Mason was ready to leave the office and call it a day. Ray was on the phone, getting a grocery list from the wife for a stop on his way home. Mason knew he still had at least a dozen frozen dinners and pizzas in his freezer, so he had no need to stop at the grocery store. As long as he had something to put in the microwave and coffee for the morning, he was good. There’d been a time when he and his ex had discussed dinner plans every day and what to feed Jake. He didn’t really miss it. Food should be uncomplicated, not requiring thought and planning. Sure, he was shoveling chemicals and processed crap into his body. But who wanted to live forever?
He’d passed on the description of Katy’s car, but outside of recommending a BOLO, there wasn’t a lot he could do. He was slipping his coat on when his desk phone rang.
“Callahan.”
“Glad I caught you, detective,” came the voice of the front desk sergeant. “There’s a woman here asking to talk to you about the Lorenzo Cavallo case. Says he was her father-in-law.”
Mason’s ears perked up. Which daughter-in-law had finally come forward? “Send her up.” He took his coat back off and draped it over the back of his chair, giving Ray a signal to wrap up his call.
Ray covered part of his cell. “What is it?”
“Got a Cavallo daughter-in-law who wants to talk.”
Ray’s eyes lit up, but then he grimaced, pointing at his phone.
Yep, tell the wife you’re gonna be late again.
Mason dug through a stack of papers on his messy desk, looking for his notes on the original interview with Lorenzo Cavallo. Sadly, the old man had been murdered before finding out that his sister was one of the original circle women. Maybe that was for the best. Would this daughter-in-law care? If she did, would she be able to do anything about it?
A uniform opened the hall door, let a woman through, and pointed at Callahan. Mason studied her as he moved across the room. Mousy was his first impression. Large brown eyes rapidly took in the room, her gaze skittering from object to object as if she expected them to bite. Her hair was gray, and she clutched a purse to her waist like Mason was about to snatch it. Her red rubber boots were her only piece of color on her outfit. The boots looked huge, like she’d had to borrow them to go out in the rain.
“Mrs. Cavallo?” Mason held out his hand, and she gingerly shook it.
She was terrified.
What had propelled this woman out of her comfort zone?
“I’m Detective Callahan.” He led her back to his desk and gestured at a chair. Ray had stepped away to wrap up his call. His wife understood late hours and changed plans came with the job, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Esther Cavallo.” She looked straight at him as she sat down, and Mason saw a spark of determination in her eyes.
“You’re married to one of Lorenzo’s sons?”
“Yes, Nico is my husband. You were at our house today. I apologize for my bad manners in not greeting you as a guest.” She swallowed hard.
“Ah… that’s quite all right. No harm done.”
“Nico didn’t know if your visit was going to be appropriate.”
Appropriate for what? For a woman’s ears? Like he and Ray were going to drop a bunch of f-bombs that might sully Nico’s wife? “That’s understandable.” In the Dark Ages. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about Lucia.”
Mason waited.
Esther toyed at her purse clasp, her fingers tracing its metal prongs. “Lucia was one of those women found so long ago, right? You’ve identified her?”
“That’s right. We’re ninety-nine percent certain it is her. Lorenzo left a DNA sample for us to compare, and we’re waiting on those results. But based on some dental findings, we believe it’s her.”
Esther nodded.
“Did you know Lucia?”
“Oh, no.” Esther shook her head. “Nico was only a boy when his aunt left.”
Mason abruptly realized the woman in front of him couldn’t be older than fifty. She acted two decades older.
“But there were always stories about his wild aunt. The other family members would always whisper about her. She was the one who’d been sent away.”
“I thought she ran off after a fight with her father.”
“The men described it that way. But the women knew. She’d been punished for her behavior.”
Ray sat down at the desk across from Mason and nodded at Esther. “Punished? Punished how?”
Esther stared at him with wide eyes.
“Mrs. Cavallo, this is Detective Ray Lusco. Ray, this is Nico Cavallo’s wife.” Mason spoke up before she took flight. “Maybe you better tell us about the rumors of Lucia’s behavior and punishment.”
For the next ten minutes, Mason listened and gently led the woman through a story that sounded straight out of a third world country. Women treated as belongings, men who dominated, and a man who ruled over all of them.
“This took place here?” Ray asked in disbelief at one point. “In Oregon?”
Esther nodded emphatically. “The church dissolved when Nico was a teen. His mother sometimes told me stories about the old days, when she was encouraged to not speak to men other than her husband. She never learned to drive or handle any money. The men did everything. A woman’s role was to serve her husband. But Lucia didn’t like it.”
“Mrs. Cavallo, why are you telling us now? Aren’t you worried about getting in trouble?” Mason wanted to say getting in trouble with your husband, but couldn’t form the words. How had women lived with this oppression?
“Because it’s not right that Lucia is not laid to rest. Her bones should not be in a box somewhere. And no matter what bad blood there is between Lorenzo and his sons, at least one of them should be stepping forward to claim his body. They may have avoided him for the past decade, but they should not continue to punish him in death.”
