The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3), Brian Shea [best non fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

"What do you got, Ray?"

"It's not there."

"What's not there?"

"The round. It's not in the hole. I mean, unless I’ve suddenly gone blind.”

“Maybe it’s all that chicory your wife keeps putting in your coffee?” Kelly continued their long-running joke regarding his wife’s decision to cut expenses by taking away his one true love: Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

“Give me a little extra light."

Kelly pulled a flashlight from his pocket and angled it over Ray's right shoulder. Both now could easily see that the hole where the round should have been was empty.

"Strange," Kelly said.

"Maybe it popped back out," Charles said doubtfully.

"Ever seen something like that before?"

"Never in my life, but there's always a first for something."

They scanned the floorboard area without moving the body, but Kelly saw no sign of the round. "We'll do a more thorough search once we remove the priest's body, but I'm not holding out hope. Not a good sign," he said.

"Definitely not."

Charles took a few more photographs while standing over the priest, then said, “I’m good. Ready to roll?”

"Ready. Hey, Jimmy, can you grab his feet? We're going to do a roll," Kelly called out to Mainelli, who made an agreeable grunt. He was now used to his friend's nonverbal responses to work.

"All right, on three. One, two, three."

Tomlin’s body now rested on his left side. He was cold, but rigor hadn’t begun to set, making the roll easier than most.

Charles took several photos from underneath the priest's right side and then of the exit wound outside his right temple area, which was much larger than the entrance wound.

"We need a quick photo of that, with scale," Charles said.

Kelly, already one step ahead of him, had the scale ready to go.

After a few clicks of the camera, Charles said, "All set with that. Let's back out."

Kelly worked himself out of the tight space, leaving the priest's body resting in its new position.

"What the hell is that?" Barnes asked.

"What’s what?" Kelly glanced around, excited at the prospect she had spotted the missing round.

"That mark on his hand." Barnes was now peering over Mainelli's shoulder as Kelly and Charles squatted lower, hovering over the body.

"Oh my God," Kelly said, seeing the carved X on the web of the priest’s right hand between his thumb, knuckle, and index finger. That same mark had been left on his partner, Danny Rourke—the perpetual red card on his murder board. An overlooked piece of evidence when his body was found over eight years ago.

“This just went from bad to worse,” Barnes said.

The group’s shocked silence affirmed her words.

5

"Let's run through it again," Kelly said.

Mainelli rubbed his eyes and then buried his face in his large hands, completely masking his facial expression. But Kelly knew the tortured look he wore.

Even with the conference room’s moderated temperature, Mainelli was sweating profusely. The fitness-resistant investigator was beginning to show signs of wear from the long day, which started at the church and was now closing in on its tenth consecutive hour of tedium, with the last four taking place inside the BPD Homicide unit’s conference room, affectionately referred to as The Depot. The room’s name started as a joke that stuck, though nobody could pinpoint its origin. It was a reference to the end of the line, a homage to the city’s public transportation rail system.

At first glance, The Depot was anything but extraordinary, just an average-size conference room with a long outstretched table, several chairs, computer screens on both walls, and several keyboards enabling the detectives to access different files and pull them up for everyone to view. What made the room special were the cases solved within its walls.

Kelly was old school when it came time to hash out a case, as were most of the people in the room with him. He used the room’s technology sparingly, preferring to spread the case out on the table and manipulate the tangible documents rather than use the monitor displays. And right now, he was looking down at the series of photographs Charles had taken at the scene, in particular those of Tomlin’s body in the confessional’s cramped space.

They were reviewing the crime scene again, and Mainelli couldn't have looked more annoyed at the prospect. "Seriously, Mike?” he complained. “How many times do you want to look at it today? Why don't we take a break, call it a day, come back with this thing early in the morning, fresh? Who knows? Maybe we sleep on it, something pops into our minds.”

“We’re all tired. But I don’t think we’ve hit a stopping point yet,” Kelly offered. Trying to coax Mainelli into focusing on the case was getting harder with each passing second.

“All I'm saying is a break might be nice, Mike."

Kelly gave him a stern look. Although Mainelli had been with Homicide for more years than Kelly, in the last few months Kelly had shown a tenacious drive mechanism that put some of his more senior partners to shame.

Barnes sat at the table, unfazed at reinvestigating the scene from beginning to end in their fruitless attempt at finding the evidentiary needle in the haystack, the clue that could be lying just within arm's reach.

Currently, they’d hit a stalemate. As if to punctuate the real reason for Mainelli's request for an evening recess, his stomach rumbled loudly.

"Jimmy, feel free to cut loose at any time. I'm going to look at it again. I understand if you've got some things to take care of; go do it. No one's holding you back. Kris and I can hold down the fort."

Mainelli looked at his watch and sighed, then followed with an exasperated roll of his eyes. Kelly knew he had won the battle by calling him out as the only member who would be leaving, an attack on his ego. Pride prevented his departure. Kelly played the card and it worked. Mainelli would be staying for another session of round table discussion, an additional examination of the crime scene