“Why do you think Jose is in Hell?”
“Because of his secret.”
“His secret?”
“Yes,” the girl said tentatively. “No one but me and Jose ever knew. Jose said if Papa ever found out, he would kill him, or at least throw him out of the house. And Mama and Papa and Diego always used to say that people like Jose were going to Hell. But I don’t know why that’s true, because Jose was the nicest person in the whole world to me. He would bring me home CDs from Best Buy, and he prom- ised me he was going to take me to the movies in his new car when he got it.”
“What did he do that was so bad that your parents would think he was going to Hell? Was he involved with the pandilleros?”
“Oh no!”
“Then what?”
Marla swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, “May I confess Jose’s secret for him now, Father Banigas?”
“But, my child, only a person who accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior and seeks forgiveness himself can be absolved in the name of our Father.”
“Please, Father Banigas,” Marla cried, the tears beginning to flow. “You have to help me. You have to ask God to let Jose out of Hell. Please. I don’t want my brother to be stuck down there forever. He was the best brother I ever had.”
“Ssh, my child. It’s all right. I will take care of it for you, okay? I will grant a conditional absolution for Jose so he can stand before God and ask Him for forgiveness himself. Will that make you feel better?”
“Sí! Gracias—I mean, thank you, Father Banigas.”
“Now tell me Jose’s secret.”
“Well,” Marla began, “Papa and Mama think Jose wanted to go to college for computers, but I know that he was saving up his money so he could go for fashion design—you know, to make clothes and stuff. I only know this because it was Jose who took me to the father-and-daughter dance at school.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Papa couldn’t get out of work because this other guy had his appendix out, and we didn’t have enough money to buy a dress for me. I outgrew my stuff from fourth grade. I was real sad, but then Jose said he could fix it for me. He undid the stitching on my old dress and added some material from another dress, and it really looked great. He made me promise to keep it secret, and we didn’t tell Mama and Papa and Diego—just told them that one of Jose’s girlfriends from school had done it. Jose would never tell Papa, and especially not Diego, because they would think that making dresses was for maricóns.”
“That is not a nice word, child,” the priest said. “I believe you mean homosexual.”
“I’m sorry, Father Banigas, but that’s what Papa and Diego call them. Oh, and I already confessed lying about the dress to Father Gomez.”
“I understand,” said Father Banigas. “So is that Jose’s secret?”
“Well,” Marla hesitated, “not all of it.”
“Go on then.”
“Well, you see, Father Banigas, I’m confessing today for Jose because my brother was a mar—a homosexual.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he told me he liked boys instead of girls—but only after I found out and asked him and promised never to tell Mama and Papa and Diego.”
“How did you find this out?”
“Jose had a job after school at Best Buy in the computer section, but on Wednesday and Saturday nights he worked at this other place where he said he made more money. He never told me where—said it was a Mexican restaurant downtown. But one day I overheard him talking on the phone when he thought I was playing outside and, well, he told the person that they could pick him up after the show at Angel’s and then gave them the address on West Hargett Street. I googled the words ‘angels’ and ‘show’ and ‘West Hargett Street’ in the library at school, and I found out that Angel’s is a club in Raleigh where the homosexuals go for drag shows. I didn’t know what a drag show was until I looked it up. It’s a show where boys dress up as—”
“Yes, yes, yes, I know what a drag show is—but did you tell your parents?”
“Oh no! I didn’t want to get Jose into trouble. But I did ask Jose about it when we were alone. And at first he was mad at me and said he didn’t know what I was talking about and told me to mind my own business. But after I told him that I didn’t care if he was a homosexual, that I would keep it a secret and I would still love him more than Diego no matter what, he started crying and told me everything. He told me about the drag shows, too, and made me swear on Mama’s Bible that I would never tell anyone.”
“But, my child, you should have told the police this after he was killed.”
