Thank you to all of you for your reviews. You don't know the meanning they have to me. I hope you are enjoying the story, because now we are approaching to the beginning of this story.
Special thanks to SoFrost for been my beta and encouraging me to do the best I can.
Chapter 17 – Evidence
They were in the A/V Lab. Archie was capturing the audio tape on the computer and playing his magic to compare the voice of the videotape to the voice of Sara's recorder. Catherine was watching how Sara was pacing from one side of the room to another, waiting for Archie to make his diagnosis. It was like watch a lion in his cage. It unnerved Catherine so much at some point she needed Sara to stop.
"Sara, stop it!" She said with an edgy voice. Sara stopped dead in her tracks, and looked at her with surprise "You're not doing any good pacing like a wild animal in a cage"
"Blame Archie for been too slow" She said with calmy voice and a smile on her lips
"Hey, don't start there! I'm just trying to do it as quickly as I can, but you are unnerving me. I can't work like this!"
The technician knew that this was crucial for the case, but couldn't avoid the feeling of been watched so close that he could feel them breathing in his neck. He was used to remain calm, and work at his rhythm, but Sara was making it difficult to concentrate. He had to trespass the audio to the computer and put some filters to isolate the voice of the suspect. It was a matter of minutes but the two women were distracting him.
When he finally had the two voices separated in two different channels, he turned to the two women with a smile.
"You two are ready to play?"
Both women nodded in response, expectants to see what Archie had.
"Okay, as you know, in channel one we have the voice from the videotape" He press the table space bar and soon the room was filled with the whispering voice. Once the sequence was completed, he pressed the table space bar again to stop the audio. "On channel two we have the voice from Sara's recorder. I extracted some fragments of the interview, and discard your voices, because obviously…"
"Archie, please" Sara cut him, putting her hands together, to emphasize her words "we know that you're the master here" She was smirking to him, and that made the effect desired in Archie's ego. "But, could you be less specific, and compare the two voices once and for all"
He looked at her. God he loved when people begged him. He smiled at her and looked at Catherine who was massaging her temples. Obviously, she was stressed too.
"Okay, okay"
Three pairs of eyes watched the picks up and down while the two voices resonate at the same time. Once again, the silence set in the room. Sara was looking at Archie expectant, waiting for the final result. Catherine for her part was tired and didn't want to waste more time.
"Archie, please, tell us something." Catherine demanded
"They match" He said seriously.
"Are you sure?" Sara asked with hopeful eyes
"Yes, at least is what the spectrometer is saying. You just need to watch this part" He said marking the lines "There's no doubt in my mind that they are the same voice"
"I knew it! I told you that you can't expect anything good from a man wearing a cassock" Sara said to Catherine "We got him, Cath"
Catherine remained silent while Sara was rambling. She didn't understand why Father Silecio let them evidence of his implication in that crime. There was something off about all of this.
"There's something off" She said aloud. Yet it was almost a whisper.
"What do you mean? We can situate him on the crime scene, he nearly confess that he killed him"
"No, Sara. He admitted he tried to help Carl Roth, not that he killed him"
"But still we can situate him on the crime scene"
There was a tensed pause. Sara was looking at Catherine. The blonde was thinking, she had a stare in her eyes that made Sara nervous, like she didn't want to believe that they had a real suspect on this investigation.
"Archie, are you sure that the voice from the videotape is not a recorder?" Catherine asked to the technician. She knew that her question would upset Sara, but she had to know, she needed to be sure that they were doing right.
"What??" Sara asked to Catherine not believing what she was saying.
Archie found himself between the two women. He stared at the two of them. "I can't verify that, but it could be a possibility"
"What?" Sara asked again, this time to Archie
"I mean, it's like a whisper, if someone tried to accuse to that man, it's possible that he recorder one of his sermons and play it, but it's difficult to say it."
"Catherine, you saw him in that room, he was tricking us. He is the one responsible for the death of Carl Roth." Now she was furious. They almost had a confession from the priest and his voice was in the video tape that they found hanging on the neck of a dead body. "We have his voice and a motive, revenge"
"Yeah, it's a possibility, but still we have one voice that we can't identify."
"That's true, but the question is that we had a real suspect now. We can ask for a warrant to his house and his parish church to search for evidence against him"
"You know very well, that if we don't find anything that proves that he is the killer, we need to let him go and if we accuse him of this murder and results that he is innocent…"
"Yeah I know."
"We need to be careful, Sara, and not let our feelings or presentiments cloud our judgments"
"We are here only to process evidence, remember?" The brunette said to her flatly arching and eyebrow.
Catherine looked at her. That sentence didn't pass over her. There was something about that man that she didn't like. Sara was right, he almost confessed killing Carl Roth, but what bother her most, was the fact that he had put an eye on Sara. The last sentence made her flinch. Of course, it could be nothing, and it was like Sara didn't care at all. She was too focused on caching that man that she didn't think about the consequences if they couldn't prove that he was the murderer or that he was a fundamental piece in this case.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sara asked concerned.
"Because…" She stopped before she said anything that could be misunderstanding. She took Sara by the arm and dragged her to her office. She didn't want Archie to listen what she had thought.
"Catherine, you're scaring me. What is this about?" She said, still not understanding what had happened to her co-worker to act like this.
She needed to clear her head, and think clearly. She couldn't let her feelings cloud her reason. But honesty was better, so she leaned on her desk and looked at the brunette. Concern was over her face.
