A Righteous Kill (6 page)

Luca noted the suspect’s “average” specs on his legal pad, more than a little disappointed that she didn’t have any features to describe. Wasn’t her fault. But still. He didn’t forget the hitch in her voice when she’d mentioned her captivity. They’d get there. Just not yet.

He set his phone on the small rolling table by her head. He’d told her that he was recording this, but she hadn’t seemed to notice.

“You asked me to start at the beginning, didn’t you?” She squinted as if it helped her go further back. “After about seven I was at St. Andrew’s helping Father McMurtry and Father Michael get started with preparations for the Christmas pageant this year. Knox and I usually go a week or so before Thanksgiving to get set up. Sometimes it takes us that long.”

“Knox?” Luca tried not to put as much interest into the question as he felt.

“We’ve been going since we were young. I design and paint the sets and Father Michael builds them. He says that doing carpenter work makes him feel like a true apprentice to Christ.” She smiled fondly.

Luca wrote:
Father Michael – St. Andrew’s Catholic Church

“Then what does this Knox do?” he asked.

“He bakes,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Excuse me?” She visibly fought the effects of the sedatives, but it was unsure at this point who was winning. At least she wasn’t slurring her speech anymore.

“He makes all the pies and muffins and coordinates the menu with Father McMurtry and the church ladies.”

Luca rolled his eyes. “And Knox is
what
to you, exactly?” Jesus, why couldn’t he let this go?

“He’s the brother closest to me in age,” she explained. “We’ve kinda always done everything together.”

He shouldn’t feel as relieved as he did, either.

Pull it together, man
. God, he felt like a rookie. Time to get back to the important stuff before she needed another dose of pain meds and they lost her for the night.

“Okay so, Knox is out of town. Who was there with you last night?”

“Just Father Michael and I, at first. We drank a glass of wine while we brainstormed some ideas about the set. Then I drew a couple rough drafts. Father McMurtry came in later.” She paused. “He seemed upset or distracted about something, but was reluctant to talk about what.”

Luca added Father McMurtry’s name to his page and slashed two lines beneath it.

“Do you think that either priest could have been your attacker?” he asked.

“Hell no,” Rown spoke up for the first time. “Father McMurtry christened most of us. And Father Michael, he’s just a good man. There’s no way that—”

Luca didn’t have to say anything. Just cut Rown a look that spoke volumes.

The fellow agent had the courtesy to look ashamed. He knew better than to compromise any part of an investigation. It became more and more obvious he was a big brother tonight rather than an FBI agent.

“He’s right,” Hero admitted. “We’ve known Father McMurtry forever. And, Father Michael is newer, but he’s done so much for St. Andrew’s, for the community in general. There’s just no way. Besides, I probably would have recognized their voices.”

Luca and Rown shared a look. They both knew that meant nothing. But he read a stubborn reluctance in the other agent’s eyes.

“Did anything happen at the church that might have seemed strange or out of place?”

She shook her head and then winced as though it caused her pain. “No, Father McMurtry got over whatever it was and helped us finish the bottle of wine. I left at about eleven.”

Making note of the time, Luca didn’t look at her as he asked, “Where did you go after that?”

“I’d planned on working all night, so I stopped at the gas station on the corner of Lomond and Broadview because they sell those organic green-tea energy drinks that don’t have the dangerous stuff in them.”

Luca smirked. He’d read those articles too. It’s why he just stuck with coffee. Coffee probably never killed anyone. He wished like hell he had another cup now. He looked toward the garbage where he’d thrown his last cup and shuddered.

Maybe not.

He took a deep breath, not looking forward to his next question. “I want you to answer me honestly, without any fear of legal reprisal. You said you planned on working all night…”

Hero nodded, and Rown un-folded his arms and put his fists at his sides.

“Would you, by any chance work in the sex-trade industry?”

“Dammit, Ramirez,” Rown growled.

Hero blinked a few times, as though she were thinking about the question very carefully. Which made him wonder… it was a pretty simple ‘yes or no’ question. “It’s okay,” she said finally. “You have to ask right? Because all those other poor women did.”

