The telephone roused Devlin at six-thirty the next morning, the frantic voice of the mayor’s top aide driving away any lingering drowsiness. He grabbed a pad and pen he kept on the nightstand.
“Slow down and give me the address again.” He jotted down the address. “All right, tell the mayor I’m leaving forthwith.” Devlin listened. “What? What do you mean he’s not up yet? How is he assigning this case to me if he doesn’t even know about it yet?” Devlin listened again, shaking his head. “Okay, when he does wake up, tell him I’m already there.”
He put the phone down and stretched his shoulders. Adrianna’s hand reached out, her fingers running along his back. He turned and looked down at her sleepy, sexy eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We’ve got another dead priest. This one’s out in Brooklyn. I’ve gotta get out there.”
“I thought I heard you say the mayor was still asleep. How …?”
“He left standing orders. A priest, a nun, a rabbi, whatever—one of them gets so much as a hangnail, the case is mine. Apparently Howie is very close to the panic button.”
Adrianna’s fingers ran along his back again. “That’s too bad,” she said. “I had some very definite plans for you this morning.”
Devlin looked down at her. Adrianna’s hair was tousled with sleep, her eyes clearly alluring; one very lovely breast peeked out from the covers. “You really know how to hurt a guy,” he said.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Go play cops and robbers. I’ll just have to call the plumber or that cute new delivery boy at the pizza place.”
“You just be sure and be here when I get home.” He reached out, deliberately pulled the bedsheet up to her chin, and turned back to the phone. He called Ollie Pitts, filled him in, and told him to swing by the loft to pick him up.
Adrianna’s voice stopped him as he headed for the bathroom. “If it was another woman I could understand—maybe. But Ollie Pitts?”
Devlin turned back to her, grinning. “Please do me a favor. Call Sharon at home before she leaves for work and tell her what happened. We were supposed to meet two young women at a counseling center this morning. Tell her I may not be able to get there and she should see them alone.”
Adrianna gave him a fake pout. “Now I’m not only rejected as a sex object, I’m relegated to playing secretary.”
Devlin winked at her. “And you’re terrific at both jobs,” he said.
Adrianna sat up in bed, allowing the sheet to fall away. “You be careful, buster. Or the plumber really will get the surprise of his life.”
Saint Donato’s Church was in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, once home to Joey Gallo, a Mafia wannabe who headed a gang of improbable gangsters that a New York newspaper columnist once novelized in The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Now Gallo was long dead, and the old-line neighborhood of Italian longshoremen that once lionized him was largely gone, replaced first by middle-class gentry, then by the encroachment of poor Hispanics who laid claim to the neighborhood’s fringe.
Devlin thought about those days of mob mayhem as he walked around the priest’s body. Corpses hanging from longshoremen’s hooks had not been uncommon. But never a priest. Especially not one hanging by his neck in the basement of his own church.
He stepped back and looked up into the priest’s face, avoiding any physical contact that might contaminate the crime scene. Still, he could tell the body had been there a considerable time. The neck had begun to stretch grotesquely. The face had turned almost black from lividity above the ligature and in the visible parts of the priest’s extremities. And as the body slowly rotated on the rope around its neck, it appeared as stiff as the proverbial piece of lumber.
Ollie Pitts came up beside Devlin and followed his gaze upward. “Well, we know he’s been dead at least twelve hours, because we got us full rigor here,” he offered. “But with the level of lividity, and the way the neck has begun to stretch, I’d guess it’s been longer. Maybe sixteen hours, maybe more.”
“He was a heavy guy—two hundred and twenty, two hundred and thirty pounds,” Devlin countered. “And all of it packed on a short frame. That could have added to the stretching.” He considered the body again. “You’re right about full rigor, but lividity can be tricky in a hanging. I’d stick with twelve hours, at least for now.”
“You figure suicide?” Pitts asked.
Devlin shook his head.
Pitts seemed surprised. “Why not?” He began to look for something he had missed. He glanced at the overturned chair lying next to the priest’s body, moved his eyes along the length of the body and along the rope that had been looped over a ceiling rafter before being tied off on a pipe that ran along one wall, and finally to the silent oil burner a few feet away. He shook his head. “I don’t get it. We got the chair, the rope, and all the privacy he wanted. Shit. I can’t think of a better place to bump yourself off in early September than the boiler room of a fucking church. Not much chance somebody might come along and stop you.”
Devlin nodded. “All true. But also very hard to do if your feet don’t reach the chair.”
