Some Rise by Sin

by Philip Caputo

  Riordan pointed out that this made no sense—the video proved it had been the Brotherhood.

  “No sense whatever,” Valencia said, tearing at a shred of the pollo arrosto. “We have looked at the video twenty times. It was shot in a meadow somewhere. But there isn’t a meadow anywhere near where the troops were ambushed. So the bodies were taken to the meadow. Why go through all that trouble?”

  Bonham spoke: “In other words, if it was the Brotherhood, why not stage the execution right there, at the ambush site?”

  Riordan’s ear was attuned to nuances in vocal inflections, and he detected an impatience in Bonham’s, as though this ambush business was a subject to be gotten out of the way.

  “I don’t understand why you’re putting these questions to me,” he said.

  “We’ll get to that after lunch,” Bonham said.

  They finished the meal quickly and in silence. Valencia dismissed the lieutenant, who threw the captain a cursory salute and, after adjusting his beret, strode out.

  “Well?” Riordan said to his hosts. “Did you call me here to listen to these theories of yours?”

  Valencia shook his head slowly, as if in disappointment with a slow pupil. “In case you hear something about the ambush,” he said. “A reminder that we are to hear what you hear. We want you to listen to something.” He motioned at an easy chair. “Please.”

  Riordan moved to it, feeling disoriented and, suddenly, apprehensive. On the table beside the chair was Bonham’s laptop, with a flash drive plugged into its USB port. A list of dates ran down the computer screen, and across the top, a time counter, paused at 27 minutes, 14 seconds.

  “The sound quality isn’t good. We thought you could fill in the gaps,” Bonham said, tapping the laptop’s trackpad.

  Riordan heard noises he couldn’t identify, followed by a low voice, fading in and out of audibility: “Bless me, Father.… Don’t remember when…” and then his own voice: “Months? Years? And could you please speak up a little?”

  Riordan’s eyes widened, his jaw twitched; otherwise, he sat as still as a model posing for a portrait. He remembered the police van parked in the plaza, the one with the antennae. Now that he thought of it, he’d seen it there on previous Friday afternoons, but he’d failed to connect its appearance with confession times. With all the repair work going on in the church, a technician disguised as a laborer must have snuck in to plant the listening device.

  “I am with them, Padre. The narcos. [Inaudible.] I’ve done a lot of…”

  “Turn that off,” he said, half-rising from his chair, his cheeks prickling. “Do you hear me? Turn it off! It wasn’t enough that I’d agreed to … that I’d done what I’d done? You had to do this?”

  Bonham paused the recording, gently pushed him back into his seat, and looked at him with a stare keen, calm, lusterless.

  “We had to take precautions, in case you had second thoughts about what you agreed to,” he said in his level voice. “And it looks like you’ve had them. We’re disappointed, Padre Tim. Extremely disappointed.”

  Valencia flopped into a chair kitty-corner from Riordan’s, rested his left ankle on the opposite knee, and flicked dirt off the toe of his boot.

  “We also had to consider that you and that other priest trade off, so for two Fridays a month we would not be covered. It’s been boring, listening to so many trivial sins. Then, this.” He bared his teeth in what looked like a dog’s angry snarl. “We have been waiting to hear from you, but you let us down. A finger who doesn’t finger, what use is he?”

  A confessional bugged like some low-rent motel room where drug deals go down, Riordan thought. It was a sacrilege.

  “You’re so clever, what do you need me for?” he said.

  “Didn’t we cover that? I thought we had covered that,” Valencia retorted. “To place voices with names when you can. With this one, to tell us what this woman said. It is difficult to make out what she’s saying, except that she works for the narcos, that she had something to do with assassinating the police officers.”

  “We can send the recording to Mexico City to enhance the sound,” Bonham said, standing over the laptop, his long white fingers drumming on the table. “We have people who can do that.”

  “Where did you get the … to … This has to…” Riordan sputtered. “You will remove that damned thing. I’ll do it myself, if I have to.”

