part0015

He moved over to the pews and sat. It was a heavy movement, like the movement of a man carrying a heavy load.

“I have known Nelson Vargas for many years.”

I leaned against his stage and watched him a moment, trying to read his body language.

“How?” I said at last. “How did you come to know him?”

“His family were originally from Clason Point, from Randall Avenue. I was raised at six thirty-five Rosedale. We went to the same school. We were never friends. He was mixed up with the gangs from the word go. My drive was always to move away from evil and corruption. The Grace came to me early and I was already preaching when I was eleven, twelve years old. It got my nose broken, it even got my arm broken once, but apparently it left an impression on Nelson.

“When I left school he was already a member of the Chupacabras , and I sought the path of ministry, and I was guided by the Father to find the true meaning hidden in the holy Scriptures. But eventually, he came to hear about my words, my teachings, and he felt drawn.”

Dehan said, “How drawn?”

He blinked slowly, looked away and then turned to me.

“Ask her not to speak.”

I glanced at her, then repeated, “How drawn?”

“Do you mean, to what degree, or in what way?”

He sighed. “He came to see me in December of 2014. He was deeply troubled. He had been released from prison just a couple of weeks previously on a charge of possession. He had done a year, or thereabout. I don’t recall exactly.

“He had gone home to his mother, and no sooner had he arrived, than she began to attack him and rail against him, and nag him, as only women know how. He already carried with him a deep-rooted rage at all the injustice he had endured since he was a boy, and he snapped and beat his mother senseless, punching her and kicking her to the ground.

“When his rage had passed, being a Catholic, he felt deep remorse and, above all, guilt at what he had done and called an ambulance. His brothers in his gang were able to alibi him and several of them said they had seen her fall down the stairs. She herself, when she regained consciousness, realized what was best for her and said that she had fallen.

“The thing was, he felt lost and needed a path, a spiritual path, upon which he could make sense of his own rage and his actions in life, and I was able to give him that guidance.”

I glanced at Dehan, wondering if she was going to be able to keep her cool. She gave me a small nod and I asked him, “Exactly what kind of guidance did you give him?”

“I led him to a better, clearer understanding of the function of women in our world, and the true relationship that exists between divine Man, and women, who are essentially evil.”

I nodded. “So you allowed him to rationalize and justify the fact that he had beaten his mother half to death.”

“That is no doubt how you see it. I saw it as a deeply repressed need to strike out against the evil forces that are dragging mankind to the very brink of hell. I made him understand this, and it brought him a deep peace. In exchange, he helped fund my ministry.”

Dehan gave a loud bark of laughter.

“You mean you’re laundering his proceeds from drug trafficking!”

His gaze didn’t waver from mine.

“Is that a formal accusation? Do you intend to arrest me on that charge?”

I shook my head. “No, but I am interested in my partner’s observation. If we were to examine your books, would we find that Nelson Vargas receives any kind of revenue from this church?”

His eyes became hooded. There was something dangerous about them.

“Why don’t you get a court order and find out?”

I nodded. “Maybe we will. Let’s see how it goes. That isn’t our primary interest right now. What I would like to know is, how often do you and Vargas meet? Do you meet on a regular basis?”

His gaze traveled past me to the stage and his eyes seemed to become glazed.

“Not regular. I suppose he might come around once or perhaps twice a month, depending on how he is feeling. Spiritual clarity is something most people need to renew from time to time.”

“And where do you meet?”

“That is an absurd question. What possible difference can it make...”

“Here? In the church? What form do your meetings take? Are they prayer meetings? You get down on your knees and pray? Or is it like a counseling session with a therapist? You sit there and he talks and you listen? Or you talk and he listens?”

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“As with all my congregation, it depends on their needs at the time. Sometimes they need to talk, and the Father gives me the grace to listen and give them understanding. At other times they need guidance, so I speak to them and the Father gives me grace to guide them to the righteous path. And on those occasions we will go to my study upstairs. But at other times what they need is to make an act of faith, and then we come here and we kneel and we pray together, so that the Father will touch them and show them the light.”

I smiled on the right side of my face and grunted. “Only it isn’t as with all of your congregation, is it, Reverend Campbell. Because Nelson Vargas is not one of your congregation. He does not come here to pray. He does not come here to hear you talk during service. Nelson Vargas comes here to discuss other things with you, doesn’t he?”

His lip curled and there was deep disgust in his eyes.

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Detective. But what I do know is that you are fishing, and if you had a shred of evidence to substantiate whatever it is you are insinuating, I would not be sitting here comfortably in my church, I would be confined in some squalid interrogation room. And pretty much the same goes for Nelson. I don’t know what you’re trying to pin on him, but clearly you have nothing but your sick fantasies to support you.”

Dehan screwed up her face and scratched her head.

“Does he share your hatred of women?”

The contempt was such on his face that his mouth twisted and spittle spilled from his lower lip.

“I told you to keep her silent! ”

I smiled and Dehan asked him, “Why don’t you ask your Holy Father to silence me, Reverend.”

The action was slow, like a slow-motion camera: first his eyes traveled to his left, to look at Dehan under hooded lids, and then his head turned to follow.

“You should be very careful, Detective Dehan. The Holy Father does not care to be mocked.”

She didn’t flinch. “Is that a threat, Reverend? Are you threatening me?”

“No, woman...” He said it like you might say skunk , or slime . “I am offering you guidance.”

I said, “You didn’t answer the question. Does he share your hatred of women?”

His eyes shifted from me to Dehan and back again.

“Let me be very clear about something, Detective. I do not hate women. I simply see them for what they are: the servants of Satan. So, no, he does not share my hatred of women, because I have no hatred of women to share.

“Now, do you ask me, does he share my vision of women? Yes, he does.”