Pitts eyed the overturned chair, visually measuring it, then did the same with the distance between the floor and the priest’s feet. “Son of a bitch,” he said. He took a small tape measure from his pocket and measured the length of one leg of the chair, then again from the floor to the bottom of the priest’s feet. He barked out a laugh. “He’s a good three inches too high, even with his neck stretched like a fucking giraffe.” He turned and grinned at Devlin. “I guess that’s why they pay inspectors the big bucks.”
Devlin kept staring at the priest. “Look at the section of rope between the rafter and where it’s tied off on the pipe. A good four feet of it is chafed where it rubbed against the wood. Somebody hauled him up manually. And that was a helluva lot of work.” He shook his head. “What I can’t figure is why the perp went to so much trouble to make it look like a suicide. If you want to hide a murder, why fake a suicide when it’s easier to make a death look accidental?”
“Hey, perps ain’t always the sharpest tacks in the box.”
Devlin shook his head again. “Were you raised a Catholic, Ollie?”
“No. I wasn’t raised as nothin’.”
Devlin stepped back several paces to get a longer view of the corpse. “Suicide is a big deal with Catholics. It’s an unforgivable sin. It’s an act of despair, a rejection of God’s forgiveness, and according to the church it guarantees you a one-way ticket to hell. Because of that, suicides can’t be buried in consecrated ground. And for a priest that would be the ultimate disgrace.”
“You think that’s maybe what the perp wanted?”
“It’s something to look at.”
“You think there’s a connection with the other priest? Maybe a copycat? Somebody saw how the first priest got offed, had some kind of grudge against this one, and decided he’d do it too?”
“That’s the best-case scenario,” Devlin said.
This time Ollie shook his head. “Naw, they can’t be connected more than that. The first one, there was no attempt to hide what it was. A straight slice job.” He drew his thumb across his throat. “No, I don’t buy it. The MO we got here, it’s too far out of whack.”
“Unless somebody was trying to hide the fact that they were connected.” Devlin glanced at Ollie and shrugged. “But maybe you’re right. It’s pretty damned Byzantine.”
Ollie raised his eyebrows at the word. “Yeah, whatever you say, boss.” He grinned at Devlin. “Hey, you spotted that business with the chair. So maybe I should just shut up and listen. I’ll ask around, find out if this priest was a left footer like the first one. Just in case.”
Devlin returned the smile. “I’ll start it off when I talk to the pastor. You stay with the body until forensics and the ME are through with it.”
Father Enrico Giuliani glared at him, his sallow complexion suddenly flushed with anger. The priest was in his early sixties, with thinning gray hair and a pinched face. He reminded Devlin of a long-dead pope, Pius ?II, the one who had turned his back on the Jews during World War II. The priest’s angry eyes continued to bore into Devlin. He had already explained that he had been pastor of Saint Donato’s for twenty-five years. There was little question about the proprietary feelings the man had for his parish.
“Father, I’m not trying to suggest anything,” Devlin said. “Or in any way denigrate Father Falco or his priesthood. I’m trying to get at the truth.”
The pastor’s dark-brown eyes still blazed. He was seated behind his desk in the small rectory office. Behind him a portrait of Jesus stared into the room, almost as if it were a party to all that was said there. “You don’t think it’s bad enough when a priest takes his own life? That’s not enough disgrace for you? Maybe you’d like to explain it to our parishioners.”
“Father Falco didn’t commit suicide, Father. He was murdered.” Devlin let the statement sit there and watched as varying emotions moved across the old priest’s face. First came shock, then a slight but very clear sense of relief, and finally disbelief.
He shook his body, as if trying to fight off all the conflicting emotions. “You’re certain?” he finally asked.
“Yes, Father, I am. The question now is why?” Devlin leaned forward as though preparing to impart some secret that only they would share. “You read about the priest who was murdered in the Village?”
Father Giuliani nodded numbly.
“Well, that priest had been diagnosed with AIDS, Father. My concern here is the possibility of some connection between the two crimes. That’s one—only one—possibility. But it’s something I have to check.”
The pastor’s face had visibly whitened. “Dear God,” he said. He folded his hands before his chest, prayerlike, and began to move them forward and back in a rocking gesture. “I was Father Peter’s confessor, so I cannot discuss this with you.” His eyes snapped up to Devlin. “I want to. Believe me, I very much want to. But it’s impossible.” The hands kept rocking. “I can tell you that he was seeing a physician, but that’s all I can say.”
