Before He Sins. Блейк Пирс

Mackenzie said.

      “Sorry to have already moved the body. But the sun was coming up and we really didn’t want this in today’s papers. Or tomorrow’s for that matter.”

      “No, that’s fine. I totally understand.”

      With that, Mackenzie turned back to the double doors, nonverbally dismissing the forensics team. She tried to picture someone lugging a body across the small lawn and up the stairs in the dead of night. The positioning of security lights on the street would make the front of the church dark. There were no lights of any kind along the front of the church, so it would have been cast in almost absolute darkness.

      Maybe it would have been more possible than I originally thought for the killer to take all the time he needed to get this done, she thought.

      “That seemed like a weird request,” Ellington said. “What are you thinking?”

      “I don’t know yet. But I do know that it would take a hell of a lot of strength and determination to work by yourself in order to haul someone off of the ground just to nail their hands to these doors. If a sledgehammer was used to knock the nails in, it might denote more than one killer – one to hold the victim off the ground and extend the arm, and another to drive the nails in.”

      “Paints a hell of a picture, doesn’t it?” Ellington said.

      Mackenzie nodded as she started snapping pictures of the scene with her cell phone. As she did, the idea of crucifixion again crept up on her. It made her think of the first case she’d ever worked where themes of crucifixion had been utilized – a case back in Nebraska that had eventually led her to rub elbows with the bureau.

      The Scarecrow Killer, she thought. God, am I ever going to be able to leave that in the dust of my memory?

      Behind her, the sun started to rise, casting the first rays of light on the day. As her shadow was slowly cast upon the church steps, she tried to ignore the fact that it looked almost like a cross.

      Again, memories of the Scarecrow Killer fogged her mind.

      Maybe this will be it, she thought hopefully. Maybe when I close this case, memories of those people crucified in the cornfields will stop haunting my memory.

      But as she looked back at those bloodstained doors of Cornerstone Presbyterian, she was afraid this was nothing more than wishful thinking.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Mackenzie learned a great deal about Reverend Ned Tuttle in the next half an hour. For starters, he had left behind two sons and a sister. His wife had walked out on him eight years ago, moving to Austin, Texas, with a man she had been having an affair with for over a year before it had come to light. Both sons lived in the Georgetown area, leading Mackenzie and Ellington to their first stop of the day. It was just after 6:30 when Mackenzie parked her car along the curb outside of Brian Tuttle’s apartment. According to the agent who had broken the news, both brothers were there, waiting to do what they could to answer questions about their father’s death.

      When Mackenzie stepped into Brian Tuttle’s apartment, she was a little surprised. She had expected to see two sons deep in grief, torn apart by the loss of their devout father. Instead, she saw them sitting at a small dining room table in the kitchen. They were both drinking coffee. Brian Tuttle, twenty-two years of age, was eating a bowl of cereal while Eddie Tuttle, nineteen, was absently dabbing an Eggo waffle into a pool of syrup.

      “I don’t exactly know what you’re thinking we can offer you,” Brian said. “We weren’t exactly on the best terms with Dad.”

      “Can I ask why?” Mackenzie asked.

      “Because we stopped associating with him when he went full-tilt into the church.”

      “Are you not believers?” Ellington asked.

      “I don’t know,” Brian said. “I guess I’m an agnostic.”

      “I’m a believer,” Eddie said. “But Dad…he took it to a whole different level. Like, when he found out Mom was cheating on him, he didn’t do anything. After about two days of dealing with it, he forgave her and the guy she was cheating on him with. He said he forgave them because it was the Christian thing to do. And he refused to even talk about a divorce.”

      “Yeah,” Brian said. “And Mom saw that as Dad not giving a shit about her – not caring that she had cheated. So she left. And he didn’t do much of anything to stop her.”

      “Did your Dad ever try to reach out to the two of you since your mom left?”

      “Oh yeah,” Brian said. “Just about every Saturday evening, begging us to come to church.”

      “And besides that,” Eddie added, “he was too busy during the week even if we did want to see him. He was always at the church or out on charity drives or sick visits at hospitals.”

      “When was the last time either of you spoke to him at length?” Mackenzie asked.

      The brothers looked at each other for a moment, calculating. “Not sure,” Brian said. “Maybe a month. And it wasn’t much of anything. He was asking the same questions: how was work going, if I was dating anyone yet, stuff like that.”

      “So it’s safe to say you both have an estranged relationship with your father?”

      “Yeah,” Eddie said.

      He looked down to the table for a moment as regret started to sink in. Mackenzie had seen this sort of reaction before; if she’d been forced to bet, she was pretty sure at least one of these boys would be a sobbing mess within an hour, realizing all that had been lost in terms of the father they’d never gotten to know.

      “Do you know who would have known him well?” Mackenzie asked. “Did he have any close friends?”

      “Just that priest or pastor or whatever at the church,” Eddie said. “The one that runs the place.”

      “Your father wasn’t the lead reverend?” Mackenzie asked.

      “No. He was like an associate pastor or something,” Brian said. “There was another guy over him. Jerry Levins, I think.”

      Mackenzie noticed the way the young men were getting their terminology mixed up. Pastor, reverend, priest…it was all confusing. Mackenzie didn’t even know the difference actually, assuming it had something to do with differences in beliefs between denominations.

      “And your father spent a lot of time with him?”

      “Oh yeah,” Brian said, a bit angry. “All of his damn time, I think. If you need to know anything about Dad, he’d be the one to ask.”

      Mackenzie nodded, well aware that she would not be getting any useful information out of these two young men. Still, she wished she had more time to speak with them. There was clearly unresolved tension and loss between them. Maybe if they broke through whatever emotional walls were keeping them so tranquil, they’d have more to offer.

      In the end, she turned away and gave them her thanks. She and Ellington left the apartment quietly. As they took the stairs down side by side, he took her hand.

      “You okay?” he asked.

      “Yeah,” she said, confused. “Why?”

      “Two kids…their father just died and aren’t sure how to handle it. With all of the speculation about your dad’s old case as of late…just wondering.”

      She smiled at him, reveling in the uplifting way he made her heart feel in those moments. God, he can be so sweet…

      As they walked out into the morning together, she also realized that he was right: the reason she had wanted to stay and keep talking was to help the Tuttle brothers resolve the issues they’d had with their father.

      Apparently, the ghost of her father’s recently reopened case was haunting her more than she realized.

***

      Seeing Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in the light of morning was surreal. Mackenzie