Ten Plagues

There was a visible battle inside of Paul and finally the kindhearted, worried pastor faded away, replaced by the police detective, eyes sharp, head nodding. “You’re right. Sorry. Wasting time. As soon as you’re ready to go back to work, we can sit in on Melody’s autopsy.”

Keren looked at him for a long time. She didn’t know quite what to make of his seesawing manner. As soon as she had some spare time, maybe she’d talk to him about his Pastor Jekyll and Detective Hyde personalities. For now, she just headed down the long hall again.

“Why doesn’t he call?” Paul groused. “We found the body at my place yesterday. Another woman disappeared the same day. Where has he stashed the latest vic?”

Vic? Keren glanced over her shoulder, but he was staring angrily at his phone, as if he could glare it into ringing.

“It’s flies this time, isn’t it?” Keren asked.

“Yeah, the fourth plague is flies. He can have a ball with that.”

They reached Keren’s apartment. The door swung open when she touched the knob. She immediately snatched her hand back. She heard a high-pitched whine. Then she smelled death.

Paul pulled out his handkerchief and gingerly pulled the door shut before more than a handful of flies could escape.

“I think we found Katrina Hardcastle.”

They backed away from the door. It was only after they were across the hall that they spotted the sign hanging over the door.

“Pestis ex Musca,” Keren read aloud, thinking, Caldwell knows where I live.

Paul translated: “The plague of flies.”

Keren swallowed hard then forced herself to lean against the wall across from her door, and called O’Shea.

A glance at Paul showed he was in pure cop mode. Keren thought this was more the time for the kindly pastor.

Keren left the autopsy with a headache she decided to blame on the chemicals in the lab. Dr. Schaefer escorted them out to make a few final points, complete with eight-by-ten glossies.

“This one is definitely different than the others,” Dr. Schaefer said with a considerable amount of gallows enthusiasm. “Her wounds are postmortem and they’re minimal, no bleeding. I suspect the blood on the shroud is his. We’re doing DNA testing.”

“We know who did this now.” Paul picked up one of Dr. Schaefer’s gruesome snapshots with no apparent emotion. “The test doesn’t help us find him.”

“DNA testing will be useful in court,” O’Shea reminded him.

“She had a skull fracture and a broken neck. Her right arm is crushed. There is a compound fracture of the tibia and femur, and massive trauma, particularly down the whole right side of her body. I’d say she either fell a long way, or, more likely, she was hit. Hard.”

Dr. Schaefer was making Keren sick, but there was no escape from the report. “There’s shattered glass imbedded in her skin. I’ll bet it proves to be the kind of glass used for headlights. She died instantly.”

“He ran her down?” O’Shea asked.

The ME looked up and nodded. “That’s what it looks like, Mick. I can pinpoint the time of death on her more exactly than on Juanita, too. She never spent time in a pool of an indeterminate temperature.” Dr. Schaefer considered carefully. “I’d say, judging by the rigor and the extent of decomposition, she died Sunday night.”

“Sunday night?” Keren asked. “That’s when he was trying to kill LaToya.”

“That’s when he ran scared from a crime scene.” Paul looked as calm as if he were figuring a math problem in his head. “He hit you with his car, Keren. Maybe he hit someone else, too.”

O’Shea said, “Makes sense. That would explain why you don’t know her, Paul. It was strictly chance. That may be why he killed her in such a different way.”

“And he made up for neglecting you,” Keren added, “by dumping Melody at your house.”

“Maybe it was different, but satisfying just the same,” O’Shea speculated. “So he decides to play the next one the same way. Pick a victim at random—you don’t know Katrina Hardcastle either—and make his point with the dump site.”

“So will the next one come to your place, O’Shea?” Keren asked. “Now that Paul and I are both out of a place to live.”

“Not me,” Paul said. “For now I live at the hospital, and as soon as LaToya wakes up, I’m going to bunk in the homeless shelter.”

“Which, being a homeless shelter,” Keren said, “is exactly the same as being out of a place to live, which I just said.”

“When I get time, I’ll convert part of the office into living quarters.” He sounded lighthearted, but then his voice cooled until he showed no emotion at all. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep in my place for a while.”

Keren heard him earlier referring to Melody as the vic. Caldwell was doing more damage than he knew by pushing Paul away from his peaceful life of faith.

Then she thought of her apartment. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sleep in my place ever again.”