by James Carver
“Sounds like the best invitation I’ve had since I got to Halton.”
“It’s the only invitation you’ve had since you got to Halton, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“My car’s just over there.” Stevens pointed back to the police parking lot. “Follow me.”
Devlin cold showered, a habit he’d gotten into in the Air Force. It was a discipline and a kind of shock therapy to jump-start his body and mind. It was especially needed after the small amount of sleep he’d managed to get in the cell the night before. While Stevens cooked up breakfast, Devlin changed into clothes Stevens had lent him: a T-shirt and jogging pants along with socks and old sneakers that were just wide enough to fit his feet without laces. He sat at the kitchen table in the borrowed clothes, which were almost comically tight, his hair wet and combed back and his face freshly shaved, the cuts and bruises from last night dressed anew from a first aid box that Stevens had dug out.
Stevens served up a tower of pancakes and bacon, which Devlin demolished and washed down with nearly a pot of coffee.
The deputy watched this broad, imposing figure hunched at the table eating. His raw, square-set features, the coal-black hair, and searching blue eyes. There was a physicality about him a little at odds with people’s regular idea of a priest. Devlin looked more like your old-time preacher, carrying the word of God out to a frontier town. As handy with a Smith and Wesson Schofield as he was with a sermon. And he definitely looked like he’d lived some.
Stevens’s wife had taken the kids to a playdate, so they had the place to themselves. Stevens had changed out of his uniform into shorts and a T-shirt and looked even more exhausted than Devlin. He ate only a couple of pieces of toast and mainly played with the salt shaker. For a long while Stevens didn’t say much. He seemed caught up in himself. Distracted.
Eventually, he asked, “So, who do you think the guy was you ran into at Ed James’s place?”
“No idea, but he was one tough son of a gun. It’s been a long while since I was in a fight, but I can handle myself. This guy was a powerhouse. And I’m not just saying that because I got whipped.”
“Kind of odd though. Burglars don’t usually stand and fight if they have an opportunity to get out. And he could have just slipped out through a window in the dark. It’s like he was trying to scare you. Or worse.”
Devlin wasn’t anxious to blow this thing up or get into a detailed conversation about it, so he shrugged and said, “Maybe. Or maybe he felt cornered.”
“Mmmm…maybe.” Stevens toyed with the salt shaker some more and then asked, “Why did you become a priest? If you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t. My wife was a worrier, so I quit special investigations to settle down so she would quit worrying…and then she died. It was sudden; we didn’t see it coming.”
Stevens stopped playing with the shaker and looked up at Devlin. “I’m sorry.”
“So I rethought everything,” Devlin continued. “I’d been brought up a strict Catholic, so I returned to my faith because nothing else came even remotely close to making sense.”
There was silence. Stevens looked like he was absorbing what Devlin had said. Some salt had scattered onto the tabletop, so Devlin deftly took a pinch, threw it over his left shoulder, and muttered, “Blind the devil.”
“Do you believe in hell, Father?”
“I don’t want to.”
“But?”
“But I believe we are held accountable for our actions. Somehow. If that’s hell or not, I don’t know.”
Stevens refilled both their cups. Devlin sloshed a mouthful down and asked, “What was all the fuss at the station about last night? It was full of cops when I was there.”
“Oh.” Stevens hesitated for a second and then shrugged and spoke. “Well, I guess I can tell you now it’s being reported. There was a body found up in Long Pine.”
“Long Pine?” said Devlin, suddenly alarmed and thinking of Ed.
“Yeah, the woods north of Halton. Kinda gruesome. The victim had been dismembered.”
“Dismembered? Have you ID’d the body?”
“No. All we know is he was a kid. In his late teens, early twenties. Not much more to go on than that.”
“A kid? Damn.” Devlin masked his relief and shook his head. “Any clue who did it?”
“Well, there was a Gypsy camp by the spot the body was found. They only just moved on last night, so that’s the way the investigation’s headed.”
“Are they Roma Gypsies?”
“Yeah, they are. Why?”
“Just curious. The word ‘gypsy’ gets used for lots of different people. Any reason why it happened?”
“We don’t know for sure. Chief thinks it’s a feud. Family dispute gone bad. I’m not so sure, but it’s the only line we’re pursuing at the moment.” Devlin nodded. “You want some more pancakes?” asked Stevens. “There’s some left over.”
“You not eating?”
“Nah. I don’t eat much after pulling an overnight.”
“Listen, don’t let me stop you if you want to get some sleep.”
“No. Stay, please. It’s good to have company, not to have the house so quiet. You want those pancakes?”
“Actually I will, thanks.”
Devlin ate some more and then between mouthfuls said, “They don’t kill for revenge or for wrongdoing.”
“Who don’t?”
“Roma Gypsies.”
“How do you know?”
Devlin swallowed down the last scrap of pancake and took a sip of coffee before replying. “Because I’ve spent time with them. With Roma Gypsies. I went to Lourdes after my wife died. It was a pilgrimage to test my faith before I decided to train to be a priest. When I went happened to be the same time as the yearly pilgrimage made by Romanies. They go in honor of a Gypsy saint, Sara la Kali. Thousands of them turn up, year in, year out. I got friendly with a group of Kalderash from Romania and traveled back to Paris with them. I was their guest. I ate with them, drank with them, slept in their bed. It was…illuminating. They know about our laws, but we know nothing about theirs.”