Devlin nodded, showing that he understood. “The autopsy will tell us whether or not he was infected with any disease. But you could save us some time if you know the doctor’s name.”
The pastor nodded, still visibly shaken. “Of course. I hadn’t thought about the autopsy. And I do know the name of the doctor. Serious illnesses must be reported to the archdiocese for personnel purposes.” He hesitated, thinking about what he had just said. “I’m not sure the archdiocese would want me to give out that information. I should check with them first.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Father.” The priest seemed shocked by the suggestion, and Devlin hurried on. “If they refuse to give you permission, I’ll be forced to subpoena your records, and if I do that it will be very hard to keep it out of the newspapers. I think we would both like to see this kept as quiet as possible.”
The priest jumped at the statement as though it were a lifeline. “Oh, yes! Yes, of course. And they might, you know. The archdiocese, I mean. They can become very secretive where scandal is concerned, and sometimes their secrecy only makes it worse in the end.” A pleading look came to his eyes. “Do you think it’s possible? To keep this matter out of public view?” He shook his head, as if imagining what might happen. “Our parishioners loved Father Peter, and this would be very hard for them to understand.”
“We can try,” Devlin said. “Not the murder, of course.” He hesitated, thinking he could lie to the man, deciding it would be foolish in the long run. “A lot will depend on what comes out at a trial, but I’m sure the district attorney would be sensitive to the wishes of the archdiocese.” He smiled, trying to soften his words, and added, “But we’re still a long way from that. And keep in mind that many murder cases never go to trial. So I think there’s a fair chance none of the … difficult matters … will ever come out.”
The priest closed his eyes. “Dear God, let it be so.” He drew a long breath and then stood abruptly, went to a file cabinet in the corner, and withdrew a small folder. Finding what he wanted, he wrote a name and address on a slip of paper. He handed it to Devlin with a weak smile. “Please keep this between us,” he said. “I would very much like to finish out my days in this parish.”
“No one will know, Father. I give you my word.”
They stood on the steps of the church, just outside the massive front doors. Devlin filled Ollie in on what the pastor had told him, and when he had finished Pitts let out a long low whistle. “You must of done something really bad in your life.”
“Why’s that?” Devlin asked.
“Well, first off you got these Opus Christi clowns in a possible drug scam. The archdiocese is gonna love that. Next you maybe got somebody running around bumping off gay priests, which, of course, don’t really exist, according to the black suits at Saint Patrick’s.” He shook his head and grinned. “If you’re really lucky, maybe we’ll find out the pope’s been diddling teenage girls, and you’ll have a hat trick.”
Devlin laughed in spite of himself. “How about you sit down with the mayor and explain it all to him?”
Ollie shook his head. “Uh-uh. It’s like I said. This is why inspectors get the big bucks.”
“Not big enough. I’ll have to make sure the mayor’s got a cardiologist standing by when I tell him.”
“Hey, the guy’s gotta have a sense of humor, right?”
“I’ll tell him you said so. In the meantime, get what you can from the priest’s doctor and run a thorough—and I mean thorough—canvass of this neighborhood.”
Rain suddenly began to fall in large heavy drops that bounced back off the sidewalk a good three inches, one of those late-summer/early-autumn storms that seem to come from nowhere. They stepped back under the arch of the church doors.
“Why’s it always gotta rain when I gotta canvass a neighborhood?” Pitts groused.
“Get help if you need it. Use Brooklyn detectives if you have to. Their commander gives you grief, refer him to me. Just make sure I know everything this priest did yesterday, anybody he saw, anybody who showed any interest in him, everything. And I want it by the end of the day. And find out if these two dead priests knew each other too. It’s only a short subway ride between Red Hook and the Village.”
“You think maybe they were having it off with the same guy?”
“It’s a long shot, but I don’t want to overlook any possibilities. Get those Greenwich Village dicks we’ve got working the Father Donovan homicide to check that angle.”
“You got it, boss.” Pitts grinned at him again. “And let me know where to send all the reports … after you tell the mayor about all this shit.”
Devlin took a subway to Hell’s Kitchen in time to make the tail end of Sharon’s meeting with the two young women from Opus Christi. The rain had stopped by the time he reached Brother Michael’s storefront counseling center, and he found everyone gathered in the cramped back office. The two young women were in their late teens or early twenties, each freshly scrubbed, each more demurely dressed and innocent-looking than 99 percent of the women walking the city’s streets. Sharon introduced them as Claudia and Joan, no last names, in keeping with Opus Christi practice. Brother Michael sat next to them like some two-hundred-and-forty-pound guardian angel.
