by Blake Banner
I took my time driving back, running over every detail in my mind, trying to find the corners and the straight edges of the jigsaw, hoping I’d catch Dehan before she left for her uncle’s.
I parked in the lot, crossed the road and stepped into the lobby. Maria was behind the desk and gave me an insolent wink. “Hey handsome!”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Hello Sergeant. Don’t make me report you for sexual harassment.”
“In your dreams, white boy!”
“You know about that? Listen, Detective Dehan here?”
“You just missed her. Her date picked her up about ten minutes ago.”
I smiled. “Her date? That was her uncle.”
Maria raised an eyebrow of her own to devastating effect. “That’s her uncle? Well, I would sure love to see her cousin! This dude was no more than thirty-two, and fit! You know what I am sayin’? I ain’t talkin’ about his health! They went off in his Mercedes Benz an’ she didn’t even say goodbye.”
I felt odd. She must have seen it because she adopted a mother hen look. “Well, what do you expect, Stone? Girl with those looks! You don’t do nothin’ about it, you’re gonna lose her!”
“Maria, what are you talking about?”
She pointed at me. “You wannit? You put a ring on it!”
“Keep your office gossip, and your fantasies, to yourself, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Si, si… Ha!”
I went and reported to the captain, then drove home, feeling inexplicably deflated.
SEVEN
Next morning, Dehan came in late at nine-thirty, with bags under her eyes and a face like sour retribution. I waited till she had sat down before I looked at her.
“How was your date?” I asked mildly, looking back at the papers I was reading.
“It wasn’t a date. I told you. It was my uncle.”
“Mm-hm.” I affected to be engrossed in the information I had printed out from the electoral register. “That would be the drop dead gorgeous thirty-year-old uncle with the Mercedes.”
“What? You’re spying on me now?”
I shrugged, still not looking at her. “To quote a dear friend of mine, ‘we are partners, we should tell each other things.’”
“I never said anything that lame.”
“Words to that effect. So who is the lucky guy?”
“Nobody.”
“Suit yourself. I have been searching since six this morning and I can find no trace of Humberto, either as Truelove or any other name, at the reverend’s address or any other address.”
“Snap.”
I frowned at her. “Snap?”
“That’s what I was doing last night when I was abducted by aliens. You’ve been here since six?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah, you look like shit. You should have called me. I couldn’t sleep either.”
“I thought you might be otherwise engaged.”
She gave me a look that would have curdled distilled water. “I’m alone when I lower my lamp, thanks, Sensei. Not that it’s any of your damn business. Moving on, did you see the email from the insurance company?”
“Not yet,” I said, feeling oddly cheerful all of a sudden. “What do they say?”
“You won’t like it. It looks like your friend Sylvie, the girl next door, ain’t so wholesome and mom’s apple pie after all.”
“Oh?”
She reached in a manila folder, pulled out two sheets of A4, and tossed them across the table at me. “February, 1999. Two emails, addressed to her, advising her of the insurance policies taken out in her favor by her husband.”
I read through them. They were brief, to the point, and very clear.
“That doesn’t look very good, does it?”
“How did you get on with Ahmed?”
I ran through the interview. She thought about it. “Pretty much confirms what she said, only in more detail.”
I nodded. “Pretty much.” I sighed. “You know what? The story…” I narrowed my eyes and shook my head, searching for the right words. “You hear it from Sylvie, you hear it from the reverend, you hear it from Ahmed, and you read it in the report, and it seems to be the same story…” I pointed at her. “Prima facie… but it doesn’t quite jibe with me. The versions are slightly dissonant. The people who remember were not quite there, and the only person who was there, doesn’t remember. And then there are the small ‘mistakes’, half-truths and lies… I want to get Paul and Sylvie in an interrogation room and scare them half to death until they stop playing games and start coming clean.”
Dehan was nodding. “Sure, they’re pissing me off, too.”
