by Andrew Mayne
It’s not even a full alibi, yet here I am, defending myself.
“Did they explain my reasons for hauling Esteban out of the hole in the ground and trying to get him medical attention?”
“Esteban claims you kidnapped him and held him hostage in an attempt to cover up what had taken place. The army unit was trying to rescue him. Would you like to change anything in your story?” Breyer looks over his glasses at me.
“No.” I’m not taking the bait. They’re trying to get me to lose my shit and say something I’ve been holding back.
God knows I’ve used the same tactic on dozens of suspects.
It’s always different when you’re the one whom the fingers are pointed at. I keep my mouth shut and measure my words carefully.
I keep my clenched fists below the table. Slow breaths.
“The Mexican government is indicating they would like to have you extradited to make statements. Are you sure you don’t have anything to add or to change in your statement?”
Nothing printable. More deep breaths. Keep calm. “I’ve given as full of an account as I can. I will answer to anyone I’m legally obliged to. I did my job.” I feel my blood rising, but I’m doing my best to keep my anger to myself. This is the FBI, they’re supposed to have my back.
Breyer folds his hands behind his head. He gives a glance to the other people in the room, most of whom are his aides and assistants. “Quite a mess, Jessica.”
Ailes takes a seat at my side. I never noticed him enter the room. “Excuse me, Assistant Director, but what do you think happened?”
Breyer’s eyes narrow on Ailes. He wasn’t expecting to be put on the spot himself. “I wasn’t there.”
Ailes nods. “And the only surviving participant who we have reason to trust is sitting right here. She could have invoked her right to an attorney, but she hasn’t. I think that says a lot about her confidence in the facts supporting her version of events.”
“Hiring an attorney isn’t a sign of guilt,” replies Breyer.
“Not bringing one is either a sign of hubristic stupidity or a certainty of the process working itself out. So what do we think? Is Jessica stupid or telling the truth because she trusts us and the Bureau?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
Ailes reaches down into his briefcase and retrieves a newspaper. The front page is in Spanish, and the lead image is a photo of the market. Bullet-ridden, charred, and surrounded by covered bodies on the ground—it looks like a war zone. “What does this image tell you?”
I have to turn away. The experience is still too vivid.
Breyer gets an uncomfortable expression on his face. “They wanted her dead.”
“They wanted to kill one of your agents. Unfortunately for them, she proved rather tenacious. I think if Agent Blackwood had exercised anything less than optimal judgment during this trip, we’d be discussing the return of her remains. I sent her down there. She did everything exactly as requested.”
Breyer takes the newspaper from Ailes and shakes his head. “I believe you, Jessica. Although I’m not sure you handled it in the most ideal way. You could have gone straight to our Mexico City office.”
“They had an army unit,” I reply. “There could have been roadblocks. I also have reason to believe they’re using drones for countersurveillance.” The simplest explanation is the best right now. No need to embarrass him with all the holes in his suggested course of action.
He drops the paper and waves his hands in the air. “I read that in your report. That still doesn’t answer the outstanding questions. Why did they want you dead?”
“I don’t know.” I’d been wracking my brain trying to think of a reason. “Dr. Moya didn’t tell me anything that I wasn’t able to relay, or that we didn’t already suspect. They may have thought I was an undercover narcotics officer. But even then, the response doesn’t make sense.”
“If I may interject a little game theory,” Ailes suggests. I like that he’s shifted the attention from my actions back onto those of the people who wanted to kill me.
“Please,” replies Breyer.
Ailes adopts a professorial tone. “Either they were acting rationally or irrationally. If they were irrational and just wanted her killed, they would have simply shot her in an ambush. Esteban had ample opportunity. There would be no advantage to making it appear to be a murder. Another agent would have followed up, bringing more scrutiny. Therefore, we have to believe they were trying to act rationally. Either off a valid assumption or an incorrect one.
“The assumption being that Agent Blackwood obtained information they didn’t want relayed back to us, even though she says she didn’t observe anything that wasn’t already communicated.”
“So they made an incorrect assumption?” Breyer asks.
“Not necessarily. She may have seen or heard something that she didn’t deem important at the time. A small detail. Perhaps when she took the detour through the barrio.”
“Or somebody just didn’t like me,” I reply dryly.
“There is that possibility. Although X-20 isn’t known for making irrational choices. The order to kill you was a high-level decision.”
“Which would explain the influence we’re seeing from down there,” admits Breyer. “Informally, our contacts within the government are calling bullshit on Esteban’s story.”
“You could have mentioned that a few minutes ago,” I snap. After all I’ve done and sacrificed, he still made me sit through this interrogation.
“I just had to hear you say things to my face.” He pauses for a moment and casts a glance to the other people sitting around the conference table, then back to me. “We needed to be certain. We’ll put a pin in why they wanted you dead for the moment. The next question is, who the hell cut off their heads?”
“What about the rival gang theory?” Ailes asks.
“Their forensics says there was one assailant. We’re not aware of any gang making that kind of intrusion into X-20 territory, let alone one capable of taking on a military unit. It may have been internal, X-20 bosses punishing them for not killing you.”