“I couldn’t, Father Banigas. Papa and Mama would kill me if they knew I knew Jose was a homosexual and didn’t tell them. And they have both been so upset with him dying, this would kill them, I just know it. Why do they or the police need to know anyway? They said they thought it was the pandilleros. And even though they say they don’t know now, everybody still thinks it was. I can’t have Papa throw his memory of Jose out of his head the way he would’ve thrown Jose out of the apartment if he’d known he was a homosexual.”
Father Banigas heaved a heavy sigh and asked, “What else did Jose tell you?”
“Well, after he told me he liked boys, after he confessed to me about working at Angel’s, he told me how much money he made there. Fifty dollars plus tips—sometimes over a hundred dollars a night! He said they let him keep his costume and his makeup at the club. Leona Bonita, he called himself, and the makeup and his wig and stuff sort of made him look like a lion, he said.”
“I see,” said Father Banigas.
“So that’s why you have to help me, Father Banigas. Because I know if Jose had gotten the chance before he died, he’d have asked God to forgive him for being a homosexual. He told me so in my dreams. He said he was sorry. He said he didn’t like being in Hell and wanted me to help him get into Heaven.”
The priest was silent for a long time.
“I conditionally absolve Jose of his sins,” he said finally. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
“Thank you!”
“Say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys, and Jose will be able to ask God for forgiveness himself. Then say another five of each for wishing the death of your brother Diego.”
“Thank you! Thank you, Father Banigas!”
Marla ran back to her pew, knelt down, and said her Our Fathers and Hail Marys as fast as she could. And when she was finished, the pretty eleven-year-old in the big yellow sweatshirt got up from her seat and dashed down the aisle to the side door. The children gasped, and Sister Esperanza called after her, but Marla didn’t stop—didn’t care if she would have to sit in the corner or write on the blackboard a hundred times.
No, as she ran outside into the courtyard, all Marla Rodriguez cared about was waving good-bye to Jose. For now that she’d fixed things, she was certain she’d be able to see his spirit flying up to Heaven.
Chapter 6
Special Agent Andy Schaap was starving. It was his own fault, goddammit. Should’ve snagged one of those stale donuts before he left. However, if there was one thing he’d learned from the boys at the Raleigh Resident Agency, it was that the steaks at the Dubliner Hotel were the best-kept secret in town.
But now it was getting late, and an appetizer would spoil his experience of a well-earned fourteen-ounce hunk of wet-aged rib eye. Eating. The only thing in his life other than forensics that Andrew J. Schaap had developed into an art form—especially when it came to stretching every penny of the Feds’ strict voucher program. And if he’d been waiting for anybody else, well fuck it, he’d have ordered his steak half an hour ago. But he couldn’t do that to Sam Markham. Sure, Andy Schaap didn’t want to appear rude; but more than that, Andy Schaap didn’t want to appear weak.
The forensic specialist knew all about Sam Markham and his little dance with Jackson Briggs down in Florida. He’d seen the pictures of the citation ceremony and heard
the stories of how he’d taken that big motherfucker down. Schaap pegged Markham to be about his age—mid to late thirties—but whereas a ten-year marriage and a bitter divorce had left Andy Schaap with a bald spot and a nicely developed gut, Markham looked young and lean. Still, there was nothing physically remarkable about him; and certainly nothing in his background that would indicate him being able to take down a six-foot-four monster like Briggs.
He looked at his watch. 7:30. His stomach groaned, and he answered it with a sip of warm beer. It was only his second bottle, but after he’d been nursing it for half an hour, the beer tasted stale and sour. The craving for steak, the determination to enjoy and savor the experience were perhaps a bit of subliminal suggestion, he thought, from all that business with those other kind of stakes.
Fucked up the way the mind works.
Schaap replayed his examination of Donovan over and over again in his mind—the glowing pink symbols scrolling across the backs of his eyeballs like an electronic stock ticker. Yeah, they were going to have a problem with this dude. Schaap could feel it. “Vlad,” the boys at the Resident Agency were already calling him. “Vlad the Impaler.”
