Chapter Six
Monday Morning
Six A.M.
Holy Redeemer Church
When Detective Quinton Gaines got the call from his boss, at first, he believed he was yanking his chain. There was no freaking way that Captain Dex Corbin wanted him driving from church-to-church to look for a body.
Or two.
Or three.
What in the cuckoo scavenger hunts was this nonsense?
Only, he’d been dead serious.
In fact, when Quinn had finished laughing, he found out that it wasn’t some joke. Instead, it was an actual request.
That only made him even more perplexed as to why the hell he was being asked to do this.
Then, he met the man, and saw he was quite serious about the job at hand. At the ass crack of morning, he met up with his boss, and they were handling a ‘secret mission’.
For who?
Oh, well, that was even crazier.
They were playing ‘find the victim’ for Elizabeth Blackhawk.
Oh, how could this go wrong?
At five in the morning, they began driving around, going to churches that weren’t Catholic, and shining lights into windows as they looked for corpses.
Already, they had been stopped by two police patrols thinking they were vandals or freaks up to no good.
That had been a fun one.
Apparently, the cops in the city were all on alert, trying to find anything that might be a serial killer.
You couldn’t make this shit up.
Normally, they were called in, not the ones doing the finding.
Now, they’d hit five churches, and there were only three left on the list that might have victims stashed there.
Still, it posed one BIG question for Quinn.
“You know this is insane, right?” he asked.
Dex did, but what he’d learned by working with Elizabeth was that if she had a hunch, you listened.
She tended to nail it.
Her gut was rarely wrong when it came to things like this. If she was dogging a killer, a sick one at that, and she believed he was going to leave them bodies, then it was best to find them now, not later.
Time was of the essence for her, and God knew she’d helped all of them out a time or five. This was the least they could do—no matter how crazy it seemed.
They owed her a few favors.
“I know this is odd, but trust and believe, if Elizabeth is saying the shit is about to go down, we want to be ahead of it. She’s trying to catch up to this killer before he drops the atomic bomb of cuckoo. I don’t want that going down in my city.”
Yeah, he knew that, but still…
Detectives detected.
They didn’t go on a body hunt.
First, he lost his partner, and was in freefall as a detective, and now, he was out before the sun was up trying to get ‘work’ for Elizabeth.
It didn’t get weirder than this for Quinn.
As they got out of the car and stood in front of one more church, Dex read the name off of the sign.
‘Holy Redeemer Church.’
On the front, there was a cross, and a board with information regarding the pastor.
Other than that, it looked perfectly normal to them.
“Well, let’s look around,” Quinn said, as the sun was coming up, and the whole church was being bathed in early morning sunlight.
Dex took a picture and for a good reason.
In one of the stained-glass windows, there was the cave that Jesus had been buried in, and he was coming out of it post-resurrection.
“Elizabeth sent over some information. She said that Jesus was off the cross on the rosary, so…,” he began, pointing at the picture depicted in the glass. “Jesus is off of the cross.”
Yeah, if he said so.
Honestly, Quinn wasn’t a fan of religion, simply because when you saw what people did to each other, day after day, you lost that warm fuzzy feeling regarding God and his plan.
You lost that warm, fuzzy feeling about pretty much everything.
For Quinn, God’s plan sucked when it came to mass killings, disgusting human beings, and people abusing children. It made a cop cynical and hardened to most things.
Him included.
“Okay, let’s check it out before the next patrol car comes by, and you have to pull out your badge and explain this mess.”
That worked for Dex.
As they were moving around the front of the church, they heard a voice calling to them.
Well, so much for getting in and getting out without anyone being any the wiser. Apparently, they had company.
“Can I help you?” someone said.
Both men turned and as they did, they put their hands on their guns.
Oh, and with good reason.
Serial killers lurked.
When they saw this man didn’t match the picture that had been put out as an APB, they relaxed marginally. It wasn’t Devon Slater.
“You are?” Dex asked.
The man lifted a brow.
“I was going to ask the same thing,” he said. “I’m the pastor here. I was across the street at my home, the church parsonage, and saw you pull up. I was having coffee with my wife.”
Well, that explained what he was doing out on the street at that time of the day. They could see the man’s wife standing in the doorway, watching them.
He did the introductions.
“I’m Captain Dex Corbin, and this is Detective Quinn Gaines. We’re police.”
The man looked confused.
Oh, and rightfully so.
