Maureen said nothing, but stopped after a few paces and leaned against the wall. He nodded to her and continued forward, hoping he didn’t hurt her feelings by not letting her join. It was for the best, though. He would get more out of Tasha if they were alone in the room. Manny opened the door to the interview room and ushered the other woman in. He pulled out one of the chairs at the table for her to sit in and took his own familiar seat on the opposite side.
“All right Tasha,” he began, pulling his notepad out of his pocket, “what’s got you so worked up that you had to call me? You do remember I’m not working on this case in any official capacity, right?”
“I trust you,” she shrugged back. “I don’t know, we go back a long way, you know? And when I tell you that I lied in my statement to the cops yesterday, I trust that you won’t say anything.”
Manny felt his heart jump at her admission. Whatever came next, it had to be bad.
“Go on,” he urged her as gently as he could.
“Before I start, I just want you to know that I love Ben more than anything.” Her eyes were wide with sincerity. Whatever else she said, at least Manny knew he could believe that.
“Tasha, does Ben know more about your son’s disappearance?” he asked. “Are you protecting him?”
“No, no, nothing like that! It’s just that . . . oh God.” She buried her head in her hands.
Manny turned his head to look at Maureen, who was standing like a statue by the door. Her eyes barely blinked as she stared at Tasha. She didn’t even seem to notice him.
“Tasha,” he said firmly, turning back and prying her hands off her eyes, “time isn’t something we have a lot of.”
“I know, I know,” she replied, composing herself and looking back up at him. “This is just really hard.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. I’ve said it out loud before, I can do it again. I haven’t been faithful to Ben.”
In spite of himself, he dropped his head and shook it sadly. He couldn’t believe that someone who seemed so in love with her husband could be with another man.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffled, trying to hold back the tears. “It’s just been hard with his work schedule lately, and we got together so young, and I’d never really been with anyone else. There’s this guy at the gym, Rod, one of the personal trainers. It started out as just some innocent flirting. But one thing led to another, and before I knew what was going on, we were sleeping together.” She grabbed for his hand earnestly. “You have to believe me, I never meant for it to go so far.”
Manny patted her hand briefly before releasing it and setting it gently on the table. He did feel bad for her, but in that moment, he knew he had to be a cop and not a friend.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked, putting on his most professional tone.
“About four or five months,” she whispered. “I’ve tried to break it off so many times. But every time I see him . . .” She trailed off for a moment, a tiny smile nearly breaking through on her face.
Manny sighed, hoping his growing disappointment wasn’t showing through. “So, why is this important, Tasha? Do you think this Rod guy has something to do with Benny’s kidnapping?”
“Oh, God, no! Rod doesn’t want to have anything to do with kids. Which is ironic, considering—” Tasha’s eyes widened as she cut herself off and clasped a hand over her mouth.
“Oh, no,” Manny said quickly. “You don’t get to drop something like this on me and clam up now. Spit it out—every word. And come to the point of why this has anything to do with the investigation.”
“I . . .” Tasha began, seeming to force every word out of her mouth. “I’m pregnant.”
Manny couldn’t even form a sentence. Was she insinuating what he thought she was? He stared at Tasha, silently compelling her to keep talking so he didn’t have to be the next to speak.
“It might be Ben’s,” she said defensively. “I’m just not sure.”
“So again,” Manny said impatiently, “what does this have to do with your son?”
“I wasn’t at the grocery store when Benny got taken,” she said, looking down at the table. “I did go there that day, just like I said, only before that, I had called Rod and went over to his place. I left Benny in the car with the window cracked. I was just going to be gone for a minute. I went there to tell him that I was pregnant, and that I wanted a paternity test from him, and that if it was his, I wasn’t going to keep it. I was going to tell him that it was over between us, that I loved my husband, and I couldn’t keep lying to him. I was so confident that I could get in, say what I needed to, and get out. But he just kissed me, and I completely lost my head. It was almost a half an hour before I was back at the car, and Benny was gone.”
Tasha’s head fell back into her hands, and she began to sob uncontrollably. “I was so scared for people to find out. I just remember thinking, no one could know that I had lost my son while I was with another man. So I drove over to the grocery store, ran in to get a protein bar, went outside, ran back in like I did, and begged them to call the police. You know, so people would think it really happened there.”
Manny couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew he should try to be sympathetic, but all he could think of was that every step taken to find the boy since yesterday was taken from the wrong place. Despite his best efforts, the fury of it erupted from him all at once.
“So basically, you’re telling me that the last day and a half of investigation was a waste, because you couldn’t tell the cops the truth? And why? Because you were too afraid your husband would find out?”
“You think I don’t know all of that?” she shouted back, jumping up from her chair and frantically pacing back and forth in front of him. “You think it doesn’t make me sick? You think I haven’t punished myself over this every minute of the day? And not just because Benny got taken and I let it happen! No! I’ve been killing myself over this since it started!” Tasha turned her back to Manny and began to sob again.