Just wonderful.
Schaap sighed, swigged the last of his beer, and reminded himself not to take it personally that Markham was a half hour late. He took off his wedding ring and began bouncing it on the table. He’d been divorced for over a year now, but for some reason he still couldn’t part with it—wore the thick platinum band on his right hand instead of his left, and often found himself fiddling with it when he was agitated.
Platinum. His ex had insisted on them getting his-and-hers platinum rings. It was the strongest of all the metals, she said, and symbolized the strength of their bond. Lot of fucking good it did them. She just woke up one morning and said she didn’t want to be married anymore. He tried to get her to go the counseling route, but she didn’t want to hear it. He wondered if she’d been two-timing him, but could never prove anything. In a way he wished she had been screwing someone else. At least then he’d know what happened. That was the hardest part. Not knowing what the fuck he did wrong, not knowing exactly what made her fall out of love with him.
True, he couldn’t give a shit about her now, but it was the way she tried to screw him in the end that still bothered him—almost as if she thought he was the one who’d been fucking around on her. She got the house, the kids, a nice fat alimony check, of course, but the judge stopped her short of taking the ring back. That’s why he still wore it. A big “Fuck you, bitch.” He toyed for a while with getting it resized for his middle finger, but decided against it in the end. Figured his wife would get the message anyway when he picked up the kids and she saw the ring on his right hand.
Schaap had slipped the ring back on and was about to signal for another beer, when he spied Markham standing by the vacant hostess station. Schaap thought he looked shorter than in his photo: clean cut, chiseled features, his jaw more pronounced. All-American apple pie, he said to himself, and made a mental note to order dessert.
Schaap waved him over.
“I apologize for making you wait,” Markham said. “I lost track of time. Drove out to the crime scenes, took me longer to get back than I expected. Left you a voice mail. Looks like you didn’t get it. Sam Markham, by the way.”
The men shook hands.
“Probably no reception in here,” Schaap said. “And call me Schaap.”
Markham slid into the booth across from him.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Schaap asked, signaling his waitress. “An appetizer or something?”
“A beer is fine. And no appetizer. They tell me the steaks here are the best in the city; want to make sure I savor every cent of my piece-of-shit per diem.”
“I heard that,” Schaap said, laughing, and ordered for the both of them. And as they exchanged small talk over a fresh round of beers, Schaap found his new partner to be quite pleasant and down to earth—much less brooding, much less “intellectual” than he had come to expect from all the water-cooler talk.
But after the waitress brought them their dinners, Mark-ham grew quieter—hardly touched his steak, for that mat-ter—and Schaap began to wonder if the celebrated Quantico profiler hadn’t been putting on an act simply to disarm him.
“I assume the report came back on that steak,” Markham asked out of nowhere.
Schaap looked up from his plate—was confused for a moment until he realized he meant s-t-a-k-e.
“Oh yeah,” Schaap said, swallowing. “Same as the others. Long piece of pine two-by-twelve that the killer rips down and tapers to a point. Standard lumber found all over the place—Lowe’s, Home Depot. Too long to turn on a wood lathe, so our boy makes them the old-fashioned way. Uses a wood plane and finishes them with a belt sander; takes his time to get the contours smooth and rounded.”
“Same process for the other two as well?”
“Yeah. I expedited them to the labs at Quantico. The Firearms-Toolmarks Unit came back with their report yesterday. Typical belt sander, it looks like; standard iron-bladed wood plane with about a two-inch-wide cut. The taper, the proportions from the base of the stake to the point are the same, but the heights are different. Customizes them to fit his victims. Guerrera was only five-three, but his stake had the same angle of taper as the other victims. Cuts them so they’ll go about three feet into the ground, but adjusts the height and the little crossbar according the length of the victim’s torso.”
“Since the Hispanics died of their gunshot wounds,” Markham said, “the killer could have made their stakes after he killed them. But with Donovan, he must have made his stake while the lawyer was still alive. Donovan died differently from the others.”
