Chapter Thirteen #3
If he were alive, this would drive him batshit insane.
“He also worked for the FBI.”
Ethan paused.
“Wait. He did! He helped you. I forgot that part.”
Yeah, they didn’t talk about that much, simply because it had been on the DL.
She explained for Gene since he hadn’t been part of their unit for long.
“Chris and I used him and Sam all of the time when we were working cases. For a while, Charlie and Sam lived up here and helped. No one knows that, but us and Gabe. Chris paid him on the DL, so he could take time off from being a sheriff. Eventually, he went back to that job, but after the blowup.”
Ethan needed to hear this.
“What blowup?”
Chris laughed.
Oh, it had been a doozy, and it happened right around the time Elizabeth and he went nuclear thanks to his cheating.
“Sam came to me and asked me to help Charlie out. He wanted to be up here with Elizabeth, but he had a mortgage and financial responsibility to Abigale. I paid off his mortgage by giving Sam the money. Sam told him it was his.”
Ethan listened.
“When Charlie eventually found out, it was a mess.”
Elizabeth agreed.
“He went back to Salem, took his job back, and he and Sam didn’t live together.
He was furious with Sam and felt betrayed.
It effectively broke them apart. It was right after Chris and I broke up.
They stayed married, but they never reconciled.
Shortly after, my father was poisoned by Abigale and George. ”
Ethan felt bad for her.
“I’m sorry.”
She knew why he said that.
Because she’d been in DC and couldn’t save him. Tony Morell could have, but opted not to. He’d let him expire on the floor, alone.
In that moment, Sam lost his husband forever.
And Elizabeth lost her father.
Ethan was thinking about it.
“He knows your father died. He’s trying to get that in your head, too. He wants you all worked up. Stay focused. Think about DC, and the clues he left you.”
Elizabeth pointed one thing out.
“I loved my father more than anyone could love their’s, but mine died a while ago. If he thinks that poking me with Charlie is going to make me lose focus, it won’t. He can remind me of how he could still be alive if Tony Morell wasn’t a piece of shit, but I’m not going to react.”
They let her talk.
“I’ve made my peace with that. When I put the bullet in Tony, that pain went to its grave. His father died more recently. Mine would NOT want me getting vengeance for what Tony did. The reason Tony died was he was trying to actively kill US.”
She had a point.
Elizabeth continued.
“Back to the church in DC. The minister said the hymns were taken off the board there. He said they were all related to the heavenly father—along with the scripture about gifts. I’m going to keep this simple, because he’s not that bright where he can make this a Mensa challenge. He’s doing this to honor his father.”
Ethan agreed.
“He respected his. A LOT, so that tracks. He learned everything from him—and most of it was twisted with hate—unlike what Charlie taught you.”
Yeah, well, crazy flocked together. Charlie was trouble, but he was a decent person. In the world, there were only two kind of people. Those who ran toward danger, and helped people, and those who ran from it to save themselves.
Charlie was the former.
She tapped the table as she chewed on some French fries from the never-ending pile Gene was slipping onto her plate. If he thought she didn’t notice, he was crazy, but she appreciated that he was trying to take care of her.
“There is one thing I don’t get. It feels out of place.”
They let her talk.
“What the hell is the one-hundred-dollar bill about?” she asked. “It was inside a Bible, and that’s one of the clues I can’t figure out.”
Ethan was curious.
“Was it marking a specific page?”
She shook her head.
“No. It was inside the cover. There was no writing and no markings either. The Bible wasn’t placed there, but instead, it belonged to the minister. He left it there at the pulpit.”
They all considered it.
“Is it tied to the hookers?” Chris asked. “Maybe he’s saying money paid to buy someone? Or something?”
She wasn’t sure.
“Like what?”
Pulling out his wallet, Gene took a hundred-dollar bill out and placed it on the table. It was a newer one, and they all checked it out.
Nothing on it seemed to tie to this case, or to Devon Slater. Could it be one of those clues that went nowhere?
“I am stumped,” she said. “I don’t know if he’s fucking with me, or if it’s tied to this. Could it tie to the first scene and the second scene? If I skip it, and it’s important, I’m screwed.”
No one wanted to miss anything, especially when it came to a case where their lives depended on it.
When she flipped it over, Ben was staring up at them.
That’s when it hit Gene. He believed he understood what it meant, and why it was in the Bible.
“Oh, shit,” he said, looking up.
They glanced over.
