Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
When Sheriff Pinkwater reached out and asked for help with a case he’s investigating, Jack insisted we talk with him first before taking it to Church.
Pinkwater looks uneasy. “As you can see, what we’re dealing with is mighty gruesome.”
There are seven crime scene photographs.
The first one is of a young woman lying half-submerged on the riverbank, dead. Her eyes are half open, her skin pale, and her lips a ghostly blue.
“Her name is Kandy Kurtman. Twenty-two. She was a sex worker from Fortune City. Used to be a bank teller but fell on hard times when the bank closed. Worked the streets to pay her rent.”
I’ve known a few Kandy Kurtman’s in my life. There is no shame in doing what you fucking got to do to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head.
“What happened to her?” Shooter asks.
“Got picked up by a John on a Monday night three weeks ago, was found in the river the following morning. Cause of death was strangulation.” He reaches across the table to show us the image beneath it. “But this was done to her post-mortem.”
In the second picture, Kandy is on her back, and across her naked stomach the word lust has been slashed into the soft, slippery flesh.
“Jesus Christ,” Shooter mutters with a shake of his head.
“The medical examiner couldn’t identify exactly what they used to carve the word, but she said it was a double-edged blade.”
“Like a dagger,” I say.
“Or a tactical knife. But yes, something like that.”
The next photograph is of a man in a three-piece suit hanging from a rope in what looks like an expensive apartment in the city. His face is badly beaten and cut, and bloody dollar notes are stuffed into his mouth.”
“This is Michael Merchant. A con artist and petty thief. He recently got himself involved with the Hermanns out by Green Holler way. You heard of the Hermanns?”
Everyone’s heard of the Hermanns.
They’re hillbilly mafia.
“The medical examiner removed seven one-dollar bills jammed into his mouth. Then, of course, there’s this—” He points to the next photo where the word greed is carved into the victim’s chest.
Paw shakes his head. “So, we’re looking at someone who has a thing for the seven deadly sins?”
“Like that movie with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman where the serial killer picks off people and then leaves one of the seven deadly sins written somewhere nearby?” Shooter asks.
“It’s called Seven,” I tell him.
“That’s it.” He looks back to Pinkwater. “This guy got a hard-on for the seven deadly sins?”
“Not just that. It seems they have a thing for picking off people involved in organized crime. Kandi Kurtman was dating her pimp, a low-life called Jimmy Knuckles. He’s tied to the Sullivan family, who are involved in everything from prostitution to money laundering. Merchant was involved with the Hermanns. These freaks are religious vigilantes, and they’re not going to stop until they’ve made their point.” Pinkwater pushes another two photos across the table. “These were taken at a crime scene yesterday.”
The first photograph shows three men slumped around a kitchen table littered with empty beer cans and drug paraphernalia. They’re sitting in a trailer that looks like it’s never been clean, the stained singlets they all wear looking no better. Two of the men are upright, the third lays with his head pressed against the tabletop. All three of them are dead, each with a putrid foam oozing out of their mouths and a needle hanging out of their arm.
“You’d be forgiven to think it this was an overdose. But it’s not. Someone forced those boys to sit down at that table before they filled them with a hotshot each. Their feet were bound to the chairs they sat on, and it’s my guess someone held a gun on them to keep them there while they loaded pure, uncut heroin into their veins. That same someone then did this.” He spins another photograph across the table showing the word sloth carved into the nape of each man’s neck.
“You have an idea of who this someone is?” Jack asks.
Pinkwater adds another picture to the table. It’s a surveillance image of three men dressed in suits but wearing Halloween masks. White faces with crosses for eyes and a maniacal grin on its lips.
“They call themselves The Three. Three psychos who go around doing…” he air quotes, “… God’s work.”
Jack’s eyebrow shoots up. “Have they reached out and declared that?”
“Looks like they’ve declared it right across their victims’ bodies,” Shooter says.
“There was a letter found at yesterday’s crime scene.” Pinkwater opens his cell to show us a picture. “They placed the paper onto one of the victim’s hands and stabbed a steak knife through it to hold it in place.”
Jack takes the phone from Pinkwater and reads the letter out loud.