Chapter 18

Early afternoon, Laurel sat in her conference room next to Fish and Wildlife Captain Monty Buckley, whose face had turned nearly as pale as his white hair. He'd been thrilled to tell her that they'd located Pastor John, who was being brought in for an interview. Right now.

"Are you sure you want to be here?" she asked. "You haven't given yourself enough time to recover from the radiation treatments."

Monty coughed. "I'm happy to be anywhere and am so thankful I no longer have cancer. I just have a little bug that I caught because my defenses are down." His hand shook when he reached for his cup of coffee.

"I think you should go home," she said. "Monty, you and my mother have started becoming friends, and I know it would hurt her greatly if anything happened to you."

He straightened his shoulders. "I need to be here, Laurel. Huck can't be."

"We're working the case together, but that doesn't mean we both have to be at every interview. Right now, Fish and Wildlife is tracking down the movements of Mrs. Bearing while Nester is doing the same for Delta Rivers, working remotely. Our organizations work well together, Monty. We can cover for each other."

He looked at the door and then back. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Why don't you take the afternoon off, get some sleep?"

He faltered and then stood. "I really could use some sleep."

"I will send you my notes after I meet with Pastor John, okay?"

Monty smiled, and the tension around his eyebrows, forehead, and mouth had eased. "Okay, sounds good. If anything happens on the case, call me in." He walked shakily out the door.

Silence pounded around the office after he left. Even the wind sounded mournful outside. Laurel called Nester.

He answered immediately. "Hi, boss."

"How's your sister?" she asked.

"Good. She's going to be okay."

What a relief. "I'm so glad. Have you had a chance to conduct my searches?"

"Yep. I've been running searches for you and also for my sister. I will find the truck that hit her." The rapid clacking of keys came across the line. "I have not found Saul Bearing or either of his sons."

She drew in a deep breath. "We have the local police interviewing everyone at the mayor's office as well as the elder son's law firm, and nobody has a clue where they've gone." Perhaps the mayor had killed his wife.

"How infuriating. About Delta Rivers. So far, I have not found a cell phone account for her. However, I did track her movements and see that she arrived in town just one day before her body was found. She flew in from Santa Fe."

Laurel straightened. "Did she travel solo?"

"Yep. I'm still trying to find out more information."

Laurel bit back frustration. Nester was doing his best. "Thank you. Call me when you have more." She clicked off.

Movement sounded and Sherry brought back Pastor John Govern.

"Pastor John. Hello." Laurel stood and shook his hand. "We've had a BOLO out on you for days."

"I heard. Sorry about that. We snowmobiled where faith took us and just returned a short time ago." Pastor John looked at the rough wooden door. "I take it something happened to your conference table?"

"The glass shattered in an unfortunate incident. We're using the door until we obtain a new top." Laurel studied the pastor. He had to be in his midthirties with short, curly brown hair, deep brown skin, and lighter brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He had shaved today, showing a hard cut jaw. He stood to about Huck's height but was slimmer than the captain.

"It's good to see you again," the pastor said, settling into the seat.

"Thank you. You, too," Laurel said. "Perhaps next time you venture into the Cascades, you should take a radio with you, Pastor John."

He waved a hand in the air. "Maybe. And it's John. Just John, remember? You're not a member of the congregation . . . unless that has changed?"

"No," she said. "That has not changed."

"Then call me John." The pastor smiled, showing a perfect row of teeth. "I apologize for not being available before now, since I've heard all the news. I cannot believe somebody brutally killed Mrs. Bearing and left her body behind my church."

Laurel watched his facial expressions closely. "Did you know Mrs. Bearing?"

"Of course. The Bearings are members of our church," Pastor John said. "I, um, I see them every Sunday." He looked away slowly and took several deep breaths.

She deliberately switched topics. "About Zeke Caine, just how long was he missing? A year, two years, five years? When we first talked, it was my understanding he'd been gone for a year. But now I understand he's actually been missing for five years? Please explain."

Pastor John took off his glasses and wiped them on the bottom of his blue sweater. "I don't know. He was gone between three and five years. They all kind of blurred together. I could look back at the exact date I took over."

