The Second Coming Read online

  Big Pete and Mike slowly raised their heads and looked at George blankly. “They found another body,” Big Pete replied solemnly.

  “Oh shit. I’m sorry to hear that,” he said with a tilt of his silver-haired head. “Let me get you something to drink.” He filled a glass with ice and poured it full of Gin and then laid two onions on a toothpick across the top of it and placed it in front of Mike. He then opened a fridge door, grabbed two green bottles of beer and snapped the tops off with a bottle opener, placing one in front of Big Pete and raising the other to offer a toast. “To the dearly departed and to the family and friends they left behind. May God bless them all,” he said as if he had said it a hundred times before. They all touched glasses and took mouthfuls from their drinks. “There’s nothing you could have done. There was no way to know if and when this guy was going to strike again.”

  Mike set his glass down with disgust. “It doesn’t help anything. Someone still lost their little girl because we didn’t do our job and someone else is going to lose their daughter if we don’t catch this sick fuck soon.”

  George looked at Mike disappointed. “Someone lost their life because there is a homicidal killer on the loose. Don’t let this discourage you. You need to just keep chopping wood.”

  George was right. He was a cop himself back in the day and Mike and Big Pete always respected his opinion, but it didn’t change anything. They still had nothing to go on.

  “What do the two crime scenes have in common?” George asked encouragingly.

  “Both victims were attractive young blondes in their twenties and were raped and stabbed in the heart with a sterling silver knife shaped like a cross and then gutted like wild game,” Mike replied as he stared blankly at his drink and then took a hard sip.

  “Did he leave any evidence or clues?” George asked with piercing eyes.

  “He left a symbol smeared in the victims’ blood at both crime scenes,” Mike said as the image of the diagram in the loop of the number 6 flashed in his mind. He paused reflecting on the symbol. He was sure the killer was leaving them a clue and challenging them to decipher it. Mike reached over the bar and grabbed a cocktail napkin from a stack. “Can I borrow your pen George?”

  George pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and Mike began to draw a replica of the symbol from memory as Big Pete and George watched with interest.

  “After the first murder, I did a lot of research on symbols and the occult, but I can’t find anything like this one,” he told George as he slid the drawing across the bar.

  George removed his wire rimmed glasses from his front pocket and placed them on his red, bulbous nose as he examined Mike’s sketch. After carefully reviewing the symbol, he removed his glasses and slipped them back into his pocket and looked at Mike bewildered. “I’ve never seen it before, but he’s trying to tell you something. We need to figure out what it means.”

  “I wish I could,” Mike replied dejectedly. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “I’ll keep this and show it around and see if anyone recognizes it,” George said holding the sketch up and then slipping it into his shirt pocket. “Did he leave anything else?”

  “That’s the problem,” Big Pete replied discouraged. “This guy is meticulous. He didn’t leave any evidence at the first crime scene and unless we get lucky and he made a mistake, I don’t suspect the crime scene techs will find anything this time either.”

  “At the first crime scene he didn’t leave so much as a footprint,” Mike explained with amazement. “Everyone else that was there left foot prints in the dust. There was no sign of him what so ever,” he said shaking his head. “How is it possible that he put the body there without leaving any footprints? It was as if he levitated her onto the altar.”

  “What about the crime scene locations? Do they have anything in common?” George asked.

  “Both bodies were found in churches,” Big Pete replied. “The first body was found in an abandoned church at the Oakland Children’s Orphanage and the latest body was found at the Chapel of the Chimes.”

  “You’ve got two victims stabbed with a knife shaped like a cross and their bodies found in churches with a symbol smeared in their blood.” George rubbed his hand on his chin. “It sounds to me like you have ritualistic killer who is trying to send a message. What is his motive?”

  “If we knew the answer to that we wouldn’t be sitting here drinking and talking with you,” Mike replied defeated.

  George put his foot up behind the bar and leaned his arms on his knee. “So what’s your plan of attack?” he asked like a coach.

  Mike let out a deep breath with a dazed look on his face.

  “We need to notify the victim’s family and ask them if they know any reason someone would have wanted to kill their daughter,” Big Pete said glumly.

  George nodded with approval. “A full background check to establish if the victims have anything in common,” he reiterated trying to keep the detectives focused on the details.

  “We also need to find out where the knife is made,” Mike chimed in. “The first one didn’t have any marking or stamp showing where it was made. We searched the internet and called around to hunting stores and were unable to find one like it.”

  “We think he may be making the knives himself,” Big Pete continued. “They’re made with pure sterling silver and the first knife had a flaw on the handle and tiny specs in the blade caused by oxygen getting into the mold.”

  George’s forehead wrinkled under his neatly parted hair as he raised his maniacal eyebrows impressed. “You may want to check with any arts and crafts stores to see if someone has recently purchased the equipment and materials necessary to make such a knife.”

  “Good idea,” Big Pete replied sitting up straight on his stool. “We should check the local silver dealers and merchants to see if anyone has been purchasing large quantities of sterling silver as well,” he continued as he jotted notes down in his little pad of paper.

