Butterfield Institute - 01 - The Halo Effect by M. J. Rose Read Free Book Online

either she liked to be clean or he wanted her to be clean.”
    “That’s a hell of a lot to learn. Boy, are we the lucky bastards or what?”
    As he did when his partner’s sarcasm went too far, Jordain gave Perez a sidelong glance. Perez saw it, got up, grabbed a can of Diet Coke and popped the tab. He took a slug.
    He was addicted to the beverage, but Jordain matched him can for cup of the chicory-laced coffee that he drank all day long.
    “The rosary? The nun’s habit?” Jordain asked.
    “We are working on it.”
    “Not good enough, Tana,” Perez said. “You know that we need a lead while this is fresh. The first forty-eight hours—”
    “What about the hotel tape?” Jordain interrupted his partner on purpose. Tana was a professional. She didn’t deserve a lecture just because they hadn’t turned up anything yet.
    Perez took another sip of his soda.
    “How are we doing on the hotel tapes?” Jordain asked.
    Tana looked down at the report on the table. “It’s the same story. A crowded lobby of a midtown hotel. Hundreds of people coming and going. She checked in at five-thirty. Died at two in the morning. He could have come up to the room anytime before, say, midnight.” She shook her head. “Along with about a hundred other people. We’ve got tons of head shots—mostly from the back.”
    “Why do these idiots put the cameras in such ridiculous places?” Perez asked.
    “It’s worse than that, Detective. Like almost every other hotel, the system is ancient. The quality of the pictures is horrible.”
    Jordain sighed and pushed his coffee mug away from him, then pulled it closer and took a long sip.
    “Let’s not walk away from the tapes. I want blowups of every man who went up and down every one of those elevators. It might not help us now, but if this guy is a repeater, I want to be ready.”
    “There is one thing,” Tana said.
    Both men turned to face her. “It’s not much. It looks like the girl was given last rites.”
    “Details?” Jordain asked. It was his most-oft-repeated response. Some younger cops, who didn’t know him well enough yet to respect him as much as most people did, called him Detective Details behind his back. Jordain knew about it. And it didn’t bother him in the least.
    God, his father had taught him, is in the details. That’s where you solved a case.
    “She had a smear of olive oil on her forehead and that’s—”
    “We’re both good Catholic boys,” Perez said. “We know priests use olive oil. Blessed olive oil.”
    Tana didn’t react to his sarcasm as she continued with her notes. “And she’d recently consumed a small amount of red wine.”
    Jordain was up, pouring himself more coffee. “The sacraments? The archdiocese is not going to be happy about this. But we’re going to have to call them.”
    “It’s a priest? A priest did this to her?” Perez asked, mostly muttering it to himself. “When I was a kid, there were no church scandals. The sacred was never mixed with the profane. Or if it was, it was so well hidden that no one ever found out. Now there are priests in the news all the time.” He walked to the window. “Do you think it’s a priest doing this shit?”
    “I don’t know. It could be. But it could also be someone who was a priest,” Jordain said. “Or someone who wants us to think he is a priest,” he added.
    “Okay, let’s get on it,” Perez said. “We’re looking for a male. Probably Roman Catholic. New York metro area. Usually they don’t stray too far from home.”

7
     
    B ecause it was raining when I left the office, I hailed a taxi and popped a peppermint into my mouth before I opened the door. I have a very sensitive sense of smell, and taxis often harbored too many stale scents. But with the candy in my mouth, most of them could be diffused.
    I gave the driver the address of my apartment on the corner of Madison Avenue and Eightieth Street, and then opened my briefcase and pulled out the package Cleo had