Before He Sins (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 7)

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

Mackenzie learned a great deal about Reverend Ned Tuttle in the next half an hour. For starters, he had left behind two sons and a sister. His wife had walked out on him eight years ago, moving to Austin, Texas, with a man she had been having an affair with for over a year before it had come to light. Both sons lived in the Georgetown area, leading Mackenzie and Ellington to their first stop of the day. It was just after 6:30 when Mackenzie parked her car along the curb outside of Brian Tuttle’s apartment. According to the agent who had broken the news, both brothers were there, waiting to do what they could to answer questions about their father’s death.

When Mackenzie stepped into Brian Tuttle’s apartment, she was a little surprised. She had expected to see two sons deep in grief, torn apart by the loss of their devout father. Instead, she saw them sitting at a small dining room table in the kitchen. They were both drinking coffee. Brian Tuttle, twenty-two years of age, was eating a bowl of cereal while Eddie Tuttle, nineteen, was absently dabbing an Eggo waffle into a pool of syrup.

“I don’t exactly know what you’re thinking we can offer you,” Brian said. “We weren’t exactly on the best terms with Dad.”

“Can I ask why?” Mackenzie asked.

“Because we stopped associating with him when he went full-tilt into the church.”

“Are you not believers?” Ellington asked.

“I don’t know,” Brian said. “I guess I’m an agnostic.”

“I’m a believer,” Eddie said. “But Dad…he took it to a whole different level. Like, when he found out Mom was cheating on him, he didn’t do anything. After about two days of dealing with it, he forgave her and the guy she was cheating on him with. He said he forgave them because it was the Christian thing to do. And he refused to even talk about a divorce.”

“Yeah,” Brian said. “And Mom saw that as Dad not giving a s**t about her—not caring that she had cheated. So she left. And he didn’t do much of anything to stop her.”

“Did your Dad ever try to reach out to the two of you since your mom left?”

“Oh yeah,” Brian said. “Just about every Saturday evening, begging us to come to church.”

“And besides that,” Eddie added, “he was too busy during the week even if we did want to see him. He was always at the church or out on charity drives or sick visits at hospitals.”

“When was the last time either of you spoke to him at length?” Mackenzie asked.

The brothers looked at each other for a moment, calculating. “Not sure,” Brian said. “Maybe a month. And it wasn’t much of anything. He was asking the same questions: how was work going, if I was dating anyone yet, stuff like that.”

“So it’s safe to say you both have an estranged relationship with your father?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said.

He looked down to the table for a moment as regret started to sink in. Mackenzie had seen this sort of reaction before; if she’d been forced to bet, she was pretty sure at least one of these boys would be a sobbing mess within an hour, realizing all that had been lost in terms of the father they’d never gotten to know.

“Do you know who would have known him well?” Mackenzie asked. “Did he have any close friends?”

“Just that priest or pastor or whatever at the church,” Eddie said. “The one that runs the place.”

“Your father wasn’t the lead reverend?” Mackenzie asked.

“No. He was like an associate pastor or something,” Brian said. “There was another guy over him. Jerry Levins, I think.”

Mackenzie noticed the way the young men were getting their terminology mixed up. Pastor, reverend, priest...it was all confusing. Mackenzie didn’t even know the difference actually, assuming it had something to do with differences in beliefs between denominations.

“And your father spent a lot of time with him?”

“Oh yeah,” Brian said, a bit angry. “All of his damn time, I think. If you need to know anything about Dad, he’d be the one to ask.”

Mackenzie nodded, well aware that she would not be getting any useful information out of these two young men. Still, she wished she had more time to speak with them. There was clearly unresolved tension and loss between them. Maybe if they broke through whatever emotional walls were keeping them so tranquil, they’d have more to offer.

In the end, she turned away and gave them her thanks. She and Ellington left the apartment quietly. As they took the stairs down side by side, he took her hand.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, confused. “Why?”