He stood firm, waiting patiently for her to stop. He could sense she was going to continue talking as soon as she had mastered herself. The dam had broken in her mind, and there was more that she was going to say, if he could be patient.
“I’ve done everything I could think of to try and deal with this,” she said. Her breath came shakily as she continued to stare at the wall. Then, suddenly, she laughed bitterly. “You know, I even started taking Benny to St. Mary’s on the Sundays that Ben had to work. Hell, I even went to confession a few days ago to try and make myself feel better about all this. You know, maybe, if I knew God would forgive me, then I could get Ben to forgive me, or something.”
The sound of her words struck Manny in the chest. “What did you just say?”
“I know, it’s stupid,” she said, turning around and wiping her eyes. “I mean, me, for fuck’s sake. At church! Can you imagine? Almost thirty years on this planet, and the only thing that can get me through those doors is banging another man. You think there’s anything that I can do to make this better?”
“For your marriage,” he said, “I don’t know. For Benny, you might have just given me what I need to find him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just answer me this, no matter how odd it sounds. Did you have Benny baptized?”
Tasha shook her head slowly.
“Right, stay here for a minute. I’ll have Collins come grab you and walk you to your car.”
Manny left the room and walked down the hallway. He turned the corner, looking for Maureen. All he found was Collins sitting at the front desk.
“Where is she?” Manny asked the young officer.
“She came through about a minute ago,” he said pointing to the front door. “Said you’d be working late, and that she was going to head out to get you guys a snack.”
Manny stood for a
moment, deciding on his next move. “Jack,” he said, motioning Officer Collins closer. “Do you have the front desk computer up and running?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, I’m going to borrow it for a few minutes. Can you go into the interview room and walk Mrs. Naismith to her car? Please?”
Collins nodded.
Manny could tell that his orders were keeping the kid on his toes but at the moment, that was to his advantage. It prevented him from questioning why he could get away with commandeering a department computer when he was technically not working the case.
As Collins walked off toward the interview room, Manny took a seat behind the front desk and found the website he was looking for. It had all come together in the interview room. He now knew how the killer was choosing his victims, and that told him who was responsible. But now he needed to find the man.
Manny scrolled through his own phone and found the number he needed. The son-of-a-bitch had better answer, he thought as he hit the dial button. He’d call all night if he had to.
THIRTY-SIX
Maureen felt as though her heart would leap out of her chest at any moment as she approached the rectory. From the moment she’d silently poked her head into the interview room and heard the end of Tasha Naismith’s confession, her mind had been nothing but a blur. She had run home as fast as she could, grabbed Manny’s backup service pistol from where she had hidden it, and came here. The church now was the only thing that tied it all together, which meant all signs pointed to its priest as the perpetrator. The one clear thought in her head was that if she somehow could stop Father Patrick, maybe she would draw even with the universe, and the nightmares, the hallucinations—everything—would stop. She reached around her back to make sure the old Browning was secure in her waistband and covered by her shirt.
The old priest was painfully slow in coming to the door. It seemed like an eternity had passed since she rang the doorbell. She stood, fidgeting and unsure of what she would say when the door opened. Would she pull the gun and shoot him right there on the doorstep? Would she force him to take her to wherever little Ben was being held? Did she really have it in her to be the hero of this story? She wasn’t sure of anything, but she felt her hand reach behind her back once again while she was pondering all her options.
The front door opened, and Maureen jerked her hand back to her side and stood rigid as the outline of Father Patrick filled the opening. He was barefoot and dressed in shorts and a button-up, short-sleeved shirt, which he hadn’t quite finished buttoning. He wore his glasses and had a thick, leather book in his hand. His face was even; he only appeared to be marginally surprised to see her. His eyes made her stomach drop.
“Maureen, it’s awfully late for a visit, isn’t it?” he asked, his lips widening into a grin to show that he didn’t mean it.
“Well, you know me,” she replied, trying to sound like her usual self, “it’s barely suppertime by my clock. Sorry if I woke you up, there was just something that couldn’t wait until morning.”
“Oh, I was up reading. Perhaps you’d like to come in for a drink?”
Maureen shifted uncomfortably from side to side, hesitating. “Sure, why not?”
Father Patrick nodded and stood to the side, motioning her to enter. She stepped across the threshold, keeping her face to him and stood to one side while he closed the door. She tilted her head in silent indication that he should lead the way.
They walked through the house into the back den where they had had dinner just a few nights before. As then, the two leather chairs sat in their place on the far end of the room, the small bar cart standing nearby. The larger table they had eaten at had since been removed.
“What can I fix for you, Maureen?” Father Patrick’s voice roused her out of her thoughts.
She stared at him for a moment before finding her voice. “I’ll do some of that scotch. Rocks.”
As he nodded and turned to the small bar cart, Maureen saw her chance. She eased the pistol out of the back of her jeans as quietly as she could, took off the safety, flinching at its click, and pointed the barrel at the priest’s back. Father Patrick seemed to take no notice and continued to busy himself with the ice and crystal glassware.