“Right.” Luca sat back and tried to look non-judgmental. There was a part of him wound tight as a fucking bow-string. The thought of this woman in any of the salacious situations that seemed to take life of their own in his mind’s eye made the coffee turn sour in his stomach. But that dark, evil part of him, the one he never could truly rid himself of. The one beaten into him by his father that stained his immortal soul—just wanted to know what her rates were.

She took longer to answer than Rown obviously expected. “I’ve never in my life been paid for
sexual
favors. But…”

Rown turned several different colors of the red/purple spectrum. His fists, though, were pure white. “
But
?” he hissed through clenched teeth.

She swung her eyes to her brother in a ponderous, unfocused way. “I’m no Catholic-school virgin,” she said with sisterly derision. “
None
of us are.”

Rown looked away and mumbled something foul.

She rolled her head back toward Luca. His fists were turning white too. But he kept them wrapped tightly around his pen and legal pad. “I worked as a nude model for a sculpting class more than a few times, and was commissioned to pose nude for a professional painting after that.” Her shoulder lifted. “It was no big deal, and I’m not ashamed of it.”

“Do you have the name of the artist?” His voice was tighter than it should be.

“Julia Danforth. She’s local.” Hero shrugged. “We had a short-lived, casual thing in college, and we keep in touch sometimes.”

Rown and Luca both stared at her with slack jaws for a moment. Luca was pretty certain the thoughts going through their heads were vastly different.

At least, he hoped so.

Luca recovered first, shifting uncomfortably. “What about pictures, could anything be up on the internet?”

“I can’t fucking hear this.” Rown turned away, but stopped short of leaving her bedside.

Her brows furrowed. “No. I’ve never had nude photographs taken of me. At least to my knowledge. I walk around my apartment naked sometimes, especially when it’s sunny out. I have a lot of windows so I guess it’s a possibility… but I don’t have a lot of people close by—”

“Ew, Hero. God!” Rown turned back, looking more like a disgusted teenager than a thirty-something special agent.

“What?
You’re
not there. I’m alone. Usually. Tell me you never walk around your apartment naked.”

The smug face she directed at her brother made Luca smile in spite of himself. He couldn’t help but like her. He choked back a laugh when he saw the blush beneath Rown’s already ginger complexion.

A sudden and absurd gladness seized his breath and surprised the hell out of him. Thank God she’d survived. Even in the aftermath of her ordeal, she was so full of light and vivacious personality.

Of life.

It would have been the most terrible crime to snuff that light out. He was going to bring down the man who’d attempted to. He made a quick and silent vow as he stared into her sparkling eyes. Her smug expression and half-smile faded as she stared right back. He didn’t know what she was thinking, but he got the distinct impression that she’d read him like an open book.

They’d strayed from their purpose. He broke eye contact and poised his pen against the paper, willing the intensity of the moment to pass. “What happened after you left the gas station, Ms. Connor?”

“It’s Katrova-Connor, and I never left the gas station,” she said. “At least, not on my own. He took me from the parking lot.”

Luca shifted, trying to hide his excitement. Circling the name of the gas station, he wrote:
Subpoena parking-lot camera.

“This is where I need as many details as you can remember.” He leaned forward. “Start from when you walked out the door of the service station. Which way did you turn?”

Hero’s nose scrunched, and she looked to the right. She studied the machine monitoring her vitals with a stony silence. Though her affect never varied from serene, her blood pressure rose a quick ten points.

“I turned left—er—west. I was parked on the west side of the building, not by the pumps. I didn’t get any fuel, just an energy drink and one of those gluten-free raw coconut cookies that they had.”

Rown rolled his eyes but stayed silent.

“I got to my car and opened the door when— when he called my name.”

This was important news. Luca wrote:
Attack not random. Perp had previous knowledge of victim. How much more did he know than her name?

“I turned around. I saw a man coming toward me, but he was wearing a black hood and it was so dark. There were no lights on that side of the station, and he was back-lit by the gas pump area.”

