Ten Plagues (19 page)

“And what do you have to report, Collins?” Higgins asked. “You told me you’d go there this morning to get a closer look at the suspects.”

“I never said I’d—”

Higgins cut her off. “We saw you go in and stay a long time. What have you learned?”

“What?” Paul turned to look at Keren. “Higgins sent you there this morning?”

Her face heated up, and Keren knew she was blushing. “Paul, it’s not—”

“Last night Detective Collins and I agreed,” Higgins interjected, “that she should learn the identities of the crowd that hangs around down there. Going in the guise of a volunteer was good thinking.”

Higgins was acting like Keren had followed FBI orders to go to the mission this morning. She did a little profiling herself. Higgins wanted to cause trouble between her and Paul. She wasn’t sure why. Her gut reaction was that he was irritated at her for walking out on him last night and petty enough to get a little payback. But she’d like to think the FBI had better men working for it than that.

“Did you get any impressions? Let’s start with your report.” Higgins looked at Keren and waited.

The silence was almost too much for her. She couldn’t report that the demon they were hunting for wasn’t there. But she could go up to that bulletin board and jerk about a dozen of the twenty pictures they had up there down, just because she trusted herself. It would save the task force hours and hours of hard labor.

Of course, no court in the land would accept that, and no cop or FBI agent worth his salt would trust her judgment. She wouldn’t have believed it herself if she wasn’t living it.

In the end she could only relate facts. “I didn’t get any impression among the people there that one was
masquerading
as homeless.”

She glanced at Paul. He had no expression. The cop was back. His eyes piercing. His jaw tight. Detached and cynical. Everything Pastor P wasn’t, and everything she’d detested about Detective Morris.

He seemed to accept what amounted to her lying and betraying him and his people for the job. In fact, he understood about putting the job before anything else.

He probably believed she’d set him up. She didn’t think he’d doubt what had happened with Roger, but she’d done her best to learn names and make contact with everyone. And now that just added to the image of her being at the mission under false pretenses.

“I saw you come charging out of that building just before you left,” Dyson weighed in. “You moved like you were running after someone, and you looked in all directions and appeared extremely frustrated.”

Keren tried to relate what she’d felt in words these folks would understand. “There was talk, a rumor about someone knowing about the bomb in the crack house. One of the homeless people told me that. He wasn’t sure who’d said it. When he—” Keren couldn’t lie and she couldn’t tell the truth. “Look, I’m a cop. I thought someone across the room reacted … strangely I couldn’t see who it was, just movement, a response by someone in the crowd. I moved fast, trying to see who it was. I didn’t see anyone. I can’t describe anyone. I know you can’t do it on my say-so, but if you’d trust me, I’d pull a lot of pictures down off that board, eliminate them as suspects. It would save us time.”

Dyson narrowed his eyes. The jerk.

“I feel certain that—” Keren saw something. Studying the pictures, she said, “Paul, some of these people weren’t there this morning. I don’t recognize them, at least.”

Keren went up front and pointed to several photos. “Who are these men? There are five or six I don’t remember.” She looked over her shoulder at him. He’d followed her and was watching where she pointed.

“They weren’t there.” Paul looked up at Higgins. “Where’d you get these five pictures?”

“They came up shortly before Detective Collins came out.

Identify them, Morris.” Higgins, giving orders again.

“That’s Murray.” Paul pointed.

“Who was supposed to preach, right?” Keren asked.

“That’s right.” Paul jabbed each photo as he named them. “That’s Buddy. Louie. Casey-Ray. McGwire.”

“I don’t remember seeing any of them.”

“They drove up right at the end. The driver let four passengers out,” Higgins said. “These pictures are pinned up here in the order the pictures were taken.”

He jabbed a finger at Murray’s picture showing him behind the wheel of a car. “The others went inside and returned almost immediately. Based on the way this one stayed behind, double parked—the others only needed to run inside briefly. They exited the building, got in the car, and drove off. Only a few seconds later you came out. They must be the disturbance that drew your attention. Since it’s clear they never planned to stay, you probably misread the situation.”

Paul’s eyes, still fully shielded as he became the cop, shifted to hers and away. Keren thought of Dyson and Higgins and their watchfulness and didn’t react, but she knew exactly what Paul was thinking. One of those men was almost certainly the killer. She’d felt him. They could narrow their suspect list to five right now. And here, in a room full of law enforcement officers, she had no way of explaining that without claiming a revelation from God.

Which these people wouldn’t believe.

But they were under so much pressure to hurry, Keren had to focus the search. She did her best to come up with a reason these people would understand.

“We need to look closer at these men. I don’t expect you to take my word for it with no solid evidence, but my gut tells me this is where we should look first.” She pointed at Murray then swung her finger down the line of photos.

“We can try to nail down where these men have crossed your path when you were a cop, Morris,” Higgins said. “We don’t count the others out, but we’ve got limited time with a missing woman to find.”

“Is it possible”—Keren turned to Dyson—”that something happened after Paul left the force? These men know him
now
. Have you worked on the theory that this could be rooted in Paul’s life as a pastor rather than a cop? I’m trying to remember exactly what Pravus said. Did we jump to some conclusions?”

“I’ll listen to the tapes again and see.”

Keren turned back to the pictures, satisfied that she’d given one of the FBI agents what amounted to an order.

Then she turned to Paul. “Let’s go look at your files again with these men in mind. Do any of them have known addresses? Or are they truly homeless?”

Paul stared at the picture of Murray. Keren had heard him talk about the man as a friend. “I’ve got addresses on Murray and Buddy. Louie lives in the mission. Casey-Ray and McGwire live on the streets. They sleep in the mission on cold nights. So did Buddy and Murray for that matter, until they cleaned up their act.”