  “The microphone is a miracle of miniaturization,” said Bonham. “Smaller than this.” His forefinger touched the flash drive. “You would have to tear your dark little closet to pieces, and even then I doubt you’d find it.”

  “I will not stand for this.”

  “Yes, you will. You’re going to stand for it, all right,” Bonham said with icy certitude.

  “Unless you’re willing to stand for what would happen if it becomes known that you have revealed what is said in your little closet,” Valencia added. “You would be removed from the priesthood, correct?”

  Riordan was silent.

  “Is that correct, priest? I’ve done some research. There is a term for what would happen to you—”

  “Laicized,” Riordan said.

  “Yes! That’s it! You would be no more a priest. You would have to find a job, I suppose. Ha! I like that picture—”

  Riordan started to speak, but Valencia stopped him with an upraised hand.

  “I know what you’re going to say. How can we prove anything. We don’t need to. All we need is to start a rumor, plant some suspicions. But in case proof is required … you remember the conversation you had with Inspector Bonham? In the interrogation room in the municipal police station?”

  “You’re going to tell me it was recorded,” Riordan said, feeling a little sick. Sick and stupid.

  “Audio and video,” said Valencia. “It was for our eyes and ears only, no one else, but consider what Señor García would think if he learned that you had fingered his son. Consider the opinion of your parishioners. If you can stand for the shame, the disgrace, the scandal, then you will not have to stand for this.”

  “What good would I be to you then?” Riordan said, dredging up some defiance.

  “Why, no good at all. Really, you haven’t been that much good as it is.”

  He went mute again. He understood now that as an asset he was more a convenience than a necessity. And this understanding bred another: his recruitment had not been entirely a means to gather intelligence; it was also to demonstrate who held power over whom, as Valencia had done when he’d forced him to lie in the dirt at the roadside.

  Riordan glanced at three photographs on the captain’s desk: one, an antique, showed a man wearing crossed bandoliers, a rifle in his hands; in another Valencia, flanked by a young man and a middle-aged couple—his parents, Riordan surmised—stood in the costume-drama uniform of a cadet; in the third, he was in civilian garb, beside a handsome woman in a blue dress, three children in front, two boys and a girl. That picture captured Riordan’s interest, because it had never occurred to him that the captain had a life outside the army.

  “That’s my great-grandfather during the revolution, the saint burner,” Valencia said, motioning at the sepia-toned photo. “And do you see the boy next to me when I graduated from the military academy? My younger brother. Three years younger. Tell me, priest, do you have a younger brother?”

  “No. Four older brothers.”

  “Ah! Four. Did they look out for you when you were in school?”

  “They were much older. I had to look out for myself.”

  “I looked after mine. He wasn’t very good at looking out for himself. But, you know, there were so many things I could not protect him from.” The martinet with the hard, conquistador’s face looked at Riordan intently, loathing in his gray eyes. “He sang in the boys’ choir. I’m not kidding you, he was a choirboy. The choirmaster was a priest. My brother wasn’t like me—he trusted people. He trusted that priest…”

  The captain trailed off. His gaze unwavering, he folde
d his hands and pressed his joined thumbs to his lips, as if to stop himself from speaking further. Riordan cleared his throat, suddenly remembering a comment Valencia had made when they first met, at the roadblock. Altar boys, he’d said then, not choirboys, but the difference didn’t amount to anything. So the poisoned well from which he drew his venom for the clergy wasn’t admiration for his priest-hanging, revolutionary ancestor; it was far more direct and personal. The army officer had gained moral leverage. Riordan slumped in his chair, feeling that he should say something, but, really, there was nothing to say.

  “My brother never got over it completely,” Valencia went on. “But he did better than some others. He got married, had a daughter. He became a journalist—an odd profession for a trusting soul. The narcos murdered him. Have I told you that?”

  “No.”

  “I couldn’t protect him from them, either. Which reminds me of another thing you should consider. If the Brotherhood were to learn that you’ve snitched…”

  Valencia trailed off again, leaving the consequences to the imagination.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Riordan said.

