Before He Sins

CHAPTER FIVE

It was 3:08 by the car’s dashboard when the pastor came out of the church.

He watched the pastor through the windshield from a distance. He knew the man was holy; his reputation was stellar and his church had been blessed. Still, it was rather disappointing. Sometimes he thought holy men should be set apart from the rest of the world, easier to identify. Maybe like those old religious paintings where Jesus had a large golden circle around his head.

He chuckled at the thought of this as he watched the pastor meet with another man in front of a car by the church. This other man was an assistant of some sort. He’d seen this assistant before but wasn’t concerned with him. He was very low on the food chain within the church.

No, he was more interested in the head pastor.

He closed his eyes as the two men talked. In the silence of his car, he prayed. He knew he could pray anywhere and God would hear him. He had known for quite some time that God did not care where you were when you prayed or confessed your sins. You did not have to be in some huge and gaudily decorated building. In fact, the Bible indicated that such elaborate dwellings were an affront to God.

With his prayer over, he thought about that bit of scripture. He muttered it out loud, his voice slow and gritty.

“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, so that they may be seen of men.”

He looked back to the pastor, currently walking away from the man and to another car.

“Hypocrite,” he said. His voice was a mixture of venom and sadness.

He also knew that the Bible warned of a plague of false prophets in the end times. That was, after all, why he had set himself to his current task. The false prophets, the men who spoke of glorifying God while eyeing the collection plates as they were passed around – the same ones who preached of sanctification and purity while staring at young boys with lustful eyes – they were the worst of them. They were worse than the drug dealers and murderers. They were worse than rapists and the most deplorable deviants on the streets.

Everyone knew it. But no one did anything about it.

Until now. Until he had heard God speaking into him, telling him to set it right.

It was his job to rid the world of these false prophets. It was bloody work, but it was God’s work. And that was all he needed to know.

He looked back to the pastor, getting into his car and leaving the church.

After a while, he also pulled out onto the street. He did not tail the pastor closely, but followed along at a safe distance.

When he came to a stoplight, he could just barely hear the musical noise from his trunk as several of his industrial nails clinked together in their box.

CHAPTER SIX

She walks up toward the church, the blood moon casting a shadow of her body on the sidewalk that looks like a stretched out bug – a praying mantis or a millipede perhaps. There is a bell ringing, a large bell above the cathedral, summoning everyone to come worship and sing and give praise.

But Mackenzie cannot get inside the church. There is a throng of people on the front stoop, congregating around the front door. She sees Ellington there, as well as McGrath, Harrison, her estranged mother and sister, even her old partner, Bryers, and some of the men she’d worked with while still a detective back in Nebraska.

“What’s everyone doing?” she asks.

Ellington turns to her. His eyes are closed. He is dressed in a nice suit, punctuated by a blood red tie. He smiles at her, his eyes still closed, and holds a hand to his lips. Beside him, her mother points to the front doors of the church.

Her father is there. Strung up, crucified. He wears a crown of thorns, and a wound in his side leaks something that looks like motor oil. He is looking directly at her, his eyes wide and maniacal. He is insane. She can see it in his eyes and in the leer of a grin.

“Has thee come to save thyself?” he asks her.

“No,” she says.

“Well, you certainly did not come to save me. Too late for that. Now bow. Worship. Find your peace in me.”

And as if someone has broken her in half from inside, Mackenzie kneels. She kneels hard, scraping her knees on the concrete. All around her, the congregation starts to sing in tongues. She opens her mouth and formless words come out, joining in the song. She looks back up to her father and there is a halo of fire encircling his head. He is dead now, his eyes blank and expressionless, his mouth trailing a pool of blood.

There is the chiming of the bell, repeating over and again.

Ringing…

Ringing. Something ringing.

Her phone. With a jerk, Mackenzie came awake. She barely registered the clock on her bedside table, which read 2:10 a.m. She answered the phone, trying to shake the vestiges of the nightmare from her head

“This is White,” she said.

“Good morning,” came Harrison’s voice. She was secretly rather disappointed. She’d been expecting to hear from Ellington. He’d been sent off on some task by McGrath, the details of which were sketchy at best. He’d promised to call at some point but so far, she’d heard nothing from him.

Harrison, she thought groggily. What the hell does he want?

“It’s way too early for this, Harrison,” she said.

“I know,” Harrison said. “Sorry, but I’m calling for McGrath. There’s been another murder.”

