CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Got something back from the court,” Whitaker said. “Looks like Michelle Santos wasn’t always Michelle Santos.”
She was mid-bite when Whitaker delivered the news, so it was Marcus who said, “Oh yeah?”
“Yep. Turns out Miss Santos was once known as Maricela Santana.” He waited for them to be surprised, and when they weren’t, he slumped slightly. “Right. I forget you guys aren’t locals. This was a big case when I moved here.”
He set his laptop in front of them and showed them the headline.
HOSPITAL NURSE ‘SUFFOCATES OWN MOTHER WITH PILLOW’.
Marcus chuckled at that. “I like how they put those tiny little quotation marks. That way they can claim they made it clear it was a quote. They weren’t saying she did it, just reporting what others had said. ”
Kate scanned the article. According to the blurb, Maricela Santana, thirty-eight, was accused of suffocating her mother Jelena, sixty-three, with a decorative pillow on the couch of their home in Hyde Park.
Though she had called to report that her mother wasn’t breathing, investigators grew suspicious when medical examiners placed the time of death at two hours prior to her phone call and noted the body had been moved to a sitting position.
Further examination discovered fibers in the elder Santana’s lungs that matched the throw pillow.
“So, this is another justice killing,” Kate said.
“Sure, looks like the killer thought that,” Whitaker agreed.
Kate raised an eyebrow. “You don’t agree?”
He shrugged. “I’d bet my badge Hammond killed Gene Parker, but I wasn’t involved with the Santana case. I read about it in the news, and the media definitely condemned her, but I don’t know for sure myself.”
“Any reason why you’d doubt it?” Marcus asked.
“Well, Jelena was old. I mean, not that old, but she had been ill for a long time. Lupus, kidney failure, cancer: she was an invalid at the time of her death. My grandfather was on supplemental oxygen for the last nine years of his life, and… I never would have done anything, but I thought sometimes that maybe shutting off his oxygen would be a mercy.”
“To quote a sometimes-funny sitcom my wife likes,” Marcus said, “‘Cool motive. Still murder.’”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I said I would never do it.
But maybe Maricela felt differently. She was a nurse, so maybe she had to see a lot of old people suffer and hear them talk about how they wish they had been allowed to die.
Maybe she saw her mother suffering the same fate and didn’t want to let that happen to her. ”
“Well, we’re not investigating Jelena Santana’s death,” Marcus said. “We’re investigating Maricela Santana’s death. And now we know for a fact that this killer is going after people who break the sixth commandment.”
Kate’s phone rang. “The medical examiner’s office,” she told them.
She’d called the office on the way to the precinct about the murder weapon and left a voicemail. She answered and put the phone on speaker.
“So, your murder weapon,” the ME said, “was a pugio. In both cases, although I can’t officially say so until I file the report on Maricela Santana.”
Kate frowned. “It was a what?”
“A pugio. Or something very much like it.”
“Take pity, doctor, on us poor uneducated souls,” Marcus said, “and tell us what a pugio is.”
“It’s a Roman dagger. It was carried as a sidearm by Roman shoulders and supplemented the gladius.
It was notable for being much shorter than a gladius—blade about six or seven inches long—but just as wide, over two inches in most examples, and sometimes as wide as three inches at the base.
Like the gladius, it was a thrusting weapon and would be used…
Well, pretty much exactly like the killer used it, for short, swift thrusts to the heart or other vital organs. ”
“Could it be a reference to Jesus?” Whitaker asked. “He was stabbed in the side, right?”
“Yes, but with a spear,” Kate said, “and he was also nailed through his hands and feet. Some of the commandment killings have featured allusions to the stigmata, but not this one.”
“I might have an answer for why this weapon was chosen,” the ME said.
“Go ahead.”
“Because it’s very good at stabbing.”
Kate lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, knives tend to be good at that.”
“Some knives,” the ME said. “Others aren’t very good.
Kitchen knives, for example, aren’t very good at stabbing.
They’re excellent at slicing, shitty at thrusting.
When we get bodies that died from kitchen knives, the wounds are always ragged, like they were torn open.
The killers are usually caught because they slice the shit out of their hands when they use that weapon to stab. ”
Kate recalled Rosalyn Pierce with her bloody hands, her husband Donald with his baker’s dozen of ragged wounds. “So, this weapon does the job better. Cleanly.”
“It does. It’s a perfect choice if you’re a smaller, weaker person who wants to quickly dispatch a larger, stronger person.”
Now that was something. “Are you saying our killer was smaller and weaker than the victims?”
“Yes. The upward angle of the thrust was intentional, to pierce the heart, but in order to get it right, the killer would either have had to drop to their knees or be shorter than five-foot-two.”
“And weaker?”
“That’s just a guess, I suppose, but the blade was kept very sharp. The flesh is separated almost like sushi. No tears at all.”
All three of them grimaced at that analogy. Whitaker reached for a cigarette, found his pocket empty, and let his hand fall.
