Prayer

by Philip Kerr

  Before I Googled her on my laptop in the car, I’d had an idea that Dr. Sara Espinosa would be Latin American, but from her extensive Wikipedia page, it was obvious that she was anything but that. Originally from Hartford, Connecticut, she’d attended Yale and then won a prestigious UNESCO L’Oréal International Fellowship grant for her work in microbiology and virology; but it was as a debater on scientific and political issues that she was best known. She was a regular on Fox News because she was a frequent and popular target of the American right for her views on the three A’s: atheism, abortion, and Afghanistan.

  In person, she was taller than I expected, with strawberry-blond hair, a wide mouth, a wry, mocking smile, and a deep, sexy voice; her hands were mannish and her manner brisk, as if she was used to dealing with people less intelligent than she was, which was probably everyone. She was very attractive and not much like the lab-rat women I’d known back at Boston College. She wore black linen trousers, a black linen shirt, and a white cotton jacket that may or may not have been a lab coat.

  “Agent Martins, I presume,” she said loudly, greeting me at the elevator door. “Only someone from the FBI would wear a woolen jacket in this place and in this weather. I presume that’s because you’re carrying a firearm. Do you always carry a weapon, Agent Martins?”

  A lot of her conversation was like that—as if she knew the answer already or couldn’t be bothered to await an answer.

  “Yes. It saves getting shot.”

  She laughed and led me into an expensively furnished office with a wraparound sofa, several desktop PCs, and a wide-screen TV. We sat down. On the wall above her head was a large picture of Charles Darwin—just in case anyone should be in any doubt as to where her sympathies lay.

  “Could I see it?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Your gun. Could I see it, please? I’ve never seen a real gun up close and yet so many people seem to carry them in Texas. So, I’m curious to know what all the fuss is about. Especially at this university. Lots of people carry guns at UT. Even some of the students. For obvious historical reasons.”

  “Sure,” I said. “If you want.”

  I reached around to the small of my back, fetched the Glock from my holster, and ejected the double magazine before handing it to her. She watched with fascination.

  “There you go, Dr. Espinosa.” I started my spiel. “Thanks for seeing me, I’m sure you must be very busy—”

  “And do you do that—I mean, take the bullets out of the handle like that—because you actually fear I might shoot you?”

  “If you did, I very much doubt it would be on purpose.”

  “Since we’ve only just met.”

  “That certainly didn’t stop Charles Whitman,” I said.

  “The poor boy was suffering from a massive brain tumor when he shot all those people. Did you know that?”

  “But accidents do happen. Especially with firearms.”

  “If what one reads is correct, fifteen hundred Americans a year are killed by accidental firearm discharges. Although that’s actually quite small when you take into account that every year thirty thousand Americans die from gunshot wounds. You would think it would be more, wouldn’t you? I mean, you can’t imagine that there were thirty thousand people shot and killed because another thirty thousand people actually wanted that to happen.”

  “I can imagine it,” I said. “Only too well, I’m afraid.”

  “Perhaps you can, at that.” She weighed the gun in her hand, like she was judging a melon. “How does it make you feel, Agent Martins? When you’re carrying it? What I mean is, do you think it has a psychological effect on the way you conduct yourself?”

  “You ask some very personal questions, Dr. Espinosa.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, to be honest, I’m glad I haven’t had to use it. I have a colleague who shot two people and I think it bothers her a lot.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” She smiled. “By the way, call me Sara. Or Doctor, if you must. My real name is Sara Hooker, but for obvious reasons I prefer to use Espinosa. You’ve no idea how puerile student minds can be. As it happens, Hooker is actually a very scientific name. There was a Joseph Hooker who’s a distant ancestor of mine who was actually Charles Darwin’s closest friend. But that’s another story. Luis Espinosa was the name of my third husband. He’s from Argentina and I married him because he looked so becoming on a polo pony. I kept his name because when I first appeared in print and on television that’s what I was calling myself; back then I still had the romantic notion that we might be together forever. He left me when I stopped paying his debts. In retrospect, I would rather like to have shot him dead, the bastard. I’ve never met a lazier, more good-for-nothing man in my life than my ex-husband, Luis. And believe me I know what I’m talking about. I have two other ex-husbands to compare him with. Does that shock you, Agent Martins?”

  “Not really. Nothing shocks me all that much. Not anymore.”

  “You have my sympathy. To be shocked by things is one way of gauging how civilized we are. Don’t you think so?” She sighed extravagantly. “Well, there it is. Now you know all about me. It’ll save you from having to slap me around later.” She smiled, handed me back my gun, and watched carefully as I reloaded it, as if seeking instruction. “How many does that thing hold?”

  “The magazine? Nineteen nine-millimeter rounds. It’s quite a conversation stopper.”

  “Nineteen rounds. That seems a lot. At least until someone starts shooting at you, I suppose. Then you would want as many rounds as humanly possible, I imagine.”

  “I could show you how to use it if you like.”

  Her face brightened. “Would you?”

  “Is there a reason you’d like to learn how to use a gun?”

  “Not really. Only I think I might be rather good at it. My father was an excellent shot and I take after him in nearly everything else. He was a professor of medicine.”