She looked at the bandages on her hands which rested in her lap. “To be honest, I didn’t really pay attention as he approached. I put my cookie in my purse. I figured it was one of my students, a customer, or an acquaintance that recognized me and wanted to chat. That happens sometimes. I was preoccupied with thoughts of work and being hungry. I was a little impatient.” She shrugged. “I didn’t even try to make eye contact or anything. I thought if I was aloof, whoever it was would just say a quick ‘hi’ and I could be on my way.”

Her eyes sought Luca’s. Apparently, she hadn’t missed his eyebrow raise when she’d said
customer.
“When I said I had to work, I meant I had some pottery to throw. I have a wheel at my apartment and I do my best work at night. The Christmas season is my busiest time of year. Plus, I have a downtown gallery show in December, and I wanted to finish some pieces for that.”

“I understand,” Luca nodded. He hoped his skepticism didn’t show on his face. As much as a part of him wanted to believe her, the possibility that she actively hid the truth from her brother and family still existed. “Can you describe what the man was wearing? Was it a hooded sweatshirt or coat? Possibly with a brand?”

She chewed her lip. “At first, I thought it was a duster or a long coat, you know, but it ended up being a black cassock.”

“A what?”

Rown cleared his throat. “A cassock is the robe of a Catholic cleric. Some of them don’t have hoods. Some of them do.” He looked at the two names so far on Luca’s legal pad and frowned. “It’s pretty easy to get your hands on one. You don’t have to be a priest.”

Luca wrote the word next to what little description he had. “So, the hooded man called your name and walked toward you. Then what?”

“He punched me.” Instead of pain or fear, Hero’s voice conveyed sheer amazement. “Like, in the
face.”
She lifted her chin where an angry bruise was gaining some vibrant color. It stood out even more against her white skin. “I’m shocked it didn’t break my jaw, but it knocked me out.”

Luca flinched for her. “You lost consciousness?”

She nodded. “When I woke up, I was in the back of a long van, you know, like those child-molester vans? But without any seats.”

Luca smiled at her descriptive metaphor. He wrote:
Knowledge of fighting techniques? Boxing? Accurate punch to the jaw causing a jolt to the brain and spine resulting in instant but unstable unconsciousness.

Also known as “the button.” This guy took risks.

“Can you remember any details about the van, or its interior? The route you took to the river?”

“There were no windows—” She halted. Her breath rattled out of her lungs as tremulously as a long-time smoker’s would.

Luca waited patiently. This was always the hardest part of a victim interrogation. His humanity would war with his duty as an investigator. Forcing a victim to revisit their crime sometimes felt like perpetrating it. Alternately, wading through the often unreliable memory of a mind that was actively trying to suppress a trauma had to be the most maddening part of his job. Either way, he struggled.

Then, he’d feel like a complete douche for even considering his own frustrations.

“Take your time,” he said.

“I was already tied up when I opened my eyes,” she blurted. “My arms were stretched wide and—my wrists and ankles were tied. It was too dark to see anything.” She started moving her feet, as if to prove to herself that she could. “I didn’t believe it, at first. I thought for a second that it was some strange sort of prank or whatever. Like, someone set me up for that cable show where they scare the shit out of you and laugh about it. I didn’t mean to be naive, but you just don’t want to accept it… not when it’s happening to you.”

Luca nodded. “Did he say anything?”

“He wouldn’t shut the hell up,” she said roughly.

Rown moved to her shoulder, laying his hand on her arm. She leaned into him, and then winced as though the movement was too much for her stomach wound.

“Do you remember what was said?”

“No, it sounded like it was all in Latin. Kind of sing-song like the prayers Father Michael does at church.”

Conversational knowledge of Latin?
Luca scratched onto his pad. When he looked up, Hero was staring at him with such hope and intensity, it stunned him into stillness.

“Did anyone find my purse?” she asked with absolute solemnity.

“Not that I know of, not at the scene anyway.” Luca had been e-mailed the evidence list from the Crime Scene Unit a few hours back. “We’ll track down your car and check in that vicinity.”

A tear finally escaped the corner of Hero’s right eye. Luca tracked its path as it cut over the curve of her high cheekbone and angled down her wobbly chin.