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Ripley laid out a crime scene photo of Joanne’s body on the table and pushed it over to Ted. “How about now?”
Ted leaned closer, squinted his eyes, then turned away in disgust. “Ugh, I don’t want to see that. And no, I don’t know this woman.”
Ella’s heart accelerated and her palms grew clammy. She didn’t like the way Ted was speaking. A common sign of a truth-teller was speaking in absolutes. A simplenowould have roused her suspicions, but a heartyno, I didn’t know this persongave her cause for concern.
Her case against this man was slipping, so she had to pray that the evidence held up. Time to get right to the core, she thought. No more pussyfooting around.
“Ted, where were you Friday afternoon between eleven a.m. and one p.m.?”
“This past Friday? Working. I’ve got recordings and timestamps to prove it.”
An iron fist punched Ella in the gut. “Monday night? Between eleven p.m. and midnight?”
“At home. Alone. No I can’t prove it.”
No alibi for David’s murder. “And last night, between two and three a.m.?”
Ted’s smirk blossomed into a full-blown grin, baring his gapped, stained teeth. It was a grin Ella knew all too well, so she braced herself for the bad news. It was the smile of a man who had an airtight alibi.
“I was in the hospital last night. All night. I didn’t get back until this morning.”
Ella felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. The air left her lungs in a violent gust, throbbing pain pricked away at her skull. All hope and enthusiasm was sapped away with a single comment. They had footage of the killer’s whereabouts during Gary’s murder, and Ted could prove he was elsewhere, then any further investigation was pointless. Could he have been involved in the other two murders? Possibly, but doubtful. These murders were the work of a lone perpetrator.
Ripley tapped her knuckles on the table, equally as lost for words as her partner.
“Are we done? Am I free to go?” Ted asked.
“Not by a long shot,” Ella said. “We need to see this evidence first.”
“Then I’m cleared?” Ted asked. Worry plagued the man’s expression. He was obviously trying to avoid the issue of his unlicensed operations.
“You’re treating patients without a therapy license,” Ripley said. “That could be a fine or jail time.”
“It’s not illegal. Just unethical.”
“No,” said Ella. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the man’s business card, still locked in an evidence bag. “It says here you’re a psychotherapist and counselor. Those terms are regulated in West Virginia, believe it or not.”
With a loud groan, Ted folded his arms and dropped back into his chair.
“But you already knew that,” Ella finished. In truth, she didn’t really care that some quack was practicing unlicensed therapy. It happened every minute of the day all over the world. She just needed a reason to keep him here because something told her she wasn’t done with this man.
“We’ll be back shortly,” Ripley said as she stood up and made for the door. “Come on, Dark, we need to talk.”
Yes they did because something about all this didn’t make sense.
CHAPTER TWENTY
By day, he took shelter wherever God directed him. For the past few weeks, it had been beneath a culvert beside the Life Gate Church on Bellmonte Avenue. A rough, isolated area of town, but sanctuary, nonetheless. He had all the necessities beside him: bottled water and scraps of food he’d taken from the church dumpster. Other than the air in his lungs, these were the fundamentals of existence. It also didn’t hurt that whenever he emerged from his underground den, God’s house was only a stone’s throw away. Something about being a literal neighbor to his savior reinforced everything he believed, reassured him that he was on the right path.
Because God had plucked him from the herd and sent him on this divine quest himself. It was a sacred mission that channeled God’s primal desires. Tests of courage, to assess the will of man and determine whether or not they held up to God’s image. The ultimate test was not how loudly you praised his name, but how deeply you trusted him in dark times. Ask him for strength and he’ll give you difficulties to make you strong. He is never deaf to prayers or blind to tears or silent to pain. He sees, hears, and delivers when the time is right.
It hadn’t always been this way. Once upon a time, the man lived an unexceptional faceless, Godless, existence. He’d been a cog in the machine of life, seeking hedonism and material comforts over spirituality. Theseasons rolledby,like time-lapsed clouds in a sky of memories, fadinginto one anotherwith no distinguishing markers. Days melted into one another like colors in an ever-expanding oil painting, carrying awaythe yearswith it until they were but a distant memory. Life was a continuous loop of monotony until an act of divine intervention finally broke the cycle, unlocking his chains and drawing out his true potential.
There was no explanation for what had happened. Police and investigators had been none the wiser. Itwasa mysterythatcould not be explained by science or any other earthly knowledge. For months, he’d agonized over the facts and possibilities, arriving at conclusions that were improbable if not completely impossible. After driving himself to near madness, he finally arrived at the only logical answer: it was an act of God. The Divine Hand was responsible for these dealings. No other explanation would suffice. The lord had stripped away his earthly wares so he could evolve into something more, a divine follower, true messenger of heaven.
He’d fought the idea of letting God in at first. Religion had always been alien territory to him, especially in the wake of his father’s obsessive devotion. The old man had a Bible verse for everything, and over time they began to wear on the young boy. He remembered thinking it was all nonsense for the weak-minded, and when the old man disappeared in eighty-five, the young, fatherless child vowed he’d ever let religion invade his life.
But now he was older, he’d realized that his father hadn’t disappeared like his mother had claimed. His father been sent on a holy quest of his own, and now years later, he’d been afforded the same privilege. For that reason, he couldn’t stay mad at his old man, and was happy to finally let go of all that smoldering resentment.
