Last Breath (21 page)

“Great.”

“Well, I’d agree, except for one thing.”

“What's that?” Matt asked.

“Our vie doesn't exist.”

Chapter 17

Matt and Chloe left the rectory together. Behind them Brendan sat thoughtfully slumped in a chair, and Lucy answered the incessantly ringing phones.

“You know that ‘c’ word we didn't want to use?” Matt asked, as they stood beside their cars. A hundred yards away, children were starting to spill out of the church's school, toward buses and waiting cars.

“Yeah?” Chloe faced him. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure. That was Phelan on the phone. They think they've got the killer of that guy I told you about.”

“The one with the blood in his trunk?”

“The same. Problem is, he doesn't exist.”

“Who? The killer?”

“Sorry. The victim. I’m heading back to the station to find out what the scoop is.”

“Let me know, will you?” Chloe's eyes suddenly looked pinched. “I’m getting a horrible feeling about this, Matt. A horrible feeling.”

“Me too. I don't like shadowboxing.”

In the Burglary-Homicide squad room, except for a couple of secretaries, no one was present but Phelan. And Phelan was looking like a man with major indigestion.

Not that that was an unusual expression in this room. Antacids populated every drawer, it sometimes seemed. Between stress and diet, every person who worked in the squad room was a candidate for an ulcer or a coronary.

“Okay,” said Phelan, when Matt had pulled up a seat, “it's like I told you. I’ve got two uniforms hunting for the perp, an addict known as Jerry ‘Squeaky’ Schurtz.”

“I know him. I never thought he'd go that far. His usual is burglary of an unoccupied dwelling.”

“Yeah, and a string of car break-ins. Well, this time the judge isn't going to send him to rehab.”

“Not likely. What about the victim?”

“That's where life gets interesting. No such social security number, no such address. No such name. I have NCIC running his prints, but that'll take days. In the meantime, the guy doesn't exist.”

“What about his credit cards?” Matt drummed his fingers on the desktop.

“Both accounts were opened in the last couple of months. No credit history.”

“Now wait. How do you get a credit card with no credit history?”

Phelan gave him a significant look. “I checked with the car rental company. They rattled around a bit, then somebody remembered that he'd shown them travel orders with the proper discount code on them. So he got a government discount. But nobody remembers who issued his travel orders. So we have no idea if he was military or civil service, or what agency he was claiming to be with.”

“Well, if he doesn't exist, I seriously doubt he was with the EPA.”

“Yeah.” Phelan sighed and leaned back in his chair until it squeaked. “I suppose at any minute I’ll get a call telling me to back the hell off. But it's kind of weird to prosecute a murder when you don't know who your victim is.”

“You know it's not impossible. You go to court for the murder of John Doe. It's not like we don't have the body.”

But Matt was imagining other ramifications, things like the body being claimed, the records being taken, a nameless faceless person with a squirrelly government ID telling them to drop the entire thing.

“I’m getting paranoid,” Phelan said after a moment. “Nobody's gonna call. It would make too big a deal out of it. The guy was probably some kind of dealer with a false ID. Nothing more than that.”

“Let's hope so.” But Matt knew it was more than that. Government travel orders could be faked, but why would some dealer or crook bother to do so? “The car rental company was sure the guy had travel orders?”

“They wouldn't have given him the discount otherwise.”

Then they were probably real. But he didn't say that to Phelan. He didn't want the other detective to find reasons to stop working the case.

That uncomfortable feeling was crawling up and down his spine again when Phelan's phone rang. There was a short conversation, then Phelan hung up and looked at him.

“They're booking Squeaky downstairs right now. They'll have him in interrogation in about thirty minutes.”

“Good. Let's have a shot at him.”

Squeaky Schurtz was a waste of humanity. At least that's how Matt always thought of him. At one time he'd been smart, a high school salutatorian, a college student with high grades, headed for success in engineering. He'd also had a solid family, until they'd given up on him.

That was why judges kept trying to rehabilitate him. Until cocaine had gotten its hooks into him, Squeaky had showed great promise and had never been in trouble.

