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

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

After dropping Ellington off in the parking garage at the FBI offices (and a quick yet passionate kiss before she left), Mackenzie made her way out to Blessed Heart Catholic Church. She wasn’t expecting to find much of anything, so she wasn’t disappointed when that was exactly what was waiting for her.

The doors had been replaced, but looked like exact replicas of the ones she had seen in the photos from the crime scene. She climbed up the stairs, these much fancier and ornate than the ones at Cornerstone Presbyterian, and to the new doors. She then turned her back to the doors and looked back out to the street. She couldn’t help but wonder if there was any further symbolism in nailing the men to the front doors.

Maybe they’re supposed to be looking out toward something, Mackenzie thought. But all she was seeing were parked cars, a few pedestrians, and street signs.

She looked at her feet and along the edges of the door frame. There were small spackled shapes there that could be anything. But she had seen this color before—the color of blood once it dried into pale concrete.

She looked back down the steps and tried to imagine a man bringing a dead body up them. It would be a task, that was for sure. Of course, she didn’t know for sure that Costas had been dead when he had been nailed to the door, though that seemed to be the working assumption.

As she stood at the double doors and looked around, she went over the facts as she knew them from the files. The same kind of nails were used here as were used at the Tuttle scene. The only common injury among the two bodies was a large gash that went the length of their foreheads—maybe an allusion to Christ’s crown of thorns.

Imagining such a grisly sight on the stoop she was standing on was hard to imagine. People didn’t typically think of death and gore when they stood before the doors of a church.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s a tie-in to the killer’s motive.

Feeling like she might be on to something, Mackenzie took the stairs back down to the street. It felt odd to be moving at such a pace without Ellington by her side, but by the time she was in her car and moving forward, her mind was solely on the case.

***

For the second time that day, Mackenzie found herself walking into a crowded home. Father Costas had lived in a nice home, a two-story brick home just along the outskirts of the downtown region. She was met by a woman who introduced herself as a parishioner of Blessed Heart. She led Mackenzie into a den area, where she was asked to wait for a moment.

Within a matter of seconds, an older woman entered the room. She looked exhausted and profoundly sad when she sat down in an armchair across from the seat Mackenzie had taken on an ornate sofa.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” Mackenzie said. “I had no idea you’d have this much company.”

“Yes, I had no idea, either,” the woman said. “But the funeral is tonight and there are all of these people coming out of the woodwork. Family members, acquaintances, loved ones from the church.” She then grinned sleepily and added: “I’m Nancy Allensworth, the parish secretary. I’m told you’re with the FBI?”

“Yes ma’am. At the risk of upsetting you further, there was another body discovered this morning, treated the same way as Father Costas. This one was a reverend at a small Presbyterian church near Georgetown.”

Nancy Allensworth put her hand to her mouth in a dramatic oh no gesture. “My goodness,” she said. Then, through tears and gritted teeth, she hissed, “What has this wretched world come to?”

Doing her best to press on, Mackenzie continued. “Obviously, we have reason to believe it could happen again if it has happened twice. So time is of the essence. I was hoping you might be able to answer a few questions for me.”

“I can try,” she said, though it was clear that she was struggling to keep her emotions in check.

“Because Blessed Heart is a relatively large church, I was wondering if there might have been someone within the congregation who might have recently approached Father Costas with a complaint or grievance.”

“Not that I’m aware of. Of course, keep in mind that many people came to him in confidence to confess sins or work out spiritual unrest within their lives.”

“Is there anything at all over the course of the last several years that you can think of that might have rubbed someone the wrong way? Anything that might upset someone who perhaps previously looked at Father Costas with reverence?”

Nancy looked down at her hands. She was wringing them nervously in her lap, trying to keep them from trembling. “I suppose there was, but it was before I started working here. There was a story maybe ten years back, a report that one of the local papers broke. One of the teenage boys that lead a youth group claimed that Father Costas had sexually abused him. It was very explicit. There was never any proof of it and, quite frankly, there’s just no way Father Costas would have done that. But once a news story like that hits and concerns someone within the Catholic Church, it’s taken as solid truth.”

“What was the aftermath of that story?”

“From what I was told, he got death threats. Attendance at the church decreased by about fifteen percent. He started to receive unsolicited emails filled with homosexual pornography.”

“Did he keep any of those mails?” Mackenzie asked.

“For a while,” Nancy said. “He had the cops called in on it but they were never able to make any connections. After it was clear that nothing was going to be able to be done, he deleted them all. I’ve never seen them personally.”

“And what about the teen who made the accusations? If you could give us his name, we could pay him a visit.”

Nancy shook her head, fresh tears spilling. “He committed suicide later that year. There was a note near the body where he confessed to being gay. It was yet another strike against Father Costas. It made the story seem all that more plausible.”

Mackenzie nodded, trying to think of any other accessible avenues. She knew, naturally, that trying to get this sort of information out of a grieving widow would be difficult. And when you added in a past ordeal with a news story that may or may not have had any truth to it, the whole thing just became that much worse. She supposed she could push for more information about the young man who had filed the complaint and eventually killed himself. But she could also easily find that information on her own while leaving this poor woman to get ready for Father Costas’s funeral.

“Well, Ms. Allensworth, thank you so much for your time,” Mackenzie said, getting to her feet. “My deepest sympathies for your loss.”

“Bless you, my dear,” Nancy said. She also got to her feet and led Mackenzie back through the house, to the front door.

At the door, Mackenzie gave Nancy a business card with her name and number on it. “I understand you are going through quite a lot,” Mackenzie said. “But if anything else should happen to come to you in the next few days, please give me a call.”

Nancy took the card without a word and slipped it into her pocket. She then turned away, clearly fighting back a larger swarm of tears, and closed the door.

Mackenzie headed back to her car, pulling out her cell phone. She dialed up Agent Harrison, who answered right away.

“Everything going well?” he asked her.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Can you do me a favor and look back about ten years to see what you can find about Father Costas being accused of sexually abusing a male leader of a youth group? I’d like as many details on the case as I can get.”

“Sure. You think it might present a lead?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I think a kid who claims to have been sexually abused by a priest who was nailed to the door of his church would certainly be worth looking into.”

“Yeah, good point,” Harrison said.

She ended the call, again haunted by images of the Scarecrow Killer and Nebraska. She had obviously dealt with killers striking out of a religious context before. And one thing she knew about them was that they could be unpredictable and very driven. She wasn’t going to take any chances and, as such, would not leave any stone unturned.

Yet as she got back into her car, she realized that a sexually abused boy did feel like a solid lead. Besides, other than him, the only thing at her disposal was returning to the FBI offices and seeing what she could mine from the files while hoping Forensics might be able to come up with something.

And she knew that if she sat idly, waiting for a break in the case, the killer could very well be out there plotting his next move.