Ten Plagues

“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.