“So what do they do if there’s a dispute? A serious dispute? What’s their law?”
“They have a pretty developed form of internal justice. Death is not a recognized sanction. It wouldn’t even compare to the seriousness of their strongest punishment.”
“Which is what?”
“‘Marime.’ Banishment. Social death. The loss of their honor, their identity, is far worse than capital punishment. They become impure or defiled. No longer clean. That’s what happens in the most serious disputes.”
“When you were in investigations, did you work homicides?” asked Stevens.
“Many. You?”
Stevens took a breath and decided to let his pride go hang. “Oh, let me think… That would be precisely none.”
“I have a feeling, Deputy, that you’ll do better on your first than some do on their hundredth.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I think you have integrity, and I think your instincts are right. This isn’t a Gypsy-related homicide. But you didn’t invite me back here to discuss a police case, did you?”
“No…no. I didn’t.”
“Why did you invite me back, Deputy?”
“So you could get cleaned up and have something to eat. What other reason would there be?”
“I don’t know. But in my experience priests are usually houseguests for a more personal or spiritual reason.”
Stevens’s eyes darted back and forth, like he was making up his mind whether to say something or not to say it. He looked down into his lap for a second. Then he looked up, his tired, red eyes reddening some more. He clenched his teeth and braced himself. “Okay. Yes. You’re right. There is another reason…”
“What is it? What’s troubling you?”
The house fell deadly quiet as if it were making room for Stevens’s reply, which wasn’t coming easily. But D
evlin let the silence be and didn’t say anything. Eventually, Stevens puffed his cheeks out, looked up at Devlin, and said, “I’m dying, Father.”
Devlin leaned forward. “Do you know how long you have?”
“It’s months.”
“Are you getting any treatment?”
“No…it’s metastatic pancreatic cancer. Too late for intervention. All that’s left is palliative care. When I get to that point. I got another scan booked in today, but it’s already so far gone that it’s really just a formality. The scan is just so’s we have an idea of how quickly the end might be coming.”
“Are you talking to your priest about this?”
“Yeah, but Father Francis is…well…a bit stiff. Not the most comforting of men.”
“Do the other cops know?”
“Not yet. But I was working up to it.” Stevens stopped and took a moment to consider Devlin. “You don’t seem surprised?”
“I guessed it must be serious, whatever it was,” said Devlin.
“How?”
“Inviting a priest you hardly know round for breakfast, the interest in hell, the fact you were obviously preoccupied with something of significance…and the weight you’ve lost.”
Stevens nodded. “And I thought I was being discreet… Thing is, Father, most of the time I try to act like it’s all okay, for my wife and kids, but…I’m afraid. I’m really, really afraid.”
Devlin laid a hand on Stevens’s hand and said gently, “Of course you are, but you have faith, and so the Lord will be holding your hand just as I am now when your time arrives.” A single tear trickled from the side of Stevens’s eye. “Would you like me to pray for you, Deputy?”
“It’s Greg. And yes, Father, I would. Very much.”
Devlin brought out his rosary. Both men clasped their hands in prayer, and Devlin recited the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy for Stevens. As they sat and Devlin prayed, again the priest laid a hand on Stevens’s hand, and he felt a gentle, warm flow of force, a rising energy in his chest that radiated out into his limbs. It was so subtle and natural, he wasn’t sure whether it was real or imagined.
After the Chaplet, they sat in reflective silence for a while, a dying man and a priest who was sure he was going to hell. Slowly Stevens’s thoughts returned to the life he had left to live. He thought about the man who’d been murdered up in the woods. He thought about what the chief had said. About the likelihood of anybody in the station actually working the homicide properly. He knew that likelihood was zero. Definitely. Chief Walker ran the department like a fiefdom. Stevens looked over at Devlin and saw a potential ally. And he did something he’d done too rarely in his life up until now. He took a gamble.
With a resolve that was new to him, he asked, “Would you do me a favor?”
“Depends. But I am a priest. Favors are more my line than most.”
“Would you take a look at the photos from the crime scene with me? You may have a more seasoned eye than I do.”
Devlin wasn’t expecting the invitation, but he saw an opportunity immediately and replied. “Sure. Of course I would…if you could help me out finding Ed?”
“You think Ed’s missing?”
“Yeah. I do. I think he’s upped and left because he was…unhappy,” said Devlin, deciding to be thrifty with the facts. “He’d had his ups and downs…problems. It’s not uncommon with ex-service personnel. His marriage had broken down, he was estranged from his wife and daughter. I need to find him and make sure he’s okay…because nobody else sure as hell will.”
“You think you can find him?”
“I do. Detective work is what I used to do for a living. So I’ll do it again.”
“Okay. It’s a deal,” said Stevens. “I’ll help you with Ed, if I can.” Stevens went to fetch his laptop, and when he returned, he set it down on the table.