Both young women moved nervously in their chairs, clearly troubled by the appearance of yet another detective. They looked remarkably alike: both blond and blue-eyed, both dressed in skirts that hung well below their knees, and clean white blouses, a size too large, to hide any hint of a figure beneath. Devlin smiled to himself. When he was a kid in Catholic school the nuns referred to the style of dress as Mary-like.
When Sharon had finished the introductions Devlin leaned forward, keeping his tone as gentle as possible. “I’m sure Sergeant Levy has explained that we’re investigating the death of Sister Manuela. I’m sorry if I’m making you repeat things you’ve already told her, but it will save me time if I hear it directly from each of you. First off, did either of you know her?”
Both young women nodded, but it was Claudia who spoke. She had freckles on her nose and cheeks, and her complexion flushed slightly. Devlin wasn’t sure if it came from speaking to a man or the subject he had raised.
“She lived on our floor before she took the veil,” Claudia said. “She was very devout and very … happy. Very one with our Lord.”
“Did either of you consider becoming nuns?”
Devlin threw out the question as part of his interrogation technique—to come at them from different angles to see what that might draw out. It didn’t seem to faze either woman. Claudia shook her head, but Joan picked up on the question. She seemed to squint a bit, as though she needed glasses and was struggling to get Devlin’s face in focus.
“I considered it,” she said. “But I’m not good enough yet.”
Devlin was surprised by the response. “What do you mean?”
Joan seemed flustered this time and stammered a bit as she began to speak. “I-I get depressed sometimes. And I find myself wishing for things I shouldn’t.”
“Like what?” Devlin asked, surprised again.
Joan stared at her hands. “Going out … alone. Or with young men. Maybe going to a movie or out to dinner.”
Her head snapped up. “For us it is. We’ve been called to Christ … to do his work. Sister Manuela never thought those things. She believed. She did everything she was told to do. I just can’t. My faith is too weak.”
“I want to leave the order.” It was Claudia again; the words just blurted out. “I think Joan does too, but she’s afraid to admit it, afraid it’s wrong to even think it.”
“No,” Joan said. “No, I haven’t decided that. I think I just miss my family and my friends … from before.”
“When was the last time you saw your family?” Devlin asked.
Joan lowered her eyes again. ‘Two years ago. My mother and father came to see me.”
“And they haven’t been back since?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t see them. I wrote to them, asking them not to come again, but they did. My spiritual guide said it was best if I didn’t encourage them. That it would distract me from the work of Christ.” Tears had come to her eyes.
Devlin thought about his own daughter, Phillipa, and about what he would do if someone convinced her not to see him again. There would be something just short of murder, he decided. “Maybe your parents miss you too,” he said.
The tears came now. Claudia slipped an arm around Joan’s shoulders.
“I’ve been trying to explain to them that Christ taught the commandments,” Brother Michael said. “That he would never suggest not honoring one’s parents.”
Joan answered through sobs. “But these … are holy people … people who’ve been … chosen by Christ. They … can’t … be … wrong.”
Brother Michael let out a long breath. Devlin could tell he’d been here before with these women.
“Don’t you think it’s possible to be devout and also to be wrong?” Brother Michael asked. “Think of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, the slaughter of people in modern-day Islam—all of it done by deeply religious men and women. I’m not saying the men and women who are telling you to reject your family aren’t devout. I’m telling you that they’re wrong, that what they’re saying goes against the teaching of Christ when he told us to obey the commandments God gave to Moses.”
They were moving away from Sister Manuela, where Devlin needed to be. “Do you know if Sister Manuela ever questioned her superiors about things she was asked to do?”
Claudia looked at him, surprised by the question. “Not that I know of. I can’t imagine she ever would. I always thought she was very, very devout.”
Devlin realized he was running into the same wall as Brother Michael. He tried another approach. “Did she ever seem upset?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she seem nervous or concerned about anything in the last days you saw her?”
“Yes.” It was Joan this time, the question seeming to bring her back from her own miseries. “One of my jobs is cleaning the chapel every day. I do it very early in the morning so it’s clean when everyone comes down for morning prayers. That last week Sister Manuela was always there, always well before the regular time.”
“Did you ever ask her why?” It was Sharon now, easing into the questioning.
Joan nodded. “One day, while I was cleaning, I noticed there were tears in her eyes, and I went over to make sure she wasn’t sick or something. I asked if she was all right, and she told me she was just upset about something and was praying for guidance. It was the day before she left for Colombia. I knew her parents had moved back and thought she must have been told not to see them while she was there.”