I drummed the table top with my fingers for a moment. “Do you know, Dehan, what day of the week was the 5th September, in 1999?”
She looked vaguely surprised. “You want me to check?”
“No. I know. I just wondered if you did.”
“No. I’m not that kind of freak. I’m weird in other ways.”
A flicker of a smile. I flickered back. “It was a Sunday.”
She closed her eyes. “Man.” She said it with a strange mixture of self-reprimand and genuine admiration. “You are good, Sensei. That is…” She opened her eyes and nodded. “What the fuck is a pastor doing dining out on a Sunday evening at seven PM?”
“I am no expert, but as I understand it, he should have been in mass, or whatever Methodists do instead. And when we were talking to Sylvie, she realized that. She was about to say that he went back to deliver the sermon and faltered. Between them, they are concocting lies, and I want to know why.” I sat forward. “Tell you what, Carmen, why don’t you get the phone records for Reverend Truelove for the 5th to the 6th September, 1999, and let’s see exactly when he did call her. Then maybe we get them both in here and have a talk.”
“On it!”
While she did that, I continued searching for any trace of Humberto. There was none. As far as I could tell, he was not officially in the United States. He was not registered at the rectory of St. George’s Church, nor could I find more than a handful of Humbertos in New York. Those I found were not him. Which only left one explanation.
I was half aware of the printer churning out documents, but ignored it and turned over the significance of that explanation in my mind. After a bit, I heard Dehan say, “Well, I’ll be.”
I looked at her. “You will?”
“He called her at nine thirty that night.”
“For how long?”
“They talked for forty-five minutes.” She stood and walked to the window. There she turned and rested her ass on the windowsill. She said, “He’s a rake. That’s been established, right?”
“I think so.”
“Simon is a royal pain in the ass who thinks he’s Abraham, but ain’t. When he gets posted to New York, being a good patriarch, he takes out life insurance to protect his wife and daughter in case the children of Babylon should do for him. Only it wasn’t the children of Babylon he needed to be worrying about.
“His wife receives an email informing her that her husband is now worth more dead than alive. At first, it doesn’t even register. But then, when they get here and move into their house by the church, and she meets the fascinating and sexually magnetic Reverend Truelove, the insurance begins to take on a greater significance. What if…?”
I nodded. “But she is incapable of doing it herself.”
She raised a finger. “Shut up. As you say, she hasn’t the strength, or the killer instinct, to do this by herself. Paul, however, is—how did Elizabeth Cavendish describe him?—half a ton of trouble? He is not constrained by the letter of Divine Law. He has warmth and humanity in his heart. So, they start to have an affair. She promises him that if he will get rid of Simon, she will be his and his only.”
I frowned. “So how did they do it?”
“Shut up. He comes over with Ahmed, so he has a witness other than Sylvie to say that he left. After Ahmed has gone, perhaps during the readin
g from scripture by a lay member of the congregation, he slips back though the garden, kills Simon, and returns to the church as the reading of the scripture is concluded. Then he delivers his sermon, like he has been there all along.”
We stared at each other for a while. It was something we did unconsciously which other people found disturbing, but it helped us to think. After a moment, I said, “It sounds a bit like the plot from an Agatha Christie novel.”
“Okay, but… the bones…”
“It would require very precise timing.”
She shook her head. “No. It would require approximate timing and a cell phone on vibrate.”
I nodded. “She hears his car arriving. Calls the reverend. He invites John Doe to read the lesson and slips out. She has left the back door open for him. He comes in, knocks Simon down and kills him, gives her the phone to call 911, and races back to the church.”
“See?”
I sighed. “It’s crazy enough that it may have worked.”
“And I am figuring that Paul Truelove is all about being crazy. Crazy in the Amazon, crazy at Eastchester Bay and crazy in the Bronx.”
I was quiet for a bit. It was hard to find fault with it, and like she said, it kind of fit with the picture of Paul Truelove that was beginning to emerge.