***

Through a series of texts, Mackenzie pieced together all she needed to know. A rebellious couple had pulled off into the shadow of a well-known church’s parking lot to have sex. Just as things had started heating up, the girl had seen something strange on the door. It had spooked her enough to put an end to the night’s planned activities. Clearly pissed, the male who had been robbed of his exhibitionism stalked to the front door and found a naked body nailed to the doors.

The church in question was a fairly popular one: Living Word Community Church, one of the largest in the city. It often made the news, as the President frequently attended services there. Mackenzie had never been (she had not stepped into a church since a guilt-filled weekend in college) but the size and scope of the place sank in fully as she steered her car into the parking lot.

She was one of the first on the scene. The CSI team was there, approaching the main entrance of the church. A single agent was getting out of a car, apparently having been waiting for her. She was not at all surprised to see that it was Yardley, the agent who had handled the first case with Father Costas.

Yardley met her at the sidewalk that led to the main entrance. She looked tired but excited in a way that only other agents would likely identify and relate to.

“Agent White,” Yardley said. “Thanks for coming so quickly.”

“Sure. Were you the first one on the scene?”

“I was. I got sent out about fifteen minutes ago. Harrison called and sent me.”

Mackenzie almost commented on this but shut it down. Strange that I wasn’t called first, she thought. Maybe McGrath is letting her fill in where Ellington would be helping. Makes sense, as she was the first to handle the Costas scene.

“Seen the body yet?” Mackenzie asked as they headed for the front door just behind the CSI team.

“Yeah. From a few feet away. It’s identical to the others.”

Within a few steps, Mackenzie was able to see this for herself. She stayed back a bit, letting the CSI and Forensics guys do their job. Sensing that they had two agents behind them waiting, the teams worked quickly yet efficiently, making sure to leave the two agents some room to take in their own observations.

Yardley was right. The scene was the same, right down to the elongated mark across the brow. The only difference was that this man’s underwear had apparently slipped down – or had been yanked down to his ankles on purpose.

One of the guys from the CSI team looked back at them. He looked a little out of sorts, maybe even a little sad.

“The deceased is Robert Woodall. He’s the head pastor here.”

“You’re sure?” Mackenzie asked.

“Positive. My family attends this church. I’ve heard this man preach at least fifty times.”

Mackenzie stepped closer to the body. The doors to Living Word were not ornate and decorative like the ones at Cornerstone Presbyterian and Blessed Heart. These were more modern, made of a heavy-duty wood that was designed and distressed to look like something akin to a barn door.

Like the others, Pastor Woodall had been nailed through the hands and his ankles had been bound with bailing wire. She studied his exposed genitalia, wondering if his stark nakedness had been a decision made by the killer who had staged the body. She could see nothing out of the ordinary and decided that the underwear must have slid down by itself, perhaps due to the weight of the blood it had collected. The wounds that had shed that blood were numerous. There were a few scratches on his chest. And while his back could not be seen, the trails of blood that smeared along his waist and ventured down his legs indicated that there would be a few back there.

Mackenzie then saw another wound – a thin one that brought back the hellish imagery of her nightmare.

There was a slit in Woodall’s right side. It was slight but clearly visible. There was something precise about it, almost pristine. She leaned in closer and pointed. “What’s this look like to you?” she asked the CSI team.

“I noticed that, too,” said the man who had recognized Pastor Woodall. “Looks like some sort of incision. Maybe made by some sort of crafting blade – an X-Acto knife or something.”

“But these other cuts and stab wounds,” Mackenzie said. “They’re made with a standard blade, right? The angles and edges…”

“Yeah. You a religious woman?” the man asked.

“That seems to be a recurring question over the last day or so,” she said. “Despite the answer, though, I understand the relevance of a cut to the side. It’s where Christ was speared while he was hanging on the cross.”

“Yeah,” Yardley said from behind her. “But there was no blood, right?”

“Right,” Mackenzie said. “According to scripture, water came out of this wound.”

So why did the killer decide to make this wound stand out? she wondered. And why was it not on the others?

She stood back and observed the scene while Yardley chatted with a few of the CSI and Forensics members. The case had already unnerved her a bit but this random wound in Woodall’s side made her worry that something deeper might be going on. There was symbolism but then there was layered symbolism.

