Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1) (16 page)

While the idea of getting drunk was
certainly an enticing one, it also reminded her of what had happened the last
time she’d had a drink. Yes, it had only been yesterday but the embarrassment
of what had happened made it seem like it had happened years ago and had
haunted her all of the time in between. So rather than drink her anger
away, Mackenzie did the only other thing she knew to do.

She went home and placed all of the
files concerning the Scarecrow Killer on her coffee table. She brewed a pot of
coffee and went over every scrap she had on the case. While part of her felt
that having the fourth murder site on lockdown was a sure-fire way to an
arrest, her instinct told her that the killer would be smart. All it would take
was him seeing the merest sign of a police presence to change his plans. Nelson
and the State PD likely realized this, too but the fact that they were so close
now might make them a little too conservative in their approach.

Outside, night had fallen. She stared
out of her blinds for a moment, wondering how the events of the last few days
might affect the course of her life. She thought of Zack and realized, for
perhaps the first time, that she was glad he was gone. If she was being honest
with herself, she’d only tolerated the relationship so she wouldn’t be
alone—something she had feared ever since walking into her parents’ bedroom and
finding her dead father.

She also wondered what Ellington was
doing. His call with the profile earlier was proof that he was still involved
in the Scarecrow Killer case, even if it was only in a background capacity.
Thinking of him, she also wondered if she would have taken the profile and the
visit to Holy Cross so seriously if it had come from anyone else. Had she been
trying to impress him or had she been trying to impress Nelson?

As she looked back to the files in front
of her, a very simple yet provocative thought filled her head:
Why impress
anyone? Why not just do a good job and work to the best of my abilities? Why
care what anyone else thinks of me, much less a useless ex-boyfriend,
chauvinist supervisors, or a married FBI agent?

As if provoked by such thoughts, her
cell phone rang. She picked it up from the clutter of files and folders on her
coffee table and saw that it was Ellington. She smirked at the phone and almost
didn’t answer it. He was probably calling to receive thanks for the rabbit
trail of Holy Cross, or maybe he had some other insightful idea that would lead
her astray and get her reprimanded. If she’d had a clearer head in that moment,
she would have ignored the call. But, as it was, some of the fury from Nelson’s
office was still lurking in her heart and demanded that she answer it.

“Hello, Agent Ellington,” she said.

“Hey there, White. I know I keep
bothering you, but I’m wrapping up for the day and wanted to see if anything on
that profile panned out for you.”

“No, it didn’t,” Mackenzie said,
skipping the niceties. “In fact, it seems that the only thing my visit to a
Catholic school did was piss off the head nun.”

Ellington clearly hadn’t been expecting
such a response; the other end of the line was quiet for a full five seconds
before he responded.

“What happened?” he asked.

“It was a dead end. And while I was
there being lectured by the principal on the nature of evil, the State police
showed up on the scene of what we believe is going to be the site of the fourth
murder. Being that I was not there, they pulled rank.”

“Ah, shit.”

“Oh, it gets better,” Mackenzie snapped.
“Remember Ellis Pope?”

“Yeah, the reporter.”

“Yes, him. Well, he decided to press
charges today with the threat of going to the media about our little scuffle.
The State boys heard about that, too. So they got after Nelson and, as of about
an hour ago, I was officially removed from this case.”

“Are you kidding me?” he asked.

His disbelief sparked even more anger in
her and, fortunately, it helped her to realize that she was being rude for no
reason. The spot she found herself in was not his fault. All he was doing was
checking in and lending a sympathetic ear.

“No, I’m not kidding,” she said, trying
to keep herself in check. “I have been asked to sit idly by while the good old
boys wrap this one up.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I agree,” she said. “But I know that
Nelson had no choice.”

“So what can I do?” Ellington asked.

“Not much, I’m afraid. If you really
want to help with the case some more, call Nelson. You may actually get in
trouble over talking to me about it.”

“White, I’m really sorry about this.”

“It is what it is,” she said.

Silence filled the line again and this
time she didn’t give Ellington a chance to pick the conversation back up. If he
did, she was afraid her misplaced anger might resurface and he certainly didn’t
deserve that.

 “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Take
care.”

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked
her.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s just been a
shock.”

“Well, take care.”

“Thanks.”