  “My father used to be a professor of orthopedic surgery at Tufts Medical Center.”

  “Oh, my word. I wonder if they ever knew each other. My dad was at Yale medical school. Isn’t it a small world?”

  “Why didn’t your father teach you how to shoot?”

  She sighed. “He shot himself. After that, my mother never allowed us anywhere near guns. She wouldn’t allow one in the house.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled nervously, as if she had been just on the edge of shedding a tear. “I don’t know why I’m telling you these things.”

  “I’m from the FBI. And it’ll save me from having to slap it out of you later.”

  The smile widened. “Oh, I’m so glad that you have a sense of humor, Agent Martins. One always imagines that federal agents are rather straight, ugly men with bad suits and even worse haircuts. You’re none of those things. Tell me, are there many women who work for the FBI?”

  “Plenty. My own boss is a woman.”

  “And how do you like that?”

  I shrugged. “I like it fine. Most of the time I don’t pay it much regard.”

  “As a rule, men hate working for a woman. It makes them feel inadequate. It’s the same dynamic that ruins a lot of marriages. Women should always pretend to be dumber than their husbands, especially when they’re not.”

  “Actually, I think I’ve learned a lot from my boss. And from that colleague I was telling you about. The one who shot two subs.”

  “What would you say you’ve learned from your female colleagues?”

  “For one thing, I’ve learned something about women.” I grinned. “Speaking as a man, you can never know too much on that particular subject.”

  “True. Most men are fearfully ignorant about women. Especially the women they’re married to.”

  “I know I was.”

  “Divorced?”

  “Not
quite. But I will be soon. First time.”

  “Oh dear. What were you ignorant of? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “We were regular churchgoers and I fell by the wayside. I stopped believing in God and she didn’t. So she threw me out. Simple as that.”

  Of course, it wasn’t, not really, but it made for a neat shorthand.

  Sara’s jaw dropped. “With apologies to Ford Madox Ford, that’s the saddest story I ever heard. Hasn’t she heard of love thy neighbor?”

  “Since I no longer choose to stand in church beside her, Ruth finds it very hard to think of me as her neighbor at all. I’m more of a kind of tourist from a pagan country who’s outstayed his welcome.” I shook my head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  “Because we’re having a conversation. Because I asked. Because you already showed me your gun. Because you volunteered to teach me how to shoot. Because you feel you can confide in me. Which must mean there’s chemistry of the kind neither of us understands. Well, at least you don’t. That’s why.”

  “What kind of chemistry?”

  “The biochemical kind. Olfactory receptors. Human beings have four hundred functional genes coded for olfactory receptors and six hundred that we believe are pseudogenes, which means they’ve lost their protein-coding ability. However, I tend to believe that they’re not disabled for everyone; indeed, that some of those pseudogenes are, in fact, fully functioning for many people. Smell is a lot more important in the way we get on with some people and not with others than we might think.”

  “So now I know why girls fall helplessly in love with me. They’re just following their noses.”

  She smiled triumphantly. “Exactly so. While you’re teaching me to shoot, I can teach you some human biology.”

  “I asked you before if there was a reason why you’d like to learn how to shoot and you told me a lie.”

  Momentarily, she looked delighted. “How did you know that?”

  “You might say my nose told me. You see, Sara, people lie to me all the time.”

  “Yes, I suppose they must. Or they’d be arrested. Or shot.”

  “So the reason is . . . ?”

  “Well, yes. You’re right, Agent Martins.”

  “Call me Gil. Most people do.”

  “That’s a relief. There is a reason, Gil. Because of who and what I am, or more likely because of what I say—because of all that, there are plenty of people who hate my guts. And who would certainly like to see me dead. There’s no real free speech in this country. Not anymore. Certainly not for anyone who speaks her mind on television as I do. Consequently, I’m in constant receipt of death threats. Which is why I employ a mail screening service to examine all my snail mail, and why I run ChoiceMail on my personal computer. That’s a permission-based e-mail program that assumes everything is spam unless you tell it otherwise—only approved e-mail gets into your in-box. And it’s also why my home is monitored by Smith Protective Services. They’re the largest in Texas, and I pay for a full service that gives me access control, video surveillance, burglar alarms, and an armed guard response. At least that’s what it says on my quarterly invoice. But lately I’ve been thinking of downgrading to something more manageable. My own personal firearm might be just the answer.”

  “Smith is the best,” I said. “You couldn’t do better. So can I ask why you’re thinking of downgrading your personal security at this present moment in time?”

  “Smith is the best, yes. But it’s also expensive. Also, I don’t feel I’m getting as many death threats as perhaps I used to. I must be slipping.”

  “Or maybe ChoiceMail and the USPS are doing a better job than you think.”

  “Good point. I never thought of that.”

  “So there’s nothing new on that front that you’ve become aware of lately? New threats. Hate mail. That kind of stuff.”

  “There’s nothing new,” she said carefully, “but I can’t imagine that you drove all the way down from Houston for the hell of it.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s because your name has appeared on a list of names of people identified as enemies of the church and God. Some of those names have received threats. I’m just checking the others on that list to see if they’ve been threatened, too. That’s all. Nothing more serious than that, Sara. So, given what you’ve just told me, I think you can relax.”