"Then why did you initially tell us it was one year?" Laurel asked.

"It felt like a year. I don't know," Pastor John said. "The last few months have been very difficult for everybody in this community."

Laurel didn't think that was it. "You saw Pastor Caine during that time, didn't you?"

Pastor John flushed. "Yes. I saw him a year before you arrived in town, but he had taken a sabbatical before that, so when you add it all together it's, like, five years."

"Why didn't you tell us you'd seen him?"

Pastor John shrugged. "He just arrived in town for one day, and he said he didn't want to be bothered by anybody and was on a spiritual quest. I felt he was speaking to me as clergy and not as friends, so I kept his confidence."

"When was he here?" Laurel asked.

"Why does it matter?" Pastor John said. "You've solved the earlier serial killings. He maybe was here . . . I don't know. I don't remember the exact date. Maybe the August or September the year before."

"He didn't tell you why he returned to town?"

Pastor John shook his head. "No. I think he came to get money he had stashed in his cabin, to be honest. He hinted at it but didn't say so. But honestly, it doesn't matter. You weren't here in town. There were no crimes. Pastor Caine just came to get money. He was on a spiritual quest. That's all there is to it."

Laurel didn't like the fuzziness of the timeline, but she had to admit the pastor had a point. It didn't really matter if Zeke Caine had been missing for one year or five years. Nobody had abducted him, and he had every right to travel anywhere he wanted. "Do you know where he was at any point during the time he was gone?" She had to find more of his victims.

"I really don't," Pastor John said, meeting her gaze. "Is that why I'm here today?"

"No. You're here to talk to me about Mrs. Bearing."

Pastor John leaned back in an obvious tell. "Oh. I'm very sad when one of our parishioners has passed on, and I will definitely go meet with the family."

"You might not want to do that."

The pastor blinked. "Why not? I understand that Zeke has taken over a lot of church duties, but I'm closer to the Bearings than Zeke is right now."

Laurel cleared her throat. "Pastor John, were you having an affair with Teri Bearing?"

Pastor John's mouth fell open slightly, and his forehead creased. He clasped his hands in his lap, and his left eye twitched. "Um, I don't think that's any of your business."

"Were you or were you not having an affair? Please keep in mind that it is a crime to lie to a federal agent," Laurel said.

Pastor John's chin hit his chest. "Yes, Teri and I had been having an affair for two months, but we'd only been sleeping together for two weeks."

"Explain that to me."

The pastor looked away and then back. "We'd been talking quite a bit on the phone and at the church for, I would say, the last couple of months as friends, but then it grew into something more two weeks ago. It grew into a lot more."

"Where?" Laurel asked.

Pastor John blinked. "I don't think that is relevant."

"You don't get to decide what's relevant," she said quietly.

He sighed. "At the church."

Laurel frowned. "When I first met you, you were having an affair with a twenty-year-old who attended your church. You're a charismatic person, but you've got to be smarter than this."

Pastor John looked away. "Teri was going to leave her husband. I think we had the real deal."

"You thought you had the real deal with Lisa Scot-ford," Laurel returned, referring to a victim from their first case who had been dating Pastor John.

The pastor wiped his shaking hand across his forehead. "I'm just looking for somebody to love, and they keep getting killed."

Laurel winced. That was an awful and yet true statement. Pastor John had actually been one of her suspects in Lisa's death, but he'd been cleared. "Where were you Wednesday night into Thursday morning?"

Pastor John shifted in his chair. "I was home in the new cabin I bought."

"Alone?"

Pastor John nodded. "Yes. Teri was supposed to come over late that night and then go on the snowmobile trip with me. She told her husband she'd planned a spa vacation in Seattle for a few days, but we'd made plans to be together instead."

"What time did she arrive?" Laurel asked.

Pastor John shook his head. "She didn't arrive. She never came. I called her several times, but she didn't answer." He looked down at his hands. "I figured maybe she'd changed her mind about the affair, and it wasn't like I could call her husband. I can't believe she was being killed at that time."

"How do you know what time she was killed?" Laurel asked instantly, missing Walter. Interviews were easier when they could bounce their questions off each other.

