The Chosen (8 page)

Simon's pleas for mercy rolled off his conscience. Matthew's repetitive name, rank and serial number didn't bother him tonight. Not even the unusual silence from Andy's and James's rooms caused him concern.

He'd come to the conclusion that this man had been sent by the devil to test him, and because of that, Jay was talking himself into a righteous indignation. How dare this Bartholomew try to pass himself off as a disciple? As worthy?

He was sweating by the time he got to the cab. He popped the trunk, dumped Scofield's body inside and shut the lid. The shouts and screams coming from the rooms behind him distracted him enough that he remembered they hadn't had food or water all day. He took a large sack from the back seat of the cab and retraced his steps.

Simon Peters was hysterical when he entered.

“What happened?” he screamed. “What did you do?”

“There was a traitor in our midst. I dealt with him,” Jay said, then set two cans of potted meat, a tube of crackers, an apple and two bottles of water on the table.

As if it was nothing out of the ordinary, he stood there, calmly blessing the food for Simon to eat.

“Have you been reading your Bible?” he asked.

“Let me go,” Simon begged.

Jay frowned. “Read the book of John. We will discuss it tomorrow.”

“Jesus Christ,” Simon sobbed. “You are one crazy motherfucker. Let me go. I swear I won't tell. Just let me go!”

“You do not take the Lord's name in vain!” Jay shouted, swept the food he'd put on the table back into the sack and strode out of the room, leaving Simon with a bottle of water for sustenance.

He was still angry when he entered Matthew's room. It displeased him to see the man coiled in upon himself and lying in his own filth. It appeared as if he was still pulling out his own hair. Jay stifled a curse. For two cents, he would take a hammer to this loser's head and dump him, just like he was going to dump Bartholomew.

Then he sighed. That was the devil whispering in his ear, trying to make him commit a sin. But that wasn't going to happen; he was on the Lord's path. The ache at the back of his neck was making him sick to his stomach. He set out Matthew's food and strode out of the room. By the time he got to Andy's room, his hands were shaking. He entered quickly, checking the whereabouts of the big man. He saw him in the corner, naked and playing with his own erection.

Jay stared at it for what seemed like forever, before he remembered he was the father and Andrew was the son.

“Andrew! Andrew! Stop that this instant!” he demanded. “It's a sin to do that…and what have you done with your clothes?”

Andy was locked into the pleasure of what he was doing and paid no attention to Jay.

When he started to moan, Jay slammed some food down on the table and left.

James wouldn't even look at him as Jay left the food and water. Jay started to bless the man and his food, then stomped out in disgust.

Jay ran all the way back to the cab. His neck was already bruising, and his broken finger was throbbing. But he had to clean his house before he could rest this night.

He opened the overhead door and quickly drove away.

B
art Scofield's body was discovered at daybreak in a Dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant by two men from the city sanitation department. Bart would never have imagined such an ignominious end, to be found lying on top of half-eaten egg rolls and discarded cellophane noodles. But there he was, blessedly past pain, leaving the mystery of his disappearance and murder to those who knew it best.

 

In another part of town, January stood in a patch of moonlight, an ivory goddess waiting for her own mythological god to claim her. Ben watched her, speechless at the sight. Then she was suddenly lying beneath him with her legs wrapped around his waist and her fingernails digging into the muscles in his back as he drove himself deep into her heat.

Her breath was warm and shaky near his ear, and she was begging him for things he'd never done to another woman before.

He rocked back on his knees, then lifted her to him. They rejoined with her sitting up, impaled by his erection.

She locked her hands behind his neck and leaned back just enough to shift the pressure point. As she did, she groaned.

Ben wasn't sure, but he thought there was a possibility that he might die from the pleasure.

“Ben, oh, Benjamin…love me.”

“I already do,” he whispered.

“Then show me how much,” she begged.

He grabbed her by the waist and—

The phone rang. It was a rude awakening from the most crucial dream he'd ever had in his life. Angry and frustrated by the loss of a climax, even though it would have been a solitary one, he reluctantly answered.

“Hello?”

It was Don Borger, his captain.

“We got a fresh one in the alley behind the China Wok. Meeks is on his way to pick you up. Work this one close. I'm getting a lot of flak on it.”

“How come? Who is it?”

“Bart Scofield, the mayor's best friend and one of the golden boys of Media Marketing, Inc.”

