Free Wake the Devil by Robert Daniels

it’s a problem he can’t handle. If that happens, I guess we’ll deal with it at the time.”
    “Good,” Jack said. “If everyone works together, we’ll come through this all right.”
    Rachel’s laugh was rueful, “I said the same thing to our staff just before you arrived.”
    “Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary this morning?” Beth asked.
    “Like what?”
    “People showing up you don’t know, phone calls, odd packages being delivered, anything.”
    “We know all our patients,” Landry said. “Every one of them has to check in with the secretary. The only person who’s been here today who’s not a patient was a fire marshal to inspect the wiring.”
    “A fire marshal?” Beth said.
    “We’re expanding to next door. The group who was there moved out and we took over their lease. We have all kinds of wiring that needs to be done first before we can move in.”
    “I assume there were no problems,” Jack said.
    Landry shook his head. “Nothing he mentioned. The man only stayed a few minutes. He didn’t even look at the junction box.”
    Beth turned to Dwayne Stafford and asked, “Is that right?”
    “I was here the entire time,” Stafford said. “He just looked around and left.”
    Dwayne Stafford was a tall gangly young man with sandy brown hair who generally worked with Ed Mundas, another detective with Robbery-Homicide. Together they made up the team of Frick and Frack, as the cops had dubbed them. Both were solid officers and relentless at tracking down witnesses and leads.
    “You check his ID?” Beth asked.
    “The guy was in uniform, Beth.”
    “A priest was in uniform yesterday,” Jack said.
    He and Beth exchanged another glance.
    “I’ll call Fire to confirm it,” Beth said. She turned back to Stafford and said, “Show me where he looked.”

Chapter 10
    W hile Jack was speaking with the witnesses, Beth reached the fire department and asked for the watch commander. He wasn’t in, so she left a message. After retrieving her evidence kit from the cruiser, she began a systematic search of the area where the fire marshal had been. It was possible she was wasting her time, but better safe than sorry. It took the better part of an hour to collect a variety of samples. These included two black threads, which were promising because they might have come from one of Father Beckley’s suits. She also recovered several grains of a reddish substance with the coarseness of sand. She had no idea what they were or if they would be significant. Jack was better at that stuff and had an uncanny way of linking isolated bits of what seemed to be useless items into evidence.
    They had yet to hear from Milner or the U.S. Marshals, which meant Dwayne Stafford needed to remain on the job until relieved. He was agreeable though obviously bored. Early that morning, Jack had gone part way through the Sandman files and the more he read about the killer, the worse it got. He decided there was no alternative other than to provide the doctors round-the-clock protection. He placed a call to Captain Koster who confirmed two uniform officers would be there in thirty minutes. The Atlanta PD seemed happy to help as long as the investigation remained under one roof—theirs.
    They said good-bye to everyone and left to meet Dan Pappas. Beth’s secretary had relayed a message saying he wanted to get together for lunch at Linden’s, a cop hangout at the Peachtree Battle Center a short distance from where they were.
    *
    Linden’s was essentially a glorified diner that had been at the same location for sixty years. Jack had been there once or twice and liked the place. They took a table near the back. As far as he could see, the menu hadn’t changed, nor had the décor, which was something out of the fifties. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see Frankie Avalon walk in singing “Beauty School Dropout.” The booths were large enough to seat six people and the tables were Formica. The seats and their