Sharon leaned forward. “We were told she was visiting her parents.”
Joan seemed confused. “I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone is allowed to do that.”
Sharon made a mental note to check again. “Would the order know whether she did or not?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” Joan said. “They always know where we are. We never go anywhere alone.”
“Where do they think each of you are now?” Devlin asked.
“We have part-time jobs at a pro-life center,” Claudia said. “But it’s not run by the order, and the people who run it don’t keep very good track of when we get there and when we leave, since they don’t pay us.”
“So how does the order keep track of you during that time?” Devlin asked.
“We’re each questioned about it—separately. But we’re just asked where we went and if we were together the whole time.” Claudia looked down at her hands, which were demurely folded in her lap. “We don’t tell them about any side trips we might have made, and we always make sure they’re not very long ones.”
A lie of omission, Devlin thought. Something the nuns in school had repeatedly warned against. He smiled at the memory. Like all forms of totalitarian authority, holes always seemed to appear in its self-protective armor. He was glad to see Opus Christi wasn’t an exception.
“Who would have been with Sister Manuela during her workday?” Devlin asked.
“Sister Margaret,” Claudia said. “They were always together.”
“And it would be Sister Margaret’s job to report on what Sister Manuela did or didn’t do?”
“Yes,” Claudia said. “It’s the way it’s done.” She hesitated over the next words, as if searching out a way to make Devlin understand. “It’s for our spiritual protection,” she finally added.
Devlin studied the floor for a moment before looking up at the two women. “I hope you’ll keep our meeting confidential,” he said. “It would be best for the investigation and probably best for you.”
Claudia stared at him, almost defiantly, he thought. It was as if she were trying to recapture something she had lost in their conversation. “If our spiritual guide asks us specifically if we talked to you, we’ll have to tell him we did. But if he doesn’t ask—”
When the two women had gone, Devlin turned to Brother Michael and shook his head. “You’ve got your hands full trying to help those two. I’ve heard about these spiritual guides from Father Martin. What’s your take on it?”
Anger flashed in the brother’s eyes. “It’s the ultimate hold they have on these kids,” he said. He leaned forward, his massive forearms resting on his equally massive thighs. “Each member has a spiritual guide, someone who has been assigned to direct their lives on the path of Christ. It’s always a numerarier, someone who’s been tested and has proven loyal. According to their teachings, lying to a spiritual guide is one of several unforgivable sins that will damn you to hell for all eternity.” He shook his head. “There are quite a few of those unforgivable sins. Masturbation is another one, or any form of sexual activity, although they don’t worry very much about sex between two consenting parties, since they make sure that opportunity never exists.”
“What are some of the other unforgivable sins?” Sharon asked.
“Basically, anything that goes against their agenda. Birth control is considered an intrinsic evil, as is any nontraditional, nonmatrimonial relationship. Abortion, for any reason, is viewed as murder. In vitro fertilization is an unnatural act against God’s will. Homosexuality is a curable disease, something willfully performed in denial of God’s instruction to man, an act that results in divine punishment through AIDS.”
“How the hell do they get kids—especially kids—to believe all this stuff?”
Brother Michael sat back and smiled at her. “You don’t spend a lot of time working with kids, do you?” He waited while Sharon shook her head. “Young people today, especially those in their teens and early twenties, are desperately searching for something to believe in. You might think that kids who end up in religious cults grow up in homes where religion is a big part of daily life, but that’s not the case. Most of them have grown up in homes where their parents didn’t believe in anything other than making money and acquiring things. Oh, religion may have been a part of their lives, but if it was, it was a small part. Maybe something their parents thought they should do for any number of reasons and did halfheartedly, if at all.
“In some ways these kids are similar to ones who grow up poor. Poor kids want something. Usually something material, the stuff they’ve grown up without. But these other kids have grown up with enough money so it isn’t something they think about a great deal. And they’ve had plenty of things all their lives, so that’s not a driving force.” He gave a broad shrug. “It’s why some middle-class kids end up piercing and tattooing themselves, or living on the streets, or getting into drugs, or becoming groupies to rock bands. They’re looking for something they can put into their lives that they think will give them meaning. Religion can become one of those things. Some are born again and find some degree of fulfillment, at least for a time. But, unfortunately, when the need is great the cults beckon and the sheer vulnerability of these kids make them easy meat: ripe and ready to be manipulated.” He raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “Now, some grow out of it and see these cults for what they are, as I’m hoping will be the case with these two young women. But others never do. Their lives become irreversibly tied to these ‘truths’ they’ve been taught to believe in. And some of them never escape those beliefs. Some end up in places like Waco and Jonestown.”