“We're on it,” Ben said.

“Keep me informed,” Borger said.

“Yes, sir,” Ben said, and hung up.

He dressed without paying much attention to details, then poured himself a cup of coffee to go.

Meeks honked at him from the street. It was his signal that his day had begun.

 

Considering the place where the body had been dumped, it was difficult for the crime scene investigators to decide what was evidence and what was pure garbage. They couldn't ignore the bit of spring roll in Bart Scofield's ear any more than they could overlook the obvious bondage marks on his wrists. At first glance, the only two things they were sure of were that Scofield was dead and the Dumpster was not the scene of the crime.

Fran Morrow, from the crime lab, was in the Dumpster when Rick and Ben arrived on the scene. Not only was she masked and gloved, but she had pulled a pair of dark green coveralls on over her clothes and traded her regular street shoes for calf-high rubber boots.

“Hey, Fran, what can you tell me?” Meeks asked, as he sauntered up to the Dumpster.

“Americans waste their food,” she muttered, then bagged and sealed a man's loafer that was covered with cold fried rice.

Scofield's body had already been photographed and pulled out of the garbage. Ben looked at it, then looked away. Rigor had set in, giving the frozen limbs an obscene appearance. He was about to ask Fran some questions when he caught a glimpse of something shiny from the corner of his eye. He turned, then looked up just in time to catch a bystander leaning over the third-floor fire escape filming with a video camera.

“Hey! You!” he yelled, pointing to the man. “Get down here and bring that camera with you when you come.”

The man straightened up, gave Ben the finger and ducked back into the window on the third-floor landing.

“Son of a bitch,” Ben muttered, then turned toward the uniformed officers standing by. “Did you see him?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Go get him and get that camera.”

One started up the fire escape, another moved toward the back of the building on the run, while a third ran out of the alley toward the front of the building.

“Damn vultures,” Fran muttered, as she pulled down her mask and climbed out. “It's not enough that when it's time for our life to be over, we have no control of how it ends. We have human vultures feeding off our indignities.”

“We'll get him,” Ben said.

She shrugged. “I hope you're right. It doesn't matter to Scofield, but it will to his family.”

“We need a starting place,” Ben said. “Have you got one for us?”

Fran had already stepped out of her boots and was peeling off her coveralls. She looked up, grimaced, then reached toward Ben.

“Yeah, I need out of these damn things,” she said. “Give me a hand.”

Ben curled his nose from the smell coming off her clothes as he braced her while she took off the coveralls.

“Thanks,” Fran said, as she rolled them up and stuffed them in a bag. “My cleaners have refused to do any more of my laundry. Can you believe that?”

Ben laughed.

Fran grinned.

“Now we talk,” she said.

“Got a silver bullet for us?” Rick asked.

She shrugged. “Make what you will of it. You always do. And, as always, I'll know more when all the tests have been run. Having said that, there were a couple of things that were unusual.”

“Like what?” Ben asked.

“Scofield more than likely died from blunt force trauma to the back of the head, but he hasn't been dead more than five or six hours.”

Ben picked up on the inference right away.

“But he's been missing for almost twenty-four. That means—”

“He was manacled,” Fran said. “And, from what I can see, most of the minor wounds on his body are self-inflicted.”

“You're kidding.”

“I don't kid.”

“Are you sure?” Ben asked.

“No, and I won't be until I run the tests. Until then, that's all I have to say.”

“Where do we go with this?” Rick asked.

“That's your problem, not mine,” Fran said, then pointed to the other investigators. “You done?”

They nodded.

She eyed the detectives. “Anything else?” she asked.

“Just remember me when you finish your reports,” Rick added.

She nodded. “We're out of here.”

As they drove off in one direction, the beat cops were coming back with the would-be paparazzi and his camera.

“Hey, North, we got your Peeping Tom and his third eye.”

One of the officers handed the camera to Ben.

“What do you want to do with him?” another asked.

“I'm not sure,” Ben said. “Stick around a minute, will you? He might need a ride down to the station.”

The man was short and dumpy, wearing a pair of pants two sizes too small and a T-shirt that barely covered his hairy belly. His tennis shoes were mismatched, and there was a dirty New York Yankees ball cap covering what appeared to be a nearly bald head.

Ben stared the man down, then eyed the camera.

“Where did you steal it?” he asked.

“I didn't steal nothin', and you ain't got no right to—”

Ben pointed to the badge clipped to his belt.