“I see. Thank you, doctor. Anything else we should know?”
“Well… I’m debating whether to say this or not, but I’ll just give you the information and let you guys be the detectives.
This killer perfectly located the heart’s left ventricle.
It’s actually really hard to do that. In general, unless you have good martial arts training or medical training, it’s difficult to stab someone in the heart.
There are a lot of ribs and other organs in the way.
The killer bypassed the ribs, but they still had to find an angle to not just pierce the heart but find the thickest and most powerful part of it and open it up to cause death within seconds.
It could have been an accident. If you’re right-handed, and you, say, grab someone’s shoulder and thrust under their ribcage with a pugio, there’s at least a solid shot you’ll find the heart, but for both murders to be so perfect, I’m going for the killer knew exactly where to put the blade. ”
Kate nodded. “Thank you, doctor. I appreciate it.”
“Sure thing.” He paused for a second, then said, “Hey, I mean… This isn’t really a bad thing, right? Killing killers?”
Kate blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Never mind. Yeah, stupid thing to say.”
He hung up, leaving the law enforcement officers to process what he’d said. Marcus scoffed. “Vigilantism is in fashion, I guess.”
“This is what I was worried about with the Donald Pierce killing,” Kate said. “Cox might not need disciples to continue his work. He’s inspiring others. Making them think that he could be right and these people deserve to die.”
“The who killing?” Whitaker asked.
“Guy got caught by his wife getting head from another woman,” Marcus said. “Wife went berserk and stabbed him to death. Wrote, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ on the kitchen wall with his blood.”
“Damn,” Whitaker said. “Hell, hath no fury, I guess.” He scratched the top of his head.
“Not to be contrary, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Cox is inspiring people, does it?
I mean, I can see a woman being upset to see that.
As for Hammond and Santos? I’m not advocating it, but people aren’t very happy when killers get away with murder.
It could be Cox, but it could also just be people.
Cox doesn’t have a monopoly on the world’s evil. ”
“I agree,” Marcus said, a little too firmly.
Kate pressed her lips together and decided to let the argument go for now.
Besides, the ME hadn’t killed anyone, and he’d given them some very good leads on their killer.
He might privately think Hammond and Santos got what was coming to them, but that wasn’t the same as cheering on the vigilante responsible.
Still, he’d thought it important enough to say something to them out loud.
It just bothered her. People should want justice, but not this way.
Not the way Cox wanted justice. It was just wrong, and it made her mad to know that there were some people, probably a lot of people, who saw Cox’s killings and those of his disciples as justified.
“What about the ciphers?” Marcus asked Kate. “Did you get anything from those?”
Kate shook her thoughts off and replied, “It started the same as the first scene. Thou shalt not kill followed by an explanation that the killer was delivering God’s justice.
There was another rant, briefer this time, about how the ‘magistrates’ had been corrupted by Satan into perverting God’s holy will and allowing murderers to walk free. The ending was… different.”
“How so?”
“It was another Bible verse, but it wasn’t about justifying their actions anymore.
“What was it about?”
Kate got to her feet and crossed her arms. She paced the room, replaying the words she’d read in her mind.
“The killer quoted pieces of Matthew 26: 38 and 39. Another translation yet again; American Standard Version this time. The passage is Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. He asks His Father for release.”
“Release?”
“Yes. He doesn’t want to take the sins of the world on Himself and die on the cross. He asks God the Father to take that responsibility away, but then says He’s willing to do it if it’s what’s required of Him.”
“What does the verse say?”
“I’ll just quote the parts the killer put into the cipher. ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.’
“Oh yeah, I know that prayer,” Whitaker said. “I hear it all the time in church. The pastor always points out how Jesus was willing to do whatever God willed.”
“That’s an important point, but I don’t think it’s the most important point. I think the key here is let this cup pass from me.”
“Why do you say that?” Marcus asked.
“I think our killer believes that she’s damning her soul.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really. In some Christian traditions, Christ didn’t just die on the cross. He went to Hell for three days and suffered there before being lifted up by God and rising again.”
“So, the killer thinks they’re sending themselves to Hell.”
“I think so. I think that’s the point of the scapegoat passage and the Gethsemane prayer.
I think the killer believes that they’re doing God’s will but they’re also breaking His commandment.
And the first cipher talked about how that commandment was clear.
Both talk about how the punishment is clear. ”
“So, this killer knows they’re going to be punished by being sent to Hell, and they’re okay with that.”
“No, not okay. That’s why they’re sorrowful. But they’re willing to perform His will anyway.”
Whitaker whistled. “Damn. You almost made me feel bad for them.”
Kate didn’t say anything, but she wasn’t in the same place as Whitaker. She didn’t feel bad for the killer. She felt even more afraid of them. How devoted did you have to be to your version of God to know that your actions would damn your soul and yet kill people anyway?
People that zealous wouldn’t stop. This killer would strike again and again and again until they stopped them. If they didn’t find this disciple soon, they would find another body, slain for their sins.