I sigh. Ailes shoots me a look. He should be impressed that this is my only external sign of frustration.
“In the meantime, I’m taking you off the Hawkton case for your own safety,” Breyer declares.
I’m about to protest, but Ailes lays his hand flat on the table, signaling me to keep my mouth shut. I clam up. I owe him that, at the very least, and wait until after the meeting to say my piece.
“THEY CAN’T PULL me from this,” I exclaim in our own conference room in Quantico an hour later. Gerald is elsewhere, so I don’t mind letting him hear the emotion in my voice.
“Blackwood, you were never on the case officially.” Ailes ignores my mild tantrum.
“Yes, but . . .” I don’t know where to go with this argument.
“What about the decapitations? Somewhat convenient,” he says, as if implying I know more than I’ve let on.
“Very. I’m not sure I’d trust their forensic report.”
“Was it him?” he asks, catching my eyes and holding them.
Now we’re getting to it. I didn’t even want to think about this.
By “him,” he means Damian Knight, my ex-boyfriend-slash-guardian-slash-stalker who can be best described as serial personality disorder. I’m pretty sure Damian has killed to protect me in the past, although I’ve never been able to prove it. I haven’t heard from him in months, not since he sent me flowers when I was in the hospital. He’s vanished out of my life for years at a time. Each time he resurfaces he has a new look and a personality to match. But each time, he lets me know he hasn’t forgotten me.
“I don’t know. I’ve told you everything and you know I always report it when he contacts me.”
“You didn’t mention anything
in this report.”
“Because I don’t know anything and he didn’t contact me! And now I’m being kicked off this.”
Gerald knocks on the conference room door before sticking his head in. “Sorry to interrupt, but you guys see the thing on the news about the reverend?”
“Reverend Curtis?” I ask.
“No. This other guy. He just offed himself on live television.”
“What?” I look to Ailes. He shrugs.
“You need to check it out.”
“I don’t think I could stomach that right now.” I’ve got too much murder and death to deal with.
“I’m sorry, but I think he said he was possessed by a demon. The one we haven’t named publicly. Your demon . . .”
21
“A SIN IS like a scratch on your soul,” proclaims Reverend Groom. In his mid-forties, his head of dark hair is coiffed like that of a television anchorman. Dressed in a casual collared shirt and slacks, he doesn’t look like a man of the cloth. He could be a well-groomed school principal, or your next-door neighbor dressed up for a block party.
There’s something desperate in his voice as he leans on the lectern and tries to make eye contact with the viewers on the other side of the screen. I’ve seen that pleading look in the interrogation room from someone who wants to explain how he or she ended up in that horrible situation. Desperate to be believed. Guilty.
“If you ignore that sin, the wound gets wider. We do things to ignore the pain. We medicate ourselves. We deny it’s even there. Maybe others don’t know about it. Maybe they can see the effect. But you know. The wound grows.
“If we don’t treat the wound, we die with the wound. We die imperfect. God looks down on our broken souls and says there’s no place in heaven for us. Had we found the courage, we could have healed the wound, but we chose not to.
“But that’s not the worst part. A wounded soul is an invitation. An opportunity for infection. That sin calls out to evil, and sometimes the evil answers. When we let the evil in, it makes us commit more sin. Sometimes evil takes over. It’s too late then. There’s nothing left to do.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, then says, “I have sinned. My wounds are beyond repair. My soul is broken. In my weakness, I have let evil come into me. Even now it’s making me do things I’m powerless to stop.
“I have become that evil. For I am Azazel. I walk the dark path. I live in the shadows.”
Reverend Groom opens his eyes and looks out into the studio while reaching under the lectern. He pulls out a revolver and places the barrel in his mouth. A shocked tech runs onto the set to try to get the gun away, but Groom pulls the trigger before the man can wrestle it from him. Red sprays from the back of his head, hitting the stained-glass window behind him. Drops of blood and brain fall on the floral decorations lining the set.
Groom’s body slackens. He collapses onto the lectern, a smoke trail rising from the hole in his head in high-definition video.
Somewhere in the control room a technician finally has the sense to throw the live feed to a standby image of the station logo.
We sit in silence for a moment in the bullpen. Gerald finally speaks up as the recording stops. “I just looked him up. He lived near Hawkton about twenty years ago.”
“Did he know the people in the church?” asks Ailes.
“It’s a safe bet. It’s a small town,” Gerald replies.
“Tragic.”
“Why ‘Azazel’?” I ask. “We haven’t released it yet.”
Gerald shrugs. “Details like that can leak.”
“Where was this recorded?”
“A studio near Atlanta.”
I turn to Ailes. “I’d like to go there.”
He hesitates, then shakes his head. “It’s a suicide, Blackwood. There’s no apparent connection to the murders.”
“There’s a connection to the victims. Maybe.”
“I don’t know. Breyer wants you off the case.”
