The Last Amen Read online

  The hymn ended, and creaking noises echoed in the nave of the church as everyone took a seat in front of him.

  He inhaled deeply, soaking in his pride. Her soul now rested in Heaven. No more would she sin. No more would she bring shame upon herself, her family, and her community.

  While everyone else turned their attention to the visiting bishop, he scanned the crowd for his next sinner.

  Who else deserves a seat at God’s side?

  Chapter Seven

  Kate swore under her breath as she kicked off her shoes while holding a large brown box. “Stupid no-shoe rule.”

  Seconds later, she walked into the living room in her socks. “Hey, babe,” she said to Luke.

  “What’s that?” he asked as she dropped the heavy box near the TV he was watching. The news was on, by the sounds of it.

  She walked over to the couch. “Well, I made a lot of progress at Kenny’s house yesterday and today. I dumped a bunch of old, worthless stuff and I packed a few boxes’ worth of items I want to go through. Photo albums, tax papers, letters, trinkets…”

  “You have more?”

  Kate nodded. “Lots more.” She left the room and put on her shoes again.

  “I’ll help you,” he said as he joined her in the entrance.

  Ten minutes later, the two of them stared at the mini wall they’d built between the TV and the couch.

  “Can’t believe you managed to cram all of these in your Subaru. Good packing! But you should have called me. I’d have helped you load your car.”

  “Nah. I needed some alone time. It was good.” Kate looked around, surprised that Mrs. O’Brien hadn’t once appeared to check that Kate was adhering to her no-shoe rule. “Where’s your mom?”

  “She’s still at church.”

  “Ah! I’ve been getting up so early I didn’t realize what time it was.” She eyed the room, then Luke. “She’s not going to like seeing these boxes here, right? Where can I put them?”

  Luke’s lips twisted as he brought a finger to scratch the growing stubble on his chin. “My office?”

  “You won’t mind the clutter?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t spend that much time in there.”

  “I promise I’ll go through them as fast as I can. I won’t keep all of it. I just wanted to clear Kenny’s house so I can list it and start showing it.”

  He wrapped his arms around Kate and rested his chin on top of her head. “I know.” He inhaled deeply as he squeezed her closer to his chest. “Since Mom isn’t around, what do you say we move those boxes fast, then make the most of our alone time? We have…” Luke checked his watch. “Thirty minutes?”

  Kate moved out of his embrace to look him in the eyes. “And we wouldn’t have to worry about being quiet?”

  “We can be as loud as we want,” Luke said, his eyebrows bouncing up and down as he grinned.

  Kate got on her toes to kiss him but her phone brought a swift end to their embrace. It was the ringtone she’d assigned to Detective Lieutenant Fuller. She could not ignore it.

  “Sorry, babe. We’re understaffed right now.” She rushed to the entryway and brought the device to her ear. “Detective Murphy.”

  “We’ve got a body. Young woman, no obvious signs of struggle at the scene, but the death is very suspicious. Most likely a homicide.”

  “I’m on my way. What’s the address?”

  Chapter Eight

  Detective Malvin Rosebud took in the renovated house’s decor and furnishing: earth tones, leather and solid wood furniture, plush carpeting, hardwood floors, expensive television and stereo system. To date, other than the police tape surrounding the property, one broken glass panel on the front door, and the BPD, medical examiner, and crime lab technicians on scene, nothing seemed wrong in the middle-class family home.

  Well, save for the stench. That was horribly wrong.

  Decomposition had a certain pungency that couldn’t be ignored, even by those fighting the nastiest of head colds. But, chewing on three sticks of mint gum with his mouth open behind his face mask, he did his best to ignore it.

  After asking a crime scene tech to document the broken glass in the entrance and getting another to dust the front door for prints, Rosebud inspected the main floor instead of joining the rest of the crew upstairs. He liked to soak in as wide an area around the crime scene as possible. As he pondered on the family’s CD and DVD collection, he remembered a handful of instances where little details like those, just outside the area where the victim had been left, had lost their meaning once he’d stared at the dead body.