I nodded just once. “Yeah, I kind of thought he might. I’m almost done here, Reverend. I just have a couple more questions for you. Do you know a Sharon Lipschitz? Has she ever been a part of your congregation?”

I watched him carefully, reading his reactions, looking for the smallest contraction of his pupils, or the shifting of his gaze. All he did was frown.

“A Jewess. It’s unlikely, isn’t it, Detective?”

“Yeah, well, you’re pretty unlikely yourself, Reverend. And what I saw here this evening was pretty unlikely too. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I have no recollection of any Sharon Lipschitz, or any Jews for that matter.”

“You antisemitic, Reverend? You have something against the Jews?”

“You refer to the people who betrayed and condemned the son of the Holy Father?”

I gave a small laugh. “So a Jewish woman would not be your idea of a perfect date, I’m guessing.”

“Was that your other question? Because I would like you to leave now.”

“No, Reverend, my other question was, what car do you drive?”

“That is no secret. I have a modest Ford SUV. Why?”

He shrugged. “Cream, perhaps white. Are you going to tell me why?”

“Just routine questions, Reverend, like, where were you, the day before yesterday, between ten and noon?”

He hesitated. Then he hesitated some more.

“I was right here, in my church.”

“Can anybody corroborate that?”

“Why would they need to?”

“Is that a ‘no’?”

“As far as I recall I was alone. I was in contemplation and prayer, but I would have to check if anyone saw me.”

Dehan chuckled noisily. “If you are going to fabricate an alibi, Reverend, make sure it’s watertight. There is only one thing more incriminating than being caught with a false alibi, and that’s being caught in the act.”

He scowled at her. “I have no intention of fabricating…”

I looked at Dehan and cut him short.

“I think I’ve seen and heard about all I need and all I can stomach. Have you anything else, Detective Dehan?”

She shook her head. “This Jewish woman has had a bellyful. Let’s go.”

We made to leave and he stood. His movements were stiff, wooden. His face expressionless, but taut with repressed emotion.

“They bring a darkness with them, you know, Detective Stone. They cloud your mind and your heart. Where women walk, pain and suffering are close behind. They will hurt you. They will steal your soul, suck out joy and freedom and make you a slave. You should get rid of this one. She is a vampire, sucking out your life.”

I stopped to look back at him. There was something almost pathetic in his expression, but it was a pathos that was laced with viciousness and danger. I decided it wasn’t worth answering, and we stepped out into the cold night.

We reached the car and Dehan leaned her ass on the driver’s door.

“He’s the guy,” she said. “It’s like I said, Stone. It’s why you had the feeling there were two people at work. But Campbell is not the redeemer, he’s the brutal predator, the real killer. And Vargas is the freak trying to find forgiveness from his mother.”

“As ADA Ron Bushy might say, based on what?”

She pointed past me, back at the church, and an icy breeze made her shudder.

“He has a cream Ford SUV. That guy is out of his mind. He is so full of hatred for women…” She sighed suddenly and dropped her arm. “OK, that’s not evidence, but Stone, you know as well as I do that it’s them, the two of them. You said so yourself.”

“What we know is irrelevant, Dehan. You know that. What it comes down to in the end is what the jury knows—or believes. And right now any decent attorney would have this case thrown out of court before the jury even got a chance to look at it. What we might just get is a tap.”

I pulled my cell from my pocket and showed it to her.

“You recorded the interview?”

“Yeah. I think we need to take it to a judge with feminist leanings.”

She smiled. “I think that too.”

“If we get some positive results from the surveillance, this recording might just swing it. Can we get in the car now? It’s cold.”

She chewed her lip for a minute, then walked around to the passenger side. We climbed in and shut out the night, but it was still cold in the cab. I fired up the car and we rolled away.

“Sharon Lipschitz is a loose end,” I said after a while. “We need to tie her in. And I want to get a look at this Heitz character. There’s something in the back of my mind that’s nagging at me and I can’t figure what it is.”

She was silent for a while, with the opaque lights of the city washing over her as we moved north toward Lafayette. Then she said, “I do.”

“You do? What is it?”

“Usually by this stage of the investigation you’re all smug because you’ve figured something out and you won’t let me in on it. And this time I’m keeping pace with you and you feel all weirded out about it.”

I snorted. “That must be it.”

We drove in silence for a little longer, until I turned west onto Lafayette and said,

“So, what are we saying happened here? Vargas got out of jail, went home, beat up his mother and put her in the hospital...”

Dehan took over, “And, being basically a Catholic, he felt profound guilt about what he had done. When Catholics feel guilt they look for a priest to absolve them. But obviously he could not go to a Catholic priest, because one of the very worst things you can do, according to the Catholic faith, is attack your mother. Mothers are sacred. So he found his way, through the grapevine, to James Campbell, who had recently had a similar experience.”

I nodded. “He had either found his mother murdered, or he had murdered her himself… But, for our theory to work, James Campbell must have killed his mother, because otherwise we get into the nightmarish possibility that Campbell and Vargas are copying the MO of whoever killed Campbell’s mother. And that is too much.”

“So,” Dehan went on, “we are saying that Campbell had recently killed his mother when Vargas came to him...” She trailed off. “Unless, Stone, Vargas came to Campbell and told him what he had done, and that inspired Campbell to kill his own mother. Vargas gave him strength, and he in turn inspired Vargas. And that was what set them off on the killing spree.”

I nodded. “It’s horribly believable, Dehan.” I turned north onto Soundview. “So, if this theory is correct, what made them stop? And what made them start again with Claire Carter? All we have so far is that Vargas wanted to sleep with her and she said no. And we have no explanation for the long period of abstinence.”

There was something else troubling me too, but we were arriving at Story Avenue, where I wanted to drop the recording with the chief before taking Dehan home. So I thought that what was troubling me could keep.