“Two kids…their father just died and aren’t sure how to handle it. With all of the speculation about your dad’s old case as of late…just wondering.”

She smiled at him, reveling in the uplifting way he made her heart feel in those moments. God, he can be so sweet…

As they walked out into the morning together, she also realized that he was right: the reason she had wanted to stay and keep talking was to help the Tuttle brothers resolve the issues they’d had with their father.

Apparently, the ghost of her father’s recently reopened case was haunting her more than she realized.

***

Seeing Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in the light of morning was surreal. Mackenzie drove by it on the way to visit with Reverend Jerry Levins. Levins resided in a house that sat just half a block away from the church, something Mackenzie had seen a lot of during her time out in Nebraska where the heads of smaller churches tended to live in very close proximity to their houses of worship.

When they arrived at Levins’s house, there were numerous cars parked along the side of the street and in his driveway. She assumed these were likely members of Cornerstone, coming by to seek solace from or offer comfort to Reverend Levins.

When Mackenzie knocked on the front door of the modest little brick house, it was answered right away. The woman at the door had clearly been crying. She eyed Mackenzie and Ellington suspiciously until Mackenzie raised her badge.

“We’re Agents White and Ellington, with the FBI,” she said. “We’d like to speak with Reverend Levins, if he’s in.”

The woman opened the door for them and they stepped into a house that was filled with sniffling and sobbing. Somewhere else within the house, Mackenzie could hear the sound of murmured prayers.

“I’ll get him for you,” the woman said. “Please wait here.”

Mackenzie watched the woman go back through the house, turning into a small living room where a few people stood by the entryway. After some whispering noises, a tall bald man came walking toward them. Like the woman who had answered the door, he had also been weeping.

“Agents,” Levins said. “Can I help you?”

“Well, I know it’s a very tense and sad time for you,” Mackenzie said, “but we’re hoping to get any information we can on Reverend Tuttle. The sooner we can get any leads, the quicker we can catch who did this.”

“Do you think his death is related to that poor priest’s from earlier this week?” Levins asked.

“We can’t know for certain yet,” Mackenzie said, though she was already certain he was. “And that’s why we were hoping you could speak with us.”

“Of course,” Levins said. “Outside on the stoop, though. I don’t want to interrupt the prayer we have going here.”

He led them back out into the morning, where he took a seat on the concrete steps. “I must say, I’m not sure what you’re going to find on Ned,” Levins commented. “He was a stand-up believer. Other than some issues with his family, I don’t know that he had anything closely resembling an enemy.”

“Did he have friends within the church that you might question being moral or upstanding?” Ellington asked.

“Everyone was friends with Ned Tuttle,” Levins said, wiping a tear away from his eyes. “The man was as close to a saint as they come. He regularly tithed at least twenty-five percent of his pay back into the church. He was always downtown, helping to feed and clothe the poor. He mowed lawns for the elderly, did home repair for widows, took three missions trips to Kenya every year to help with a medical ministry.”

“Do you know anything about his past that might be shady?” Mackenzie asked.

“No. And that’s saying a lot because I know a great deal about his past. He and I, we shared a lot of stories about our struggles. And I can tell you in confidence that among the few sinful things he experienced in his past, there was nothing that would suggest being treated in the way he was last night.”

“How about any people within the church?” Mackenzie asked. “Were there members of the church who might have been offended at something Reverend Tuttle said or did?”

Levins thought about it for only a moment before shaking his head. “No. If there was such an issue, Ned never told me and I never knew about it. But again…I can tell you with the utmost certainty that he had no enemies that I was aware of.”

“Do you know if—” Ellington started.

But Levins held up his hand, as if shooing the comment away. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “But I’m quite sad about the loss of my good friend, and I have many grieving members of my church inside. I will happily answer any questions you have in the coming days, but I need to report to God and my congregation right now.”

“Of course,” Mackenzie said. “I understand. And I am truly sorry for your loss.”

