Last Breath Read online

  “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?”

  Lucy looked disgusted. “Don't even try that with me. If you want to fire me, go ahead. But you're not going out there.”

  Brendan had the grace to look ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

  “You ought to be. I know this is hard on you, Father, but it's nowhere near as hard as it will be if you get killed. So park your hard head at your desk and take care of the paperwork.”

  Brendan suddenly smiled. “I would never guess you've raised six children.”

  “Eleven, if you count my priests. And that's what all of you are, Father. You're children.”

  “Children?”

  “Most definitely. The Church spoils you all rotten. Your job is to keep your head in the spiritual clouds. My job is to take care of the practicalities. Now go do your job and let me do mine.”

  Suitably chastened, Brendan returned to his office, where he was working on a pastoral letter.

  But it wasn't the pastoral letter he thought about. It had been a long while since he'd really thought about the suicide of that young man Tom just before he resigned from the navy. But for the past few days, ever since Crowell had leveled that accusation at him, he'd been thinking about the young man more and more often.

  He still couldn't remember his last name. That sorely troubled him, because for some time he had felt that he'd failed in his counseling of Tom. The young man was wrestling with his homosexuality, wrestling with the fear that he might have been discovered by some of his fellow sailors, fearing he was about to be thrown out of the navy. Fearing that his father and mother would disown him if they found out.

  But there had been something else, too. Something else that had been referred to upon occasion. The main thing he remembered was the genuine fear that would come into Tom's eyes when he alluded to something he'd stumbled into.

  At the time, the bits and pieces had seemed jumbled and paranoid, and Brendan had thought the young man was mixing his fears in his mind, viewing some classified operation in light of his other fears.

  Now he wasn't so sure.

  “The weather's beautiful up here in Norfolk,” Dianna told Chloe over the phone. “Springtime in Virginia. Wonderful,” the part-time investigator added.

  “I’m glad you're having such a great time,” Chloe said drily.

  “Fabulous. I’ve looked at enough microfiche to blind me. But I found your guy.”

  Chloe's heart quickened. “And?”

  “You ready to write?”

  Chloe was already pulling a pad and pen from her purse. “Go ahead.”

  “Petty Officer First Class Thomas Wayne Humboldt. Died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on November 5, two and a half years ago. Body discovered early morning November 6 in his off-base apartment by a roommate who'd been out late. Roommate had an unimpeachable alibi, and the wound was consistent with insertion of the barrel of a pistol in the mouth by the victim. The weapon was a twenty-two caliber pistol owned by the victim.”

  “Twenty-two?”

  “Yup. Seems like an odd gun for a sailor to have, but that's what it was.”

  Chloe felt her heart skip a beat. Steve King had been killed by a twenty-two also. A connection? “Can you get the ballistic analysis for me?”

  “Why? It's an open-and-shut case.”

  “Get me the ballistics, Dianna. Okay?”

  She sighed. “So much for my nice drive through the country. Okay. Will do. Now, do you want me to interview the roommate? Assuming I can find him?”

  “Yes. And I want you to talk to the family.”

  “Oh, man, you know how I love to do that.”

  “It's been a while. They'll be calmer now.”

  “Sure. Right. And just what is it you expect me to find out from these people?”

  “Anything they think they know about their son's state of mind. And what happened to that pistol.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks, Dianna. How soon can you get me the ballistics?”

  “How do you want them? By fax?”

  “For a start. My home fax. I may need you to have the M.E. send copies to the Tampa PD.”

  “Why don't I just do that at the same time? I’ll see if I can get them to express a copy. Detective Diel, right?”

  “Right.”

  When she hu
ng up the phone, Chloe realized her heart was racing like a trip-hammer. Two deaths, linked by an anonymous caller. Two cases of young men meeting their deaths by a shot from a twenty-two. Such pistols weren't uncommon, but they were rarely a weapon of choice except for women and children. The coincidence was just too great.

  Reaching for the phone again, she called Matt.

  Chapter 18

  Stuart Wheelwright, the head of the Burglary-Homicide squad, looked over his glasses at Matt. “Run that by me again. You think there's a connection between a two-year-old suicide and the crucifixion at St. Simeon's?”

  “There's a connection of some sort. Start with the phone calls the diocese has been receiving, claiming that the two cases are linked. Add the threat against the pastor at St. Simeon's. And finally, account for the fact that both the suicide and the murder were committed with a twenty-two caliber pistol.”

  “Fine. You still don't need to go to Virginia.”

  “I want to interview the family of the suicide. Find out what they know.”

  “About what, for God's sake? The guy killed himself. He was despondent. The case here was a murder. How do you think the parents of the suicide are going to know anything? And if you think it's the same weapon, then use the telephone, call the family, and find out what the hell happened to the gun. That's all you need to know.”

  “I think they might know something more.”

  “About what?” Wheelwright's impatience was palpable. “Look, we've got our hands full right now. I can't afford to have you chasing a wild goose. You use the telephone if you need to talk to those people, and you keep your eye on the main ball, which is finding out who's threatening that priest. At this point, I don't care how long it takes to catch whoever crucified that victim as long as we keep it from happening to the priest. My God, the headlines! It's already bad enough. You can't do the job in Virginia.”

  “I will be doing the job.”

  Wheelwright shook his head. “Nothing you can't do from here by phone. We need the ballistics anyway. Without the ballistics, it doesn't matter what happened to the suicide's gun.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “So fine. You give me a match on ballistics, and we'll talk about going to Virginia. But not before.”