After ten years on drugs, though, he was a pathetic figure, too thin, too dirty, and willing to do anything to get his fix.

Right now he was sullen and trembling. Needing another fix.

“Okay, Squeaky,” Phelan said, as he and Matt faced the no-longer-young man across the table in the interrogation room, “we know you slashed the guy's throat. Someone saw you come out of the motel room.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Come on,” Matt said. “You know it'll stand up. You left your prints all over the place.”

Squeaky rubbed his face, and a shudder passed through him. “I gotta get out of here, man.”

“You're never going to get out of here again.”

“I’m gonna be sick.”

“Then we'll take you to the hospital.”

Phelan looked at Matt. “Why bother? He's just going to get the death penalty anyway.”

Squeaky's head jerked. A wild look came to his bloodshot eyes. “I’ll go back to rehab. I swear.”

Matt shook his head and leaned forward. “Squeaky,” he said almost kindly, “why'd you do it? Why'd you cut the guy's throat?”

“He started to wake up, man!” Then, realizing what he'd admitted, Squeaky began to cry.

Matt waited until the man was reduced to sniveling. “Why'd you pick him?”

“Cuz he had money, man. Not like everybody else down there. He had money.”

“How'd you know that?”

“I saw it when he was paying for something at the store up the block from the motel. He had a thick wad in his wallet. So I followed him back and found out where he was staying.”

“Did you take his wallet?”

Squeaky wiped his eyes with his hands and nodded.

“What else was in it?”

“Papers. Credit card. I don't touch that stuff.”

“What'd you do with it?”

“I ditched it. In a Dumpster.”

Matt felt Phelan look at him, and knew what he was thinking: Oh, no, not a trash search.

Phelan asked, “Did you take anything else?”

“A laptop computer.”

“Where'd you pawn that?”

Squeaky told them. He even told them where he'd ditched the wallet.

“Too damn easy,” Phelan remarked, as he and Matt left the interrogation room. “Well, that's one mystery solved.”

But only one, Matt thought. Only one. He lucked out, though. Phelan sent him to hunt up the laptop. Maybe the guy was hoping that once they found that, they wouldn't need to look for the wallet.

Yeah.

The pawnbroker was expecting him. “I figured it was stolen,” the guy said. “So I only loaned him a fiver for it.” Without waiting to be asked, he pulled out the computer and the contract that Squeaky had signed.

“So why didn't you call us?” Matt asked.

The pawnbroker shrugged. “If I called you guys about everything, I’d never do anything else. I knew you'd show up eventually. People always report these things to the cops.”

“Yeah, well this time the guy was murdered for it.”

The pawnbroker leaned an elbow on his display case and looked fully at Matt for the first time. “No shit? I wouldn't have thought that asshole capable of murder.”

“Me neither.”

“Don't that beat all.” The pawnbroker looked bemused.

“If you thought it was stolen, why'd you take it?” Matt asked, picking up the laptop and contract.

“Simple. I figured some yuppie stockbroker would want it back. If I didn't take it, Squeaky mighta sold it somewhere else. To somebody who'd want to keep it.”

“A good citizen, huh?”

The broker shook his head. “A better one than you guys seem to think.”

Phelan was right, Matt thought as he walked out to his car. It was too easy.

Thus far.

Back at the station, he cracked open the laptop and powered it up. Phelan was out somewhere, which would at least give him time to explore the hard drive without interference. Maybe find out something useful. Something that tied in with the crucifixion.

Did covert operatives actually carry computers? He tried to shake the question away, reminding himself that they had no evidence of conspiracy and he was grasping at straws.

But the straws wouldn't go away, and he kept trying to grab them.

Of course, the very first thing that popped up as he was waiting for Windows to boot was a demand for a password. Hell.

He called for the computer expert. He used the things, but he hadn't even a vague idea how to hack them.

“Where's Lance?” the man with the cigar asked.

“Dead.” The other man dropped into one of the chairs and reached for the bottle of scotch, pouring himself two fingers into a hotel glass, no ice. “Maybe we should call off this operation.”