  But, most importantly today, he wasn’t quite sure his burrito was going to stay put once he approached the origin of the stench. Testing that new food truck no longer seemed like the smartest idea.

  “Hey, Rosebud. What do we have?” Murphy asked a few feet away from where he stood in the living room.

  He turned to face her. “The vic’s upstairs. I haven’t seen her yet. I just got here myself.”

  She adjusted her right glove then looked back at him. “Fuller?”

  “Upstairs, with the medical examiner.”

  “Wang? Chainey?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I’m heading up.”

  He continued looking at the walls: picture after picture of a family of three blonds, and a large crucifix right above the fireplace.

  Rosebud continued his inspection of the ground floor, moving into the dining room, paying attention to where his bootie-covered feet stepped, carefully avoiding touching any potential evidence. The department’s photographer had already placed numbers around various footprints that had been left on the carpet, some bigger and some smaller than his. He suddenly realized that he wasn’t sweating as much as he normally did under the one-use coveralls he’d donned minutes earlier. A glance at the thermometer on the wall explained why: the air conditioning was on, and the temperature had been set to 65 degrees.

  He thanked his lucky stars. The stench could have been much, much worse. The family’s electric bill would probably be huge, though. Then he realized the killer may have played with the thermostat to mess with their estimated time of death.

  After getting a tech to pull fingerprints from it, Rosebud moved along to the next room.

  Just like the living room, the dining room was clean and orderly. Absolutely no signs of struggle anywhere on this floor. Or at least not anywhere he’d seen. He bent sideways to inspect the table’s glass surface and noticed how immaculate the top was. A light dusting of particles had landed on the surface, but not one smear was in sight.

  “Hmm,” he said to himself before heading into the kitchen.

  The stainless steel fridge grabbed his attention next. Not a single fingerprint there either.

  “Really? How?” With his gloved hand, he opened the cupboard under the sink, curious as to what brand of cleaners the family used. A pair of yellow rubber gloves, a sponge, a dish rack and tray, a spray can of oven cleaner, and a bottle of dishwashing liquid occupied the space. The family’s miracle product couldn’t be any of those, so he closed the cupboard, disappointed that he hadn’t magically stumbled upon the solution for the unsightly smears on his own stainless steel appliances.

  Do they use a maid service that carries their own products?

  “Rosebud, get up here!” Fuller yelled from upstairs.

  “I’m coming!” he answered before returning to the entrance and heading up the stairs, the potency of the stench increasing with every step.

  Knowing fair well how Fuller would react if he saw him with his oversized piece of gum, Rosebud swallowed his now flavorless chunk then inhaled deeply before finally stepping into the pink room where the body was. There were already half a dozen people in there.

  “What took you so long?” Fuller asked, a deep line between his bushy brows.

  Rosebud ignored him for now, his eyes unable to look away from the vic’s body. Several things looked wrong here. She was lying on top of her bright magenta com
forter, wearing a faded orange nightgown with yellow flowers. The long fabric was spread out symmetrically around her swollen ankles. With her elbows bent at ninety-degrees, her hands were joined in a prayer position, a bright blue rosary wrapped around them. Her fingers were bloated with a tinge of green. Just above her hands rested an open Bible, pages facing down and upright, as though she’d been reading it.

  Rosebud closed his eyes for a second and concentrated on breathing through his mouth. But it didn’t help. Behind his mask, he inhaled his own bean and spicy garlic breath.

  He knew from her stench and the bloat of the extremities that she’d been dead for at least a week, so bugs had most likely begun feasting and reproducing in her mouth, nose, and eyes. Looking up past her hands wasn’t going to be pretty. Mustering his mental strength—and pushing down his burrito—he finally glanced at her face.

  But it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. It seemed very flew flies had managed to get to her in the closed home. He turned to her bedroom window and noticed the typical gathering of bugs on the other side of it. Those insects sure had a strong sense of smell.

