by Blake Banner
She laughed sadly and we followed her out into the nave. As we approached the transept, a shadow moved across the door at the far end, and a foot seemed to scuff the stone floor, setting up an echo in the vaulted ceiling. Sylvie stopped and peered, and blew her nose.
“Humberto?” The figure shuffled closer. Dehan glanced at me. Sylvie said again, “Humberto, is that you?”
He was tall, almost seven feet, and massive, though he stooped and had a shambling gait. Slowly, he came into the diffuse light of the candles. His features were hard to make out with the glare of sunlight behind him, but his face was broad, his jaw was big, and his brow was low on his face. He was grinning as he came closer. Both his grin and his steps were hesitant. When he spoke, his voice was nasally.
“Donna Maria, benedicta santisima, purisima mater nostra…” He laughed nervously, making a sound like a braying ass, knocked his knees and gripped his crotch with both hands, “Perdonattame, perdonattame…”
She smiled at him. “It’s okay, Humberto, you can sit and pray, orare, orare, you can sit.”
He brayed again, biting his lower lip. “Santisima madre, benedita, plena di grattia..”
He backed away and after a couple of steps, turned and dashed off into the shadows among the rear pews. Sylvie opened the side door at the end of the transept and we stepped out into the sunshine. Dehan asked it. She had to and I knew it was killing her to know.
“Who is that?”
“Humberto?” Sylvie shrugged. “He’s attached to Paul…” She sighed. “Sorry, Reverend Truelove. Nobody really knows his story. He just seems always to have been here. I suspect the reverend adopted him at some point, but he’s so humble, he never talks about it.” She shrugged. “Either way, he has found a home, literally, in the church.”
I frowned. “What is that language he speaks? It’s not Latin or Italian.”
She laughed. “It is some kind of peculiar invention of his own. It’s a generic Latin. People have identified Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Modern Latin and classical Latin, plus a good few inventions of his own. He seems to make it up as he goes along.”
“How old is he?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “Nobody knows.”
I saw the reverend walking toward us. Sylvie held up the handkerchief. “I will wash it and return it to you when you are around next. Thank you for being so understanding. I’d better go.”
She had taken less than a dozen paces when she and the reverend crossed. We watched as he stopped and took hold of her shoulders. They looked into each other’s faces but they did not speak. After a moment, he patted her on the arm and she moved off in the direction of her stall, and Reverend Truelove—Paul—approached us with the walk of a man who owns a God who owns the world.
Without preamble, he said, “It was almost two decades ago, but to her it’s as raw and livid as though it had happened today, five minutes ago.”
“The mind is its own place, reverend, and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
He looked at me curiously. “Indeed. Was she able to help any? It was a long time ago. Memories fade…”
Dehan scratched her head. “Well, Reverend, from what you just said, it was a long time ago for you, but not for her. So her memory hasn’t faded.” She affected the accent of the deep South, “The mind bein’ it’s own place, an’ all.” She pointed at the large group of people milling among the stalls. There were perhaps eighty or a hundred of them. “See those people, Reverend, how many of them do you reckon were here eighteen years ago?”
He looked startled. “I am not sure. Most of them, I should think.”
“And how many of them, would you say, knew for sure that Sylvie’s kitchen door was open that evening?”
His jaw dropped and he stared at her in astonishment.
She plowed on. “Because, Reverend, in that—much smaller—group, you will probably find a man who wanted to kill Simon Martin.” She smiled. “Kind of changes things, doesn’t it? Bit less vague and a bit more immediate.”
He did the goldfish thing of staring with big eyes and soundlessly opening and closing his mouth.
I smiled at him and asked, “Were you here that evening, Reverend?”
“Why… yes, um, I’m not sure… No.” He shook his head. “I truly don’t recall.”
I shrugged. “It’s a long time ago. I just thought, given the events of the night…”
“Oh, quite so. It just escapes my mind at the moment. I can tell you that I didn’t find out what had happened until the next morning. But for the life of me…” He hesitated. “It was a terrible shock, of course. I felt somehow guilty that I hadn’t been here for her at the time…”
I nodded, then gave a small, sideways twitch of my head. “You can hardly be held responsible for that. What kind of man was Simon? Do you know of any enemies he might have had?”
He puffed out his cheeks. “It is hard to imagine such a thing. He was a committed Christian, and a genuinely good man.” He gave a knowing smile, inviting us to join him in a cozy joke. “Because, as we know, there are many committed Christians, who are not necessarily genuinely good people.”