“Have you said to your chief you disagree with his line?” asked Devlin.
“No. No, I haven’t. Not yet. I will if I need to. Right now all I want is an opportunity to follow the evidence. Saying a Gypsy feud is our only lead means we keep it in Halton PD and close the case before it’s opened.”
“You gone against the chief before?”
“No. Never.”
7
Stevens opened up his laptop and clicked on the attachments he’d got from the crime technician.
“Before we start, I should warn you, it’s not pretty. The victim has been decapitated and hands and legs likewise removed.”
“You really don’t have to worry on my account,” replied Devlin. “I think I’ve seen most everything there is to see.”
Stevens opened the first photo. It was of a naked male torso with arms and legs but no head, hands, or feet. It was partially embedded in the surrounding mud, and there was no significant decomposition. The flash of the camera gave the skin tone an unnatural paleness that exaggerated the exsanguination caused by the dismemberment. There were two neat, black round holes, one in the gut and one to the right side of the chest. Nicks and scratches covered the torso. Although, considering the extent of the butchery, there was a lot less blood on the surrounding soil than Devlin would expect. The last few nights’ rains must have washed most of it away. Devlin clicked through more photos that had been taken of the body from every conceivable angle and close-up and medium shots of the wounds. But the crime scene was really only the body. There were no other objects in the vicinity. The only other set of significant photos were close-ups of fly larvae on the genitals and wounds.
Stevens gave Devlin the information that had been gathered so far. “So it’s a young male, looking like late teens or early twenties. In all probability Caucasoid. But skin tone may possibly suggest Hispanic or other ethnicity, though the skin discoloration prevents us being anywhere near certain. But that could prop up the Gypsy theory. From the bullet wounds it looks like they used a small round, maybe even a .22. It’s by no means certain either of the shots were lethal. So, maybe there was another shot to the head or another cause of death entirely. There are no exit wounds, so the bullets that caused the two wounds to the trunk are almost certainly lodged in the body. We haven’t found any other bullets or casing at the crime scene. The guess is they’ve amputated the body parts to prevent identification.”
“Where exactly was the body found?” asked Devlin.
“Here.” Stevens opened an aerial satellite map with a pin marking out the clump of trees near the highway where the body was discovered.
“Right on the edge of the forest?”
“Yeah.”
“Had the body been moved?”
“CSI says it’s unlikely from the pattern of lividity.”
Devlin thought for a minute. Then a minute turned into two and he began to sink into a state of deep concentration. He sat with his head lowered and his fists in his lap. Moments ticked by, but Devlin was not now conscious of duration, only the images and connections firing and flashing through his mind. Stevens felt as if he were suddenly alone. More time passed in silence until Devlin exhaled heavily and returned to the present and to Stevens.
“Can I smoke?” he asked. “Outside?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
They both headed out through the porch into the hot sun bearing down on the backyard. They sat around a wrought iron table in matching chairs under the shade of a sycamore tree. Devlin bit the end off a cigar, lit it, and breathed in the burning ropes of delicious smoke.
“So?” asked Stevens eagerly.
“I saw a young man running hell for leather in blind panic through a forest.”
“What, like a vision?”
“No. No vision. I saw it because the body has cuts and tears all over it. Cuts and tears from running through the dense forest in the dark. Running without care for their own safety. Running from somebody, or something.”
“But he was caught.”
“Yeah. He was caught all right. He ran straight into his killer.” Devlin raised his hand that held his cigar and shaped his
thumb and fingers like a gun. “Boom, boom, straight into his front. He was corralled into the path of the person who shot him. And whoever caught him was in a hurry.”
“How do you figure that?”
“If you were going to dump a body in a forest, where would you dump it? Would you dump it on the outskirts? Next to a highway and a Gypsy camp?”
“No. I guess I wouldn’t. But why kill him there? Why cut his body up there? That’s a lot of work to do when you got cars and people not so far away.”
“I don’t think they chose for it to happen there. For some reason, it had to happen there. Maybe that’s where they finally caught up with the victim. And in the weather conditions they would have had two nights ago, it would have narrowed down their options. It’s raining, it’s dark, traffic flying by in one direction, people milling around in the other. They didn’t have the time to dig a deep enough grave to be confident that the body wouldn’t be dug up by animals. They were in heavy rain on a sloping forest floor; it had to be muddy and waterlogged as hell. No good for digging. So they hacked off the limbs. They knew it was a matter of time before the body was found. They made it so it didn’t matter that it was found. They took what they needed, the face, the prints, and the dental evidence, left what they didn’t…but they didn’t take the DNA.”
“No. So the coroner should give us something on that.”
“Yeah…or maybe they weren’t worried about the DNA.”
“Why would that be?”
Devlin paused for thought, and then he said, “I’m not sure.”
Stevens hesitated for a moment. He knew he shouldn’t involve Devlin any further, that professionally he’d said more than enough and it should remain solely a police matter, but already he’d given Stevens more to go on than any of his own team.
“Would you come with me to the coroner’s office when the autopsy report is in?”