Levins managed a smile as he got back to his feet. Fresh tears were streaming down his face. “I meant what I said,” he whispered, doing what he could to not break down in front of them. “Give me a day or so. If there is anything further you need to ask, let me know. I’d like to take part in bringing whoever did this to justice.”

With that, he headed back inside. Mackenzie and Ellington walked back to the car as the sun finally took its rightful place in the sky. It was hard to believe it was only 8:11.

“What next?” Mackenzie asked. “Any ideas?”

“Well…I’ve been awake for nearly four hours now and I haven’t had coffee yet. That seems like a good place to start.”

***

Twenty minutes later, Mackenzie and Ellington were sitting face to face in a small coffee shop. As they drank their coffee, they looked over the files on Father Costas they had taken from McGrath’s office and the digital files on Reverend Tuttle that had been emailed to Mackenzie’s phone.

Aside from studying the photographs, there was not really much to study. Even in the case of Father Costas, where there was paperwork to go along with it, there wasn’t much to tell. He had been killed from either the puncture wound to his lung or a deep incision in the back of his neck that had gone deep enough to reveal white glimmers of his spine.

“So according to this report,” Mackenzie said, “the wounds to Father Costas’s body were likely what killed him. He was most likely dead before he was crucified.”

“And that means something?” Ellington asked.

“I think there’s a very good chance. It’s clear there’s some sort of religious angle here. The mere subject of crucifixion supports that. But there’s a huge difference between using the act of crucifixion as a message and using the imagery of crucifixion.”

“I think I follow,” Ellington said. “But you can keep explaining.”

“For Christians, the image of crucifixion would really just be a depiction of sorts. In our cases, death as a result of crucifixion doesn’t seem to be the goal. If that were the case, the bodies would likely be mostly free of injury. Think about it…the whole of Christianity would be quite different if Christ was already dead when he was nailed to the cross.”

“So you think the killer is crucifying these men just for show?”

“Too early to tell,” Mackenzie said. She paused long enough to take a blissful gulp of her coffee. “I’m leaning toward no, though. Both men were men of the cloth…leaders of a church in some form or another. Displaying them strung up like the Christian figure those churches revolve around is too much of a sign. There’s some sort of motive behind it all.”

“You just referred to Jesus Christ as a Christian figure. I thought you believed in God.”

“I do,” Mackenzie said. “But not with the strength and conviction someone like Ned Tuttle had. And when it gets into the Bible stories—the talking snake, the ark, the blow-by-blow of the crucifixion—I think faith has to take a back seat and rely on something closer to blind belief. And I’m not comfortable with that.”

“Whoa,” Ellington said with a smile. “That’s deep. Me…I just prefer to go with I don’t know answer. So…as for the motive you mentioned. How do we find it?” Ellington asked.

“Good question. I plan to start with the family of Father Costas. There’s not much to go on in the reports. Also, I think—”

She was interrupted by the ringing of Ellington’s phone. He grabbed it quickly and frowned at what he saw on the display. “It’s McGrath,” he said before answering it.

Mackenzie listened to Ellington’s end of the conversation, unable to piece together what was being said. After less than a minute, Ellington ended the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket.

“Well,” he said. “It looks like you’ll be visiting the Costas family on your own. McGrath needs me back at his office. Some detail work on a case he’s being all secretive on.”

“Which probably means it’s grunt work,” Mackenzie said. “Lucky you.”

“Still…seems weird he’d yank me off of this so soon when we don’t have any leads. It must mean he has immense confidence in you all of a sudden.”

“And you don’t?”

“You know what I mean,” Ellington said, smiling.

Mackenzie took another gulp of her coffee, a little disgruntled to find that it was already empty. She tossed the cup in the trash and gathered up the files and her phone, ready to move in to her next stop. First, though, she headed for the counter to order another coffee.

It was looking like it was going to be a very long day. And without Ellington to keep her on her toes, she’d definitely need coffee.

Then again, long days usually resulted in leads—in productivity. And if Mackenzie had her way, she’d find the killer before he had time to so much as plan another murder.