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

“I’ve got a bigger concern,” Gray offered ominously. “I'm guessing the TPO didn't leave randomly. I think he knew about the camera there and purposely took the alternative route to avoid it." Gray tapped the top line on the dry erase board: ex-military/police. "He's eluded capture for fifteen years, which is increasingly more difficult with the exponential developments in technology. Our unsub has managed to be just a blip on the digital radar. Never picked up on a surveillance cam, no photos…nothing. The only plausible guess is that he knows how to avoid detection at a scary level."

"Who are we dealing with here?" Mainelli fired back. "The boogeyman? This isn't some type of super soldier movie. This isn't a Jason Bourne novel."

Kelly wanted to agree but couldn't help feeling they were dealing with an entirely different type of killer. While some murders went unsolved in the city, the majority of times it was due to lack of cooperation from a key witness or poor handling of case evidence. Rarely did somebody outwit the system, although Connor Walsh came to mind. He and his crew had ducked several cases. Kelly thought about the gun that had disappeared from evidence, a key piece of evidence that would’ve undoubtedly put the mob boss behind bars for a very long time. But The Penitent One was proving to operate at a whole different level.

"I'm not sure where we go from here," Kelly said. For the first time in many months, he felt completely baffled by a case. His leads were fairly non-existent. The evidence they'd recovered from the scene was ambiguous at best. There were no DNA hits, no fingerprints left behind. The weapon used was a wide gamut of possible calibers, no shell casing or round recovered for comparison, no witnesses capable of clearly identifying the suspect, and no viable surveillance footage. An endless series of nos. Kelly felt defeated, just like he had when he tried to pick up where investigators left off in his partner's death. No matter how badly he wanted to find the person responsible, he came up empty-handed. It had become his pastime investigation, something he worked on in his spare moments between other assignments. Over the last eight years it had become his white whale, slowly eating away at him. The red card permanently affixed to the murder board at his desk served as a constant reminder of his failure.

Eight years later, and even with the information provided by the FBI, he was no closer to finding the killer. Fifteen years of the killer eluding capture from the FBI’s quiet hunt made Kelly feel wholly disheartened at the prospects for this case’s resolution.

Kelly's phone vibrated. He looked down to see Donny’s name, then stepped out of the room to answer.

"Hey, Donny."

"Mike. I got that stuff you asked me for, but I'd like you to come here and take a look."

Kelly had been so absorbed in the case he’d forgotten what he asked his friend to get.

"I'm sorry, come again?"

"The information on Father Tomlin. You asked me to get his personnel file, remember?" Donny said.

"It's been a crazy couple of days. Yes, you said you have something?"

"I do. Can you come here and take a look?"

"Sure thing. Just give me a few. I'm just wrapping something up here and then I'll head over."

"See you then. I'll be in my office."

Kelly hung up and popped his head back into the room. "Hey, guys, I'm going to cut out and pop over to see O'Brien. He's got Father Tomlin's personnel file."

Kelly didn’t wait for any offers to join him, just walked to his desk, grabbed his windbreaker, and headed out the door, leaving the rest of his team to mull over the files in the endless brainstorming session.

Kelly pulled into the lot behind the church and made his way in through the side access door before heading up the stairs to where Father Donovan O'Brien's pastoral office was located. Kelly knew it well from visiting many times in the past. He also knew that when Donny was there, he always left the side door open.

Kelly knocked on the open door’s weathered wood frame.

"Hey, Mike," O'Brien said, offering a smile.

He looked genuinely pleased to see Kelly, a far cry from his appearance the other day shortly after he discovered Benjamin Tomlin’s body. It was good to see that his friend was able to get back to a working norm so quickly, but it didn't surprise Kelly. Donny had a natural way of putting things in perspective, of clearing his mind from the things he'd heard and witnessed as a priest while ministering to some of the most shattered families in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.

O’Brien had built a layer of Teflon on the outside of his heart similar to Kelly’s, protecting himself from exposure to the tragedies of his congregation.

Kelly pulled up a seat across from his friend. A dark oak desk, stacked with a poorly organized pile of papers, separated the two. The room was small, not much bigger than a walk-in closet. There was barely enough room for a desk, a lamp, and a couple of chairs. Definitely not a space for a large group meeting, but good enough for a couple of people to discuss religious affairs. The bookshelves were loaded with a variety of old texts. A large Bible sat on a small podium next to a globe in the corner. The air was musty.

"Donny, you said you had Tomlin’s paperwork. Why the need for secrecy?"

"Here." O'Brien slid a manila file across the desk and tapped it. "Take a look yourself."

Kelly opened the file and saw that it was sparsely filled, not more than three pages. "This is all you found?"

"Yeah, not that I expected a ton more, but it looks like he's got no other religious experience prior to coming here a few months ago. I can't find any of the other parishes