"What did he say before leaving the interview room?" She thought that maybe if she could guide Sara to the same conclusion that she arrived to, the brunette would be less defensive.
At first, Sara stared at her like she was crazy. When she remembered the words father Silecio had pronounced, understanding set on her. She looked at her in disbelief.
"Cath, are you trying to say me that if we don't catch him, I'm going to be his next victim?" She couldn't suppress the smirk in her face.
"What do you find so funny?" The blonde asked in a serious tone. "It wouldn't be the first time that we are the tarjet of a psychopath"
"You know, you are really funny. We don't have motive to suspect that, and if that was the case, I could handle it"
"You don't know how it is like" She said still remembering Howard Delhomme.
Sara watched how Catherine distanced from her. She put a hand in her arm.
"Catherine I think you are overreacting" She said in a soft tone.
"Maybe you are right. It's just that I don't like the way he acted. He's hiding something, and that unnerves me"
It wasn't too difficult to convince a judge for a warrant and the next day, Catherine, Sara and Warrick were at the door of the parish church with Brass and a couple of officers.
Father Silecio greeted them and when he saw Sara he smiled.
"Miss Sidle, I was wondering when we would meet again"
"Father Silecio, we had a warrant for the parish and the church" Brass said to him pushing Sara aside and showing him the paper. "If you would do us the favor to step out" He said with a gesture of his arm.
He looked at Brass and step out of the parish, taking the warrant to read it.
Catherine, Warrick and Sara entered the parish. It was divided in two floors. The first floor was a reception with a few doors, one of them lead to the church, another one, lead to a storeroom, and the last lead to the basement.
The second floor led to the office of the priest and the rooms.
"I'll take upstairs" Sara said heading to the stairs
"Warrick, why don't you take the first floor. I'll be in the church" Catherine
"Okay"
Catherine scanned the church with her eyes. There wasn't any coffin or photography that reminded her of the funeral, only a few flowers and some candles burning. There was silence in there. She looked at the benches remembering the people that were seated there the day before. The sadness was still palpable in the air or maybe it was just her imagination. She couldn't tell at all.
With nothing she met Warrick at the storeroom. He was bagging something, ropes. There were a few accessories for scuba driving and mountain climbing. In a corner there were a few boxes heaped up.
"What did you find? Catherine asked him
He looked at her startled. "I just got a few ropes. I'll compare them with the ones that tied up the body's victim." He said to her finishing bagging the ropes.
"What's in the boxes?" She asked pointing with her torch
"They are some programs. I'll take a few if you want"
"Yes, take some of them." After a pause, she added "I'm going to see how Sara is doing. Call me if you need anything"
"Don't worry, I'll do it"
Catherine took the stairs that lead to the second floor. Once she arrive at the top she could see a corridor with two doors at the left and one on the right. At the end of the corridor there was a window that offered a view of a little garden on the backyard of the parish.
The door of the left was open so she went there. She found Sara studying a book that was on the desk. Certainly this was the priest office. Shelves full of books decorated the walls of the office. There was a window behind the desk, and the light slip through it.
She contemplated the brunette while she was reading. She was concentrated, her full attention on that book, that she didn't notice Catherine standing at the door frame.
After a few seconds, Catherine cleared her throat "What are you looking at?"
Sara looked at her in surprise. "Geez Cath, you're scared me"
"Sorry, it wasn't my intention" She responded to her with a playfully smile. "You were deep in thought when I arrived"
"Yeah, well, I was examining this book"
"What is it about?" She asked approaching to the brunette.
"For what I read it's about the penal process of the Inquisition" She said passing different pages. "Look at this: When arriving at a population two edicts were proclaimed, "the edict of faith" forces the faithful, under penalty of excommunication, to denounce to heretic and accomplices, and "the edict of grace", in which the heretic, in a term of fifteen to thirty days, could confess their faults without the perpetual prison nor the capital punishment"
While Sara was reading, Catherine approached to the brunette. Her face inches away from Sara's. She was reading as well looking above Sara's shoulder.
Sara continued reading, sensing the proximity of Catherine's body. She tensed a little, but she carried on the lecture. "This caused multiple denunciations, protected by the anonymity. The denounced ones did not know in any moment what they were accused of"
She ended the text and looked over her shoulder to Catherine. She was still leaning on Sara's body, her palm resting on the back of the brunette. When she noticed that Sara had stopped reading she turned her head to her and lock her eyes with hers. They looked at each other for a moment. Sara's eyes went to the lips of the blonde.
"Maybe…I should take this…" She said in a whisper.
"Yeah" Was the only answer of the blonde, but she was still in the same posture.
"Ummm, Catherine?"
"Yeah?" She was lost in those chocolate eyes.
"I need to move…could you…?"
"Oh, sorry" She said taking a step back from her blushing a little.
"Don't be sorry for that" Sara said to her with a mysterious smile.
"Did you find something else?" Catherine said trying to regain her composure.
"A few photograph of a group. I think they are from the group of volunteers" Sara was now on work mode. The spell was broken, and Catherine felt the renew distance. "And some videos that I've already bagged"
"Did you check the other rooms?"
"Only the master room. There wasn't anything probative."
"I'm going to check the bathroom" Catherine said exiting quickly from the room.
Once there she looked at her reflection in the mirror. "What the hell were you thinking?" She thought to herself. With a shake of her head she dismissed her thoughts and opened the closet of the bathroom. There were a few medicines in there. She looked at the prescriptions, when one of them took her attention
Scopolamine.
TBC