Omaha, Nebraska

Tommy Pakula knew he’d be making up for this one for months. It didn’t matter that it was a holiday. His wife, Clare, was used to him working plenty of holidays. However, he and Clare had agreed long ago that Sunday mornings would be family time. He had even signed up to be an usher at Saint Stan’s to prove to her how serious he was about keeping that pact. They’d all go to early Sunday mass, and then out for brunch. He actually looked forward to it every week.

There had been three times he had been called away on a Sunday morning in the last several years since the pact was made. But being called away could and had been forgiven easily. This time was a bit harder to forgive. He had tried to explain the urgency to Clare. When that didn’t work, he’d tried joking that he was missing mass for a private consultation with the monsignor.

Now as he looked down at Monsignor William O’Sullivan’s gray body laid out on the stainless-steel autopsy table, Pakula realized it wasn’t much of a joke. This was sort of a private consultation in which Pakula hoped the monsignor would tell him what happened in that airport bathroom.

Martha Stofko, Chief Medical Examiner for Douglas County, had already taken the external measurements and samples. Before she made the Y incision, she inspected the old priest’s chest, taking several pictures and now sticking a gloved finger into the wound.

“Tell me again why we’re doing this on a Sunday morning,” she asked, looking up at Pakula.

“You can thank Archbishop Armstrong. For some reason he’s got the chief convinced expediency equals respect.” Pakula wasn’t sure Stofko would understand. She was a transplant from somewhere in California—not a hometown kid. It took firsthand experience to realize the politics and power of the archbishop.

“So Chief Ramsey is Catholic?”

Maybe Stofko understood better than Pakula gave her credit for.

“Supposedly the monsignor’s sister wants him back home in Connecticut as soon as possible.” Pakula repeated the request, or rather the demand, word for word, just as Brother Sebastian had ordered over the phone.

However, this time Martha Stofko looked up at Pakula over half glasses that sat at the end of her nose.

Pakula simply shrugged. “You know me, Martha. I just do as I’m told.”

“Yeah, right. In that case, come over and take a look at this.”

Pakula watched her poke at the wound, separating the flaps of skin.

“See how the wound is crisscrossed?”

“It looks like an X.”

“Or a cross. You usually get a cross-shaped appearance like this when the knife is twisted as it’s pulled out. It was a double-edged blade, thick in the center, but less than an inch wide. I should be able to tell you how long once I dissect and follow the path.”

Stofko stuck her index finger into the wound again, this time making her finger almost disappear.

“It was an upward thrust. I can be more definitive once I see the tract.”

“Right-handed or left?” Pakula asked.

“I’m not sure.”

Stofko started examining the monsignor’s hands, lifting each and checking all the way up the arms.

“There doesn’t appear to be any defensive wounds.”

“I noticed that,” Pakula said. “We found him by the sink. I think the killer came up behind him. Probably took him by surprise.”

“If that’s the case, I’d say the killer’s right-handed. He may have come up from behind on the monsignor’s right side, leaned around and stuck him up and under the rib cage.”

“Just lucky, or how hard is it to know where to stick so you don’t hit bone?”

“It’s a fifty-fifty chance,” Stofko replied. “Your guy used enough force to better his odds. Take a look at the bruising below the wound.” The two-inch mark was a straight, narrow purple line. “The hilt of the knife left quite an imprint, which means there was considerable force to the thrust.”

“Could that tell us anything about the size of this guy?”

“Not necessarily. It has more to do with rapid movement than bulk or strength. This whole area,” Stofko said, waving her gloved hand across the priest’s abdomen, “is fairly vulnerable. The skin is the body’s most resistant tissue. Once it’s penetrated it takes almost no additional force to penetrate the other tissue or organs, especially if the weapon doesn’t encounter any bones. Knowing that the hilt of the knife was pushed against the body will give me a better idea of how long it was, although with this kind of forcible thrust the depth of the wound usually exceeds the actual blade length. So I take that into consideration, too.”

“Any guess on what kind of knife?”

“It’s a wide hilt for such a long, narrow blade. I haven’t seen anything quite like it. My initial guess would be some kind of dagger. And you see this darker, larger bruise in the center of the hilt?” She pointed it out, and Pakula was surprised he hadn’t noticed it earlier.

“What the hell is it?”

“Again, it’s just another guess, but I’m thinking the hilt and the handle might be decorative. Which would make sense with a dagger or perhaps a fancy letter opener.”

Stofko made the Y incision on the Monsignor’s chest and began pulling back the layers of skin and fat, careful not to disturb the wound’s path until she was ready to dissect it.

Pakula hated the snap of cartilage, but he didn’t look away as Stofko took what looked like garden clippers to the rib cage and started snipping. He had gotten the information he needed, but he’d stay and keep her company for a few minutes before heading over to the Douglas County Crime Lab. Hopefully they had found something, anything that would shed some light on who the killer was.

Brother Sebastian and the archbishop seemed content with the monsignor being a victim of unfortunate random violence. They seemed more concerned about what happened to the leather portfolio than they did the monsignor. But Pakula’s gut told him there was nothing random about this murder. If that was true, then there were more secrets being kept than what was inside that missing portfolio.

“This is interesting,” Martha Stofko said, getting Pakula’s attention.

Stofko had been hunched over the chest cavity, but now stood back, scooping out a yellowish glob and placing it on the scale. “Fifteen hundred grams,” she mumbled, jotting down the information quickly then moving the glob to a dissection tray.

“Okay, what are we looking at?” Pakula asked, coming up beside her. Try as he might, Pakula still saw just a glob of tissue where M.E.’s saw tumors or nodules.

Stofko grabbed what looked like an ordinary butter knife and began slicing into and sectioning what resembled chicken fat.

“A healthy liver usually has the texture and color of calves’ livers. You’ve probably seen them in the supermarket.”

“This sure doesn’t look like a healthy liver.” Pakula grimaced at what looked more like a soft, yellow mush of tissue. “So what was wrong with Monsignor O’Sullivan?”

“I’d say the good monsignor liked to throw back a few. Actually, more than a few and over a very long period.”

“Oh, great, an alcoholic priest,” Pakula said as he wiped his hand over his shaved head. Just one more secret to add to the mess.