“This gives me the right to do a lot of things, including confiscating your camera. This is a crime scene, mister. You don't get to violate it. Period.”

The man's shoulders slumped.

“What's your name?” Ben asked.

“Morey Arnold.”

“So, Morey Arnold. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

He shrugged. “Trying to make a few bucks, that's all.”

“Tell me something, Morey. Do you live up there?”

He pointed to the third floor.

“Yeah. So what?”

“So were you home last night?”

“Part of it,” Morey said.

Ben's smile quit.

“Which part?”

“I guess I come in around midnight.”

Ben looked at his watch and calculated the time between when Fran said the victim had died and when he would have been dumped. It was just after 8:00 a.m. The vic hadn't been dead more than five or six hours, which meant that he would have died after midnight. He hadn't died here, so it would have taken time to load up the body from wherever Scofield had died, and dump him here. There was a possibility that this little scuzzbucket could be their only witness.

“Did you go right to sleep?”

Morey frowned, then sneered. “No, I had a woman with me. I got a piece of tail. She left. I ordered up a pizza. There's some left. Want a piece?”

“What I want is to know if you saw or heard anything out here early this morning that might pertain to this crime?”

“Can I have my camera back?”

“Is it hot?”

Morey cursed, then spat.

“Early this morning, did you hear anything in the alley that was out of the ordinary?” Ben repeated.

“What time?”

“Around one or two o'clock. Maybe as late as five.”

Morey's frown deepened, and he pointed to his surroundings.

“This ain't exactly the Hilton. It's always noisy. You learn not to pay the racket any mind or you'd never get rest. Still, after one, you say?”

There were a few moments of silence, then Morey spoke up. “I heard a car in the alley around four. I know cause I was in the bathroom then. I had to pee from all the beer I'd had with my pizza.”

“Did you look out?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, after I heard the lid slam on the Dumpster.”

“You heard that?” Rick asked.

“Yeah, but that's nothing new. Someone's always throwing shit away.”

“So what did you see when you looked out?” Rick asked.

“Just a cab.”

Ben knew that the last time Scofield had been heard from he'd been in a cab, and this strengthened the possibility that the cab driver had perpetrated the abduction and subsequent murder.

“Did you get a number? What color was it? Did you see the driver?”

“No. Yellow-and-black. No. How about that camera?”

“Give Detective Meeks here your phone number and address. We'll let you know.”

“Damn it,” Morey muttered. “How am I gonna make my rent if you take—”

“Try a real job,” Ben said shortly.

“Look at me!” Morey said. “Who's gonna hire someone looking like this?”

“That's a poor excuse, buddy,” Ben said. “There are at least a half-dozen shelters and charities within a twenty block radius around here that would outfit you for nothing. Now get lost before I change my mind and take you downtown.”

Morey didn't hesitate. Seconds later, he was gone.

“You know he stole that camera,” Rick said.

Ben shrugged. “We're homicide. You want to handle the paperwork it's going to take to fob him off on Theft?”

“No.”

“Well, me neither,” Ben said. “So let's go see what we can find out about a rogue yellow-and-black cab.”

 

It was January's day off and just after 9:00 a.m. She had just picked up some clothes from the dry cleaners when she heard the news on the radio about a body in a Dumpster. She didn't think much about it until she returned home from her errands.

The portable television in her kitchen was on, and she was only half listening to the local news as she put away the groceries she'd bought. But her attention changed when she heard a news report identifying the body as that of the man who'd gone missing yesterday. Bart Scofield's status had gone from missing person to homicide.

Even though she didn't know him, she was saddened to learn that he had been murdered. It also reminded her that he couldn't possibly be connected to the rumors she'd been hearing about missing homeless men. To her knowledge, none of them had returned, alive or dead.

She finished her chores, then sat down to balance her checkbook, but soon found she couldn't concentrate. She kept thinking about those missing men and the gossip about a street preacher who'd been to hell and returned to tell the tale. Without referring to the copious notes she'd been keeping about him, she couldn't remember when she'd begun tying the two things together.

She was staring off into space, the checkbook forgotten, when her phone rang. The call was of no consequence, but it refocused her plans for the day. As soon as the conversation was finished, she changed her clothes, got her purse and a notepad, and headed out the door. She was determined to get a new lead on the Sinner or chuck the story idea altogether.