“What do you make of Humberto?”
“Have you been able to find him?”
“Nope. Nowhere. He is not officially in this country.”
She made a ‘yeah, that’s what I expected face’ and said, “I have absolutely no reason for saying this, but I’m pretty sure you’ve had the same thought. I figure he’s Truelove’s son from a Brazilian affair.”
“The thought had crossed my mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had as much to do with his coming back to the U.S. as Reggie Cavendish’s accident. What I can’t decide is whether that has anything to do with this case, or whether it is just part of the general chaos and collateral damage associated with his life.”
Dehan gave a small grunt. “In as much as he has probably left a string of heartbroken, pregnant parishioners in his wake, half way around the globe.”
I frowned. “So why didn’t they get hitched afterwards? And what made this Don Juan of the Altar go to such lengths for Sylvie?”
She gave me a knowing look and wagged a finger at me. “Because… she never really wanted him. They probably never even slept together. She just wanted him to do the deed. And once he’d done it, she sold him the ‘it’s not you, it’s me, I am too traumatized’ line. And it was the fact that he could not have her, that drove him to the extreme of killing for her.”
I thought about it. It wasn’t the strangest story I’d ever heard, not by a long shot. People will do some pretty crazy things when their hormones get stirred up. One thing was for sure. He had lied about being at Elizabeth Cavendish’s house. He had been in the right place at the right time to kill Simon Martin and both Elizabeth and Sylvie had backed him up in that lie.
I nodded. “I think it’s time to rattle their cages. You get Sylvie, I will go get Paul.” I stood and paused a moment. “Dehan, be totally unsympathetic. She’ll break down and start crying. When she does, do nothing. Let’s see what happens next.”
“Gotcha. What about the reverend?”
“I’m going to tell him that Sylvie and Elizabeth have sold him out. We’ll play it by ear and maybe we can play them against each other.”
As we moved toward the door, I said, “You got your car, right?”
“Yeah, you didn’t pick me up this morning. Remember?”
“I didn’t want to disturb…”
“Asshole.”
I watched her walk down the sidewalk toward her car, on her long, beautiful legs, and smiled to myself.
EIGHT
I pulled up in front of the church and was surprised to see Dehan pull up on the other side of the street. I’d expected her to continue on to Bogart Avenue to get Sylvie. I climbed out of the Jag and waited for her to join me. She spoke as she approached.
“I had a hunch. I called ahead and spoke to Mary. As I thought, Sylvie is at the church.”
“This should make things interesting.”
We entered the grounds and climbed the steps to the big red door. Our shadows, elongated by the early autumn sun, lay warped across the stone flags. We paused and listened. Hushed voices seemed to slide and roll up the walls and into the cavernous arches of the ceiling. I touched Dehan’s shoulder and pointed. The reverend and Sylvie stood at the door of the vestry in close, quiet conversation. I couldn’t make out the words, but whatever it was they were talking about seemed important, even urgent.
I moved quietly into the side aisle and walked toward them with Dehan just behind me. They sensed the movement and turned. His face was serious. He sighed very loudly.
“Detectives! This is becoming…” He let the words hang. “Would it not be better to deal with all of your questions in one go, and be done with it?”
He labored the last four words so that they resounded against the thick stone walls, like the end of an impactful sermon.
“It would,” I said. “That’s why we are here. We would like you and Mrs. Martin to come with us to the precinct. There are a couple of issues which…” I paused and shook my head. “Well, however Detective Dehan and I look at them, we just can’t make them square up.”
His expression was impatient. “It is very inconvenient. I have work to do, so does Sylvie. Really, Detective Stone, we have been more than patient and accommodating, but sincerely, this is bordering on…”
“Patient and accommodating?” I said it without any particular inflection.
He frowned, “Well, yes…”
“We are investigating the murder of one of your parishioners and, as I understand it, a friend of yours.” I turned to Sylvie. “Your husband and the father of your daughter. I’m struggling to see where patience and accommodation come into it.”
