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"What is it?" Carter asked.
"A large lump," Will observed. "But it's not bone."
Will now ran his fingers to the other side of the man's throat. He then felt down by the man's side where the arms joined the body, feeling over the clothes.
Will sighed and turned to Father Bryant.
"Were you aware that Father O'Hara had cancer?" he asked.
The old man seemed shocked. "No. I was not."
"And it seems well established in his body," Will continued. "The lymph nodes are heavily swollen, and I would think some of these lumps are tumors. I can't be certain, but he may only have had months to live."
The news seemed to weigh down on the old priest. He sat on an old armchair and rubbed his brow.
"That explains it," he said in almost a whisper.
"Explains what?" asked Sheriff Carter.
"Father O'Hara had been having a crisis of faith," he answered. "He didn't tell me, but I suspected he was thinking of leaving the church. Perhaps it was because he didn't have much time left, and he wanted to live his life as he saw fit."
Valerie turned to Sheriff Carter. "Do we know if any of the other victims were terminally ill?" she asked.
Carter shook his head. "No, I don't think so." He paused for a moment, thinking it over. "Larry Birkin should have mentioned something like that though."
Valerie nodded in agreement and went to take another look at the body. She noted that there was mud on the back heels of Father O'Hara's shoes, suggesting he had been dragged through the dirt after he had been strangled and hanged. It was a gruesome thought—someone killing an already dying man in such a cruel way.
"The killer must be quite powerful," she said. "Even in Father O'Hara's weakened state, he is a large man. The killer was able to drag him up and tie him to a tree."
"But there's no sign of a stab wound this time," Charlie said, thoughtfully. "I wonder if the killer was interrupted before he could kill him with a knife, and the priest died there and then."
"There's another possibility," Will suggested.
"And what would that be?" asked Valerie.
"The tumors in Father O'Hara's neck might have restricted his breathing more than the killer intended," he said.
"So, let me get this straight," Charlie said. "We know the killer hangs or strangles his victims until they are unconscious, possibly out of empathy."
"Empathy?" the old priest scoffed. "How could a monster have any of that?"
"There have been other victims, Father," Valerie explained. "We think that the killer, in his deranged mind, doesn't want the victims to suffer at the point of death. He strangles or hangs them until they pass out. Then, he cuts them, and they bleed out quickly without knowing anything about it. In this case, however, Father O'Hara appears to have died from being hanged."
Will looked at the dead man's neck again. "The more I observe these lumps, the more I am certain that he died during being hung. The tumors pressed against his windpipe or jugular more than would be normal, and that, combined with being strung up, killed him. The killer was probably shocked that it happened so fast."
"Other than the empathy angle," Charlie stated, "we don't have anything else."
"It's the only start we have," Valerie offered.
"We need more than that, definitely," the sheriff said, his voice tired and angry.
Valerie didn't take it personally. She understood how he felt. He was there to protect the community, and even though the FBI were on the case, they were still helpless to stop another person from having their life ended brutally.
Valerie returned to the body and ran her hand over the priest's clothes to see if any blood or residue came off onto her glove. It was always a possibility that, even if Father O'Hara hadn't been bled, the killer had been injured in the struggle.
No blood was there, but she felt something in the priest's pocket.
She put her hand inside the pocket and pulled out a small notebook.
