CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Night had fallen by the time they reached the church, but the dim purple of twilight hadn’t quite released its hold. The church stood, an abyssal shadow against the amethyst glow, beckoning Kate like a tomb.
“Take the side entrance into the vestry,” Kate told Marcus. “I’ll go in through the front into the nave.”
“Hell no,” Marcus replied. “We’re not splitting up.”
“Cox could try to escape through the vestry,” Kate argued. “I want us to be able to stop him if he tries that.”
“We’re not arguing about this. I agreed to come here ahead of the tactical team, but we’re not splitting up. That’s how he almost killed you the first time.”
Kate’s lips thinned, but the set of Marcus’s jaw told her further argument was pointless. He had bent as much as he was going to bend.
They stepped out of the car and approached the cathedral. A single car was parked in the lot, a Nissan Altima with plates that identified it as the property of EZ Rental, Baltimore. Cox was here.
The church’s website suggested a rather modest building, far less impressive than the two much larger cathedrals that served as co-headquarters for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Maybe that was true, but in the rapidly deepening night, St. Anselm’s loomed like a fortress. Gargoyles at the corners of the building leered down at Kate, their spouts protruding like tongues.
Kate checked her weapon, and pulled out her flashlight, then posted up on the right of the door. Marcus took the left and reached with his right hand. The handle turned easily, and he shared a sober look with Kate.
Unlocked.
Marcus lifted the hand holding his gun and extended three fingers. He lowered them one at a time, and Kate’s heartbeat quickened.
When his last finger lowered, Marcus threw the door open and rushed inside.
Kate followed, and their beams crisscrossed the nave as they moved toward the altar.
The seal of Anselm of Canterbury watched them with stony eyes, not judging, merely observing.
In his right hand, he held a shepherd’s crook, in his left, an open Bible.
His bald pate gleamed in the reflection of their flashlights.
On either side, the pale shadows of the church’s former patrons still showed on the stone wall.
Above them, the pipes of the massive organ rippled like scales across the sanctuary.
“Clear,” Marcus called. “But there are footprints leading to the altar.”
Kate followed his eyes and saw the footprints, dark stains of mud imprinted on the marble tile floor. They stopped in front of the table at the head of the sanctuary, half-moons of toe marks showing where Cox had knelt to pray.
Kate ascended the altar while Marcus moved to the right toward the door that led to the choir chamber.
He waited there, sweeping his flashlight across the floor while Kate checked behind the pipe organ and inside the small orchestra pit.
Polished brass trumpets and oiled maple woodwinds reflected dully in her light, but there was no sign of the Lawgiver.
“Sanctuary’s clear,” Kate said.
Her voice echoed in the empty chamber. The church was set well back from the road, and a row of poplars muffled the sound of passing cars. She was reminded once more of a tomb and resisted an urge to look back at the ghosts of St. Simon and St. Jude flanking the stoic St. Anselm.
She joined Marcus, and the two of them entered the choir chamber together.
The room was larger than Kate expected, about forty feet long and twenty feet wide.
Rows of benches occupied about a quarter of that space, providing seats for twenty or so singers.
A whiteboard in front of the benches was still marked with the list of hymns planned for the past Sunday’s mass.
Someone named Judy had made her debut on the pipe organ.
Good luck! was printed in bright blue underneath.
The opposite wall contained a semi-recessed closet from which hung white robes trimmed in gold. One side contained much shorter robes for the children of the choir. Kate moved her flashlight in a steady arc over those. The gold thread winked back at her like starlight. There was no sign of Cox.
Marcus moved quietly toward the other side, where the adult robes hung. Her flashlight beam reflected off his face, revealing the flat look she'd seen earlier when he skirted just around, suggesting they kill Cox.
She stepped toward him and caught his eyes.
They flicked toward her, and the flat look softened, then hardened into the professional stare she’d seen time and again hunting for bad guys.
His body remained coiled like a snake, ready to strike the instant the need arose, but he no longer carried murderous intent on his face.
Kate relaxed slightly and held her handgun on the closet. Marcus reached forward with his left hand, just grasping the edge of the robes. With a swift jerk, he moved them out of the way.
Nothing. The closet was empty.
Marcus sighed in irritation. “That leaves the vestry.”
Kate didn’t scold him for his refusal to split up and go that way from the beginning. Considering the look on his face a moment ago, that might have ended badly.
She led the way out of the choir room, back into the echoing halls of the nave and the passionless gaze of dead saints.
Anxiety wriggled in through the back of her mind.
Had he made his escape? Had he come and gone already?
