Mac had gone through five sessions with her after Claire died on 9/11. It had helped. He looked down at Danny's hands on the keyboard. The tremor in the right hand was definitely there, but Danny managed to type, sometimes having to delete things and go back over keys.
Mac didn't have a tremor after Claire's death. He had a sudden pronounced tic of his right cheek. It wasn't something he could hide. He had taken time off and seen Sheila Hellyer. The tic had gone, but its disappearance had caused him to feel a constant guilt. While it made no sense, Mac felt that the tic was a reminder, maybe even a punishment, not just for his wife's death, but for the vanished guilt. There were times when he missed the comfort of that affliction.
A little more than a year earlier, Danny had been through a psychological evaluation after he had shot and killed a murderer who was shooting at him. At first Danny had simply seemed slightly distracted after the shooting. Gradually, he had begun to go into distant, dazed states for a minute or so. After the evaluation, Danny had gradually returned to his usual self, though the smile he had so often displayed appeared less and less.
"Fingerprints all over the crime scene," Danny said. "Most are what you'd expect, father, mother, daughter. Other ones, two in blood on the bed, look like a kid's, but we have no prints on record for Jacob Vorhees, though prints in his room do match. But there are some other very interesting ones."
"Kyle Shelton," said Mac.
"His prints are all over the daughter's room," said Danny. "Some of them in blood."
"We have an address?" asked Mac.
"Yeah. Should we get a pickup order out for him?"
Mac looked at his wristwatch and said, "I'll go on my own. You make it to your appointment with Sheila Hellyer."
Danny nodded, resigned.
Joshua sat erect, a compact black leather Bible open in his hands. His black suit and white shirt were without wrinkles, recently cleaned. He wore no tie and was freshly shaved. He looked up over reading glasses when Aiden and Stella entered the room. He had been waiting for them.
The two women sat across from him. Joshua closed the book and put it in his jacket pocket.
Aiden put the printout on the table. Joshua didn't look at it.
"Your shoes had sawdust on them," said Stella. "The sawdust matches the dust at the murder scene."
"Aren't you supposed to tell me now that I can have a lawyer?" he asked.
"You're not under arrest," said Stella. "But if you want a lawyer…"
Joshua shook his head "no."
"I was there yesterday," he said. "I went into that room and left a message on the walclass="underline" 'Christ is King of the Jews.' I did not criminally trespass. The doors to the synagogue were open. It is a house of worship. I did not deface property. The paint I used is easily washed off."
"Then let's try harassment," said Aiden.
"I welcome it," said Joshua. "A reprimand from a judge. Publicity for our beliefs. There is an evil among us, the devil. 'Be sober. Be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeing whom he may devour.' I Peter. Chapter five. Verse seven."
"Verse eight," said Stella.
Joshua looked up. Their eyes met. He took the Bible from his pocket, flipped through the pages, found what he was looking for and said, "Verse eight."
"When you read it almost every day, you don't forget," said Stella.
"Nuns, priests?" Joshua asked, his voice betraying a slight quiver as he wondered who had influenced her.
Stella didn't answer. There were lots of things Stella didn't forget. She had been one year old when she went into the city institute for orphans. When she was old enough, she was told that her father had abandoned her mother and his newborn baby and gone back to Greece, where he died in a knife fight in a bar. Stella's mother died of pneumonia and the state had taken the baby.
As she grew older she spent most of her time in the library, reading and watching movies. It was not nuns who had made her read both the Old and New Testament over and over. It was Stella herself.
Some of the air of confidence had seeped out of Joshua as he returned the book to his pocket. For an instant he looked like a boy, a frightened boy braving it out. Stella nodded at Aiden, who looked down at the report in front of her.
"Your name is not Joshua. It's Warner Peavey," Aiden said. "Your father wasn't a rabbi. He was a Baptist minister in Rock Island, Illinois. You're not even Jewish. As Warner Peavey, you do have three arrests on record. Did two years in Attica for armed robbery."
"I am Jewish," Joshua insisted. "I converted to Reform Judaism and then to Messianic Judaism. Most Messianic congregations don't believe you can be a Jew for Jesus unless you are born Jewish. Like Jesus, I was shunned by my faith. Did you know that anyone with Jewish parents is given the right to return to Israel as a citizen, even atheists and humanists, but not us? So here I am and here I and my congregation will grow in the heart of Crown Heights, and within these walls and in Yeshua's eyes, I am a rabbi."
"Circumcised?" asked Stella dryly.
"We don't require that," said Joshua. "All those things you have written there are the darkness of Warner Peavey. He was reborn five years ago as the person you see before you, Joshua, second to Moses; he who led the Israelites into the promised land when God told Moses he couldn't enter. It was Joshua who fought and defeated the armies of the people in the promised land. Joshua who brought down the walls of Jericho."
"You own a gun?" asked Stella flatly.
"No," said Joshua.
"You're left-handed," said Aiden.
"Yes," said Joshua.
Stella pushed a photograph in front of him. It showed the left side of Asher Glick's body and the chalk outline. Joshua looked at it and shrugged.
"Look at the chalk marks," said Stella.
Joshua looked down again and then up.
"The crucifix is not one continuous line," said Stella. "The killer paused every three feet or so. See how the chalk line is less heavy and tails off slightly to the left?"
"No," said Joshua.
"The nails," said Stella. "They're through the hands and feet and deep into the hard wood. I hammered a nail in. I didn't get it very deep and I wasn't going through flesh. It took someone strong to drive them in like that."
Joshua was mute.
"And," said Stella, "the medical examiner called us just before we came down here. The nails were driven in at a slight angle from left to right."
Joshua waited.
"So the killer was left-handed," said Joshua. "So are millions. So was Christ. I can show you proof in the Bible."
"Medical examiner also said whoever shot Glick knew what he was doing," said Aiden. "Two shots from behind, perfectly placed, like an assassination."
"Proving?" Joshua asked.
Stella looked down at the sheet in front of her and said, "You've had a busy life."
Joshua shrugged.
"When you left your parents, you did time for holding up a convenience store," she said.
"I was falling," Joshua said. "Like so many of the saints, I had to go to the depths before I raised myself up with the help of the Lord. How can one expect salvation without experiencing sin?"
"Your congregation knows you were in prison?" asked Aiden.
"Yes."
"When you got out," said Stella, "you became an apprentice to a carpenter."
"Humbly in the footsteps of Jesus, who never renounced his Jewish identity," said Joshua.
"Then," Stella continued, "you joined a Messianic temple."
"A gathering of the timid, the cowardly," said Joshua. "They didn't even turn the other cheek. They never stood up to let the first cheek be struck. I left them and started my own congregation."
Joshua looked at the two women and shook his head.
"I know how to fire a gun," he said. "I know how to wield a hammer and drive a nail. I am left-handed. But I did not kill Asher Glick. We believe in converting, convincing, not killing. If we kill, our cause is set back by years, decades."