The killer has obviously thought things out, she thought. He has a plan and he’s being methodical about it. More than that, the addition of this very precise cut in the side shows that he’s not just killing to kill – he’s trying to convey a message.

“But what message?” she asked herself quietly.

In the darkest hours of night, she stood in the entryway to Living Word Community Church and tried to find that message on the canvas of the dead pastor’s body.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the time it had taken Mackenzie to leave Living Word and drive to the J. Edgar Hoover building, the media had somehow found out about the newest murder. While the murder of Father Costas had made the news, the death of Ned Tuttle had not. But with the lead pastor of a church with the status of Living Word, the case was going to blow up the headlines. It was 4:10 when Mackenzie arrived at the FBI offices, headed up to see McGrath. She figured that the details of Pastor Woodall and the case as a whole would be the main point of interest on local morning news programs – and all over the nation by noon.

She could feel the mounting pressure of it all as she stepped into McGrath’s office. He was sitting at his little conference table, on the phone with someone. Agent Harrison was there with him, reading something from a laptop. Yardley was also there, having arrived a scant few minutes before Mackenzie. She was sitting, listening to McGrath on the phone, apparently awaiting instruction.

Seeing the two of them hovering around McGrath made her wish Ellington was here. It reminded her that she was still in the dark about where McGrath had sent him. She wondered if it had something to do with this case – but if it did, why had she not been informed of his whereabouts?

When McGrath finally got off the phone, he looked to the three gathered agents and let out a sigh. “That was Assistant Director Kirsch,” he said. “He’s assembling three more agents to spearhead this case on his end. The moment the media caught wind of this, we were fucked. This is going to go big and it’s going to go big quickly.”

“Any particular reason?” Harrison asked.

“Living Word is a hugely popular church. The President goes there. A few other politicians are regulars, too. Their podcast gets around five hundred thousand listens a week. Woodall wasn’t like a celebrity or anything, but he was well known. And if it’s a church the President attends…”

“Got it,” Harrison said.

McGrath looked at Mackenzie and Yardley. “Anything of note at the scene?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Mackenzie said. She then went into detail about the peculiar and precise incision in Woodall’s right side. She did not, however, go into what sort of symbolic gesture she was trying to decipher from its meaning. She had no real solid theories just yet and did not want to waste time with speculation.

McGrath, however, was in panic mode. He spread his hands out on the table and nodded to the chairs around the table. “Take a seat. Let’s go over what we have. I want to be able to give Kirsch the same information we have. Including you three, we now have six agents dedicated to this case. If we work together, armed with the same details, we might be able to nab this guy before he strikes again.”

“Well,” Yardley said, “he’s not sticking to one denomination. We know that for sure. If anything, it seems like he’s trying to avoid that. So far we’ve got a Catholic church, a Presbyterian church, and now a nondenominational community church.”

“And another thing to consider,” Mackenzie said, “is that we can’t know for certain if he’s using the position of crucifixion as his preferred use of punishment and symbolism, or if he’s doing it as a mockery.”

“What’s the difference, really?” Harrison asked.

“Until we know which reason is behind it, we can’t narrow down the motive,” Mackenzie said. “If he’s doing it as a mockery, then he’s likely not a believer – maybe even some sort of very angry atheist or former believer. But if he’s doing it as a preferred means of symbolism, then he could be a very devout believer, albeit with some pretty strange ways to profess his faith.”

“And this thin cut along Woodall’s side,” McGrath said. “It wasn’t on any of the other bodies?”

“No,” Mackenzie said. “It was new. Which makes me think it has some meaning to it. Like the killer might even be trying to communicate something to us. Or just going further off the rails.”

McGrath pushed himself away from the table and looked to the ceiling, as if searching for answers up there. “I’m not blind to all of this,” he said. “I know there are zero clues and no real avenues to pursue. But if I don’t have something resembling a lead by the time this shit is splashed all over national news programs within a few hours, things are going to get bad around here. Kirsch says he’s already gotten a call from a congresswoman who attends Living Word asking why we weren’t able to crack this one as soon as Costas was killed. So I need the three of you to get me something. If I have nothing new to go on by this afternoon, I have to open it open wider…more resources, more manpower, And I really don’t want to do that.”

“I can check in with Forensics,” Yardley offered.

“Work alongside them for all I care,’ McGrath said. “I’ll make a call and okay it. I want you there the moment they discover anything from those bodies.”

