Page 59 of The Family Cross

“Homeless people?”

“I hear you. Give me a sec,” Sampson said. “His ministry was doing well, attracting followers and donors—but then he was accused of groping a sixteen-year-old homeless girl.”

“Ouch.”

“Sentinel skated on the charge when the girl recanted, saying she must have mistaken a hug for a grope,” Sampson said. “Then two years later, a homeless woman in her thirties said Sentinel exposed himself to her and tried to rape her.”

That was enough to rattle his nonprofit board in Atlanta. They cut him loose, and he moved on to Philadelphia, where he was evidently charming enough to convince people there that the charges were false.

“And all was well until…”

“Until he couldn’t help himself, apparently,” said Sampson. “About eight months after Sentinel arrived in Philly, he got caught in a vice sting and was arrested for trying to pay for sex with a cop posing online as a sixteen-year-old runaway.”

“Sounds like Corey McGovern.”

“Just wait,” John said. “The good reverend weaseled his way out of it because the detectives running the sting were caught on their own cameras giving Sentinel an improper Miranda warning.”

“Idiocy.”

“Still got him booted from the homeless work he was doing in Philadelphia.”

Shortly after, Sentinel moved to Roanoke, Virginia, where he was again caught in an attempted-rape incident, this one involving him convincing an underage girl to let him film her in the nude. But the girl went missing before the trial, and once again, the case did not go to court.

“It was enough for the church elders,” John said. “Sentinel was officially expelled. His sister filed the missing person report about two weeks ago.”

“Got a picture of him?”

“Several,” Sampson said. He showed me a few photographs on his phone of Dylan Sentinel. He was a handsome man with flecks of gray in his hair. “Recognize him?”

“I don’t,” I said. “But the profile could match the first guy who went into Corey’s room the night of the thunderstorm.”

53

JOHN SAMPSON AND I gave Chief Willard Kane and Detectives Judy Winthrop and Tommy Hayes an update on our progress. We identified the victim beneath the Bridge to Nowhere as Dylan Sentinel, a defrocked minister with a history of sexual violence, and told them Choir Boy was Aldous Campbell, a booted novice with a taste for beer, porn, and abusing defenseless animals.

“Jesus,” Kane said, rubbing his brow. “And the professor at Georgetown?”

“No history of sexual fixations or violence that we know of,” I said.

“But he was also shot and burned,” Winthrop said.

“He was indeed.”

Sampson said, “Chief, at this point we believe that all of the murders are the work of the same killer.”

Detective Hayes said, “Corey McGovern could be the crossover.”

“I don’t follow,” I said.

“You said that your Choir Boy, Aldous Campbell, was a customer of Corey McGovern’s, and Dylan Sentinel might’ve been as well,” he replied impatiently. “I think you’re going to find out that Drake Conway was her client too. And probably Sean Brundage.”

“I’d bet on it,” Winthrop said.

I said firmly, “We’ve got nothing that says Brundage knew her in any way other than seeing her below the ghost ramp with Choir Boy and Hawk.”

Hayes said, “Okay, but with or without Brundage, this could all be a case of jealousy gone wild, one of Corey’s clients becoming so infatuated with her that he couldn’t stand the idea of another man having her.”

Sampson said, “I could see that. Jealousy leading him to kill and burn her other clients.”