Dehan snorted. “You got that right.”
He raised an eyebrow at her that said he found her vaguely distasteful, then addressed me. “He was a serious man, did not invite easy friendship, but he was very upright and did a great deal for charity, and for the church.”
I scratched my chin. “I have to ask this, Reverend, and I hope you understand that there is nothing to be gained by concealing the truth through a misguided sense of loyalty.” He looked affronted, but I ignored him and carried on. “How were things at home between Simon and Sylvie?”
He looked grave. “To be honest, a little joyless. Simon was a very devout man who saw little point in having fun. Joy, in his view, was to be achieved exclusively through an undivided devotion to God.” He sighed and spread his hands. “Sylvie is a joyful, happy soul, and I fear she was withering a little in their marriage.” He smiled beatifically. “Of course, Mary brought her much joy and laughter while Simon was at work, but, well, their life together was serious and contemplative, rather than gay and exuberant.” He smiled thinly at Dehan. “I use the word gay in its true meaning, of course.”
I nodded. “Would you have described Sylvie as frustrated back then?”
He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know that I would have chosen that particular word, but let’s say I would not have described her as fulfilled. However, certainly not frustrated to the point of homicide, if that is what you are getting at.”
I shook my head. “I am not driving at anything, Reverend, just trying to understand the situation. We have no suspects yet at this time, unfortunately.”
Dehan frowned. “One last question and then we’ll leave you in peace… for a bit. Does Sylvie have a job…?” She shrugged, shook her had and spread her hands all at the same time. “What is her source of income?”
“Simon had made a very generous cushion, if you will, for her by means of a couple of insurance policies. That was him all over. So she works full time, on a voluntary basis, at the church. To be working in God’s service helps her to heal from what happened so many years ago.”
I held out my hand. “Thank you, Reverend. We’ll try not to disturb you unnecessarily, but we will need to talk to you again at some point during this investigation.”
He took my hand in both of his and held it tight. “Well, naturally, any help we can offer you, we will be only too glad to assist. But I have to say, Detective, it has taken Sylvie a long time to get back on her feet. We have all been there for her, to help and support her through very dark times. It would be a shame if, in seeking Simon’s killer, you reopened wounds that are only just beginning to heal.”
“I hear you, Reverend. We wll be as sensitive as we can.”
We shook hands and made our way back to the car.
THREE
Instead of going back to the precinct, I turned rig
ht on Van Nest and then left onto Paulding and pulled up in front of Doyle’s Pub. We grabbed a couple of beers and went to sit at a small table by the window. Dehan started talking while I took a pull and wiped the froth from my mouth.
“Okay, brief review of the facts: Sylvie is home alone with her newborn, Mary. The kid Ahmed is out in the garden doing the gardening. Neighbors—and you would know this if you had read the file—reported that they saw Simon arrive home in his car shortly after seven.”
She paused to drink, smacked her lips and sighed. I interrupted her.
“He lets himself in and finds that the lights are off. She made a point of that and she is not there to greet him. He was the kind of man, I suspect, who would have expected his wife to be there to greet him, with his dinner ready. But she said she heard him calling out for her.”
“So why were the lights off and…”
I pulled a face. “I don’t like ‘why’. It is too open. What was it that stopped her from putting on the lights, as she would normally have done? Focuses the question a lot more keenly. What was it that stopped her from being at the door when he arrived? I wonder if there was a meal being cooked…”
“You done, Sensei?”
I nodded.
“So, something unusual has happened before Simon gets home that has prevented his good wife from preparing for his homecoming.” She raised a finger. “Now, things happen pretty quick at this point. Simon is struck forcefully in the ribs and on the jaw. The medic’s report says he was bruised, pre-mortem, on his left floating ribs and on the left side of his mandible. Which may have caused him to collapse on the floor. He was found still wearing his coat, stabbed in the chest, and, as Sylvie said, with his briefcase still by his side. All of which suggests he was barely through the door when he was attacked and murdered.”
“You said stabbed in the chest, not stabbed in the heart.”
“Yes. He was stabbed right through the sternum, at the height of the third intercostals.”
“Through the sternum? You’re sure?”
She raised an eyebrow. “What do you think? You think I’m sure?”
“I think you’re sure.”
“The blow must have been delivered with considerable force, which adds weight to the theory that he was lying on his back at the time he was stabbed. So his assailant was able to put all their weight behind the knife.”