She ended the call without waiting for a
response. She tossed the phone back down on the table next to photocopied pages
of the Biblical passages they had deciphered from the posts. She read them over
and over again but found nothing new. She then looked to the map taken from the
back of the Bible and a crude map that Nancy had made, listing all potential
murder sites. It seemed so well put together and simple.

And that was why it made Mackenzie
uncomfortable. That’s why she felt the need to keep digging, to uncover some
truth that they had not yet found. She drank coffee and pored over the files as
if it were another day at the office, losing herself in her work despite being
off the case.

*

When her cell phone buzzed again, the
display on the clock read 7:44. She blinked her eyes and rubbed at her head,
slightly in shock. Nearly two hours had passed between Ellington’s call and
this call but it hadn’t felt nearly that long.

She was confused when she saw Nelson’s
name on the display. She let out a coarse little laugh as she picked up the
phone, wondering what else she might have done that would warrant further
punishment.

She answered, her eyes once again
traveling to the window and the night outside. Was the killer out there, ready
to string up his next victim? Or was he already in the act?

“You’re about the last person I expected
to hear from,” Mackenzie said.

“White, I need you to shut your mouth
and listen very closely to me,” Nelson said. His voice was soft and almost
gentle, something she had never heard out of him before.

“Okay,” she said, unsure of how to take
his tone and instruction.

“Twenty minutes ago, Officer Patrick
pulled a man over on State Route 411. He was driving an old red Toyota pickup
truck. There was a Bible in the passenger seat and strands of rope in the
floorboard. This man, Glenn Hooks, is a pastor at a small Baptist church in the
town of Bentley. Here’s the kicker: there were eight passages marked in his
Bible. One of them dealt with the Six Cities of Refuge.”

“My God,” Mackenzie breathed.

“Patrick has not arrested this man yet,
but was pretty insistent that the man come to the station. He put up a stern
argument, but Patrick has him right now. As they’re on the way, I’m sending
another unit to his house to see if they find anything suspicious.”

“Okay,” was all Mackenzie could manage
to say again.

“The State PD knows nothing about this,”
Nelson went on. “Between you and I, that’s at my instruction. I wanted first
crack at this guy before the State got involved. I just got off the phone with
Patrick. They’ll be here at the station in about ten minutes. I want you here to
question the guy. And I need you to do it quickly because I don’t know how long
we can keep the boys from State in the dark. You
might
have twenty or
thirty minutes before I’ll need to get you out of here.”

“After everything you told me in your
office, do you really think that’s the best idea?”

“No, it’s not a good idea,” Nelson said.
“But it’s all I have right now. I know I sent you packing less than five hours
ago, but I’m not asking if you’ll do this, I’m telling you. You’re still
officially
off the case. That doesn’t change. This is being done under the table. I need
you on this, White. You got it?”

She’d never felt so disrespected yet
valued at the same time. Her heart was sparked by a stirring of excitement but
it was underpinned by the anger that had been pushing her for most of the
afternoon.

Remember,
she thought.
This
isn’t about impressing anyone. This isn’t about being right or wrong or looking
good. This is about doing your job and putting a man that tortures and kills
women behind bars.

“White?” Nelson snapped.

She looked down at the coffee table and
saw the photos. The women that had been stripped of their dignity, terrorized,
beaten and killed. She owed them justice. She owed their families some sort of
rest.

Gripping the phone tightly and with a
look of steeled determination coming over her face, Mackenzie said:

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

When Mackenzie arrived at the station,
there were two officers at the front doors waiting for her. She was
surprisingly pleased to see that one of them was Porter. He gave her a knowing
smile as she reached the doors and without a word, the men opened the doors and
led her inside. They had taken three steps into the station when Mackenzie
realized that Porter and the other officer were acting as a shield. They walked
to either side of her at a brisk pace, helping her to blend in just in case
anyone at the station saw her and might want to stir up trouble.

Quickly, they reached the main hall
where she saw Nelson standing outside of the interrogation room. He
straightened up when he saw them coming and Mackenzie saw that he looked
terribly on edge—like he might very well blast off like a rocket at any moment.

“Thanks,” he said when they reached him.

“Of course,” Mackenzie said.

Nelson gave Porter and the other officer
a curt nod and they headed away at once. After taking a single step, though,
Porter turned back to her and whispered. “Damn fine work,” he said with the
same smile he’d showed her at the front door.

She only nodded her head in response,
returning the smile. With that, the officers headed down the hall, back toward
the front of the building.

