SCOTT LEANED CLOSER. “WE CONTINUED TO investigate. The threats came first. Some biblical quotes. A few from Christian Identity books. Like this.” He handed me a crumpled piece of paper in a plastic sleeve.
As the kamikaze is to the Japanese / As the Shiite is to Islam / As the Zionist is to the Jew / So the Phineas priest is to Christendom. It makes little difference whether you agree or disagree with the Phineas Priesthood. It is important that you know that it exists, is active, and in the near future may become a central fact in your life.
“I ignored them. At first. The threats increased.” He handed me a second sleeve.
Soon, the fog that comes from heaven will be accompanied by the destroying wind of a righteous God.
I handed the note back to Scott, then wiped my hands on my jeans.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. That’s why they’re in plastic. Classic Phineas Priesthood materials,” Scott continued. “Next came messages left on my phone warning me not to prosecute Jerome. I ignored them. I found a dead cat—”
I sloshed my coffee cup.
“I see you got that message too.”
“Why a cat?” I asked as I mopped up the liquid with a napkin.
“I can’t prove this, but the lady in Kellogg who first called the police had cats. She was in a hit-and-run car accident less than a week after the two men died in a shootout.”
“So both a warning and a hint.”
“That’s what I think. Under the cat was a threat directed at my family, with the Phineas Priesthood symbol and the word traitor. I told the police, but they couldn’t do anything.” He shifted in his seat and looked around the room. “Then one day a photograph was stuffed in my mailbox. A photo of my daughter going to school with a red X drawn over her.”
“So you moved.”
“As fast as I could. Later I heard about the lead detective’s son being murdered by a serial killer.”
“That’s what I was told.”
He glanced around the diner again. “I decided I had to do something. I contacted some friends at the prosecutor’s office and told them I wanted to know whenever a trial date was set.”
“Because?”
“Because everyone who had been linked to this case would be in danger.”
“So you’re running around warning people—”
“Not people. You. You’re the only one left who was directly involved with the investigation.”
“Wait. Didn’t you mention the police in Kellogg?”
“Officer Mike Higgins was the investigating officer. He moved to California. Then dropped out of sight. Maybe a good thing for him. He had a ride-along that day. Gal named Margie Sheehan.”
“Is she . . .?”
“Dead? Yes. Fell down a flight of stairs. Because some of the deaths seem to be accidents and each was different, no one put it all together.”
“Until you did. What do you know that can help me?”
The waitress warmed up our coffee, and he waited until she’d moved on to another table. “I think the killer was the mastermind of the Phineas Priesthood cell. I think he threatened the detective and his family, but the threats were ignored, and his son was murdered. I think that’s why the detective committed suicide. Guilt.”
Scott’s eyes were red rimmed with purplish bags under them. He hadn’t shaved in a day or two, and his hair needed a trim. “He was your friend, wasn’t he?”
Scott nodded and leaned back from the table. After clearing his throat, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He gazed at it for a moment, his fingers stroking the edges, before handing it to me.
I recognized it immediately. “A challenge coin.”
“Yes. Originally given in World War I. Now they’re awarded in law enforcement as a motivation to achieve a specific goal.”
“And this particular goal was?”
“Find the remaining member and bring him to justice. There’s a part of this whole thing that’s never been released. After the shootout in Kellogg, we raided the house where the two men had holed up. We found evidence of a carefully crafted plot to derail a train, a train carrying chemicals, on either April 19 or 20.”
“The nineteenth because it is the anniversary of Waco and Oklahoma City. If caught or killed, they would be placed on the martyr’s honor roll.”
“Right, and the twentieth would be Hitler’s birthday.”
“Do you know where this was to have happened?”
“No. Rail lines in Idaho, Washington, and Montana were marked, but no one line or shipment was identified. Needless to say, such an event could have been catastrophic if the chemical spill were to occur near a major city.” He took back the coin. “We put together a task force to find the author of this plot, the man that got away. There were ten of us. We each got a coin to remind us of the stakes should this sociopath succeed.”
“Were the task-force members also threatened or killed?”
“No. Just the initial investigators. He probably held them accountable for the deaths of his co-conspirators. And, since time had passed with nothing to show for it, the task force was dissolved.”
The clatter of the restaurant receded. The glow of the pendent light above the table illuminated the gold finish on the coin in his hand. “My friend, the one that committed suicide . . . I was there at his funeral.” He took a deep breath. “I got to thinking about the coin. I asked the widow about it. She looked me in the eye and said, ‘My son is dead. My husband is dead. I gave the coin to someone who will find and punish the man responsible.’ ”
I leaned forward. “Do you know who she gave the coin to?”