Pastor John shrugged. "I heard that Teri's body was found early in the morning, so I figured somebody murdered her that night. That also explains why she didn't call me back." He swallowed. "I had to leave very early Thursday on my snowmobile trip and just returned a couple of hours ago."

Laurel studied him but couldn't determine if he was lying.

His nostrils flared. "If you have Teri's phone, I'm sure all my messages are on it, showing that I was looking for her."

"Her phone wasn't with the body. Neither was her handbag, if she had one," Laurel said.

"What about her vehicle?" Pastor John asked.

Laurel couldn't read his expression. "It was found abandoned by the side of the road after an apparent car accident. We've sent paint samples to the lab." Unfortunately, the results would take more than a month to come back.

"That's good."

Laurel studied the pastor. "Did Mayor Bearing have any idea about your affair?"

Pastor John shook his head. "No, no. Saul had no idea that Teri and I had fallen in love."

"In eight weeks?"

Pastor John flushed. "Yes. It was quick, but we had a lot in common—even with the age gap. We both were looking for . . . I don't know, excitement and a good future. She was tired of just being the mayor's wife."

Laurel tuned into the inflection in Pastor John's tone. "Would you clarify that statement? What did she want to be?"

Pastor John looked around and then back at Laurel, tears gathering in his eyes. "You know it was my work that got us national attention so we could take the church to a much wider congregation?"

"Yes," Laurel said. "What does that have to do with Teri Bearing?"

Pastor John's jaw tightened. "We were going to take the TV contract away from your father."

"He's not my father," Laurel retorted instantly. "Please refer to him as Zeke Caine or Pastor Caine or Zeke."

"I'm sorry," Pastor John said. "I know he's been a terrible father to you."

"He hasn't been a father to me at all," Laurel said. "Please return to the topic at hand."

Pastor John cleared his voice. "I'm sorry about that. Teri and I were going to arrange production of a series of sermons to pitch to the TV folks to show them that I am the charismatic leader who should represent our church across this vast land of ours. She was going to help me write and produce a proposal."

"Did Pastor Caine know about this?"

Pastor John sighed. "I don't know. He's a smart man and might've put it together. But I don't see him killing Teri." He looked into the distance.

Laurel stiffened. "What are you thinking?"

He shrugged. "Nothing I should be. Zeke is a pastor. But there's a darkness . . ." He shook his head. "Forget it."

Laurel didn't require suppositions. "Where were you last Sunday night into Monday morning?"

Pastor John jerked. "When the first victim was killed?"

"Yes," Laurel said.

He cleared his throat. "At my cabin with Teri all night." He sagged against the chair. "Who is now dead."

"Do you know a woman by the name of Delta Rivers?"

Pastor John shook his head. "Never heard of her."

She drew a picture of Delta from her file folder. It showed the woman on the autopsy table, a closeup of her face with her eyes closed. "This is she. Have you ever seen her before?"

Pastor John cocked his head. "Hm. No. I don't think so."

"Are you absolutely positive that the mayor didn't know about your affair?"

Pastor John nodded. "Saul was planning an anniversary trip for the two of them to Thailand this coming spring. He had no idea."

"Do you know him very well?" Laurel asked.

"I've been his pastor for years, and he's a faithful member of the church."

Faithful. How interesting that Pastor John used that word. "Are you aware that he owns a plane?"

"Yes. It's a smaller one, and he liked to fly over the rivers. Why?"

"He's gone," Laurel said flatly. "Do you have any idea where he'd go? If he owns property outside of Washington State?"

Lines dug grooves into the sides of the pastor's mouth. "No. I have no idea. Teri and I were wrapped up in our own world." His voice cracked on the last word.

"Does Saul Bearing have a temper?"

"Definitely," Pastor John said. "All of the Bearing men do. Saul and both of his kids. I wouldn't call them dangerous, though."

Jealousy and betrayal could make anybody dangerous. "What do you think he would've done if he'd discovered his wife was sleeping with his pastor?" Laurel asked quietly.

Pastor John swallowed. "I honestly have no idea."