”

“Absolution,” Ben murmured. “The last rites.”

Intrigued, Tess narrowed her eyes. “Exactly.”

Not knowing much about the Church, Ed turned to another topic. “A schizophrenic?”

Tess frowned down at her glasses as she shook her head. “Schizophrenia, manic depression, split personality. Labels are too easily applied and tend to generalize.” ;

She didn’t notice that Ben turned back and stared at her. She pushed her glasses back in their case and dropped them in her purse.

“Every psychiatric disorder is a highly individual problem, and each problem can only be understood and dealt with by uncovering its dynamic sources.”

“I’d rather work with specifics myself,” Harris told her. “But there’s a premium on them in this case. Are we dealing with a psychopath?”

Her expression changed subtly. Impatience, Ben thought, noting the slight line between her brows and a quick movement of her mouth. Then she was professional again. “If you want a general term, psychopathy will do. It means mental disorder.”

Ed stroked his beard. “So he’s insane.”

“ Insanity is a legal term, Detective.” This was said almost primly as Tess picked up the folder and rose. “Once he’s stopped and taken to trial, that’ll become an issue. I’ll have a profile for you as soon as possible, Captain. It might help if I could see the notes that were left on the bodies, and the murder weapons.”

Dissatisfied, Harris rose. He wanted more. Though he knew better, he wanted A, B, and C, and the lines connecting each. “Detective Paris’ll show you whatever you need to see. Thank you, Dr. Court.”

She took his hand. “You’ve little to thank me for at this point. Detective Paris?”

“Right this way.” With a cursory nod he led her out.

He said nothing as he took her through the corridors again and to the checkpoint where they signed in to examine the evidence. Tess was silent as well as she studied the notes and the neat, precise printing. They didn’t vary, and were exact to the point that they seemed almost like photostats. The man who’d written them, she mused, hadn’t been in a rage or in despair. If anything, he’d been at peace. It was peace he sought, and peace, in his twisted way, he sought to give.

“White for purity,” she murmured after she’d looked at the amices. A symbol perhaps, she mused. But for whom? She turned away from the notes. More than the murder weapons, they chilled her. “It appears he’s a man with a mission.”

Ben remembered the sick frustration he’d felt after each murder, but his voice was cool and flat. “You sound sure of yourself, Doctor.”

“Do I?” Turning back, she gave him a brief survey, mulled things over, then went on impulse. “What time are you off duty, Detective?”

He tilted his head, not quite certain of his moves. “Ten minutes ago.”

“Good.” She pulled on her coat. “You can buy me a drink and tell me why you dislike my profession, or just me personally. I give you my word, no tabletop analysis.”

Something about her challenged him. The cool, elegant looks, the strong, sophisticated voice. Maybe it was the big, soft eyes . He’d think about it later. “No fee?”

She laughed and stuck her hat in her pocket. “We might have hit the root of the problem.”

“I need my coat.” As they walked back to the squad room, each of them wondered why they were about to spend part of their evening with someone who so obviously disapproved of who and what they were. But then each of them was determined to come out on top before the evening was over. Ben grabbed his coat and scrawled something in a ledger.

“Charlie, tell Ed I’m engaged in further consultation with Dr. Court.”

“You file that requisition?”

Ben shifted Tess almost like a shield and headed for the door. “File?”

“Damn it, Ben-”

“Tomorrow, in triplicate.” He had himself and Tess out of earshot and nearly to the outer door.

“Don’t care much for paperwork?” she said.

He pushed the door open and saw the rain had turned to a damp drizzle. “It’s not the most rewarding part of the job.”

“What is?”

He gave her an enigmatic look as he steered her toward his car. “Catching bad guys.”

Oddly enough, she believed him.

Ten minutes later they walked into a dimly lit bar where the music came from a jukebox and the drinks weren’t watered. It wasn’t one of Washington’s most distinguished night spots, nor one of its seamiest. It seemed to Tess a place where the regulars knew each other by name and newcomers were accepted gradually.

Ben sent the bartender a careless wave, exchanged a muffled word with one of the cocktail waitresses, and found a table in the back. Here the music was muted and the lights even dimmer. The table rocked a bit on one shortened leg.

The minute he sat down, he relaxed. This was his turf, and he knew his moves. “What’ll you have?” He waited for her to ask for some pretty white wine with a French name.

“Scotch, straight up.”

“Stolichnaya,” he told the waitress as he continued to watch Tess. “Rocks.” He waited until the silence stretched out, ten seconds, then twenty. An interesting silence, he thought, full of questions and veiled animosity. Maybe he’d throw her a curve. “You have incredible eyes.”

She smiled, and leaned back comfortably. “I would have thought you’d come up with something more original.”

“Ed liked your legs.”

“I’m surprised he could see them from his height. He’s not like you,” she observed. “I imagine you make an impressive team. Leaving that aside, Detective Paris, I’m interested in why you distrust my profession.”

“Why?”

When her drink was served, she sipped it slowly. It warmed in places the coffee hadn’t touched. “Curiosity. It comes with the territory. After all, we’re both in the business of looking for answers, solving puzzles.”

“You see our jobs as similar?” The thought made him grin. “Cops and shrinks.”

“Perhaps I find your job as unpleasant as you find mine,” she said mildly. “But they’re both necessary as long as people don’t behave in what society terms normal patterns.”

“I don’t like terms.” He tipped back his drink. “I don’t have much confidence in someone who sits behind a desk probing people’s brains, then putting their personalities into slots.”

“Well.” She sipped her drink again and heard the music turn to something dreamy by Lionel Richie. “That’s how you term psychiatrists?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded. “I suppose you have to tolerate a great deal of bigotry in your profession as well.”

Something dangerous flashed in his eyes, then it was gone, just as quickly. “Your point, Doctor.”

She tapped a finger on the table, the only outward sign of emotion. He had an admirable capacity for stillness. She had already noticed that in Harris’s office. Yet she sensed a restlessness in him. It was difficult not to appreciate the way he held it in check.

“All right, Detective Paris, why don’t you make your point?”

After swirling his vodka, he set it down without drinking. “Okay. Maybe I see you as someone raking in bucks off frustrated housewives and bored executives. Everything harks back to sex or mother hating. You answer questions with questions and never raise a sweat. Fifty minutes goes by and you click over to the next file. When someone really needs help, when someone’s desperate, it gets passed over. You label it, file it, and go on to the next hour.”