  “We should question the members of any of the local cults and see if anyone recognizes the symbol or the knife,” Mike said as he set his glass of ice down on the bar with an enthusiastic crack. “Maybe someone knows something or someone we don’t.”

  George refilled Mike’s glass.

  “We also need to check the bars in the area for any blonde, female bartenders. I’m sure they are going to hear about the murders in the news, but we need to warn anyone who fits the description of the first two victims to exercise caution and be aware of their surroundings.”

  “And I suppose you would like to volunteer yourself as the one to go from bar to bar talking with attractive young blonde bartenders?” Big Pete said with sarcastic indignation.

  Mike sat upright with a look of surprise at the insinuation. “You certainly can’t do it. You’ve got cop written all over you. Nobody is going to talk to you.”

  George and Big Pete looked at each other with knowing smiles as they shook their heads. “It sounds to me like you guys have all the angels covered,” George concluded proudly. “It’s just my opinion, but I think you are looking for a well educated, organized Caucasian in his late thirties to early forties. Eventually he will make a mistake. They always do,” George said as he knocked on the bar twice and walked away.

  Mike was feeling confident again. This was all good. They had a lot of information about how and where the murders were committed, but there was still the lingering question of who the killer was and why was he raping and stabbing women bartenders with a sterling silver knife shaped like a cross and leaving their disemboweled bodies to be found in churches with an unknown symbol? More than anything Mike wanted to know what the symbol meant. He was sure the answer to that question was the missing piece to solving the crime.

  chapter 24

  BETWEEN THE DAILY prayers of Sext and None the following morning, Father John and the abbot strolled along the pebble path on their way to the administration building in their white robes and sandaled feet under the shadows of
lush Maple and Elm trees. It was a luminous day and the birds fluttered and chirped overhead as sunlight streamed through the leaves.

  “How did you sleep last night Brother?” The abbot asked Father John peacefully. “Did you have any more dreams?”

  Father John grimaced with lazy eyes. “I didn’t sleep last night,” he admitted repentantly. “I was afraid that someone might die if I had another dream.”

  “We don’t even know if anyone from your dreams was really murdered. Until we have confirmation, you shouldn’t worry yourself about things you cannot control.”

  Father John knew Abbot Paul was right, but he thought the least he could do was to stay awake as long as possible or until they determined if the dreams were happening in real life or not. He couldn’t help but worry that if he dreamed about murdering a young lady again, that it would actually occur. He didn’t have any proof that the first two dreams resulted in real murders, but he knew in his soul that they did. The dreams were too real, like his dreams of divine intervention, not to have resulted in actual murders.

  Father John held the wood handle of the glass door open for the abbot who graciously nodded and thanked him as he walked into the office. Father John followed behind him as they proceeded across the thin, pumpkin colored carpet to the abbot’s wood veneer desk.

  The room was spacious yet cluttered with metal filings cabinets, old desks and bookshelves, none of which matched and Father John always figured that they must have been donated to the abbey by people who no longer wanted them. The walls were haphazardly painted white with sloppy grey trimmed windows that clashed with the carpet and brown curtains. The room reminded him of an old community library.

  Father John sat in a black leather chair across from the abbot as he powered his computer on and turned the box monitor sideways so that they could both see the oval screen. The abbot logged on and then clicked onto the internet and as he pulled up the Google search page he paused, looking at Father John with concerned eyes.

  “Have you thought about what you are going to do if we find that your dreams are real?” He asked cautiously. “Based upon your dreams of divine intervention, there is a good chance we could find two murder victims that match the victims you saw killed in your dreams.”

  Father John let out a deep breath as he sat back in his chair with a defeated face. “I guess the only thing I can do is contact the authorities working on the cases and tell them…”

  “Tell them what?” the abbot interrupted him abruptly. “That in your dreams you saw the victims being killed? Do you have any idea how that will sound to someone who does not know or believe in your powers of divine intervention? They will either name you as a suspect or mock you as a crazy clairvoyant.”

  “I don’t care what they do with me,” Father John said staunchly. “If the women in my dreams are really being murdered, I have to do whatever it takes to stop this before there is another victim.”

  The abbot shook his head with resignation and clicked onto the search field. “What was the date of your first dream?” he asked vacantly as he stared at the screen.

  Father John paused with concentration as he reflected. “It was just after the fourth of July, so some time around mid-July.”

  The abbot diligently typed in the key words; murder July 2005 into the search field and then hit enter. Both men watched the blurry screen with growing intrigue when the results appeared on the screen. There were more than four million links. They perused the first few pages, but didn’t find anything that matched his dreams. Father John was temporarily relieved.

  “We need to narrow down our search,” the abbot concluded. “Tell me the details of your dreams again?” he peered at Father John with examining eyes.

  Father John felt his stomach contort in a knot as he recollected his dreams. “Each one of the victims was raped on top of an altar and then stabbed in the heart with a silver knife shaped like a crucifix,” he recalled solemnly. “The last image I have in my dreams is that of a symbol being smeared on a wall with their blood.”

