Before He Sins

***

When her phone rang at 4:47 in the morning, a single thought went through Mackenzie’s sleepy mind as she reached for the bedside table.

A call at this hour…I guess my vacation is over.

“Yeah?” she asked, not bothering with formalities as she was technically on vacation.

“White?”

In an odd way, she had nearly missed McGrath over these last nine days. Still, hearing his voice was like a very quick and stark return to reality.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Sorry for the early call,” he said. And before he added anything else, Mackenzie heard Ellington’s phone ring from the other side of the bed.

Something big, she thought. Something bad.

“Look, I know I signed off on your two weeks,” McGrath said. “But we’ve got a mess on our hands here and I need you on it. You and Ellington. Meet me in my office as soon as you can.”

It wasn’t a question, but a direct order. And without anything resembling a goodbye, McGrath killed the call. Mackenzie let out a sigh and looked over at Ellington, who was finishing up his own call.

“Well, looks like your vacation is over,” he said with a thin smile.

“That’s fine,” she said. “It ended on quite a bang.”

And then, like some old married couple, they kissed and slid out of bed, heading in to work.

CHAPTER TWO

The J. Edgar Hoover building was empty as Mackenzie and Ellington entered. They’d both been in its hallways at all hours of the night, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. Still, to be called in to work at such an hour was never a good thing. It usually meant there was something truly awful waiting for them.

When they reached McGrath’s office, they found his door open. He was sitting at a small conference table in the back of his office, looking over a variety of files. There was another agent there with him, a woman Mackenzie had seen before. Her name was Agent Yardley, a quiet, no-bullshit type of woman who had stepped in to help Agent Harrison from time to time. She gave a nod and a robotic sort of smile when they entered the room and stepped up to the conference room table. She looked back at her laptop, focused on whatever was on the screen.

When McGrath looked up at Mackenzie, she couldn’t help but notice what looked like slight relief in his eyes. It was a nice way to be introduced back into work after having her vacation cut short.

“White, Ellington,” McGrath said. “You know Agent Yardley?”

“Yes,” Mackenzie said, giving the agent a nod of acknowledgment.

“She’s just come back from a crime scene that is linked to another we had five days ago. I originally had her on the case but when I thought we might have a serial on our hands, I asked her to provide everything she had so I could hand it off to you two. We’ve got a murder…the second of its kind in five days. White, I called you specifically because I want you on it based on your history – the Scarecrow Killer specifically.”

“What’s the case?” Mackenzie asked.

Yardley turned her laptop toward them. Mackenzie went to the chair closest to it and took a seat. She looked at the image on the screen with a deadened sort of quiet that she had come to know well – the ability to study a picture of something grotesque as part of her job but with a resigned sympathy most humans would feel at such a tragic death.

She saw an older man, his hair and beard mostly gray, hanging from the door of a church. His arms were extended and his head was bowed down in a show of mock crucifixion. There were slash marks on his chest and a large gash on his forehead. He had been stripped down to his underwear, which had caught a great deal of the blood that had drained down from his brow and chest. From what she could see in the pictures, she was pretty sure his hands had literally been nailed to the door. The feet, though, were simply tied together.

“This is the second victim,” Yardley said. “Reverend Ned Tuttle, fifty-five years of age. He was discovered by an old woman who had stopped by the church early to put flowers on her husband’s grave. Forensics is on the scene as we speak. It seems the body was put there less than four hours ago. We’ve already had agents speak with the family to notify them.”

A woman who likes to take charge and get things done, Mackenzie thought. Perhaps she and I would get along well together.

“What do we have on the first victim?” Mackenzie asked.

McGrath slid her a folder. As she opened it up and looked over the contents, McGrath filled her in. “Father Costas, of the Blessed Heart Catholic Church. He was found in the same state, nailed to the doors of his church five days ago. I’m honestly quite surprised you didn’t see anything about it on the news.”

“I made a point not to watch the news on my vacation,” she said, cutting McGrath a look that was meant to be comical but, she felt, went totally unacknowledged.

“I remember hearing about it around the water cooler,” Ellington said. “The woman who discovered the body was in a state of shock for a while, right?”

“Right,” McGrath said.

“And based on what forensics came up with,” Yardley added, “Father Costas had certainly not been nailed there for any longer than two hours.”

Mackenzie looked through the files. The images inside showed Father Costas in the exact same position as Reverend Tuttle. Everything looked pretty much identical, right down to the elongated gash across the brow.

She closed the file and slid it back over to McGrath.

“Where is this church?” Mackenzie asked, pointing back to the laptop screen.

“Just outside of town. A decent-sized Presbyterian church.”

“Text me the directions,” Mackenzie said, already getting to her feet. “I’d like to go see it for myself.”

Apparently, she had missed working over the last eight days more than she had realized.

***

It was still dark when Mackenzie and Ellington arrived at the church. The forensics team was just finishing up their work. The body of Reverend Tuttle had been removed from the door but that was fine with Mackenzie. Based on the two images she had seen of Father Costas and Reverend Tuttle, she’d seen all she needed to see.

Two crucifixion-style murders, both on the front doors of churches. The men killed were the presumed leaders of those churches. It’s pretty clear someone has a pretty big grudge against the church. And whoever they are, it’s not specific to one particular denomination.

She and Ellington approached the front of the church as the forensics team wrapped things up. Off to the left, near the small plaque board with the church’s name on it, was a small group of people. A few of them were in prayer while they embraced. Others were openly weeping.

Members of the church, Mackenzie assumed with a resounding sadness.

They neared the church and the scene only got worse. There were smears of blood and two large holes where the nails had been driven in. She looked the area over for any further religious iconography but saw nothing. There was just blood and bits of dirt and sweat.

Such a bold move, she thought. There’s got to be some sort of symbolism to it. Why a church? Why the doors of a church? Once would be a coincidence. But two in a row, both nailed to the doors – that’s purposeful.

She found it almost offensive that someone would do such a thing in front of a church. And maybe that was the point of it. There was no way to know for sure. While Mackenzie was not a strong believer in religion or God or the effects of faith, she also fully respected the rights of people who did live by faith. Sometimes she wished she was that kind of person. Maybe that was why she found this act so deplorable; mocking the death of Christ at the very entryway to a place where people gathered to seek solace and refuge in his name was detestable.

“Even if this was the first murder,” Ellington said, “a sight like this would instantly make me think there were more coming. This is…revolting.”

“It is,” Mackenzie said. “But I can’t be quite sure why it makes me feel that way.”

“Because churches are safe places. You don’t expect to see large nail holes and wet blood on their doors. That’s some Old Testament shit right there.”

Mackenzie wasn’t anything close to a Biblical scholar but she did recall Bible stories from her childhood – something about the Angel of Death passing through a city and collecting the firstborns of every family if there was not a certain marking over their doors.