“Father,” she said, her voice shaking a bit, “I need you to turn around slowly.”
The old man turned to face her, not too slowly, and almost too calmly for a man who had a gun pointed at him. He held in his right hand one of the glasses, filled with three ice cubes and scotch. He glanced at the gun for only a brief moment, almost as if he expected it to be there, before raising his gaze to meet hers. A thin smile creased his lips, but his eyes remained solemn as he raised both hands slightly.
“I know what you’re doing, Father,” Maureen said as sternly as she could, using her anger toward the man she thought was her friend to steady her hands. “Now where is the kid?”
“I don’t think you know as much as you think you do. Why don’t you put that down, and let’s talk like civilized people.” He took a step forward, lowering his hands slightly.
Maureen jumped back a pace and stiffened, tightening her grip on the pistol and pushing it forward. “Stay right where you are, you bastard! I swear to Christ, I will shoot you where you stand if you move again!” Her heart was beating even faster and she felt her hands begin to shake. Whether it was out of fear or rage, she couldn’t tell.
Father Patrick froze and raised his hands back up again. The room was silent for an agonizing moment before he spoke again. “Maureen, you might think you’re capable of this because of the other things you’ve done in your life, but trust me, you’re not a killer.”
“You don’t think so? You don’t think I’ll put a bullet in your head if it’ll stop all of this?” She felt a tear begin to well up in her eye, but she pushed on. “I’d shoot my best friend if I had one. I’d shoot my own father—wherever the hell he is—if it stopped all this! If I can do that, what makes you think I can’t shoot you? You mean less to me than anyone right now!”
“I’m sorry, Maureen. I’m sorry that you feel this way. I’m sorry that you think this all has to end with more death. And I’m sorry for this.”
With lightning speed, Father Patrick tossed the contents of the glass in the air. Maureen felt her eyes instinctively rise to follow the liquid and ice, and before she recognized it as a distraction, he had crossed the distance between them, twisting her wrist awkwardly and planting a leg behind her to use his momentum to trip her to the ground. She regained her awareness almost instantly, only to find him standing over her with the gun now in his hand, barrel pointed at her chest.
“Once a soldier, always a soldier,” he said grimly, almost to himself, as he raised the gun away from her and nimbly removed the clip and the chambered bullet. He put both of these in his front pocket and then, to her astonishment, reached down, grasped her hand, pulled her almost effortlessly to her feet, and handed the empty weapon back to her.
“A gesture of good faith,” he said as he moved back toward the drink cart. “I’m sorry to have ruined your drink. Would you like me to fix you another one?”
“No,” she found herself answering before she knew what she was doing.
“No? Well then, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll pour myself a little port instead. I never drink scotch alone.”
He selected a small, dessert-wine glass, poured the dark wine from an old bottle, and quickly drank it down in one gulp before refilling the glass a second time.
“Had to calm the nerves a bit,” he said with a grim smile. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to do something like that. Is your wrist okay?”
Maureen looked down at her wrist and shook it for a moment. There was no pain. Still too astonished to answer, she simply nodded.
“That’s a relief.” Father Patrick smiled. “I tried to be careful not to hurt you.”
He moved over to the brown leather chairs in the corner and set his drink on the small oak table between them. He sat himself down in one and gestured to her that she should do likewise.
Maureen didn’t move.
“Maureen,” he said a bit more sternly, “I think I’ve proven that I’m not going to hurt you. But I think you at least owe me a bit of an explanation as to what you’re doing bringing a gun into my home and threatening to shoot me. Now please, sit.”
“I don’t understand,” Maureen mumbled as she made her way over to the chair. “It has to be you.”
“What? It has to be me? Maureen, what are you talking about?”
“I’ve been inside the man’s head, Father. He’s religious. He thinks he’s cleansing the world. These children aren’t just victims, they’re sacrifices.” She sat down and stared at Father Patrick intently. “All you ever seem to talk about is the need to change the world for the better. Maybe somewhere in your crazy head, you think making these sacrifices to your God will bring about this ‘paradise on earth’ you’re looking for.”
“I see,” he nodded and took a small sip of his drink. “Well, you’ve trusted me with secrets of your past, so I guess it’s only fair to share mine.”
He set his half-finished drink on the table and leaned forward in his chair, staring straight ahead, like a man looking deep into his past to a memory that he’d rather forget. “You know that I was a soldier when I was young. What you don’t know—what nobody knows, actually—is what I did in Vietnam during my time there. I was a Marine. I rose incredibly quickly through the ranks. The senior DI in basic singled me out early on as having a certain something, and when I completed my eight weeks of camp, I was placed in a separate company from my classmates. I was to be part of a group of counterintelligence agents. The unit was made up mostly of veteran soldiers pulled from different branches. At the time, mixing the branches was an anomaly, but we were more so, because all our unit’s activities were to be completely confidential. Officially, we didn’t exist.
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