  Very few of them had sneaked their ways into the house, or the air conditioning had slowed her decomposition rate quite a bit. But her skin was discolored and bloated, well past rigor mortis. Her blonde hair was tied and orderly. No visible signs of struggle there. However, her glazed over eyeballs, sunken sockets, and open mouth did not offer a pretty sight, nor did they suggest a peaceful passing. When he spotted a few squirming larvae in the corner of her mouth, he turned away, swallowing the recycled sample of food that had darted up his throat.

  His eyes met Murphy’s. She seemed to handle the stench much better than him.

  “Her name’s Lori Davis. Twenty-two years old,” she recited, looking at her pad. “Her driver’s license confirms she lives here. I found it in her wallet, in her purse, over there on the desk.” She pointed to a piece of vintage, solid-wood furniture.

  Rosebud headed over to the desk, eager to distance himself from the vic’s body and its new occupants.

  Under the purse and neatly arranged books and pencils, the desk looked like something his own parents could have used when they’d gone to school. The light wood—birch or maple—surface was scarred from decades of overuse. An uncomfortable-looking wooden chair with a straight back completed the set. His gloved fingers perused through the contents of her purse. He retrieved a cellphone, its battery dead.

  Once he ensured his stomach was okay, he spoke up, his eyes still aimed at the desk. “She must be the daughter of Doug and Francine Davis,” he said. “Lots of photos with her between two older adults downstairs and lots of mail addressed to them as well. It seems the last batch brought into the home was dated Friday, June 1st. The mail overflowing out of the box on the porch is dated Wednesday, June 6th. That’s probably a good start on the time of death.”

  Fuller walked over to him. “Rosebud, since the Sarge is on holiday, I want you to take the lead on this—”

  “With all due respect, sir,” Rosebud started, then paused once again, swallowing more acid reflux.

  “What? Quick. I wanna get out of here.”

  “You and I both. I’d like Murphy to lead this one.”

  “Why? Not up for it?” Fuller asked, his fist bumping against Rosebud’s shoulder. “About to toss your cookies again?”

  Rosebud shook his head, sick and tired of his sensitive stomach being made fun of. “No. I just think Murphy’s ready. I’ve been working alongside her for nearly a year now. She knows what she’s doing. Just give her a chance to prove it to you.”

  Fuller looked to Murphy, who stood right next to the vic. She was speaking to the medical examiner and taking notes.

  He turned back to Rosebud. “At least her gut’s stronger than yours. You’re as pale as a ghost. Get out and breathe some fresh air. I’ll give her the lead, but you stay right on her ass. I want this case solved ASAP. This looks like a young woman from a good family. We’re not talking about a drug deal or a B&E gone bad. We’ll need to find out if this was random or not. The district commander’s gonna ride my ass.”

  “Got it,” Rosebud said, nodding vehemently as he dashed out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door just in time to empty his gut behind a thorny green bush.

  Shit, he thought after wiping his mouth, his eyes meeting those of Detective Gabriel Chainey who’d just ducked under the police tape, laughing.

  Even though Rosebud had almost reached a two-year, vomit-free streak, Chainey wasn’t going to let him live this down.

  Chapter Nine

  The victim’s neck was bruised with a pattern that led Kate to believe the rosary wrapped around the hands could have been the strangulation weapon. The vic’s blonde braid was tied with a blue elastic band, the kind you’d find on broccoli. Faded and oversized, the nightgown looked out of place on the vic’s petite body, as if she’d borrowed it from her grandmother.

  There was no blood at the scene.

  No sign of struggle.

  Her nightstand was orderly, holding a reading light and a photo of the vic and a handsome young brown-haired man who appeared to be in his early twenties. Kate knew that man. She’d just seen him outside the house, secured in a squad car. He was the boyfriend, the one who’d broken into the house and discovered the body. The first one to see her dead.

  But was he also the one who’d killed her?

  Only the evidence would say once they’d analyzed it all.

  “Scorfosi, did you take a photo of her hands?” Kate asked the photographer.