“Okay,” Nelson said. “This Hooks guy,
he’s being mostly cooperative. He’s just scared and nervous. He’s doing a great
deal of talking and hasn’t asked to see a lawyer yet. So don’t push him too
hard and we might get out of this one without a lawyer coming and stalling
everything.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll be watching in the review room so
if anything goes wrong, someone can be in there in less than ten seconds. You
good?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Nelson gave her a reassuring pat on the
back and then opened the door for her. To her surprise, Nelson walked away from
the room, down the hall toward the review room. Mackenzie looked to the open
door for a moment before walking in.

He’s in there,
she thought.
The
Scarecrow Killer
is in there.

When she entered the interrogation room,
the man at the small table in the center of the room went through a strange
series of emotions; first he sat up as rigid as a board, then a frown washed
over his face, followed by confusion and then ultimately a vague sort of
relief.

Mackenzie went through a similar range
of emotions when she saw the killer for the first time. He looked to be in his
early fifties, his hair gray around the edges and the lines of age starting to
show in his face. He was a skinny man but rather tall. He regarded her with
deep brown eyes that were easy to read: he was sacred and deeply confused.

“Hi, Mr. Hooks,” she said. “My name is
Detective White. I think if you can answer some questions for me as honestly as
you can, you can get out of here pretty quickly. I’m told you’ve been
cooperative so far, so let’s keep that up, okay?”

He nodded. “This is all some huge
understanding,” Hooks said. “They think I killed three women. They think I’m
that Scarecrow Killer.”

“You’re not?” she asked.

“Of course I’m not! I’m a pastor at
Grace Creek Baptist Church.”

“That’s what I’m told,” Mackenzie said.
“The Bible in your truck was marked to several passages. One of them happens to
be closely associated with the Scarecrow Killer case.”

“Yes, that’s what the other officers
have said. The Cities of Refuge, correct?”

Mackenzie took a moment to regroup. She
was pissed that someone had already revealed their hand and told Hooks about
the Cities of Refuge connection. She was going to have to try a different angle
here. All she knew for certain was that her gut told her implicitly that Hooks
was certainly not the Scarecrow Killer. The fear in his eyes was genuine and,
as far as she was concerned, told them all they needed to know.

“What about the strands of rope we found
in the floorboard?”

“Grace Creek’s Vacation Bible School is
in two weeks,” Hooks said. “The strands of rope were left over from one of the
stage decorations we’re creating. We’re going with a jungle theme this year and
we used the rope for vines and a little mock swinging bridge.”

“And where is Grace Creek Baptist
located?”

“On Highway 33.”

“And that runs parallel to Stare Route
411, correct?”

“It does.”

Mackenzie had to turn her back to Hooks
for a moment to hide the expression on her face. How had Nelson and his
sycophant officers been so blind and stupid? Had they not done
any
digging before bringing this poor man in?

When she managed to compose herself, she
turned back to him, trying her best not to show him that she was already
convinced that he was not the killer. “Why, exactly, did you have the passage
about the Cities of Refuge marked?”

“I’m planning to preach about it in
three or four weeks.”

“Can I ask why?” Mackenzie asked.

“It’s to talk about committing sin in a
way that doesn’t make the congregation feel guilty. We all sin, you know. Even
me. Even the most devout. But many people are raised to believe that sin means
eternal damnation and the cities are a great illustration for God’s forgiveness
of sin. They are all about
degree
of sin. They were meant primarily for
those who had committed
unintentional
murder. Not all sins are the same.
And even those who commit murder, if unintentional, can be forgiven.”

Mackenzie thought about this for a
moment, feeling a connection trying to click in her head. There was something
there, but it wasn’t making itself known just yet.

“One final question, Mr. Hooks,” she
said. “Your Toyota is rather old. How long have you owned it?”

Hooks thought for a moment and shrugged.
“Eight years or so. I brought it used from a member of Grace Creek.”

“Have you ever hauled any sort of wood
in it?”

“Yes. I had several sheets of plywood in
it last week for more decorations. And from time to time, I help people gather
firewood in the winter and deliver it to their homes.”

“Anything bigger than that?”

“No. Not that I can remember.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Hooks. You’ve
been very helpful. I feel pretty confident that you’ll be out of here in no
time.”

He nodded, as confused as ever. Mackenzie
gave him a final look as she left the room, closing the door behind him. The
moment she was outside of the interrogation room, Nelson came out of the review
room a few doors down. He looked flustered as he approached her and she could
feel the tension coming off of him in waves.