He handed me the coin, then dropped some money on the table to pay for my coffee. “No. Just whatever you do, don’t get caught between the two.”
I thought about Scott’s warnings all the way home, my brain bouncing over each nugget of information, trying to make sense of it. I checked the rearview mirror often for any signs I was being followed, but the highway was free of traffic.
Once home, I returned to my foam-core display in the office. The ceiling light was stark, as were the empty walls. I’d hang some paintings once the walls were painted. Picking up a black Sharpie, I drew a timeline across the bottom of the foam core. I really wanted Dave or Beth there to bounce my ideas off of, but it was after midnight, and neither would appreciate a phone call. Arranging the desk chair and folding seat in front of the display, I addressed my imaginary audience. “Serial killers don’t just dive into that career path. They evolve over time. So.”
I made a mark at the far left side of the line. “Let’s start here. You’re a Phineas priest. You have a boatload of things you hate, and you believe God has given you the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. You bomb the Planned Parenthood building. You even kill a few people. That probably felt really good.”
“Next.” I made a mark an inch from the first and wrote Identified. “You and your friends are wanted by police and every law-enforcement agency in the Inland Empire. They call me in to draw your buddies’ composites. Your ‘team’ is either arrested or dies. And your grand plans for mass destruction are discovered.”
I paused and listened for any questions from the empty chairs. Both imaginary friends seemed attentive to my logic. Pulling the challenge coin from my pocket, I taped it on the board. “You also have a team of professionals looking for you. You don’t dare form another Phineas Priesthood cell. You have to go it alone. Lone wolf.”
I made the next mark on the timeline and scribbled Revenge. “Your original mission was thwarted. It’s payback time.” Another mark and the word Threats. “You decide to go after the people who are rocking your world. The ones directly involved. You threaten the prosecuting attorney, but that didn’t work, did it?” I looked at the drawings of the girls, then the photo of Aynslee. “So you move on to threaten the family. The children. Something no parent can ignore. This works and Scott moves away. A continuance on the trial of your buddy, Jerome.” A mark. Success.
The chairs remained silent. “Now on to the lead detective, the next one on your list of enemies. I bet you skipped personal threats and went straight to threats against the family. You learned your lesson. But this is a cop. And he was determined to find you.” I tapped the coin.
My gaze drifted back to the line of girls. Striding to my desk, I found Beth’s notes and the police reports. Spokane had faxed photos, but the fax machine turned them into abstract Rorschach tests.
I found the names of the murdered boys from the report, then went to my studio, plugged them into the computer, and printed the results.
The boys, like Mattie, Aynslee, and the young women, looked like siblings. I brought the boys’ images to the office and taped them to the wall.
The victims are different, boys before, now young women, the Dave chair whispered.
“I see that. I wonder . . .” I retrieved the case information and sat. I quickly found what I was looking for. The boy was shot from some distance away. And he lived near the detective.
I pointed. “Was this first boy a mistake? Did you think it was the detective’s son?”
Yes. That’s what happened, the Beth chair murmured.
“But something else happened.” Standing, I stepped to the timeline and wrote First Victim. “You liked it. You liked the fear everyone felt. But it wasn’t enough. You needed to prolong that fear.” Another mark. Second Victim. Failure. I put a star next to this, opened the closet, and retrieved the top box. Placing it on the desk next to the squirt gun, I quickly rummaged through the contents. I didn’t have that many out-of-state cases and soon found the one from Spokane. A copy of my interview notes refreshed my memory. I taped the interview form to the board. “Victim two was too traumatized to give a description. He’d been driven from his home in Spokane to North Idaho and tortured. He escaped. Turned out he was a cross-country runner.”
And the killer learned from this, the Dave chair said.
I nodded. “He learned he liked it even more. He liked hunting, the pursuit, but he needed more control. He’s evolving as a killer. Honing his trade. So now we have victim three.” I marked the timeline and wrote Third Victim, Son. “The intended victim, young . . . a . . .” I reread Beth’s notes. “The boy’s name was Hudson?”
The notes slipped from my numb fingers. I heard the killer’s creepy, disguised voice from the phone call. “I know you found my blanket . . . the Hudson’s Bay blanket. The cream one with the stripes.”
I sank into the nearest seat, my heart thundering in my ears. “The killer made a point of telling me the name for that type of blanket.”
He wants you to be afraid. Terrorized, the Dave chair said softly.
“And he’s succeeding,” I whispered.