“But don’t you, as a Catholic brother, believe in some of the same things that Opus Christi teaches?” Sharon softened the words with a smile.
Brother Michael returned it. “I came to my vocation out of a love of God and a very strong need to serve him. It was a hard choice, something I desperately tried to avoid for a long time.” He smiled again, at the memory of that decision. “You see, the things one gives up are very substantial, especially for a healthy young adult.” He waved his hand as though dismissing his own sacrifice. “The Franciscan order also made it difficult to join. They wanted to be sure my vocation was a true calling, that I was coming to them for the right reason. And the correct reason is not to put meaning into one’s life. The correct reason is to give meaning to one’s life through service to God.” He glanced from Sharon to Devlin to see if they understood. “It’s a subtle difference but a very important one. Now, the answer to your question is Yes, I believe in many of the same things Opus Christi espouses. Not all, but many. But I also believe in redemption, and there’s a subtle difference there as well. I believe that all sin, all wrongdoing, is forgivable. The people who ran Opus Christi don’t offer that belief. They can’t, you see. If they did they would lose control.”
Devlin studied the man for several seconds and nodded. “I hope we can help you with these young women,” he said. “Seeing them here, and listening to them spout what they’ve been force-fed, makes me twitchy about my own daughter.”
“Just stay close to her,” Brother Michael said. “The one common factor I find with all troubled kids is an absence of closeness to their parents.”
Devlin nodded again, privately hoping he was already doing that. “I’ve got to ask you for one more favor,” he said.
A large smile filled Brother Michael’s chocolate-colored face. “As our Lord said, ‘Ask and you shall receive.’” The smile had suddenly turned a bit impish. Devlin realized he had truly come to like the man.
“I want to arrange another meeting with this numerarier, Peter—but this time with the police officer I’d like him to recruit for Opus Christi.”
Brother Michael scratched his chin. “This young officer you’re proposing, he’ll have to appear quite religious, you know … and quite needy. Do you think he’ll be able to pull that off?”
“I hope so,” Devlin said. “It looks like our only hope of getting inside.” He thought about Boom Boom Rivera. He certainly had the chutzpah to pull it off. And he was definitely an actor. Now, all Devlin had to do was convince him that he’d just experienced a religious epiphany.
On the way back to the office, he filled Sharon in on the murder of Father Peter Falco.
“You think somebody’s killing priests because they’re gay?”
“It’s a possibility. We should know more by the end of the day.”
“You have to put me on that case.” Sharon was driving but had turned to face Devlin as the car raced down Broadway.
“Watch the damned road,” Devlin snapped.
Sharon turned back to the traffic, but her voice became even more determined. “Paul, this should be my case. It makes sense. I understand these people. I know how to talk to them. Christ, they’ll take one look at Ollie and think some tyrannosaur just came stumbling out of the bushes.”
The small scar on Devlin’s cheek whitened, indicating he was fast reaching his limit. The last thing he needed was more grief. “You’re Ollie’s sergeant,” he snapped. “You’ll be supervising him. But that’s all you’ll be doing on that case. I need you where you are. I need you following up with this other nun who partnered with Sister Manuela. You saw those two women at Brother Michael’s center. I haven’t got anyone else who has a chance in hell of reaching them. And if this other nun is cut from the same mold, you’ll have a better chance with her than anyone else. Besides, I’ll need you to run Boom Boom once we convince him to go in there undercover.”
Sharon glanced at him, noted the now-white scar, and decided to back off. She let out a breath to let him understand her reluctance. “Okay. You’re the boss. But I think you’re wrong.” She forced a smile, then found it growing naturally. “God, Boom Boom Rivera in a religious cult! I can just hear him telling all those celibate kids how Hispanics have dicks that never get soft.” She snorted. “Before he goes in there we better start filling his tacos with saltpeter.”
Devlin glanced out the window, his irritation seeping away. “I was thinking more along the lines of having him neutered,” he said. He watched the lunch-hour chaos that filled the sidewalks as their car sped through the garment district. Boom Boom wouldn’t be the only candidate for castration, he thought. Not when the mayor heard how his two pet cases were going.
They met at six o’clock in the squad bullpen, and the reports from the other detectives offered little encouragement. Everyone seemed to be hitting one solid wall after another.
