by Ann Benson
But I did not, though God alone knows why. Milord’s men then took me as far as Roche-Serviere, and it was there that they told me I would also be imprisoned at Saint-Etienne and that Milord would have me killed for spreading such gossip and rumor as I had. Whereupon I staunchly refused to go further, for I had spread no rumors as he had accused me. I made such threats of retribution as I could not possibly have carried out, which for some uncanny reason had the desired effect upon my captors. I suppose all men believe that priests have certain powers that others do not, though whatever Godly power I might once have had has surely been destroyed by my congress with men we have come to know as heretics. They did not harm me but instead took me directly to Machecoul to see Milord. I was lodged there against my will for two months.
Gilles de Rais left Josselin unscathed, at least corporally. What effect the audience might have had on his spirit I could not say, but with his situation so desperate, I imagined that Milord must have been enraged by the unfavorable outcome of the discussions between himself and Duke Jean. If his Eminence knew anything, he was not speaking. We went about our daily activities with what looked to be calm on the surface, but underneath it lay a seething cauldron of inquisitiveness.
Matins, Vespers, and all that lay between—that was my life. I spent my time traversing the courtyard from the abbey to the palace and back again, going from one duty to the next. One night as I was abbey-bound I heard a rider off in the distance. I had just entered the arch-covered passageway that skirts the courtyard and leads directly to the convent and slipped into the protective shadows when the sound of fast hooves fell on my ears, faintly at first, then in an awesome crescendo, until the earth beneath my feet shook with the force of it well before its source—a rider who thundered in the courtyard—was revealed. From somewhere out of another shadow, a groom appeared to take control of the lathered animal as the rider leaped off.
My curiosity burned; a rider from Avignon would not travel with such urgency, unless the rumors about his Holiness’s health were indeed true. But the sky had not yet fallen, so I assumed they were not.
I spent the night in wide-eyed speculation; what little sleep I managed was poor in quality. The next morning when I sought out the Bishop, I was as brittle as an icicle. The morning’s customary politenesses, usually such a comforting ritual, suddenly seemed a bothersome overindulgence.
“The messenger,” I said anxiously.
Jean de Malestroit seemed perplexed. “There has been nothing more from Avignon, save what I have already given you,” he told me.
“No, Eminence, I mean the rider who came last night as I was retiring. . . .”
After a pause he said, “Ah. That messenger. I wondered if anyone had seen him.”
“He came in like a thunderstorm. No one could have failed to hear him.”
“Ah, yes . . . well, I shall have to make rules regarding the approach of riders so no one will be disturbed.”
“Was he from Josselin?”
He nodded slowly and then began shuffling parchments, as if that might actually thwart my inquiries.
“Well, what had he to say?”
Suddenly Jean de Malestroit began to squirm, rather uncomfortably. Finally he said, “I regret to tell you that Duke Jean has not revealed the details of what happened between them. He said nothing of import in the letter he sent beyond that Milord Gilles asked for his help and support in resolving the Saint-Etienne affair.”
“Which, naturally, he did not receive, no matter what the enticement.”
“No, he did not. And he has nothing more to offer in the way of enticements. No means by which he might bargain anymore.”
I had not understood that his fortunes had diminished to that degree. “But . . .” I said, “surely he must have said more than that. . . .” I felt tongue-tied; I knew not how to extract from him the knowledge I craved. He was subtly avoiding all mention of how he had been told to proceed, which was an entirely separate matter from what had transpired at Josselin and would surely have been included in the urgent missive. He turned away from me again and started toward his study table, which was strewn from one end to the other with parchments. Once he lost himself in them, I would not be able to break through.
There was no recourse but to ask, “Are you to proceed against Milord?”
Again, he did not answer directly. “I have been told of Milord’s movements,” he said. “He has left the castle unharmed but has not yet returned to Machecoul; he settled yesterday into the place where he lodged on his last visit to Josselin, the house of a man named Lemoine outside the walls of Vannes.”
“I know this house—it is a fine manor.” I could easily imagine Milord seeking refuge in that elegant and sumptuous place. “But I wonder at his purpose for malingering.”
“Buchet,” his Eminence said.
We would hear later, from Poitou, of the influence Buchet had on Gilles de Rais.
Buchet brought a boy who looked to be age ten or thereabouts to Milord at Lemoine’s house, where Milord had carnal knowledge of the child. He practiced his lust upon the boy in the same vile manner as he had with so many others before: First he caused his own member to become stiff by rubbing it in his own hands, and then he worked his stiffened member between the thighs of the boy, whereafter he used the boy’s unnatural opening to achieve his release. All the while this boy was hung from a beam above us with ropes around his hands. I had rendered the boy silent with a gag stuffed into his mouth. Therefore he made no cries of protest, though his expression was full of terror and desperation.