“Well, that was quick,” he said.

“He’s not the killer,” Mackenzie said.

“And how the hell are you so sure?” he
asked.

“With all due respect, sir, did you even
ask him about the rope?”

“We did,” Nelson snapped. “He spouted
off some story about needing it for Vacation Bible School at his church.”

“Did anyone bother to check on that?”

“I’m waiting on a call at any moment,”
he said. “I sent a car out there about half an hour ago.”

“Sir, his church is about fifteen
minutes away from the site in question. He said he had plans to preach on the
Cities of Refuge sometime soon.”

“Seems convenient, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” she said. “But when is such a
weak connection grounds for an arrest?”

Nelson scowled at her and placed his
hands on his hips. “I knew it was a mistake to bring you in. Are you
determined
to draw this out as long as you can? Do you want the attention so you can stay
in the headlines?”

Mackenzie couldn’t help herself when she
took a step forward, her anger rising up. “Please tell me that’s just the
frustration talking,” she said. “I’d like to think you have a better head on
your shoulders than to think such a thing.”

“Check your tone, Mackenzie,” he said.
“Right now, you’re just off this case. Get in my face again, I’ll suspend you
indefinitely.”

A tense silence fell between them that
lasted only three seconds, interrupted by the ringing of Nelson’s cell phone.
He broke his gaze with Mackenzie, turned his back to her, and answered it.

Mackenzie stood there and listened to
his end of the conversation, hoping whatever the call was about, it might help
to clear things up and free Pastor Hooks.

“What is it?” Nelson asked, his back
still turned. “Yeah? Okay….you’re certain? Well shit. Yeah…got it.”

When Nelson turned back to her, he
looked like he wanted to throw his cell phone down the hall. His cheeks had
taken on a bright red color and he looked absolutely defeated.

“What is it?” Mackenzie asked.

Nelson hesitated, looking to the ceiling
and letting out a sigh. It was very much the posture of someone that was about
to eat a large helping of humble pie.

“The rope in his truck is an exact match
to rope used to create stage designs for Vacation Bible School at Grace Creek
Baptist. More than that, there were printed papers and handwritten notes in a
small office in the back of the church that show where Hooks is indeed planning
a sermon on the Cities of Refuge.”

It took every ounce of her will to not
make a comment about how he and his officers had been wrong—how they had been
so eager to wrap this case up without the help of the State or the FBI that
they had arrested a man that had no business ever being cuffed.

“So he’s good to go?” Mackenzie said.

“Yes. He checks out.”

She allowed herself a thin smile.
“Should you tell him, or should I?”

Nelson looked like his head might
explode at any moment. “You do it,” he said. “And when you’re done, please
promptly get the hell out of here. It might be best that you and I don’t speak
for a day or so.”

Gladly,
she thought.

She turned back to the interrogation
room, glad to be out of Nelson’s sight. When she closed the door behind her,
Hooks looked up to her with hope in those dark brown eyes.

“You’re free to go.”

He nodded appreciatively, breathed deeply,
and said: “Thank you.”

“Do you mind if I ask you one more
question before you go?” she asked.

“That would be fine.”

“Why would God designate cities for
sinners to escape to? Isn’t it sort of God’s job to punish sinners?”

“That’s up for debate. My own belief is
that God wanted to see his children succeed. He wanted to allow them the chance
to get right with him.”

“And these sinners believed they could
find God in these cities? They thought they could find favor with him there?”

“In a way, yes. But they also knew that
God is at the center of all things. It was just up to them to seek Him. And
these cities were the designated places for them to do that.”

Mackenzie chewed this over as she headed
for the door. She walked Hooks through the motions of checking out but her mind
was elsewhere. She thought about six cities located in a circle and how a
sometimes wrathful but ultimately forgiving God oversaw it all.

How had Hooks put it?

But they also knew that God is at the
center of all things.

Suddenly, Mackenzie felt as if a filter
had been removed from her mind’s eye. With that single comment floating in her
head, the connection she had nearly made in the interrogation room snapped into
place.

Five minutes later, she was speeding
back home, letting that single thought wash over every corner of her mind.

God is at the center of all things.

The clock on her dashboard read 8:46,
but Mackenzie knew her night was just getting started.

Because, if she was correct, she knew
how to find where the killer lived.