“It does mean something. He’s telling us a big piece of this, expecting us to miss it. We almost did,” he said.
Oh, while he’d been a Hunter, he had been an investigator before that, running cases, and this triggered something in his head.
Callen was to the point.
“We are missing it. What?”
Gene pulled up the first crime scene, and they all stared at it. For him, it was clear they didn’t see the correlation, but he did.
“Gene, I need more,” she said. “I’m tired.”
Well, he helped her out.
“Honey, what was the ME’s name for the city?” he asked, waiting for her to put two and two together.
She thought back.
“Doctor Franklin…”
The second she said his first name, Gene knew she got it. He’d thought the same thing.
“Ben Franklin is on the bill,” she said. “He’s telling me that’s not a coincidence. It’s slight, but he’d make sure it would be a small clue because it’s important. With him, the smallest clues are the ones I’m supposed to follow.”
Now, she was curious.
Flipping through the notes, she found the exact words that she thought would break this open.
“The surgeon-like precision on the appendixes and the removal of the nun’s uterus was the other clue.”
Ethan was staring at her.
“Something came to you.”
Yeah, it did.
That little clue that Gene had figured out had just opened a big, locked door.
Behind that door was one answer she desperately needed. She wasn’t behind Devon in the chase.
How did she know?
“He was never in these places,” she said.
“He was never doing the killing. That’s what he’s telling me.
We know for a fact that he’s got zero skill.
He’s some rich dude who inherited his money, so he’s had help.
He HIRED or TRAINED people to do his work.
Not only is he telling me he bought help, but he’s telling me who he bought!
He was an apprentice then, but now, he’s the master, and he has HELP! ”
Callen pointed one thing out.
“Yeah, but we found his fingerprints and DNA on the scenes.”
Chris handled that.
“That can be planted, and a lot of the prints were smeared beyond recognition.”
Elizabeth knew that was a clue, too.
“We couldn’t read the prints. His helper smeared them on purpose as a clue. He manipulated the evidence!”
Oh, shit.
It was falling into place.
Chris continued.
“He wasn’t able to stay two steps ahead of her if he was in all these places.
There’s no way he could have been in Corpus Christi, and then in DC to set up these scenes this quickly.
She’s literally a day behind. He likely had already begun training his apprentices a while ago, in preparation for this game or he paid them handsomely.
The father had been dead for a few years, and we know that his secretary and attorney had helped him, too. He had time to buy help.”
Yes, yes, he did.
Elizabeth pulled up the information on Devon.
“He’s had no medical skill. He’s had no bomb making training, that we have been able to find.
He’s also not religious. He was never affiliated with it.
Those are the three things he’s waiting for me to figure out.
He’s telling me he’s not doing this alone but using money to make it happen!
That’s why Ben Franklin was INSIDE the minister’s Bible! ”
Ethan didn’t like this.
NOT.
AT.
ALL.
“If he’s got help, we have a huge problem,” Ethan admitted. “He won’t have to get close to us. He’ll be able to come right at us using them. They can hide in a crowd, walk down the street watching us, and we won’t know it.”
Oh, she was aware.
“Who would help a crazy?” Gene asked. “Who would willingly be part of this?”
Elizabeth knew.
“What makes the world go around?” she asked. “What’s the one thing we have, and he has that most people don’t?”
They all knew.
It was definitely all about the money.
Gene sighed.
“Everyone has their price,” he admitted. “We all do too. The only difference is because it’s crime, our price would be out of his league.”
She nodded.
Anyone could be bought, if the time was right, and the price was high enough.
Crime did pay, in this case.
“This solves another issue. We don’t know why he took this to Jesus.
We assumed it was because I’m Catholic, but I’m not a strict Catholic.
Here I am, sleeping with four men. I’m fucking around and getting laid a lot.
He’s a pervert on a good day. The church thing will have nothing to do with me.
The cross is me. Jesus is off that cross because I broke it off.
I decide not to be religious in the streets, but a freak in the sheets. ”
They all stared at her.
It was coming together.
“I know why he’s suddenly rattling off verses and playing in a church,” she stated.
Then, she went there.
“Like with Ben Franklin,” she said, touching the money, “We have the people across the street from the church. The minister and his wife. If he bought an ME, he absolutely bought a minister and his wife. Think about it. They didn’t have to dig anyone up.
He likely delivered the bones and just asked for them to set it up.
If they did it for him, and kept their mouths closed, they’d be filthy fucking rich! ”
Chris blinked.
“Oh, boy.”