Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [34]
He had been unaware of her reputation and her connections at the FBI. By the time the Bureau finally got involved, two more women had turned up dead. The early St. Louis cases provided key evidence in solving the crime. It turned out that the Russian mob was bringing girls into the U.S. illegally, promising them careers as models. When the girls arrived, they were held prisoner in whorehouses and forced into prostitution. Morrow’s failure to report the murders to the FBI was a blunder that took on national significance due to the article subsequently published. He resigned from the St. Louis police force.
He’d been drinking then. Heavily. Maybe that’s why he didn’t pay much attention to the prostitute murders. Maybe that’s why he ignored Lydia’s warnings until it was too late. Maybe. Six months in rehab and some therapy had helped him deal with his mistakes. He’d been the police chief in Santa Fe for over five years now and done a competent job. Of course, nothing ever happened here. Until now.
Lydia’s presence in town gave him an ugly déjà vu. He hated that she was here now, of all times. It was like some kind of fucked-up karma. He knew once this hit the papers, she’d be all over him.
He left two uniformed police officers to guard the scene until the detectives arrived. “Nobody touch anything until they get here. Don’t make a sandwich, don’t make a phone call, just stand at the door,” he barked as he put the cross in a plastic bag, careful to note in his log where he found it. “Tell Keane to look for an address book. I didn’t find one.”
He looked around the tiny apartment again, noting there were no photographs. He was fairly sure that when the detectives started looking through drawers and in closets, they would find no address book, no letters, no photo albums. This was the apartment of someone utterly alone. Someone unconnected. The furniture was cheap and temporary, looked like the kind you would assemble yourself.
He pressed the redial button on the telephone. “You have reached Psychic Helpers. Welcome to your future!”
He hung up. Then he pressed *69, the sequence which would tell what the last incoming call was. He dialed the number and got a recording from the electric company telling him to call back during business hours. He placed the receiver down gently, though he wanted to slam it.
He thought about the others. It was the same with them. Christine and Harold Wallace didn’t even have a phone. Sad people. Lonely lives. If a life is lost and no one mourns it, is that death still a tragedy? Regardless, this death was still a crime.
He stripped off the rubber gloves and shoved them in his pocket.
“Tell whoever comes from State to be in my office by noon with whatever information they are able to gather by that time.”
He walked to his son’s room and pulled on a pair of scrubs over his bloodied clothes, then he removed a clean scalpel from the tray. He regarded Maria’s lifeless body, her open mouth, her glassy eyes. He wiped the hair away from her face.
“ ‘An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked. There is no fear of God before his eyes.’ ”
“ ‘The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the treachery of evil,’ ” he said, cutting away Maria’s bloodied nightgown. His voice was thick with passion, growing louder as he spoke.
“ ‘Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is the finder of lost children.