  “To be candid, yes. Immensely.”

  Bonham made a brushing motion with his hand. “That’s enough chatter. Are you ready to continue, Padre Tim?”

  Riordan did not respond immediately, trying to find an advantage.

  “On the condition that you remove that thing from the confessional. And I want to be there when you do.”

  Valencia could no longer restrain his natural ferocity. He lunged off his chair, took one long stride toward Riordan, and leaned over him.

  “Conditions?” he spat. “You think you can set conditions?”

  “Alberto, not now,” Bonham said, playing the good cop. Then, as Valencia fell back into his chair, he returned to Riordan. “You ought to be thinking about what they did to Quiroga—”

  “I think about him ten times a day every damn day,” Riordan interrupted.

  “Well, if that doesn’t open your mouth, then think about this: you’re in the Brotherhood’s crosshairs right now. They did what they did to Quiroga to show that they can get to you. All we have to do is leak that you’ve been working with us and it will be your head in an ice chest. I can’t make things any clearer than that.” He bestowed a thoughtful look on Riordan. “We’ll remove the device, and you can be there when we do, once you prove that we can trust you.”

  “Yes, show us that we can trust you—priest,” Valencia added superfluously.

  “Blackmail,” Riordan murmured. “What happens to her, the woman who confessed to me?”

  “We’ll go easy on her if we find her,” Bonham said. “Now, are you ready to continue?”

  The last tendons of his resistance snapped. He wasn’t going to risk disgrace and the loss of his parishioners’ love; he certainly wasn’t going to risk his life.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  And they did, Bonham pausing the recording at key moments to question him. Did he know this woman’s name? Her given name only: Miranda. Was she from San Patricio? No, Hermosillo. Bonham, not surprisingly, was particularly interested in Miranda’s account of how she and her partner lured the officers into lowering their guard. It was the most difficult part to understand, her hushed tone reducing all but a few words into an unintelligible hiss. It was as if she’d been more embarrassed to admit to playing a whore than to being an accomplice to a double homicide.

  As requested, Riordan filled in the blank spots.

  Pressing a thumb and forefinger between his eyebrows, Valencia bowed his head, as if meditating upon some deep question. “So … so, a woman with the gang who murdered and butchered your secretary confesses her crime to you.” He raised his head to look directly into Riordan’s face. “You have an opportunity to see justice done, and what do you do? What do you say? Nothing, until this minute. What if this bitch told you she planned to blow up your church with dynamite during Sunday Mass? Would you keep your mouth shut even then?”

  “Canon law would require it,” Riordan said. “But—”

  With a flick of his hand, Bonham gestured impatiently. They could discuss canon law some other time. He wanted to know about Miranda’s partner. Apparently, Riordan had seen her at … what was it? An exorcism? Got a name on her? A description? No name … a tall, lean blonde, early to mid-thirties, good-looking in a hard-boiled way. Riordan said she reminded him a little of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity.

  “Double Indemnity?” Bonham said with a wry smirk. “Are you an old movie buff?”

  “Who the fuck is Barbara Stanwyck?” the captain growled.

  “An American movie star, now very dead,” Bonham responded. To Riordan, he said, “How tall, how blond? A güera?” meaning was she naturally fair-haired. “Did you notice a birthmark on her neck? About this big?” He curled thumb and forefinger into a circle smaller than a dime. “On the right side?”

  He fired the questions quickly, with an intensity Riordan had not heard before. Normally, whether in Spanish or English, he spoke languidly, sounding almost bored.

  “Do you know this woman?” Riordan asked.

  “Never mind that. Answer the goddamn questions.”

  “Five-nine or ten,” Riordan replied, hating Bonham, hating Valencia, hating himself, all the while silently begging forgiveness for his hatred. “I can’t say if she was a natural blonde or not. And how would you expect me to notice a birthmark that small?”

  “Try to be more observant,” Bonham advised.

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Now, what happens to Miranda?”

  “We’ll track her down, and we’ll question her. If she cooperates, I’ll consider her an asset, and I—”

  “Take care of your assets,” Riordan finished.