Maybe he’d simply stopped to pray and slipped away when he heard them arrive.
Maybe Kate had made a mistake insisting that they go now and not wait for the tactical team who could have secured the exits and surrounded the building.
A noise came from the right of the sanctuary, behind the door that led to the vestry. Kate whirled that direction, handgun extended.
Marcus beat her to the punch, sprinting across the nave with a feline grace that showed his special operations training. Kate ran after him, twenty feet behind. He threw the door open with such force that it swung wide and slammed shut behind him.
“Marcus!” she called. “Wait!”
Another noise caught her attention, a deep, rumbling echo that rattled her bottom teeth.
She turned toward the sound to see the pipes on the right side of the organ bowing toward her.
With a sound like skin tearing, the stone of the wall on that side fell away, and the massive brass cylinders plummeted to the ground.
Kate threw herself to the left, narrowly avoiding being crushed by one of the enormous fixtures. They landed with a resounding crash that speared her ears like spikes driven into flesh. She cried out, but her voice was drowned in the rippling echo.
“Kate? Kate!”
The voice was Marcus’s. It echoed from behind the vestry door, which was now blocked by a pile of fallen organ pipes and stone rubble. The door shook as Marcus tried to open it.
“I’m all right,” Kate called back. “The pipe organ failed. Go around the outside.”
“I can’t,” Marcus called. “It’s locked.”
A chill ran down Kate’s spine. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and another voice called to her, one she’d dreaded hearing ever since Winters told her of the explosion at Northbridge SMU, one she knew she would hear eventually.
“Hello, Kate.”
Kate turned toward the voice and saw him, coming through a hidden door at the hem of St. Anselm’s robes. That, apparently, was how maintenance workers and tuners accessed the organ’s array of pipes.
It was how the Lawgiver made his entrance into the House of God.
She spun toward him, handgun aimed steadily at his chest. “Elijah Cox! You are under arrest!”
Cox smiled and lifted his hands, fingers splayed.
He wore his priest’s vestments: a white linen robe and scarf and a deep purple stole draped over a chasuble of the same color.
The chasuble was decorated with gold filigree that formed the shape of the cross at the end of each sleeve.
With his hands upraised as they were now, the crosses were displayed upside down. Kate found that fitting.
“I am unarmed,” Cox informed her, approaching slowly. “I only want to talk.”
“I am armed,” Kate said, flicking the safety of her weapon off. “And we’re done talking. On your knees now.”
Cox continued to approach. “Surely you must see the inevitability of this, Kate. Surely you must know that our fates are entwined together. This was ordained by God. Who are either of us to deny the will of the creator?”
As he drew closer, Kate saw the gleam in his eyes, the gray of his cheeks, the deep crimson flush on the bones that made the pallor all the more stark. He looked sick, but it wasn’t physical ailment.
He’s getting worse. He’s growing more insane as time goes on.
She pulled the slide back on her handgun. “Stop. Don’t make me shoot you.”
From behind the vestry, Marcus called, “Shoot him! God damn it, Kate! Shoot him!”
“You could shoot me, Kate,” Cox said, continuing his slow, inexorable approach. “As I said, I’m unarmed. I’m an old man, older now that I’ve suffered at the hands of the authorities of men. You could kill me. You could say that I attacked you and left you no choice.”
Kate shook her head, though only Cox could see her.
She lifted her voice so Marcus could hear her say, “You’re not getting the easy way out, Cox.
You’re going to face justice for your crimes.
You’re going to stand in front of a jury and hear them sentence you for what you’ve done. God damn it, on your knees!”
Cox stopped. He didn’t go to his knees, but he stood still, ten feet away from Kate, hands still upraised.
He gave her a beatific smile and said in a soft, gentle voice, “Kate. You know that God has called us to die together. You know that He’s called us to meet here, right now, in His sanctuary, to absolve the sins of the world. ”
“We’re done,” Kate said. “On your knees now.”
Cox sighed and looked down. “Oh, Kate. Why must you struggle so? Surely it’s hard for you to kick against the pricks.”
“On. Your. Kn—”
Cox lunged forward. His hand was a blur as it swung for her wrist. She squeezed the trigger, but his hand collided with hers before she could complete the pull. The gun flew across the nave and skittered underneath the pews.
Cox slammed into her with the force of a bull, throwing her to the ground and landing on top of her. His hands found her throat and squeezed, cutting off the scream she tried to release.
She stared into Cox’s eyes and found no trace of the suave, poised Lawgiver. All that was left was the primal, murderous hate of the serial killer.