Chapter 44
That same morning, Cash entered the side conference room of the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office.
Colcord was there, and she could see he was exhausted.
His Stetson was on the table, the top two buttons of his shirt were unfastened, and his cowboy boots were kicked into a corner.
He was working on a giant corkboard display affixed along one wall with a bunch of pictures pinned to it, threads running every which way.
A half--eaten pizza sat next to a jug of coffee and a conglomerate of cups from the crowd that had been in earlier.
He’d obviously been up all night—-like she had.
She’d spent the night in the Eagle Valley Library, working through a stack of books and articles on torture devices, Communion rituals, UAPs, and the Spanish Inquisition.
It was mostly useless information, but it was a welcome distraction.
Whenever she shut her eyes, Reno’s dead pallid face materialized behind her eyelids.
She couldn’t believe he was gone. She didn’t want to remember him like that.
She took a seat and watched what Colcord was doing, placing Margie Brooksfield’s photo underneath Paradox. This was something she needed to clear up with Colcord if she was to get any real help from him.
“I don’t think Paradox is behind the Shrouder murders,” Cash said. Her voice was hoarse from lack of sleep and her mind was still numb with unprocessed grief. “And I don’t think Margie Brooksfield killed Willy Grooms. In fact, I bet she didn’t have anything to do with the case at all.”
Colcord turned to Cash, a quizzical look on his face. “Why do you say that?”
Cash sighed heavily, taking a swig of black coffee.
“Standish put me in touch with Krikor Khachatryan, the guy who controls Paradox. Khachatryan said that the money from Willy Grooms was to finance an expedition into the wilderness to find the site of a UFO crash as well as other expeditions across the globe—-and that members of the organization were being targeted and killed.” She hesitated and decided not to say anything about the DNA test just yet.
“Targeted? By whom?”
“A radical Catholic society called Devotio.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say. Or wouldn’t say.”
“When did this conversation happen?”
“Two days ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Colcord looked at Cash incredulously.
“I was just waiting for something more solid.”
“And you believe this guy Khachatryan? That killer priests are out to get them?”
Cash hesitated. She still wasn’t sure he was legit. She had tried to find out something about Devotio but had come up cold. Maybe she was being played. She shook her head. “I really think there might be something to it. He seemed scared, Colcord.”
Colcord’s shoulders tensed. When he spoke, he chose his words with care. “How am I supposed to run my end of the investigation without full cooperation?”
Cash felt a flash of resentment. “You’ve been pushing back on me from the beginning about this UFO connection, making fun of it, belittling my efforts. I’d be sharing more if you weren’t so dismissive.”
“Just tell me next time,” Colcord said, moderating his tone. He looked away and changed the subject. “Did Romanski say anything about what he was doing that night at CBI?”
Cash thought about the piece of the head of Saint John the Baptist and the DNA testing. Romanski said Reno was en route to CU School of Medicine with the relic when it happened. All night, she’d been thinking it was her fault. It sure looked that way.
“The piece of the head of Saint John the Baptist is missing from the lab,” Cash said. “Reno had it. I think he … might have been killed for it.”
Colcord eyed her. “Something here isn’t making sense.”
Cash didn’t answer. The same organization that Khachatryan was afraid of, Devotio, had probably killed Grooms. And Castillo. And Reno. She squeezed her eyes shut, overwhelmed with guilt. She realized she was near a breaking point.
“Anything else you’ve forgotten to tell me?”
“Just … be quiet for a minute,” she said, covering her face with her hands.
A silence, and then she heard Colcord say in a gentler tone of voice, “I’m sorry. I know you’re really hurting. I didn’t mean to challenge you like that. I’m just … really frustrated.”
She nodded wordlessly. Then she took a deep breath and tried to refocus on the case. “There’s something else you need to know.”
“What?”
“You know we’ve had a researcher looking into historical connections to some of the details in Grooms’s homicide. He found something that might be significant.”
“Okay.” Colcord raised his eyebrows.
“A book called Judgment of the Inquisitions goes into the mass arrest and torture of over fifteen thousand Knights Templar in France, the persecution of heretic conversos, and the trial of Galileo in 1633 during the Roman Inquisition.”
“Pretty heavy reading,” Colcord said.
“In the book, he found a reproduction of an 1839 painting entitled Communion of Dying by Alexey Venetsianov. It depicts a woman in her deathbed wearing white linens, with a priest in red cloth standing by her bedside. The linens were just like how Grooms and Reno were dressed.”
“Anything else?”
“A lot more. Viaticum, also known as the Eucharist or Holy Communion, is administered as part of the last rites—-the ministrations given to Catholics shortly before death. It roughly translates to ‘food for the journey’ and is said to be a source of strength on their journey to eternal life. Apparently, it was also given to baptized Catholics being tortured or executed during the Inquisition—-to ensure that even apostates be given a final chance to go to heaven. It was considered a kindness to them—-even as they were being killed. Grooms and Reno were given Communion wafers and sacramental wine shortly before they died. Grooms is Catholic—-remember how he was baptized in Solitary Lake? Reno was also Catholic, and they were both dressed in white linens, their bodies treated with respect, if you could call it that. Embalming is another sign of respect—-the idea is that it preserves the body for the Last Judgment and resurrection of the dead.”
“What about Castillo? He wasn’t given Communion and dressed in linens.”
“Because he wasn’t Catholic. Since he wasn’t a baptized Catholic, he didn’t get viaticum. And his body was treated like trash—-dismembered and thrown into a lake instead of embalmed, posed, and dressed in linen.”
She showed Colcord a photo of the Communion of the Dying painting on her cell.
“Jesus Christ,” Colcord said.
“Do you see what this means?”
“Not completely.” Colcord steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair.
“Devotio means ‘devotion’ in Latin. I believe it might be an extreme Catholic cult or something. It explains a lot. Why would four people go to the trouble and take the risk to clean, pose, and give viaticum to murder victims otherwise? And even embalm them?” Cash paused.
“The killers believed they were saving the souls of Grooms and Reno by force--feeding them the Eucharist before they murdered them and preparing their bodies for resurrection.”
“So why would a secret society of Catholics be targeting and killing a group of UFO researchers?”
“That, Colcord, is the very question I was just asking myself.”