When Rosebud walked into their shared office, he saw Murphy hanging up the phone and grabbing her jacket.
“Any of the priests react oddly?” she asked when she saw him.
“Nope.” Rosebud dropped his body into the old chair and tested the strength of its support as he leaned way back. He loosened his tie and exhaled loudly while retrieving his notebook. “Their personal takes were all slightly different but nothing major.”
“What do they think?”
He began scanning his notes. “Some boring stuff. Colossians is the twelfth book in the New Testament, written by Paul, although that wasn’t globally agreed upon—”
“Who cares who wrote it? That was centuries ago. What does it mean?”
He scanned through more text, his finger sliding down past his scribbles. He then flipped a page. And another.
“Father Miller, the older priest, talked lots about the history behind it. Let me get to the good parts.” He flipped one more page. “Here. This particular 3:17 section is about the rules for Holy Living.”
“What do you mean? Like what constitutes a sin?”
“That’s pretty much how I understood it. But one of them, Father Matthews, went on about the Old Self and the New Self. I honestly didn’t get that part.”
“So, we’re back to square one.”
“Except we know the killer’s targeting sinners.”
“Are the sins identical between the two passages? Lori’s and Jessica’s ribbon marks?”
“Similar but not identical. How was the autopsy? Did I miss anything important?”
“I missed a big chunk of it myself. Fucking paparazzi and journalists have been following me around. They were at my house this morning! Can you believe it?”
“Since when do the press care about detectives investigating homicide cases?”
“I know, right? The questions they yelled all implied I was to blame for our lack of progress since I was the lead. The world’s going crazy. Anyways, they eventually understood my ‘no comment’ and left me alone. The M.E. confirms it’s pretty much the same as with the first vic. Recent sexual intercourse, no rape. And there was some dark red paste in her stomach.”
Rosebud shivered as he imagined that. “Glad to have missed it.”
“One new thing, though: some oily residue was used on her forehead.”
“What oil?”
“I sent it to the lab to get it analyzed. I bumped it up in the queue. Anyways, I’m heading out to meet our second vic’s BFF, a woman named Lucy Hamilton. She has a strong alibi, she was attending a race, and it checked out; she won third place. I was just on the phone with the organizers. But she could know more about where Jessica was prior to her death. I’m heading out to talk to her now. Want to come with?” Murphy asked.
“Sure. Beats doing paperwork. But could we grab a coffee and donut first?”
“I’ll do you one better. She works at an Italian coffee shop. Why don’t we grab something to eat there? We should have enough time before my meeting with the profiler.”
“Great!”