Lee craned his neck to peer at Kathy, trying to see if she was still breathing.
"Oh, she's still alive," Nelson said. "I don't kill them all at once, you know…press and release, press and release. You'd be surprised how long you can keep someone alive throughout slow strangulation. But then you know that, don't you? You know a lot of things about me-except the things that count."
"Why? Why did you do it?"
"Well, my dear old dad was a member of the Westies, after all. You could say violence runs in our family. If you'd bothered to actually profile me, you'd see I have a tidy little history of violent behavior. I'm just very good at hiding it."
"But the women…why…?"
"Oh, come on, Lee! Haven't you ever wondered what it felt like? Not just to study them from a distance-but to actually be a killer?"
Nelson's face was eager, his eyes shining in a way Lee had never seen before.
"Why did you have to kill Eddie?"
Nelson snorted. "That's obvious, isn't it? He was getting too close." He sighed. "I sent you so many warnings, and you ignored them all."
Lee groaned and struggled to free himself, but the ropes binding him were firmly tied.
Nelson watched him. "You know, I never imagined that sailing class at summer camp would be quite so useful," he said. "It just goes to show that you never know what's going to come in handy. I learned quite a few nifty knots. Of course, you have to have a mind for it. Fortunately, I do have a knack-for knots, puzzles, mazes of all sorts."
He looked up at Lee with an expression of mock sympathy. "I thought you were a puzzle solver yourself, but you seem to have come up a bit short this time, I'm afraid."
Lee tried again to wrench himself free, but the ropes only cut more deeply into his flesh. His head was pounding, and his whole body ached.
"Save your strength," Nelson said. "There's no point in wearing yourself out."
A drop of sweat from Lee's forehead fell on Kathy's face, and her eyelids fluttered.
"Come to think of it, what's a Christ figure without a little stigmata?" Nelson said, and seized the ornate Greek cross on its long pole. He raked the sharp edges savagely across Lee's ribs, slashing a wound in his right side. Lee couldn't help crying out in pain.
"There, that's better," Nelson said. "More like the real Christ on the cross."
Lee groaned and fought to remain conscious.
"Does that hurt?" Nelson snarled. "I didn't invite you here, you know."
"Just-let-her-go," Lee pleaded, the words forcing themselves from his throat. "I won't turn you in-I won't tell anyone."
Nelson snorted. "And if I believe that, I'll bet you have a bridge in London for sale too."
He crossed himself and kneeled at the altar.
"Bless this act of deliverance, oh Heavenly Father, as I deliver the soul of your servant into your care."
He looked up at Lee, who was running out of strength, panting from the effort of trying to free himself.
"I don't believe in God, of course, but I like saying the words all the same."
Lee felt the blackness threatening to close in again.
"You know, you should feel honored to witness her transformation," Nelson said, his voice sarcastic. "That's what he thought. Poor Samuel-what a nutcase. He thought he was saving them from sin-sending them to God. Poor deluded idiot."
"Why did you do it?" Lee gasped.
"Why did I strangle nice Catholic girls who never did me any harm?"
Lee nodded weakly.
"You'd be surprised how easy it is. After a while, you develop a taste for killing-you actually get to like it. And the Biblical carving was a nice touch-my idea, of course, but Samuel took to it, and did a nice job of it, I thought, didn't you?"
Nelson's eyes were the eyes of a fanatic. He didn't so much look at Lee as right through him. It was like being looked at by a sleepwalker. His calm was more terrifying than an outpouring of raw fury might have been.
"But-you?"
"Oh, don't be so naive, for God's sake!"
"But why?"
Nelson's face darkened with rage.
"Because they didn't deserve to live and serve God after He took Karen away from me!"
"Oh my God," said Lee. "It was Karen's death-"
Nelson laughed-an ugly, grim sound, like a rock hitting water.
"Yes, that was my 'precipitating stressor'-classic textbook case, eh? Except who would have thought the pursuer would become the pursued? Now, if that's not irony, I don't know what is!"
The pursuer becomes the pursued… the phrase repeated itself in Lee's foggy brain as Nelson leaned over Kathy's motionless body, his red hair reflecting the single overhead altar light. There was a tiny bald spot on the top of his head, the scalp pink and bare, and Lee was reminded of the tiny pink feet of a litter of newborn mice he had seen as a boy. The color had struck him at the time as sickly, and now, as he tried to keep from passing out, the pink bald spot seemed to shift its shape and grow in size… Can this be it, then? he thought. This is really what death is? He felt an odd peacefulness settle over him, as if he were watching the entire scene from very far away, through a thick layer of gauze.
"I'm sorry about her, I really am," Nelson said. "Everyone will think that Samuel did it, of course. He did do some of them, you know-once I convinced him of the rightness of it."
"You used him," Lee said, pushing through the fog in his brain.
"I realized early on I needed a fall guy-a patsy, as they so colorfully call it in old movies. He was a good student, one of my best. Little did I know how good he'd turn out to be, actually," he added, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. "That was the only real gamble I took-but it worked out in the end."
"Samuel's dead," Lee said. "You killed him."
"I knew you'd track him down sooner or later."
"Christ, you even smoked a cigarette while he died!"
"Ah, yes-the clove cigarettes. That is a rather distinctive odor, I suppose. But I couldn't very well let him live, could I? Any more than I could let you live-or her, for that matter."
Nelson leaned lower over Kathy. Lee saw the glint of metal, and saw the knife descend over her body.
With tremendous effort, Lee shook himself out of his stupor. He felt a roar well up in his throat, and gathered all his strength to rock his body forward. He felt a screw on the wall behind him give way, and he paused for breath, then gave one last desperate lunge forward. There was a crunching sound as the screws tore away from the masonry wall. The cross teetered for a moment, then thundered down over the altar. Nelson stood frozen, as if he didn't believe what was happening, then tried to dodge out of the way-but it was too late. The heavy wooden cross came crashing down on him.
The last thing Lee was aware of before he lost consciousness was Nelson's body folding underneath him like a puppet whose strings have suddenly been severed.
Chapter Sixty-five
Darkness…more darkness…hands lifting him up…flashing lights…people scurrying about everywhere…then he opened his eyes to see Chuck Morton's face looking down at him. They were in the back of an ambulance. Lee was lying in a stretcher, his friend crouched over him.
"Kathy-" he began, but Chuck cut him off.
"She's going to be fine."
"Where is-?"
"She's already on her way to the hospital."
A paramedic fiddled with an IV bag next to him. The ambulance was sitting behind the church, its doors still open. The paramedic didn't look unduly alarmed, so Lee figured he'd be okay.
"What about Nelson? Is he…?"
Chuck shook his head. "Pronounced dead at the scene. You're lucky he broke your fall. You landed right on top of him. Broke his neck."
Instead of relief, Lee felt a deep sadness. That was no way for a life to end, not even such a twisted one.