“From the stake itself, right.”
“FTU find anything else?”
“Nope. Trace Evidence Unit came up empty, too. No fingerprints or skin tissue other than the victims’. We were hoping our boy maybe got a splinter or something, but he must’ve used gloves. He’s pretty thorough; seems to know what he’s doing.”
“A woodworker then? Maybe makes a living as a contractor? Construction?”
“Maybe. I’ve already got things moving at the Resident Agency. Mobilizing task forces to begin covering those angles as we speak. A needle in a haystack, if you ask me.”
“Anything else happen while I was out of touch today?”
“Just news from our language specialist. Said that, although Vlad wrote on Donovan’s body from left to right, three of the scripts, the Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew, should’ve been written from right to left.”
“You mean he wrote his words backwards?”
“Yes.”
“Then he may not have known the etymology behind what he was writing.”
“Right. Also might indicate that he was copying the letters from someplace. Already got a Cyber Action Team working the Internet angle. So far, they haven’t come up with anything. No searches for the phrase, ‘I have returned’ in the languages in question. No IP addresses that look promising.”
“What about local searches for Vlad and impalement and whatnot?” Markham asked.
“Oh yeah, plenty of those, but no more than usual, I expect. Of course we’ll look into them, but if Vlad is as smart as I think he is, I’m willing to bet you another rib eye that he did his research the old-fashioned way at the library.”
“Why?”
“The stakes, the detail and care he puts into them. Pretty thorough, if you ask me. Wouldn’t make the mistake of getting caught on his home computer; would use a public one at least, but that could still pin him to a specific locale. I don’t see him fucking up that way. Just my two cents, for what it’s worth.”
Markham was silent, lost in thought. He looked vulnerable, Schaap thought—strangely human in his puzzlement.
“I’d like us to be straight with each other,” Schaap said after a moment.
Markham looked up at him from his half-eaten steak.
“I kn
ow you’ll want to go most of this alone. I know from what happened in Tampa that you work best that way. I respect that. And you need to know that I don’t harbor any resentment about Gates sending you into my territory. I mean it. Will give you my complete support with the understanding that I’m acting only as your NCAVC coordinator, as well as the point man for the local authorities.”
“I appreciate that,” Markham said.
“And I’m not going to ask you how you caught Jackson Briggs, either.”
Markham narrowed his eyes at him.
“I read the report,” Schaap continued. “Still have no idea how you got turned on to him. But what I’m saying is I’m not going to try to get into your head about things. You keep what you want to yourself, but you don’t have to worry about me cock-blocking you if you want to bounce things off me, okay?”
“Thanks,” Markham said, smiling.
“May I ask you one thing about the Briggs case, though? A minor detail?”
“Okay.”
“Is it true what I read? That he came after you with a samurai sword?”
“A ninja sword, I believe it was, but yes.”
“Caught you in the arm and kept slashing at you even with four bullets in him?”
“Three. The fourth was a head shot.”
“He cut you bad?”
“Not too bad. Got my jacket mostly—my left shoulder. Barely even a scar there now. Not much to brag about in the locker room.”
“Was he your first kill?”
“Yes.”
“Feel fucked up?”
“No,” Markham said simply. “Actually, it didn’t.”
A heavy silence—Schaap’s brain spinning.
“So what about our boy here in Raleigh?” he asked finally. “Anything other than the usual logistical groundwork that you want me to take care of?”
“Yes,” Markham said. “I need to get back to the crime scenes.”
“Tonight?”
“I need to see them in the dark. And I could use your help—would like you to coordinate things with Cary PD. Tell them I’m going to stop by Donovan’s house, and that I’ll be at the baseball field around eleven or twelve. I’m going to work backwards; going to focus on Donovan tonight and Rodriguez and Guerrera tomorrow. But it’s important that I’m not bothered. Maybe you can get a detail posted for me in case the press or some nosy locals are still sniffing around.”
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