“It might be a needle-in-a-haystack scenario,” Harrison said, “but I can start looking at local hardware stores to get records and receipts about anyone who has purchased the nails this guy is using in the last few months. From what I understand, they aren’t particularly common.”

McGrath nodded. It was an idea, sure, but the look on his face made it clear how much time that would take.

“And you, White?” he asked.

“I’ll go the families and co-workers,” she said. “In a church the size of Living Word, there’s got to be someone with some insight as to why this happened to Woodall.”

McGrath clapped his hands together loudly and sat forward. “Sounds good,” he said. “So get to it. And check in with me every hour on the hour. Got it?”

Yardley and Harrison nodded. Harrison closed his laptop as he stood up from the table. As they made their exit, Mackenzie hung back. When Yardley had closed the door behind them, leaving only Mackenzie and McGrath in the room, she turned back to him.

“Ah hell, what is it?” McGrath asked.

“I’m curious,” she said. “Agent Ellington would have been a valuable asset for this case. Where did you send him off to?”

McGrath shifted uncomfortably in his seat and briefly looked out the window of his office, to the early morning darkness outside.

“Well, before I tasked him with this other assignment, I obviously had no idea this case was going to be this bad. As for where he is currently working, with all due respect, that’s none of your business.”

“With the same respect,” she replied, doing her best not to sound too defensive, “you took away a partner I work well with, which leaves me on my own to work this case out.”

“You are not on your own,” McGrath said. “Harrison and Yardley are more than efficient. Now…please, Agent White. Get to work.”

She wanted to press the issue further but didn’t see the point. The last thing she needed was for McGrath to be pissed at her. The pressure was already on and it was far too early in the day to be dealing with a disgruntled boss.

She gave a curt little nod and took her leave. Still, as she walked toward the elevators, she pulled out her phone. It was too early to call Ellington so she opted for a text.

Just checking in, she typed. Call or text when you can.

She sent the text as she stepped into the elevator. She rode down to the garage where her car was waiting. Outside, the morning was still dark – the kind of thick darkness that seemed capable of hiding any secrets it wanted.

CHAPTER EIGHT

After grabbing a cup of coffee, Mackenzie headed back out to Living Word. She knew that it was a large church, so singling out anyone with possible information from within its staff or congregation would take forever. She figured that if the news had gotten out and phone calls had started to make the rounds, there was a very good chance that those close to Pastor Woodall would be at the church – perhaps already setting up little memorials or just coming to the church to be closer to God as they grieved.

Her intuition paid off yet again. When she arrived at the scene, Woodall had been removed from the doors. And while there were still several local police and members of the bureau present, there were also other people scattered here and there, held back by yellow crime scene tape that bordered the edge of the concrete walkway that led to the front doors.

A few of them were openly crying. Several were wrapped in the embraces of other onlookers. She took note of one man standing by himself, his head turned away from the scene. His head was lowered and his mouth was moving just slightly as he offered up prayers. Mackenzie respectfully gave him some time to finish his prayer before she approached him. As she neared him, she saw what looked to be an expression of anger on his face.

Excuse me, sir,” she said. “Do you have a moment?” She finished her question by showing her ID and introducing herself.

“Yes,” the man said. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, as if trying to swipe away the last remnants of sleep or a bad dream. He then offered his hand and said, “I’m Dave Wylerman, by the way. I’m head of the music department here at Living Word.”

“There’s a music department?”

“Yeah. We have a rotating ensemble of about fourteen musicians that make up three worship bands.”

“So you’ve worked closely with Pastor Woodall in the past?”

“Oh, absolutely. I’m in meetings with him at least twice a week. Outside of that, he’s become a dear family friend to my wife, my kids, and I over the past decade or so.”

“Can you think of anyone who might have been capable of doing this? Anyone who might have some sort of a grudge or grievance against Pastor Woodall?”

“Well, it’s a big church. I don’t think there’s a single person that works here that knows everyone that attends. But as for me, no, I can’t think of anyone right off the top of my head who was angry enough with him to do this…”

The early morning darkness had hidden Dave Wylerman’s tears to this point, but when he looked up into her eyes they were quite clear. He looked troubled, as if he were struggling to figure out how to say something.

“Do you have a moment to talk in private?” Mackenzie asked.

“Yeah.”