Esther was a woman with principles.
“What do you think happened to Lucia?” Ray asked softly.
She held his gaze. “I think she was killed. She and those other five women.”
“Who did this?”
“Cesare Abbadelli. No one dared speak against him.”
The same man that Michael Brody discovered ran the church and who arranged the adoptions.
“The minister?” Ray asked.
She nodded.
“Mrs. Cavallo,” Mason asked carefully, his brain spinning. “Do you know anything about adoptions arranged by that church?”
The woman paled. “What of it?”
“We have a friend who was put up for adoption through this church. She’s trying to find her birth parents. Where did the babies come from who were put up for adoption?”
Esther stared at him. “Some were of the church,” she whispered. “The unmarried women who got pregnant. Others came from the surrounding area. Girls who got in trouble and didn’t know what to do.”
Mason looked at Ray. A different era. Yes, this church was in a rural and rather isolated area, but was there nowhere else for the women to turn?
“Why do you think the minister killed Lucia?” Mason prodded.
Esther looked at her hands, strangling her bag in her lap. “I don’t know.”
Mason believed this terrified woman was reaching out to him to share what she knew. He just had to guide it out of her. Gently.
“Mrs. Cavallo… why do you suspect Cesare Abbadelli was responsible for those women’s deaths?” he asked calmly.
“It was whispered.” Her gaze slowly lifted from her purse, meeting Mason’s. “The other women of the church whispered behind closed doors that Cesare was weak when it came to women. And that he hated his weakness, blaming the women who created it. His own wife vanished decades ago. No one asked questions. He said she ran off with another man.”
“She left before or after the first circle of women?” Ray asked softly.
Mason’s heart was pounding, and he fought to slow his breathing. The conversation had a fragile edge to it that could shatter at the wrong question or tone. He didn’t want to scare Esther away.
“After. I don’t know when. Maybe ten years. And his other son vanished when he was about twenty. He’d been a rebellious boy. Cesare had a difficult time keeping him in line.”
What had this man done to his family?
He glanced at Ray’s composed face. Ray’s shirt pocket twitched over his heart, revealing his rapid heartbeat. Ray’s thinking it, too. We’ve got a serial killer on our hands, hiding behind the guise of a pastor.
“Rumors spoke of women who came to the church. Runaways, women seeking a safe place.” Mason leaned forward to hear Esther’s soft words. “They’d stay at the church for a few weeks, getting back on their feet, and then vanish again. Even the ones who expressed desire to put down roots in that community. They never stayed. All left and never returned. Never communicated with the friends they’d made in their short stay.”
Mason thought back to the previously identified women from the old circle. All women in transition. Had they sought out the church as a sanctuary only to find a hell?
“Who do you think killed the girls last week?” Ray asked Esther.
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. It was exactly as the scene before, but Abbadelli is an old man now. How could he orchestrate it? But I don’t know who else could be evil enough to do such a thing.”
“Abbadelli is still alive?” Ray asked.
“Yes. Lorenzo continued to follow him even though he’d moved to the southern part of the state for a while. Nico and his brothers stopped talking with their father when he railed at them to attend Abbadelli’s sermons twice a week after he’d moved back to this area.”
Sermons twice a week? That sounded like a lot of preaching in Mason’s mind.
“Lorenzo apparently was a dedicated member of Abbadelli’s flock,” Mason stated. “Could he have killed those young women if Abbadelli ordered it?”
Esther shrugged. “I don’t know. How would he convince the girls to do as he says? He was an old man, too.”
Mason agreed. He didn’t see Lorenzo as the type of man to convince a bunch of young women to meet him in Forest Park at night. “From an eyewitness account, we’re looking for a younger man. Possibly one who does photography.”
Recognition flashed in Esther’s eyes. “Abbadelli’s grandson is a photographer for his school paper. My nephew knows him. He goes to the same high school as Kyle.”
Ray pulled a tiny notebook out of his pocket and rapidly flipped through it. He halted on a page and ran his finger down his notes, stopping on a line. “Kyle. Is Kyle Carey your nephew? The one arrested for the shooting at the memorial service?” he asked.
Esther’s shoulders slumped slightly. “He is. I don’t know what he was thinking. He told us he spotted the woman who convinced his mother, Jackie, to leave her family at that memorial service. He was very upset, but he wasn’t going to shoot anyone.”
“Wait a minute? He wasn’t upset at a teenage girl? His focus was on an adult who he blamed for his family falling apart?” Callahan interjected.
Ray put two and two together. “Katy Morris? She counsels women in crisis situations and was there with Trinity. Could she have worked with his mother?”
Esther was nodding. “That name sounds familiar. Kyle tries to follow Abbadelli. Tries to bring back Abbadelli’s teachings. He has been very angry since his mother left. She couldn’t take any more of her husband’s rules. I doubt anyone can blame a counselor for her actions. I’ve heard Kyle say we should return to the old ways.”