  “Yep. Got all of it. I’m done with the body.”

  Turning to the medical examiner, she asked, “Is it okay if I just lift the end here?”

  Dr. George Cooper shrugged, a paper bag in hand. “Go ahead. I was just about to seal her extremities.”

  Kate used a pen to lift the cross at the end of the rosary off the vic’s hands. Her brightly colored manicured nails didn’t seem damaged at all. “You’ll retrieve whatever DNA you can from under her nails?” she asked, even though her hopes weren’t high based on their immaculate state.

  Kate turned to Detective Rosebud when he re-entered the room.

  “Where did you go?” she asked him.

  “Out. You’re the lead. Do you need me here? I’d rather be downstairs.”

  “Tell me what you think. Doesn’t look like there’s been any struggle in here.”

  “Or anywhere in the house, really,” Rosebud added.

  “So what do you think about the religious theme?”

  “Which part? The golden crucifix above the bed looks like it belongs here. Lots more religious items downstairs. The small cross around her neck looks like it could be something she’d wear. We’ll check with the parents. As for the rosary wrapped around her hands? It could be hers.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s blue.”

  “Hate to break it to you, Murphy, but girls normally go past the monochrome tones you seem to limit yourself to. They can have blue things. Times have changed.”

  “I’m not being sexist here. Just look around the room. Everything here is peach, salmon, magenta, or some other shade of pink. If you look in her closet, she doesn’t own anything blue, except for jeans. Why would she have a blue rosary?”

  “Maybe you have a point. We’ll just ask the parents,” he said heading to the closet to open it. “Did you notice that?” he asked Kate.

  “What?” she asked, heading toward him, her feet sinking into the plush carpeting.

  “I’d say this girl has some sort of OCD or very strict parents.”

  “The evenly spaced hangers?”

  “Yeah. And everything is hanging the same way, from longest to shortest outfits.”

  “And look at her desk,” Kate said without bothering to finish her thought. Rosebud had undoubtedly noticed how the chair had been put in its rightful place, resting flush against the edge of the desk. The books’ spines perfectly aligned, their backs flushed wi
th each other. Three pencils, all of which were freshly sharpened and spaced evenly, perfectly parallel to each other. The purse had been aligned perfectly, too, but it no longer was after she’d gone through it.

  “But there’s one thing that’s not perfect,” Kate said after the medical examiner and his team had finally bagged and taken the body out of the bedroom.

  “Other than the stench and the dead woman?”

  “Look by the bed. The marks on the carpet. The murderer, he must have sat next to her.”

  Kate looked at the desk again, then the marks by the bed. Since both the photographer and medical examiner had cleared the area, she considered moving the chair to prove her point, but decided to shine her Alternate Light Source LED on it. With her gloved hand, she touched as little as she could to drag the chair back away from the desk so she could have a better look.

  Sure enough, the back, the sides, and the underside of the chair were littered with visible prints. Many smudged but some as clear as day.

  “Scorfosi! Get back in here, please!” she yelled out.

  The photographer came back into the room. “What’s up, Murphy?”

  “Did you take photos of all those prints?” she asked, her blue light with the orange filter now illuminating the back of the chair.

  He shook his head. “Fuller had me take photos of the nightstand and the Bible that rested on the vic, but not the chair. We already dusted for prints on the nightstand and took photos of those.”

  “I think we may have hit the jackpot. Loads will be the vic’s, but if my guess is right, that chair was where the killer sat next to the victim when she died.”

  By now Rosebud had relocated to the side of the bed, a tape measure in hand, comparing the distance between the sections of flattened fibers and the legs of the chair. Kate was still illuminating the chair while the photographer recorded the evidence.

  “Looks right to me,” Rosebud said. “But who’s to say these marks weren’t from before?”

  “I don’t think so,” Murphy said. “Look at the rest of the carpet. The lines. Other than our own footsteps, it looks freshly vacuumed. I doubt she would’ve left her chair there. It probably would have bothered her to see it out of place.