  The abbot typed in the key words; woman raped murdered and stabbed in heart July 2005 and then hit enter. Both men stared at the screen with anticipation, waiting for the results to appear on the blurry screen. This time there were 210,000 links and the first one down was an article from the SFGate website.

  “Dear Lord,” the abbot said under his breath as he clicked on the link. Father John sat up on the edge of his chair as he squinted with anxiety while reading the article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 11th.

  Woman Found Stabbed to Death in Abandoned Church

  Thomas Paterson, Chronicle Staff Writer

  Tuesday July 11, 2005

  Oakland - Oakland Police report that demolition contractors discovered the disemboweled body of a female in her early to late twenties who was raped and stabbed with a sterling silver knife shaped like a cross. The body was found lying on the altar at an abandoned church on Skyline Boulevard. Police refused to speculate if this was a ritualistic killing, but the details of the murder indicate that it wasn’t an act of passion. There are no suspects.

  According to the Oakland Police, the building was scheduled to be torn down the day the body was found. Demolition has been postponed pending the investigation.

  Police did not release the name of the victim pending notification of her family.

  Father John couldn’t believe what he was reading. He sat paralyzed in shock on the edge of his chair with his mouth agape. The details were exactly like what he saw in his dream. The only thing the article didn’t mention was the symbol. This was his worst fear come true and the fact that it happened in Oakland, right next to where he was born and raised, made him wonder if there was some sort of connection. What the heck was going on?

  Abbot Paul looked at Father John’s pale face and could tell by his deflated expression that the woman murdered in the article was the woman murdered in his dream.

  “Are you alright Brother?” he asked tenderly.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Father John replied as he slowly rose from his chair and began to pace the room in a daze. “All of my life I have saved people in my dreams. Why is this happening to me now?”

  “The Lord works in mysterious ways, but it is all a part of God’s plan.”

  Father John stopped and looked at the abbot bewildered. “What possible reason could God have for me to be raping and murdering women in my dreams? Why would he want his children to suffer such a heinous death?”

  “Maybe it isn’t part of God’s plan at all. Maybe there is something darker at work here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe the Devil has someone who is endowed with the power to kill people in his dreams much in the same way God has given you the power to save people in your dreams. Maybe you are witnessing his dreams and mistaking them as your own dreams.”

  Father John hadn’t thought of that. It did make sense. Was it possible? Were the dreams he had someone else’s? How could that happen?

  “If that is the case, then why am I having his dreams? What do they have to do with me?”

  “What we need to figure out is why he is killing these women and what you are supposed to do to stop him.”

  Father John returned to his chair and sat leaning forward with his forearms on the abbot’s desk. “Search for the murder from my second dream,” he asked earnestly.

  “What difference will it make? You know your dreams to be true. What are you hoping to find out?”

  “I don’t know.” Father John rubbed his temples with his right hand. “Maybe there will be something in the article that will help me figure out why this is happening to me.”

  Abbot Paul clicked back a couple of times until he was at the Google page where they found the link to the article and under the link clicked the similar link. Both men waited as the old computer searched like it was stuck between channels. Finally the page appeared and at the top of the page was the one and
only link that matched previous article and again it was from SFGate.

  STERLING KILLER STRIKES AGAIN!

  chapter 25

  AFTER THE FINAL prayer of Compline that same night, Father John retired to his room with a heavy heart. Both of his dreams of murder were true. Was he now a serial killer or at the very least an accessory to both murders? He didn’t do anything to stop the murders and there was a part of him that enjoyed them. It was too much for him to get his head around. Was he the Sterling Killer; a serial killer who raped and stabbed innocent young women and then disemboweled them while he was asleep? Why was he having the dreams? Was he there to save the victims and if so, why couldn’t he save them?

  Something was happening to him and he didn’t know what it was or how to explain it. It was like the first time he realized he didn’t have a mother like the rest of his friends.

  Growing up without a mother was difficult for Father John. When he was a child he always wondered what it would feel like to have the unconditional love of a mother. He watched with a heavy, longing heart while playing at the park when his friends got injured and ran crying to their mothers for the comfort and love of their embracing arms. He always wondered what the loving embrace of a mother’s arms would feel like. He imagined that they were soft and warm and smelled like a blooming flower.

  When he was a young boy, he would often cry himself to sleep thinking about his mother. His only memories of her were from pictures and stories that his father shared with him, but he would lie awake at night and talk to the image he created in his head and tell her how much he missed and loved her. He always imagined her as a glowing angel with soft, snow white wings and in fact, that is how she appeared to him in his dreams. She would come to him and hold him in her warm embrace, filling him with a gentle glow. She assured him that he was not the cause of her death and that God had bigger plans for him and that he must devote himself to the Lord. He loved those dreams. They gave him comfort and peace and were one of the reasons he turned to God to fill the emptiness in his heart and soul caused by her absence.