“Uh, did someone call in something?” he asked. “Did someone break into the church?”
That was a good question.
Dex glanced over at the name on the board in front of the church.
“And you’re?” he asked, wanting confirmation on the man’s ID.
Just to be sure.
“I’m Jim Evans,” he admitted. “Like I said, I’m the pastor here at the church. What is this about?” he asked.
They both pulled back their blazers since the man still looked wary.
Oh, and he should be. If there was a serial killer roaming around, everyone should be on guard.
EVERYONE.
He explained.
“The FBI is running an investigation in the area regarding some victims, and we were sent out to see if any more popped up,” Dex stated.
The man still looked skeptical.
Yeah, they both knew how crazy that sounded. Cops didn’t go looking for bodies. They were called when they were found. Still, that was neither here, nor there.
They needed to get moving. There were still churches on the list, and they were burning daylight. Elizabeth needed something, and sooner rather than later.
“Can we take a look around the church?” Dex asked, knowing that was a formality.
They were ABSOLUTELY looking around.
The man shrugged.
“I don’t know why you think something would be here, but sure. I don’t care, but I’d like to join you. This is all a little too weird for me, and I don’t know that you’re who you say you are.”
Well, at least the man had some common sense. Most people took things at face value.
To help him, Dex took his badge off of his hip and slipped a card from it. Then, he scribbled dispatch’s number on the back for the man.
Handing it to Jim, he reassured him.
“Call this number and ask if we’re legit. We’ll just walk around the place until you confirm it.”
That seemed to help.
The minister took it and pulled his phone from his pocket to do just that.
As the man did, they started moving around the building to scan the area. The church butted up to some trees, and a parking lot not far from it. They could see the chain strung across the lot, blocking parking.
“That must be for when people are at the church to park here,” Dex stated.
Quinn agreed.
So far, nothing looked out of place, and that likely meant this church was off of their list.
When they heard footsteps, they saw Jim heading their way.
“Hey, sorry to be so suspicious, but it is six in the morning,” he stated. “People do weird things, and I’m not familiar with guns. They could be fake, and your badges too.”
Oh, they were real.
He could bet on that. As for the rest, about people doing weird shit…
Well, tell them about it.
“Is this your parking lot?” Quinn asked.
The man nodded.
“Yeah, we rope it off with that chain when the church isn’t being used to keep loiterers from hanging out back here.”
That’s what they thought.
“Have you seen anything odd around the church this weekend?” he asked.
Jim shook his head.
“Nothing other than you two. It’s been pretty standard. We had services yesterday morning and night. I locked up around eight, headed across the street, and then saw you this morning. That’s it in a nutshell.”
Neither man said anything as they moved closer to the back of the church.
As they got closer, that’s when Dex saw it.
“Do you always leave that door open?” he asked, seeing the door ajar a bit.
The man was confused.
“Absolutely not.”
Uh-huh.
Well, that was suspicious.
And in their world, that always meant one thing. It appeared that Elizabeth might have nailed this one.
Yeah, it also meant that it didn’t look like Jim was going to be having a good day from that moment out. Neither man believed in coincidences, and an open door at a church with Jesus leaving the tomb?
Definitely not.
When Jim went to move toward the door, Dex grabbed his arm to stop him.
Just.
In.
Case.
“Yeah, no,” he said. “Behind us. You don’t want to go in there in front of armed men.”
The man listened, and when they moved toward the door, they could hear music playing. It was a once popular country music hit.
Both men paused to listen to it for a second.
“Is that ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ by John Denver?” Quinn asked.
Dex just nodded.
It certainly was.
That was definitely going to mean something to Elizabeth because it was a weird choice.
“I didn’t leave music playing. In fact, we don’t play non-secular music here.”
Well, then, Houston, there was a huge problem going on inside the church, and they knew what it would be.
A.
Crime.
Scene.
Moving into the church, they carefully cleared all of the spaces before reaching the main area of the church. Once inside the large space, they saw it.
At the altar, a present had been left for them.
Or Elizabeth.
Yeah, the cuckoo had been there.
There were two piles of bones, and beside them were two skulls. Both had eyes stuck in the holes where their eyes had once been.
The hazy blue stared back at them, ominously.
Well, that was freaky.
“Oh, Jesus,” the pastor said, gasping. “That wasn’t here last night when I locked up!”
Well, yeah, no kidding.