“He said Hawkton. This isn’t Hawkton and if it is a suicide, then it’s not part of the case . . .”
Ailes rolls his eyes. “Another damn lawyer is all we need around here. If I say ‘yes,’ what do you expect to find?”
“A connection to the murders.” I can feel it more than I can describe it.
“What kind of connection?”
“I don’t think it was a suicide,” I reply, without any idea how I can back it up. Sometimes the pattern recognizes you before you recognize it.
“Pardon me?”
“I think someone made him do it.” Something about the video just reads wrong to me. I try to figure out what.
“Azazel?” Gerald raises an eyebrow.
I have to talk it through aloud, just to hear myself think. “Of course not. It’s just . . . there’s something about him that seems off. And I don’t just mean because he’s obviously flipping out. He almost seems coached. Roll it back. Pay attention to his eyes.”
We watch the recording again. As Groom speaks, his eyes start darting from the camera off to the side in an unprofessional way. Like he’s distracted I pause the video mid-glance. “See that? It’s like he’s looking for someone.”
“Someone to stop him?” asks Ailes. I’ve got his attention now.
“No. I’m trying to think of an example. You know those hidden camera shows? Ever notice how people react when they find themselves in the middle of a really weird situation? It’s that look.”
“I’m not sure I understand. Did he think he was in the middle of a joke?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he wanted someone to intervene? Or what if he didn’t think the gun was loaded?”
“This sounds a little dinner-theatre-murder-mystery to me,” Ailes replies. “Someone there knew he was going to use the gun as a prop and put a real bullet in it?”
“I don’t know. But already we have a hypothetical situation in which Groom’s death wasn’t a suicide, or at the very least influenced by someone else.”
“Maybe . . .”
“If it was a suicide, he was obviously distraught. In any event, he probably knew our church victims. The Azazel connection ties this to them. That alone should tell us there’s something they shared. Something that killed them and made a man kill himself in the middle of a live broadcast.”
“Do you mean the sin he was talking about?”
“Yes. Don’t you want to know what he did that was so horrible he felt he had to risk God’s wrath by blowing his brains out in public? Something you kill yourself over might be something someone else would murder for. So what was their sin?”
“Their sin?” asks Ailes.
“The Hawkton victims. They’re all being punished. That’s the connection I was trying to put my finger on before. The church murders were retribution. I think Groom’s suicide may have been instigated by someone else.”
“Where do you see the sheriff in all of this?”
“He’s part of what happened. We know there was a sixth man at the Hawkton scene, but I don’t think he’s the sheriff’s accomplice. I think he was the one putting things into motion.
“What we need to know now is whether there was someone whispering something in Groom’s ear. Was he being pushed? And if we can link this to Tixato, that would also tell us there’s something more here.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Groom’s death came out of nowhere. We already talked about how revenge killings continue.” I think this over for a moment. “Is someone else next?”
THE FAVOR
THE WOMAN WHO opened the front door smelled like a perfume counter. That overwhelming scent is my strongest memory of Julia Vender. Dressed in a bright silver evening gown and draped in more costume diamonds than there were crown jewels in all the kingdoms, she exuded a calculated, over-the-top opulence. From the bright smile with which
she greeted us and the way she kissed him after calling out, “Petey! Dahhhling!” I thought she had to be a friend of Grandfather’s.
Grandfather grumbled a response through his gritted teeth. I would learn later on that Vender was, in a sense, his arch nemesis. A celebrity psychic to the stars, she and he had faced off more than once on a television interview couch: Grandfather as the crusty skeptic, and Julia as the effervescent charmer swatting aside his comments about her being a charlatan.
“Dahhhling, my clients have more money than they know what to do with,” she’d say with a smile to the audience at home.
After the showdown, Grandfather would drive back from the studio hoping the appearance might get him another Atlantic City booking and put butts in seats. She’d count the money flooding into her 1-900 line.
Grandfather had watched her con her way into the lives of anyone important in Hollywood. Having spent years using magic to entertain, he was frustrated to see her manipulate its methods to scam people out of their money. But it wasn’t really the lavish gifts given to her by brain-dead celebrities that bothered him. It was knowing that, every time she appeared on a talk show, thousands of vulnerable, desperate people would call her pay line or buy her books with money they couldn’t really spare. The live readings, or “demonstrations,” she held in major cities, where people who really couldn’t afford it would pay five hundred dollars for the chance to ask her a question in a crowded room and maybe hear that yes, a departed relative still loved them, were the worst.
A con-artist extraordinaire, Julia Vender was also the most connected woman in Hollywood. From the struggling actress just off the bus from Nebraska to the studio chief who could make or break someone in a pen stroke, she knew everyone. Grief, pain and desire are universal.
Julia turned away from Grandfather and gazed down at me, broadly smiling. “Aren’t you the most adorable creature!”
Too afraid to leave me alone at the house after the Buick incident, Grandfather and Dad had brought me along tonight. I’d followed them inside to endure Julia’s embrace, and then sat quietly in a chair that looked to me as old as the pyramids, pretending to read a book while I listened.