He closed his eyes and heaved another sigh. She looked down and fiddled with her thumb. He said, “The investigation was dropped eighteen years ago, dDetective. We did not ask for it to be reopened. We have all… moved on!”
I ignored him. “Will you both please accompany us to the station?”
The reverend’s face flushed. “Have we any choice?”
Dehan nodded. “Sure. You can refuse. But I wouldn’t recommend it, because then we can either arrest you on suspicion of murder or take you into custody as material witnesses. So maybe the best thing is to cooperate with us. I am assuming, Reverend, that we want the same thing here, to catch the person who murdered Mr. Martin. Am I wrong?”
Sylvie answered. “Of course you are not wrong. It’s just very painful to revisit all this stuff, just as we were…”
There was a scuff and a footfall behind us. I turned to look. Humberto was standing silhouetted in the glare from the doorway. His voice was almost a whisper, but it carried, reverberating against the high, stone walls.
“Donna… Donna Maria plena di graza…”
Reverend Truelove glanced at him and then waved him away. “It’s all right, Humberto. Go back to your room. Everything is fine.”
Humberto reached out his left hand toward us. The fingers of his right went to his large lower lip. “Venite, Donna. Venite com migo. Ven…”
Sylvie smiled. It was a sad expression. She shook her head. “I can’t come now, Humberto. I have to go with these people.”
He must have picked up something in the tone of her voice, or in our demeanor. Whatever it was, he knew something was wrong and let out a deep, guttural noise that seemed to come from down in his belly. He pouted his thick lips and shook his huge head.
“No… No… Noooo…”
It was like a tantrum coming on in a four year-old, only Humberto was well over six feet and must have weighed well over two hundred and sixty pounds. Reverend Truelove scowled at us. “Excuse me.” He moved toward Humberto, reaching out for him with both arms. “Humberto, come. Go back to your
room…”
The noise Humberto let out then was horrific. It was like a wounded grizzly roaring at the mountains. It reverberated from the rafters down to the stone flags and bounced off the walls, filling every corner of the church. It was not a word, but an inarticulate cry of immoderate, irrational pain. He stamped his huge feet and his arms started flapping as the reverend tried to take hold of him, and next thing, he was bellowing at the top of his voice, “El Diavolo! Malefico! Malefico! El Diavolo e la Diavola! Malefica! Malefica! None llevare! E la mia donna!”
The reverend struggled to keep Humberto’s arms down and block his way, but his size and strength made it hard, and Humberto kind of plowed through him, driving him back as he pushed toward Sylvie. A spasm of grief flashed across her face and she stepped toward him.
“Humberto. It’s all right, honey! These are friends.” She hurried around the pews and made her way down the central aisle, reaching for him.
Humberto pushed the reverend aside and enfolded Sylvie in his arms. “Donna! Donna Maria plena di graza! Diavolo malefico! Diavola! Diavola malefica! None llevare. E la mia donna!”
His face had folded up like it had melted in the heat of the sun, and now he had tears streaming down his face. Sylvie looked small and fragile in his massive arms. He’d gone quiet, except for a few shuddering sobs, and she was soothing him, whispering to him that we were just friends.
We joined them. The reverend was looking uncomfortable. I studied his face a moment. “You got somebody who can look after him for a couple of hours?”
He nodded. “If you can give us a few minutes, we’ll take him to my housekeeper.” He turned to Sylvie. “And maybe we could prevail upon Mary…”
Sylvie nodded, then pulled back and held Humberto’s face in her hands. “Hey, you want to see Mary?”
He grinned all over his wet face. His breath shuddered as he nodded. Dehan was already on the phone.
“Mary? This is Detective Dehan. Listen, can you join us in the church? We need somebody to look after Humberto for a couple of hours… Thanks.” She hung up and glanced at Sylvie. “She’s coming.”