SISTER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 4) by Lawrence de Maria Page A

like she could be Mrs. Ebenezer. “This place is pretty busy.”
    “No chance, sonny,” she said indulgently. “But I’ll put some aside for you anyway. And we have plenty of vanilla ice cream.”
    An hour later I left for Worcester, 20 miles away, pleasantly full. And melancholy
    The melancholy didn’t last long. My cell phone buzzed. It was Cormac Levine.
    “You wanted to know if there were any murders similar to the one in Worcester?”
    “Yeah. You dig up any?’
    “Interesting phrasing. I can give you a definite maybe.”
    I waited.
    “I checked with the one of those new databases they started with all this terrorist bullshit so that various jurisdictions, local and Federal, would be on the same page. I won’t bore you with its name or its acronym, which has more letters than I have piles. It’s not public anyway. A friend of a friend got me into it. It’s in butter , whatever that means.”
    “It’s beta.” I spelled it out. “That means it’s in a testing phase.”
    “Beta, butter, who gives a rat’s ass. Anyway, there were a ton of stabbing deaths over the last few years. Most involve domestic disputes, of course, with kitchen knives and the like. Murders of passion or convenience. Some gang killings, of course. And a couple of maniacs who were quickly caught. Makes you think the Government should regulate kitchen utensils. But I was even able to narrow it down to stabbing deaths roughly similar to the one that killed the nun. You know, single thrust to the heart with a very sharp, presumably thin blade. Believe it or not, there were dozens. Gotta figure some pros or mob guys still know how to use a stiletto. And a shiv is the weapon of choice in prison, so a lot of cons probably came out with graduate degrees in knifing people. But the killings were all over the country and many of the victims seemed to have it coming to them. But there were four, including Worcester, that involved religious persons.”
    “All nuns?”
    “No. I wish.” There was a pause, then a bitter laugh. “I can’t believe I said that. What I mean …. never mind. But this is where it gets dicey. Two nuns, a priest and a brother, you know, one of those guys who belongs to a religious order but is not ordained. Didn’t you get taught by them?”
    “Yes. Xaverian Brothers. Xaverian High School in Brooklyn. Four stabbing murders, Mac? Religious. That hasn’t raised any red flags?”
    “You would think somebody would notice, wouldn’t you. And maybe somebody will once this system gets out of that phase you say it’s in. Probably if they were all nuns, or priests, or whatever, someone might have spotted it. But they weren’t and the murders were spread across the country, over a year. Would you believe California, Colorado, Illinois and Massachusetts? Most serial killers stick to one time zone, at least. And the ages of the victims are all over the lot. That also goes against the serial killer grain. I hate to say it, but they could be random, including your girlfriend.”
    I pulled over to the side of the road and fished in my glove box for a pad and pen.
    “Give me what you have.”
    “Emilio Salazar, 55, pastor of Puertas del Cielo, Gates of Heaven, Roman Catholic Church in Windsor, California, was found dead April 17 of last year next to a stream where he liked to fish. Jeanette LeFebvre, 19, a cloistered nun belonging to the Contemplative Sisters of Fatima in Lafayette, one of Denver’s suburbs, was killed on August 5 in a field adjacent to her convent. Brother Alfred Variale was 88 and living in a retirement home in the Prospect Heights section of Chicago. He was found on December 8 th sitting in his wheelchair in his room in front of a TV watching a Bears game.”
    “No one saw him killed?”
    “They thought he just nodded off. It was a Bears game, after all. Put anyone to sleep. You know nursing homes. Anyone can walk in, most of the time. Our guy probably could have killed a half dozen before anyone