Ollie Pitts flipped through his notebook with thick, angry fingers, almost as if the book itself had frustrated his efforts.
“It’s the same story with both murdered priests,” he said. “If they had any regular or full-time boyfriends, they’ve either left town or are still hiding in their closets.”
Sharon glared at him but said nothing. Pitts ignored her stare.
“Both of these guys were favorites among their parishioners.” There was a Who-can-tell-about-people? tone in his voice. “In both parishes, everybody I talked to described these guys as the person they’d go to if they had a problem.” He gave a slight shake of his head. “Now, Donovan, the first victim, he worked openly with gays. But, hell, in the Village, what choice did he have, right? But nobody, outside of the people he saw at the gay bathhouse, had a clue he was part of the fruit brigade himself.”
“All right, Ollie,” Sharon snapped. “Enough!”
Pitts looked up, feigning shock at the rebuke. Devlin saw a small smile creep to the corners of his mouth.
“Let’s not try to get a rise out of Sharon,” Devlin warned. “Just make the report … minus the editorial comments.”
Pitts went back to his notebook, the grin growing slightly. “Okay. As far as any connection between the two priests, we got zip. If they ever met each other, even they probably didn’t remember. So we’re drawing a blank on suspects we can tie to both of them. Neither one had been threatened. Neither one had any arguments with anybody we know about. The only connection is that they both had AIDS, and both of them were diagnosed over the last six months. But they even went to different doctors, and to different hospitals for their tests, so we got no connection there either.”
He raised his eyes, shrugged, and flipped through his notebook again.
“Right now it looks as if AIDS was only a coincidence. The ME confirmed that they both had it, but I can’t find a way that any one perp could have identified each of them as a carrier. Forensics came up with all kinds of stuff that we’re checking through now. I got fingerprints up the wazoo, but nothing the computer picked up any matches on. We got some especially good prints on the second priest. They were on the pipe where the rope was tied off. But again, zip from the computer. Right now, we’re having everyone who had any access to the church basement printed so we can eliminate any legit matches, but that’s gonna take some time. Right now I’m stuck, so I got the dicks who caught the cases going back over the same ground to make sure we didn’t miss anything.” He looked at Devlin. “If it was the same perp, boss, it was a pro. This guy didn’t make any of the usual mistakes.”
Devlin shifted his gaze to Stan Samuels. “All right, tell me what you found out about Opus Christi.”
Samuels shook his head. “This is quite a group, boss. Even their money has money. They operate—at least behind the scenes—a handful of pretty successful businesses. They got an advertising agency, a PR firm, even a group of political consultants who work mainly with antiabortion and pro-family candidates. They all bring in some heavy bucks. But they’re all privately held companies, so there isn’t a helluva lot I can get on them. The order itself also holds a lot of stock, mostly financial—banks, insurance companies, even a couple of brokerage houses. Their financing on this new office and housing complex they built on Second Avenue is like walking through a maze. It comes from a series of loans made to corporations they control. The money is borrowed by one corporation, then that company lends money to another company, then in at least one case to a third company. Finally it gets lent to Opus Christi to finance their project. The interesting thing is that none of it comes from the Catholic church. It’s all private, and it’s all washed from one company to another. It’s like they don’t want anybody to know where it all comes from. But it’s all legit, so it doesn’t make any sense to do it that way. I’ll tell you one thing. They spent a lot more money on their building than they had to spend, and most of it went into security. And some of that security seems to be run against themselves.”
“What do you mean?” Devlin asked.
“Well, the building is divided into offices and dormitories, right? Men and women. But even the dormitories are sealed off from each other, based on sex. Separate staircases and elevators for the men and the women. It’s like the building is physically divided in half. Even the ductwork is separate, like they were afraid somebody was gonna crawl through from one side to the other. I showed the building plans to an architect I know, and he said he never saw anything like it. He said it boosted the cost by a good twenty percent. The same thing’s true about the section where all the offices are. Separate access, separate ventilating systems, plus a security system the Pentagon wished it had. It’s like they don’t trust anybody, not even themselves.”
Devlin turned to Red Cunningham, whose three-hundred-pound bulk overflowed his chair. “What does that do for a chance at phone taps—assuming we can eventually get a court order?”
Cunningham ran a hand through his red buzz cut. “It’ll be tough. All the phone lines are tied into a very sophisticated computer system. The only shot we’d have is if I could get inside and get access to that system. Then it’d be a piece of cake. But getting inside’s the trick.”