  * * *

  Almost every seminarian knew the saga of Saint John Nepomucene, the fourteenth-century vicar to the archbishop of Prague and confessor to the queen of Bohemia, wife of King Wenceslaus IV. This was not the good King Wenceslaus memorialized in Christmas carols but bad King Wenceslaus, a philandering, paranoid tyrant convinced that even as he was cheating on the queen, she was cheating on him. He commanded John to reveal her confessions, under pain of death. John refused, for which he was imprisoned, tortured, and finally trussed hand and foot and thrown into the river and drowned—the Moldau in some versions of the legend, the Vitava in others.

  Riordan’s brother Sean had said this about Vietnam: It was the place where you found out that you weren’t who you thought you were. Father Timothy Riordan’s recognition that he was no John Nepomucene was in a way liberating. He saw, not in a sudden burst but, rather, in a gradual dawning, that who he’d thought he was had been a lie, a false self fabricated out of pride: pride in his parishioners’ affections, pride in his self-assigned mission as the shepherd who would deliver them from the wolves. It had seduced him into one betrayal, which had led to another. To pride, add raw fear. The thought that he might be captured, murdered, and decapitated by the Brotherhood, were he exposed, made him physically sick. So now the sun was up, shining a merciless light on the truth of his character: he was a physical and moral coward.

  He went about his pastoral duties as before, but it was all outward show, a simulation to maintain his clerical cover. Inwardly, he felt unmoored and adrift as, with Father Hugo, he smudged foreheads on Ash Wednesday; as he said daily and Sunday Masses; as he met with the parish council, signed off on the utility bills, checked in with Pamela Childress, to see how her restoration work was progressing; as he ate María’s meatless meals on Lenten Fridays, and fasted and prayed and did penance for his own sins, which were now considerable. And as he heard confessions—every other Friday in town, and whenever he managed to get out to the Mayo and Pima and Tarahumara villages in the Sierra. No electronic bugs out there; he was the listening device.

  Lent always brought an increase in the repentant population and in the severity of the misdeeds; no run-of-the-mill, off-the-rack transgressi
ons now, as people seldom seen in church unburdened themselves of their gravest trespasses to fulfill their Easter Duty, which was to receive Communion at least once during the Easter season. A woman owned up to frequently stealing from her infirm parents to buy drugs, a man to violating his teenage niece, another to committing adultery more times than he could recall, and yet another to beating his wife in a drunken fury.

  Two weeks into Lent, a man came in and admitted to being a Brotherhood sicario. Since his last confession, quite a long time ago, he figured he’d killed at least a dozen people. But he’d undergone a kind of foxhole conversion—he now feared for his own life (he didn’t say why), and wished to scour the bloodstains from his soul should those fears be realized.

  “Who did you kill and why?” Riordan inquired, hoping to hear that the sicario had been in on the ambush of Valencia’s troops or Domingo’s execution. The man’s motives were simple: he killed to supplement his meager income. As for who, he could not say for sure. Most times he did not know even their names. He would be told to be at a cartel safe house at a certain time, some guy would be there, tied up in a chair or on his knees, and the jefe would say something like “Okay, do it and then get rid of him.”

  He was an unusually forthcoming penitent, and Riordan wanted to keep him talking because he thought he recognized his voice.

  “You mean hide the body?” he asked.

  “I have done terrible things, Padre. I cannot speak of them.”

  “You must, if God is to pardon you.”

  “We made posole of them,” he said.

  “Posole? I don’t understand.”

  It meant dissolving the bodies in a barrel of acid so powerful that it liquefied everything but their teeth, the man explained dispassionately. The soup was then poured out into the ground, and the teeth buried.

  So that was one way the disappeared disappeared. It might have been the way Domingo’s body vanished, every last cell and bone annihilated. Riordan was silent for a few seconds, scarcely able to believe what he’d heard. In Azazel’s kingdom, the power was upon men—and yes, women, too—to speak the unspeakable and do the unthinkable.