When Milord was through with the boy, he ordered Henriet and me to kill him. But there was no place in Lemoine’s house in which this might be done without attracting notice. So we led the child to the nearby house of a man named Boetden, where the squires who accompanied us on the journey were lodged. We knew that this landlord would leave us to our purposes there and reveal nothing of what he saw or heard. Milord seemed to have a retinue of such accomplices throughout the land, one in almost every parish we visited, though how he comes upon them and secures their cooperation I do not know.
In Boetden’s house we severed the boy’s head from his body. Either the knife was dull or the neck bones strong, but we had a miserable time of it. Milord became sorely frustrated and anxious, so we burned the head right there in the room where the killing had taken place. But how were we to get rid of the body without anyone beyond the landlord seeing us do so? Boetden’s house was near the center of the village and quite exposed, so we could not do our work outside. It came to me finally that the child’s body should be put into the latrine in this house, and when I spoke this idea aloud, the others agreed that it was a good one. So we secured the boy’s own belt tightly around him and lowered him down the hole.
To my great dismay, the depth of the ordure was not sufficient to cover the body. It stuck up, a headless witness to what had been perpetrated upon him.
I was lowered, with much difficulty, into the latrine by Henriet and Buchet, who stayed above in order to better control my descent. There were moments as I hung suspended above the pit when I wondered if they would let me fall into it after I had done what was bidden of me. They insisted it must be me, for I was the originator of the reckless scheme, and they thought I ought to be the one to suffer because it had gone wrong.
After much strain and labor I managed to sink the body deeply enough into the slop that it could no longer be seen from above. I accomplished this by pushing it into the ooze with my own hands; despite my efforts it bobbed up twice and I had to push it under again until it stayed down without me holding it. And when I was pulled out of the pit I retched and retched until I thought my stomach would leap out of my body.
chapter 16
You’d expect the La Brea Tar Pits to be in a more remote location, but there it is, plunked down in the middle of all those glass and steel behemoths in central Los Angeles. There’s a grassy area around it, but with all the surrounding “civilization,” it
’s easy to forget that the tar pits were there first. You smell them before you see them; makes you think someone is working on a roof in the hot sun. I almost like that smell if I’m just passing through it. But all day long? I don’t think so.
When I remarked on that to the museum director, he just gave me this wild-eyed smile and took in a big long sniff. After that I expected to see him beat his chest and shriek, but somehow he managed to contain himself. Nice guy, completely unabashed in his love for the establishment he oversaw. I was expecting someone more academic, and I’d prepared myself to have to grapple with the paleontological equivalent of an art fart, which is what we run into when we have to go to the art museum. They all think cops are terminally uncultured meatheads, but they do want our advice about their bothersome little security problems. Go figure.
But this guy genuinely adored his job. Several times I had to say, that’s very impressive, sir, and I hate to interrupt you, but I need to ask you some questions of a more specific nature. . . . He was always very apologetic about getting off track.
I described the poster I’d seen. He went to a drawer and pulled one out, rolled it open for my examination. “This one?”
Again, it made me shiver. “Yeah.”
“A bit anachronistic,” he said, “but what the heck—you have to have some fun every now and then.”
So the poster had been his idea. My guess was that he’d spent a lot of time justifying its inaccuracy. “It’s a great poster,” I said. “I’ll bet it got a lot of people in here who wouldn’t otherwise have come.”
“Oh, no question about it. That exhibit brought in the most diverse attendance we’ve ever had. People from all over the country—all over the world.”
I thought, And all over Los Angeles.
He went into a drawer in his desk and produced a volume with the same image on the cover. “The book was also a huge success. It was very pricey because of all the color printing, but we sold a slew of them. A slew. A lot of money went into our endowment fund from that book.”
“It must have been an exciting experience to be involved in it.”
“Only the best of my career. Especially in the development stages. I got to work with some of the most talented people.”
Then he let out a big sigh and shook his head.
“And to think that it almost didn’t happen.”
In the hope that he’d explain, I waited a few seconds before asking. “I don’t remember reading anything in the press about it not happening. . . .”
“Oh, you wouldn’t have. We kept it very quiet. We notified the police, though, so I’m a little surprised you didn’t know about it. We had a bomb threat.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really. I suppose it’s good that you weren’t aware of it, because we were trying to keep it quiet. One of the donors was very publicity-shy. We were afraid that he was going to pull out. Took some last-minute negotiations to keep him in. It turned out to be a hoax, but that donor—he was actually the creator of a large number of the Animatronic devices—insisted that we put a better security system in place.”
“Probably not a bad idea, anyway.”
“Well, it was quite expensive. He ended up funding some of it himself.”
All very interesting, but probably not germane to my quest. “I’m working on a case,” I said, “that involves several young boys. A number of them seem to have visited this exhibit. It’s the only common thread I can establish so far, so I’d like to start looking into some of the people who worked on the exhibit.”
He wore a hungry-to-know expression. “How ominous.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, until I’ve developed my leads a little more, I can’t tell you anything further.”