That brought Devlin to Ramon Rivera—Boom Boom to his fellow cops, who had given him the nickname owing to his endless claims of sexual prowess. He leaned back in his chair and studied the short slender Hispanic cop.
“You feeling particularly religious these days?” he asked.
Boom Boom blinked at the question. Then he grinned nervously. “Hey, boss. God is love.”
“Yeah, I know.” Devlin smirked. “And love is your middle name, right?” He paused a beat. “The reason I ask is that I’ve got this feeling you’re about to have a religious crisis and a sudden overpowering need to reach out to the Lord.”
Boom Boom blinked again, and his eyes filled with suspicion. “I am?”
“You are. At least I think you are, providing you volunteer.”
“Uh-oh, watch yourself, Boom Boom,” Ollie warned. “The last time I volunteered for something, I ended up in Cuba using my vacation time.”
Rivera shifted in his chair. “What’s this all about? I mean, like, you’re gonna tell me, right? Like, before I say yes or no, right?”
A smirk came to Devlin’s lips. “No. First you volunteer, then I tell you. Just like always.” Devlin steepled his fingers in front of his face. “Of course, if you don’t like the idea, you have the option of requesting a transfer to another unit.” Devlin leaned back in his chair and waited. Like all the other members of the team, Boom Boom was regarded as a misfit in the NYPD, an unconventional cop in a department that despised the unconventional. Any of them, if returned to normal police duties, would find themselves working one of the many shit assignments that no cop wanted.
“Okay, okay, I get the point,” Boom Boom said. “I volunteer. You happy?”
Devlin smiled at him. “I’m happy.” He turned to Sharon. “Since you’ll be running this little undercover job, you explain it to our little Spanish Romeo.”
Sharon did, her words punctuated by snickers and guffaws from the others. As she concluded, she leaned forward, bringing herself as close to Rivera as possible. “The important thing here, Boom Boom,” she said, emphasizing the nickname, “is that you keep your pecker in your pants. As far as anyone in Opus Christi is concerned, sex is the last thing on your mind. You don’t even know what your little ding-a-ling is used for. Got it?”
Boom Boom’s eyes took on a look of someone deeply offended. “Hey, first, it ain’t little, and second, you’re asking for a fucking miracle here.”
“Yeah? Well, from now on, we call you Saint Ramon. You got it? Once you’re inside you don’t even look at any of the women, let alone give any of them your line of Latin bullshit. So, first off, lose the tight pants and the open-neck shirt and the gold chain.” She glanced at Devlin. “I also wanna get those curly locks sheared before we send him in.”
“Hey, hold on there. I ain’t gonna go that far,” Boom Boom threatened.
Sharon ignored him. “Maybe get him fitted to a pair of phony glasses, too.”
“Sounds about right,” Devlin said. “You’re the boss on this. You do what you think is best.”
“Hey, come on.”
Sharon turned back to Rivera. She was enjoying herself fully now. Over the past two years, ever since she had joined the squad, Rivera had repeatedly suggested that she could be “cured” of her lesbian tendencies if she’d only put herself in his hands. She smiled at the memory. “Yes, indeed. We are gonna have us a new Boom Boom,” she said.
“Hey, Sha-ron, wait a minute.”
“Shut up. We’ve got a meeting tomorrow morning with the guy who’s gonna get you inside.” She paused. “You ever go to Catholic school?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Boom Boom said. “Grammar school. In Queens.”
“You have nuns teaching you there?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Who was your favorite?’
Rivera eyed her. “Whaddaya mean?”
“It’s simple. Which nun did you like best?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Sister Mary Elizabeth, maybe. Why?”
“Because by the time we have our meeting tomorrow, I promise you one thing. You are gonna look and act just like Sister Mary Elizabeth’s class pet. You got that, Boom Boom?”
“Hey, Sha-ron. This ain’t fair.”
“Shut up. Right now you and me gotta find us a barbershop that’s still open. It’s crew-cut time.”
Boom Boom glanced at Red Cunningham, who was grinning back at him and rubbing his buzz cut.
“Oh, Christ.” Rivera’s eyes fled to Devlin. “Hey, boss, this ain’t right.”
Devlin shrugged. “Hey, Ramon, what can I do?” He fought down a smile. “You have to talk to your sergeant on this. I just want you to get us into that computer. You do that, hell, you can take a week off and let your hair grow back.”
Rivera stared at him. He shook his head, his face filled with disbelief. “Aw, shit, man. Aw, shit.”