53

For the rest of the flight, I was lost in my own thoughts, trying to construct a rough game plan for our Washington expedition.

By the time our jet was approaching Reagan National Airport and the announcement came for electronic devices to be shut off, I glanced over at Heather and noticed that she had not been watching the movie. Instead she was glued to my iPad, which she had open in her lap.

Finally she turned to me with a Cheshire-cat grin and said, “I found something.”

I said, “Sorry I ruined your movie by laying research projects on you.”

Heather shot back, “And I’m sorry to ruin your appetite with the research I’m about to dump on you.”

At that point, she proceeded to explain the tormented life of a Mexican drug lord named Adolfo Constanzo.

“He died violently in a 1989 shoot-out,” she said.

“Not unusual for a drug dealer.”

“This guy’s not your usual cocaine kingpin. As a boy, his mother had taken him to Haiti, where he became an apprentice to a local voodoo witch doctor who was a practitioner of Palo Mayombe.”

Now she had my attention.

Heather explained, “Palo Mayombe cult followers believe that the ceremonial killing of living victims is the key to empowerment. Animal sacrifices are considered useful, but human sacrifice is the real deal. The bones and body parts are used in a nganga, a cauldron ceremony to impart that power.”

“How did this drug dealer use it?”

“Constanzo figured that the practice of Palo would make him rich and would also protect him from the police. And for a while, it must have looked like it was working. In Mexico, he became a powerful crime figure, even though he was a young guy, about my age. At first he dug up corpses in graveyards for his cult practices. Then he moved on to murder and mutilation of live victims. He ran a drug cult called the Narcosatanists, and he killed more than twenty people whom he then used in his ceremonies. One poor victim was a University of Texas student. When that happened, it hit the news in the US.”

Recalling the macabre dismembering of Paul Pullmen and the machete lying next to his corpse, I asked, “Any mention of the use of a machete on his victims?”

“In fact,” she said, “that was the weapon of choice in Constanzo’s warped Palo Mayombe world. Then there’s this, a headline from the New York Post from 2000 —‘Human Sacrifice Rare, but It Happens’ —tying it to Palo Mayombe. More recent reports too. One from the National Geographic News in 2005. Plus a report from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, warning about ritualistic abuse and killing of children connected with certain voodoo practices. It was picked up in June 2014 by publications like International Business Times and Business Insider. Trevor, this stuff is real. . . .”

As Heather closed the iPad, I was thinking through what she had just told me. The voodoo subcult she described was a close fit to the murder of Assistant AG Paul Pullmen. My own knee-jerk was to assume that this violent form of voodoo only flourished in third-world countries and that it didn’t seem to fit with urbane Washington, DC, the global seat of power and sophisticated politics. It was hard to fathom a Palo Mayombe mastermind lurking somewhere in the federal bureaucracy. But then I knew too well that evil didn’t have cultural or geographical borders.

The landing gear lowered, and the wheels of the jet hit the runway with a squeal.

By then, I had picked the starting point for my investigation. It was the only name that made sense to me at that moment. Someone who worked in DC. But it had been years, and I wondered if he would remember me.

By the time we left the terminal, I had already left a voice message for Gil Spencer, deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.

Gil and I were fresh out of law school when we were both hired as attorneys in the New York City public defender’s office.

Eighteen months later, I took a job in the private sector to handle criminal cases at Tobit, Dandridge & Swartz, eventually becoming a full partner. Not too long after, Gil landed a job as a staff attorney in the DOJ and moved to Washington and then up the legal ladder at Main Justice.

I was hoping my history with Gil Spencer would open the door, though perhaps only barely. It had been a lot of years with no contact between the two of us.

But Gil was a logical choice. He had close access to key players in this tragedy. When Jason Forester died, Gil had been the assistant to Paul Pullmen and would have inside intel that I didn’t have but needed. Whether he could share it with me was another matter.

Heather and I were standing on the airport’s public transportation level, waiting for a car rental, when a return message from Gil Spencer came through. His voice was high-pitched and thin, and he was talking fast. “Trevor, this is Gil. Please call me back, but only on my cell.”

Once he had delivered his cell number, he hung up. No good-byes, no “talk to you then,” no salutations. Nothing.

When I reached him, he was practically hyperventilating.

“Trevor, I can’t believe you’re calling me right now. In terms of the timing, I mean. This is absolutely spooky. You have no idea.”

“Why so?”

“Your name came up.”

“How?”

“Meetings. Postmortems about Paul Pullmen’s murder. Came up again today, in fact. It’s crazy.”

“In what way?”

“Can’t really talk now. We need to rendezvous.”

“Can we do it quickly? Time’s of the essence.”

“I haven’t taken a lunch break.” He gave a sardonic laugh. “Yeah. Like that’s something new. I’ll tell my secretary I’m taking a late lunch. Right now, in fact. We’ll meet. But it’s got to be off-site. Out in the sticks somewhere. Nowhere near Capitol Hill.”

There was a momentary silence. Then he said, “Okay. I’ve got the place. Rock Creek Cemetery. My aunt is buried there. There’s a statue on the grounds called Rabboni. Ask at the cemetery office; they’ll tell you where it is.”

I walked with Heather to the Metro station at the airport and handed her my cell phone. When I had time, I would have to pick up another for myself —one of those TracFones, something to use until Heather could replace hers.

I told Heather about my upcoming meeting with Gil Spencer at Rock Creek Cemetery. I asked her to take the rental car into the heart of the city, and we set a time and place to meet for dinner later.

I wanted her to be my proxy in the interim. “Book two rooms for two nights at the Mandarin Oriental. Then call Pastor Wilhem Ventrie in Port Sulphur. Ask him to contact Henry Bosant. The guy at the Dead Point abandoned cemetery.”

“You ever notice how you have this thing for graveyards?”

“Hey, I’m not the one picking the spooky sites.”

She laughed.

“So,” I continued, “have the pastor ask Henry Bosant to call you. When he does, he needs to give you an update on the nasty business going on along the river. Maybe Bosant can corroborate what Dick Valentine told us about the rushed timetable.”

“Why don’t I just call Bosant directly?”

“Better to have the pastor pave the way.”

“Send me your number as soon as you get yourself a phone. I’ll call you if I find anything. And, Trevor . . .”

I eyed her as she seemed to be sifting through things in her mind.

“Just . . .” She bit her lip. “Just be careful.”