“And Louie?” Dyson asked.

“On parole.”

“For what?”

Paul’s jaw was so tense Keren wasn’t sure he’d be able to move it to answer.

“He murdered his wife.”

Paul tried not to turn into a cop. He really did.

But he’d gone right ahead and turned.

Hearing that Keren had been assigned to come to the mission this morning made him sad. Hurt. More than a little confused. Cynicism was much more comfortable.

She was a cop. She had a job to do. So did he. Being a pastor investigating the people with the biggest trust issues in the world could very likely destroy years of work. Betraying his congregation, even for the best reasons, was painful, and he preferred to not deal with that pain.

His blood cooled. His feelings faded. He could do this—but only as a cop.

“We need known addresses on the two men you say have one.” Higgins moved to the center of the room. “And do you have full names? Background information will speed things up.”

Paul told them what he knew. “Except for Louie Pike, I only know what these men have told me. Murray is Leo Murray. He volunteers at the mission. I don’t file income tax forms or pay him a salary, so I don’t have a social security number for him. Buddy is the same and I don’t even know what his real name is. I asked him. ‘Buddy’ is all I’ve ever gotten. Casey-Ray is a former boxer, or so he says.”

“He coulda been a contender instead of a bum?” Higgins asked.

Higgins’s sneering attitude should have annoyed him but Paul didn’t let it. Not when he was thinking like a police detective. The black humor had always helped him cope with the tough stuff.

“McGwire—that’s not his real name. He rarely talks. He wears an old St. Louis Cardinals number twenty-five Mark McGwire jersey. I’ve never seen him without it, and I’ve known him for at least two years now. So that’s why we call him McGwire, because that name’s written on his back. He follows Casey-Ray around,

but he’s not exactly sane, I’m sure. I can’t imagine he’s the one who phoned me. Pravus’s voice didn’t sound familiar, and I’ve heard all these men talk, even McGwire on a few rare occasions.” Paul stopped and tried to connect Pravus’s voice to one of those five men. He couldn’t.

But Keren believed Pravus had been in that room. And he trusted her. He couldn’t think of what she’d done for Roger and doubt her. But he could doubt what had brought her there. He’d been stupid enough to think it was at least partly because of him.

He gave the FBI all the information he had on the five men and added names of several others missing from the morning service.

After telling them Murray’s and Louie’s addresses and the alley that was home to Casey-Ray and McGwire, Paul said, “I want to go with you to talk to these men, Higgins.”

“No. Maybe we’ll bring you in on the two homeless men if they’re not where you said they’d be. You can help us hunt, but we want to question them without you being involved. We don’t want a pastor there making it easy for them.”

“If I’m there, you’ve got a lot better chance of gaining their cooperation. They’re all hostile to the police. You’ll be lucky if they don’t hide from you.”

“We’ll be watching close. They won’t get away.” Higgins was so sure, Paul dropped it against his better judgment. That’s what a cop would do.

“Buddy and Murray could be in their apartments right now. Sunday afternoon is really quiet at the mission.” Paul narrowed his eyes and looked at the picture of Murray behind the steering wheel. “And as far as I know, none of those men owns or drives a car. So I don’t know where that one came from.”

The whole group turned to the picture.

“Did we get the plate number?” Higgins asked.

“I’ve got a photo of it pulling up. I’ll get the make and model from the picture and run it,” one of the agents said.

“Good.” Higgins turned his grim expression on Paul. “We want to know everyone pictured here. Do I dare to hope you know all of them as well as you know these five?”

“I probably know less about most of them.”

Higgins groaned. “Great. Give us what you’ve got. We’ll run it down, put the pictures through our face recognition program. It’ll take awhile.”

“Look, I don’t run background checks or take prints from the homeless people who come in to get a meal.”

“Well maybe you ought to start.” Higgins turned away. “Now what have we got from forensics?”

Paul was real tempted to keep arguing with Higgins. But he kept his mouth shut by sheer force.

“No DNA evidence.” Dr. Schaefer shoved a stack of file folders onto the desk near the front of the room. “Everything I’ve got is here and I made a copy for each of you. The short version is, there was no DNA on the victim’s body. Not surprising, considering the fountain.

“I’ve got the specifics of the wounds and cause of death in a file for each of you, so you can run the details through NCIC for a similar MO. As far as searching the apartments, where it appears the girls were taken, there are so many stray hairs in both LaToya’s and Juanita’s homes, we can’t begin to identify them all. Apparently these ladies had wide circles of friends, and we’ve found a dozen or more people for both of them who admit to being in their house. Sorting through all of that would take months and not put us one bit closer to the killers.”

“And we don’t have months.” Paul glanced at his watch.

“Detective Collins and I have theorized the frogs. We informed you of that, right?” Higgins nodded. “I’ve got ten teams who are staking out every park, fountain, and mud hole within a mile of the mission. We can’t know if Pravus will stay close when he dumps the body, but Dyson thinks it’s a probability.”

“You think he brought Juanita alive to that fountain, don’t you, Dr. Schaefer?” Paul asked the ME.

“Yes. She hadn’t been dead long when she went in the water. It’s my considered opinion that he killed her there.”

“So he’s not ‘dumping a body.’“ Paul couldn’t be cool while Higgins callously discussed the mission and LaToya. “He’s bringing
LaToya
, who is at this point still a
kidnap victim
, to the place he plans to kill her. If we cover every possible place, we have a chance to save her.”

“I know.” Higgins’s hazel eyes flashed with irritation. “Everyone who’s standing guard knows.”

“Just make sure they do.” Paul had led a lot of cases. He knew how to run an investigation every bit as well as Higgins. “If you get sloppy, then LaToya dies, Higgins.”

“I don’t get sloppy.” Higgins bristled and squared off against Paul.