“Dead? Wait a minute. What happened?”

“All I know is, I couldn't get him on the phone, so I went to that fleabag motel and his room is closed off with police tape. I thought about going in to question the manager, but decided not to. I did, however, see a cop pull up, so I acted like a gawker and asked what happened. He was murdered.”

“Who? How?”

“What do I look like? The oracle at Delphi? How many questions do you want me to ask? I didn't want the cop to think we might be connected.”

The man with the cigar dropped his stogie into the ashtray and joined the other man at the table. “There's no reason to call the operation off. Nobody can connect Lance with us.”

“Maybe not.” But the second man didn't look terribly convinced. “The thing is, nobody knows where the cannon is right now. Or how to push him, if he lags.”

“Lance said the cannon was moving. That's all we need. If nothing happens to the priest in the next couple of days, we'll consider halting the operation.”

“Fair enough.” The second man took a huge swallow of his scotch. “But I don't mind telling you, I’ve got the worst feeling about this.”

“Don't get spooky on me. We've been planning this for years. And nobody, but nobody, can connect
us
with it.”

The other man sighed. “I don't like that crucifixion. I don't like it at all.”

“Neither did I … but Lance is dead now. So whoever pulled that stunt can't get any further. We're not linked to anybody. Now will you just relax?”

But relaxing was going to be the hardest thing in the world for a while to come. And they both knew it.

That damn priest was never alone, the killer thought in disgust. Everywhere he went, there was someone dogging his steps, half the time a cop. A good sniper rifle would have solved the problem, but that wasn't what the killer wanted.

He wanted to see the look in the priest's eyes when he knew he was going to die. He wanted the satisfaction of making sure the man knew exactly
why
he was going to die. Anything less would leave him feeling unsatisfied.

Well, there was one way to cut a priest out of the herd.

He had spent all day watching, waiting, fighting down his own nerves. It would have been so much nicer if he could get the priest away from everyone, to a quiet place somewhere. But that didn't look possible.

And he had to get the guy before he left town. That was what his friend had said. The priest was going to be leaving town in a couple of days. Hardly any time left. Hardly any at all.

He was getting so he could identify a lot of the people who were in and out of the rectory. The cute blonde who hung around too much. The man he was almost positive was a police detective. The secretary. The other priest. A few other people.

But mostly his quarry spent the afternoon locked away behind those rectory doors. So when the detective and the blond woman left, he waited a half hour or so, then walked casually over, and entered.

He was greeted by the secretary, a pleasantly smiling woman who asked if she could help him.

“I need to make confession,” he said, knowing that was one way to get a priest alone. Knowing that the other priest was away at the moment.

She should have said yes immediately. A priest, he had read, should drop everything to hear a confession. Nothing should stop him.

Except a secretary with salt-and-pepper hair and a warm smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “No priest is available at the moment. But if you'd like to wait in the church, Father Dominic should be back soon. I’ll send him over.”

“I was hoping to see Father Brendan.”

“I’m sorry,” she said firmly, “but he's not available.”

The hard knot of anger inside him tightened, and he struggled for a minute as his vision nearly turned red. But he caught himself, finally saying, “Thanks. I’ll come back another time.”

Then, feeling as if every muscle in his body had turned rigid, he about-faced and walked out.

He knew Brendan was there. He
knew
it. But if he tried to get past that secretary, the cops would be there in a minute. He had to find another way.

“Lucy,” Brendan said, “did I just hear you tell someone I couldn't listen to his confession?”

Lucy looked up at him, her lips tight. “You did, Father. I don't know who he was.”

“That doesn't make any difference. I’ll go after him.”

“Father!” Lucy snapped the word. “If you set one foot toward that door, I’m going to scream my head off and get every policeman on the property here to stop you.”

Brendan looked surprised, but also a little wounded. “Lucy —”

“No,” she said. “I’m telling you, Father, you're not going to hear that man's confession. I don't know who he is. And if he really wants to make a confession, he could wait a couple of minutes for Father Dominic. Now you go back to whatever you were doing.”

“Do I sign your paycheck?”