“The old ways of beating down your wife?” Mason spit out.
“He is a boy. Right now he sees Abbadelli as some sort of symbol to admire. But he is friends with Abbadelli’s grandson. Perhaps the two of them…” She trailed off, a nauseous expression covering her face. “Perhaps together they…” She couldn’t finish.
Mason completed her thought in his head. Perhaps together they decided to punish today’s young women.
“Jesus Christ,” said Ray. “They’re just teens. Why would they do that? To get the old guy’s admiration? Maybe he orchestrated it. Manipulated the teens.”
“Abbadelli is definitely the pastor Brody was looking for. He wasn’t sure if he was dead or not. Do you know where he lives?” he asked Esther.
“He lives where he’s always lived,” she said simply. “We don’t go near him. My husband doesn’t want to remember his years in that church.”
“I wouldn’t call it a church,” said Mason. “This has cult written all over it. And Abbadelli is the aging Manson.”
Esther’s lips whitened. “Yes,” she whispered. “I would call it a cult. They don’t follow a religion. They follow the teachings of one mortal man. A very bad man. No one knew for certain if he killed all those women so long ago. It was only rumors. There was no proof. And if someone reported him, what would happen to their family? Would they die, too?” Esther wiped at her eyes. “I have to imagine they were all too scared of him.”
Mason’s gut was on fire. He wanted to hit someone. Preferably Cesare Abbadelli. And some of his spineless followers. Families had looked the other way as a madman possibly murdered women seeking help. And possibly his own wife and son? How could they do nothing?
“You said he lives where he’s always lived. Where is that?”
“I don’t know. He has a place in the forest. Some land near the coast.”
Ray straightened. “Wait a minute. Like out Highway 26? Over the Coast Range?”
“Yes, I believe that is where Nico said he lives.”
Mason looked at Ray. “What’s wrong?”
“Brody emailed me earlier. He said he’d located someone from the church who had some of the old church records and had passed Victoria Peres’s contact information to him. She’d told him she would head out there tonight. Brody didn’t say it was the pastor of the church, but I know the address is out in the middle of nowhere on the way to the coast. I think he found Abbadelli. But why didn’t he say so?”
“I don’t think he goes by Abbadelli anymore. I think he’s changed his name to something else,” added Esther. “I don’t know what name.”
“Get someone out to that address. And call Dr. Peres. See if she’s headed out there yet.”
His buzzing phone distracted him. “Callahan.”
“Detective, it’s Katy Morris again. I wanted to let you know we found Trinity, but thank you for your concern.”
Mason had nearly forgotten about the teen since the Abbadelli revelations. “Ms. Morris, we were just talking about you. Did you ever work with a Jackie Carey in your practice?”
Katy paused. “Yes, why?”
“That was her son with the gun at the memorial service. Is it possible he’d be angry if he saw you?”
Katy coughed. “Angry is putting it mildly, detective. Are you saying seeing me is what set off that teen?”
“It’s possible,” said Mason.
“Well, I told them to get him into counseling. Damn it! I knew that kid was a ticking bomb. I’m glad they’ve got him now. Maybe he’ll get the attention he needs.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on in teenage brains these days. But Trinity has been found? She turned up okay?” Mason asked.
“Yes, the car was washed off a road, but she and the boy with her are okay.”
“Thank God. So there was a boy. Is the car damaged badly?”
“I don’t know. Victoria Peres found her on the other side of the Coast Range. Can you believe that? She left me a message, but I haven’t been able to reach her. I think there’s no signal.”
Every alarm went off in Mason’s head. “Coast Range? Where was she going?”
“Beats the hell out of me. We’ll be having a deep discussion about this incident.”
“Who was the boy she was with?”
“I don’t know that either,” Katy admitted.
Mason looked at Ray. “Trinity Viders was found by Victoria Peres on the other side of the Coast Range. With a teen boy. How much do you want to bet it’s Abbadelli’s grandson?”
“Jason?” Esther asked. “She’s with him?” Fear filled her face. “I wouldn’t trust him. He must be taking her to his grandfather. What are they going to do to her?”
“And it sounds like Dr. Peres found a link to the birth records’ source. In the same place,” Ray stated. His face was grim.
“Detective, what are you talking about?” Katy asked, concern filling her voice.
“Dr. Peres didn’t tell you exactly where she’d found Trinity?” he asked.
“No. All she said was that they’d spotted her car and were getting her out. She did say she’d called nine-one-one.”
“They will know where her call came from. We’ll trace them through their system.” He tipped the phone away from his ear and gestured to Ray. “Dr. Peres placed a nine-one-one call about the car being washed off the road. See if they got a reading on her location.”
“What is going on?” Katy nearly yelled. “Is Trinity all right?”
“We’re going to find out, Ms. Morris.”
Mason mentally crossed his fingers.