  “Now it’s you who’s lying, Martins.”

  “No, ma’am, that’s the truth.”

  “I’ve had three husbands, Martins. It may not rank alongside your own investigative experience of liars in the FBI, but I have an unerring eye for when a man is not telling me the truth.”

  “Which of them was the worst?”

  “Kevin. Number two. He was a Wall Street trader and the only time he ever told the truth was when he talked in his sleep. I heard him praying in church once and I swear even that was a lie. Can you imagine lying to God?”

  “I’ve been doing it for quite a while.”

  “Not like he did, you haven’t. This was someone who believed in God. He was a Roman Catholic and I happened to overhear him in confession—”

  “Happened to overhear?”

  “All right, I bugged the confessional at St. Patrick’s in New York.”

  I laughed out loud.

  “And listened in at the back of the cathedral on a little short-wave wireless transmitter. I bought the whole kit from Amazon for just eighty-five dollars and recorded everything on a memory card. It worked out to be the most cost-effective of all my divorces. Anyway, I heard him confessing his adultery and he only confessed to one of the other women he’d slept with when I happened to know there were at least three. Can you imagine it?”

  “I’m still trying to picture you at the back of St. Patrick’s with your transmitter.”

  “But let’s not change the subject. We’ve only just met and already you’re trying to deceive me.” She paused. “Well, aren’t you?”

  I said nothing.

  “Look, I don’t doubt that what you told me was a lie told with good intent, but it was still a lie. So, please level with me, or I shall think you’re every bit as secretive as J. Edgar Hoover and that will be the end of the beginning of our friendship.”

  “All right. And I stand corrected. That list of people I was telling you about? They all have one thing in common—that they are not beloved by the religious right in this country. Up to now, what four of them also have in common is that they’re dead. And I think at least one of them you probably knew: Willard Davidoff.”

  “Well, of course, I knew about Willard. We were friends. He taught me biology, at Yale. But the papers said that was an accident.”

  “That’s what it looked like. He had a drink, climbed a tree, fell, and broke his neck.”

  “Willard always did like his wine.”

  “He was sixty-five. Not some kid from the Skull and Bones. I went to Boston and took a good look at that tree. Believe me, I couldn’t have climbed it and I’m thirty years younger than he was.”

  “Actually, he was Skull and Bones. But I see what you mean. Although, as it happens, he was quite a vigorous sixty-five. Believe me, I know.”

  “You mean you and he were . . . ?”

  “Yes. For a while. He had a great mind. I like that in a man. And the others?”

  “Philip Osborne. Peter Ekman. Clifford Richardson.”

  “Peter I knew, too. That was very sad. Although I never went to bed with him, we were quite close for a while. And it’s fair to say there was one occasion when we almost did go to bed.” She shook her head. “Only I thought he managed to asphyxiate himself in his panic room.”

  “That’s what the coroner said.”

  “But you don’t believe that.”

  “No. He went into his panic room even though there were no signs of an intruder. Not only that
, he failed to sound an alarm that would have summoned the police. Look, I’ll be honest with you, if any of them were murdered, I have no idea how. I don’t know that and I don’t know—well, let’s just say there’s a lot more I don’t know than I care to confess right now.”

  “So, tell me what you do know and maybe I can help.” She shrugged. “After all, I seem to have a vested interest in this case since my name is also on that list.”

  “When I said I was checking the other names on that list to see if anyone else has been threatened, you’re the first of those other names I’ve spoken to. I wanted to take a look at you in person and judge for myself what kind you are. See if you’re the kind of person who is easily spooked.”

  “I understand.”

  So I told Sara Espinosa everything—from the night in O’Neill’s bar when Bishop Coogan had given me his file of clippings and web-page printouts, to the day before in Nelson Van Der Velden’s office in the Izrael Church of Good Men and Good Women when I’d spotted the copy of Scientific American containing her article.

  “Yes, that does seem to have put the cat among the pigeons. They’ve had a ton of complaints about my piece.” She shrugged. “I suppose that’s why I write them.”

  Then I underlined the fact that Richardson, Davidoff, Ekman, and Osborne had all died in fear of something; that Ekman had been in receipt of self-destructing e-mails that threatened his life; that it seemed Osborne had believed he was being chased by something that wasn’t there; that Clifford Richardson had thrown himself off his Washington balcony; and that Gaynor Allitt had been equally fearful of something before jumping off the top of the Hyatt Regency. I made it all sound sufficiently mysterious to warrant FBI involvement and the interest of the Domestic Terrorism Task Force. But at the same time, I spared myself nothing by way of criticism—specifically, how Gaynor Allitt’s “prayer list” was the only shred of evidence I’d found so far that the deaths of these four were anything other than an unfortunate coincidence.

  Sara frowned. It looked like the kind of deep frown you deploy to stop yourself from laughing.

  “You know, it might all just be an unfortunate coincidence,” she said. “I mean, now and then it’s the nature of coincidence to look like something more than that. People want to believe in something more than just a random series of disasters. They want to see the hand of God in nearly everything abnormal.”