She waved him forward to follow her. She stepped away from the concrete entryway to the church and headed back to her car. She opened the passenger’s side door for him, figuring it might do him some good to get off his feet and feel relaxed. She got in the driver’s side and when she closed her door, she could tell that Wylerman was struggling to keep himself together.

“Has the rest of the church body been informed?” Mackenzie asked.

“No, just the elders, myself, and a few of those close to Pastor Woodall. But calls are being made. Everyone will know within an hour or so, I’d imagine.”

Good, Mackenzie thought. They’ll personally receive the news from someone they know rather than hearing about it for the first time on the news.

“So, correct me if I’m wrong,” she said, “but it looked like you were struggling with something back there by the church. Is there something you can tell me that you didn’t want to share in front of everyone else?”

“Well, as you know, it’s a big church. On any given Sunday, if you count both services we hold, there’s anywhere between five thousand and seven thousand people that attend. And with such a large group, we require several elders to handle the business and concerns of the church. Here at Living Word, we have six – well, we had six. One of them had started to sort of raise some concerns among the others before he left. I don’t think he would have it in him to do something like this but…I don’t know. Some things he had been insinuating…it sort of caught everyone else off guard. Other elders…employees…”

“What’s his name?”

“Eric Crouse.”

“And what sort of things?” Mackenzie asked.

“He kept spouting off about how things left in the dark will come to the light and how that light could be blinding. That maybe being burned by the light is exactly what Living Word needed.”

“And how long had he been behaving this way?”

“About a month or so, I’d say. From what I understand, he left of his own accord about two weeks ago but there was talk before that among the other elders and Pastor Woodall about releasing him. But the thing of it is that everything Eric was saying was scripturally accurate. Things Jesus said, things that most people that attend Living Word believe. But…and I know this is going to sound dumb…it was the way he said the things. You know? Like, he had some hidden context to them. More than that, he never spoke like that before. He was an elder, sure, but never one to just spout off scripture or starting giving these hellfire-and-brimstone-type talks.”

“So if you don’t think he was capable of murder, why are you mentioning him? Was it just the sudden personality change that alarmed everyone?”

Wylerman shrugged. “No. Some people started to notice that Eric was doing everything he could to avoid meetings or small groups where Pastor Woodall would be in attendance. They’ve never been best friends, but always got along. Then all of a sudden, when he started talking about all of this light shining in the darkness stuff, he also seemed to distance himself from Pastor Woodall.”

“And you say he left the church two weeks ago?”

“Yeah, give or take a few days. I don’t know if he’s attending somewhere else now or what. And what’s strange is that it’s almost as if Eric knew Pastor Woodall’s schedule. He had just gotten back from a retreat a few days ago.”

“A retreat?”

“Yeah, it’s this little getaway he takes twice a year. It’s a really quiet little island off the coast of Florida.”

“And how long had he been back?” Mackenzie asked.

“He and his wife got back home five days ago.”

Mackenzie thought about this for a moment, cataloguing it in her mind. She then turned matters back to the man Wylerman had mentioned – the former elder, Eric Crouse.

“Would you happen to know where Crouse lives?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’ve been in his house a few times for small groups and prayer.”

Mackenzie wasn’t sure why, but something about this creeped her out. The timing of Eric Crouse leaving Living Word was nearly perfect for the type of suspect she was looking for. To imagine this grieving man clasping praying hands together with a man who might have been responsible for three deaths over the last few days was unsettling.

“Can you tell me where?”

“I will,” Wylerman said, “but I’d really rather you not tell him that you got the information from me…or anyone else at Living Word, for that matter.”

“Of course not,” she said.

A bit reluctantly, Wylerman gave her directions to Eric Crouse’s house. Mackenzie typed them in on her phone, noticing that while Wylerman might have been interacting with her, his mind was very much still with his grieving friends out by the church. He was looking in that direction now, wiping tears from his eyes as he looked at them through the passenger window.

“Thanks for your time, Mr. Wylerman,” Mackenzie said.

Wylerman nodded without saying anything else. He then got out of the car. He hung his head low before he even reached the small crowd of people. She could see him trembling. She had never understood how people could have deep faith in an invisible God, but she did respect the sense of community that was evident among those who shared a common belief. She felt very bad for Dave Wylerman in that moment, as well as those who attended Living Word and the void they would feel on Sunday morning.

With that sense of sympathy pushing her, Mackenzie pulled out of the Living Word lot and headed west, to what looked to be the first solid lead this case had churned up.