“That’s too bad, because I might be able to narrow it down a little for you. There were hundreds of people involved with that exhibit.”
“I assume they weren’t all museum employees.”
“Very few. We contract out for a lot of the services like cleaning and supplies. The security system we were talking about—another company supplied the employees. We had our own cameras, of course, and the exhibitor set up the videotape system for us, complete with the blue screen—”
“The blue screen?”
“Yes. I thought everyone knew about that. It was almost as much of an attraction as the exhibit itself.”
In response to my bewildered look, he said, “Do you have children?”
“Three.”
“Hmm. I thought just about every kid in L.A. came to this exhibit.”
“Their father did bring my kids with a group, and I think one of the other parents came too. But I don’t remember hearing about a blue screen.” They’d talked about the moving animals and knights but not the blue screen.
“The idea was to make the security system part of the fun, to keep it from becoming too much of a distraction. It was really quite a spectacular setup. We had a video system, broadcast quality, not like what you’d expect for a security camera. All the visitors were recorded as they passed through the waiting line. There was a fluoroscope to examine the backpacks and purses, but the visitors got to operate the machines themselves and examine their own bags as they passed through. Of course, a trained security person was there watching, but it made the visitors feel like they had a real stake in the security. It was all wonderfully interactive. But the highlight of the whole thing was this blue screen. It’s what they use in film special effects when they want to insert people in backgrounds that have already been filmed. In our case, we encouraged visitors to clown around in front of the camera, and then as they moved down the line they could see themselves against a variety of different backgrounds. One was this sort of primordial ooze, another was a medieval forest with a boar that jumped out from behind a tree. Everyone loved it, and we got a good image of every person who passed through the line without seeming like Big Brother. It was very clever. The donor went to great lengths to make it really special.”
It seemed a little excessive to me, but I didn’t tell him that. “So these people were taped. With their knowledge, of course.”
“Yes. The whole thing was for fun, really. And they could buy copies of their segments if they wanted to. That offset a good portion of the cost.”
“And were there security guards on the premises otherwise?”
“Yes, two roving, two who stayed in a booth to monitor the various cameras.”
“Were the security tapes kept?”
“Not by us. The exhibit ended more than two years ago. We’ve copied over the tapes we had from our own internal system, many times by now, I’m sure. But I don’t know about the blue-screen tapes.”
“Who would have them, if they weren’t destroyed?”
“The security company.” Then he hesitated a moment. “Or perhaps the donor.”
The donor. Not the donor Mr. So and So, or a donor. Just the donor. “May I have this donor’s name, please?”
Another little hesitation. “He likes to keep a low profile.”
I thought, Tough, but said, “I’m sure he’d understand if you gave us his name, in view of the situation we’re investigating.”
“I won’t be able to make that kind of determination unless I know the nature of the ‘situation.’ ”
I could see that one hand would have to wash the other. “All I can tell you at this point is that we are looking into some incidents of pedophilia, possibly connected.”
It would have been simpler to say serial pedophilia, but he gasped anyway. “Well. I guess that’s pretty serious, then.”
“It is.” I handed him my notebook with a blank page. Maybe if he didn’t say the name aloud, he wouldn’t feel like he’d betrayed any kind of trust. “Now, if you’d write down the name of that donor, please, I’d be grateful.”
He took the notebook and removed the pen I’d clipped to the right side. With a dramatic flourish, he clicked out the point and scribbled. Then he clipped the pen back on the pad, flipped the w
hole thing closed, and handed it to me.
I didn’t look through the pages to see who it was. I didn’t want to show inordinate surprise if the person was famous. “I’ll also need the name of the company from whom you contracted the security guards. And the one that does your cleaning as well.” I handed back the pad.
“Certainly,” he said as he wrote. “Then will there be anything else I can help you with at the moment?”
“I’d be grateful if you would point me to your employment office. I’ll need to look at some of the records for the exhibit period.”
By then his posture had stiffened significantly. The thrill is gone, his expression said. I would have to come back another time to get anything more specific out of him. But I had my first new lead in weeks.
Wilbur Durand. He was a special-effects whiz kid who’d done an impressive amount of work in Hollywood, mostly on horror-type films. I began a search for information about him, which took a backseat to reinterviewing the families and the failed suspects, from which I didn’t want to be distracted.
And then came the ultimate distraction: Five days before the two-month mark, a twelve-year-old boy was reported missing by his parents. But this time there was a stunning departure from the previous pattern: The boy was black, albeit relatively light-skinned. Everything else was right; he was a good kid, last seen with an older brother. The patrol cop who took the initial call had learned that there was some strife between the two brothers and passed that information on to me right away. Before going out to the home, I called and spoke with the parents. It didn’t take long to establish the source of the strife: The biological father of the missing boy was the mother’s second husband and stepfather to the older son, who acted out his jealousy by creating a chaotic household whenever possible. The missing child’s mother told me that her own mother reported seeing the two brothers together, having words, not long before the disappearance.