“Okay, so the picture suggests that the killer was the unknown element that prevented Sylvie from putting on the lights and dutifully greeting Simon at the door. And, as soon as he came in, the killer struck. The position of the body was, if I am not mistaken, at the foot of the stairs…”
“Correct, which would suggest that the killer was either on the stairs or up the stairs when Simon came in the door.”
“And from what Sylvie has told us, she was found sitting on the stairs, with the telephone in her hands. The actions around the trauma all center around the stairs.”
Dehan nodded. “The 911 call was made from the phone she was holding.”
I stared at the dry rings on the mahogany tabletop, seeing my imagined version of the Martins’ entrance hall. “So the idea is that Sylvie is being held upstairs by the killer. Simon comes home, calls her, and the killer rushes down, punches him twice with his right fist, first in the ribs and then on the jaw, and, when he falls to the ground, he sits on him and stabs him through the sternum.” I frowned at Dehan. “How many stab wounds?”
She smiled. “I was wondering when you’d ask that. Two.”
“Hmm… So our killer is in a bit of a frenzy and is certainly not a seasoned assassin. He has delivered two blows where one would have been ample, and he has stabbed him in the most difficult place on the chest. While, presumably, Sylvie is standing on the stairs watching him. It is very odd.”
She turned her glass around a few times on the table, like she was trying to screw it down, or wind it up. After a moment, she said, “You’re not wrong. I keep asking myself, ‘Where was the phone?’”
She looked up at me and I nodded. It was what I had been asking myself, too.
She went on, “What did she do? Stand there and watch her husband get murdered, then go to fetch the phone and return to sit on the stairs to call 911?”
I pulled a face, like I knew I wasn’t convincing her and I wasn’t really convincing myself, either. “Maybe it was upstairs.”
She echoed my expression with a shrug. “Maybe. Same thing applies. Anyway, motive and opportunity: Prima facie…”
I smiled. “I like that. That’s good. Prima facie. It’s nice.”
“You like that? It’s good, huh? Thank you. So, prima facie, the only motive we can be sure of is Sylvie’s.”
“The life insurance.”
“It has got to be pretty generous because it is paying either for the rent on a substantial house, or the mortgage. Plus, it’s giving her enough to live on without having to work. If, on top of that, he was a miserable bastard to be married to …”
“That is a big assumption, Dehan.”
She offered me a smile that was richer in scorn than in mirth. “Come on! He saw, ‘little point in fun,’ and ‘joy was to be achieved exclusively through devotion to God.’ I call that being a miserable bastard. And remember…” She wagged a finger at me. “For a woman like Sylvie, divorce is not an option. The vow is ‘till death do us part’, and God holds them to that. The penalty is not just hell, but being ostracized by their community. Hell is just an imagined future. Being reviled and ostracized is a hard reality to live with, especially for someone like Sylvie.”
“So she was stuck with him for life.”
“For the next sixty years.”
“Unless…”
“Unless he died before that. Drink up. The next ones are on me.”
“I have to drive.”
“We are a ten-minute walk from your house. We’ll be having spaghetti tonight.”
“We are? Okay, sounds great to me.”
I watched the streetlights come on through the darkening glass in the windows, and the attitude of people’s walk shift from a businesslike stride to a homeward hurry, as evening enclosed around them, past parking cars with amber headlamps. I thought of Sylvie, curled helpless against Dehan’s shoulder, weeping, hiding from the truth in the shadows of amnesia.
Dehan sat and placed a glass in front of me. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said. “Sylvie hasn’t the strength, either physical or of character, to knock her husband to the ground and stab him twice through the sternum. And I would have to agree. But that doesn’t take away the fact that, so far, she is the only person with an apparent motive.”
I took another pull on the beer. “So are we talking about an accomplice? That would imply a second motive.”
“Do you ever wish you smoked, Stone?”
“Sometimes.”
“Right now I could definitely use a cigarette.”
“I read that nicotine helps ward off Alzheimer’s.”
“He didn’t actually have the disease. It wasn’t his.”
“No, he just discovered it.”
“So, who else stood to gain by Simon’s death, Stone? The kid, Mary, was only about one year old. Reverend Paul Truelove?”
“Love? Sex? If that’s the case, why haven’t they gotten together since?”
She shrugged and sipped, then shrugged again as she put down the glass. “Maybe her Christian guilt kicked in and she repented after the deed was done. But we might equally ask, how come she hasn’t gone back to Texas? Remember, Reverend Truelove was keen for us not to pursue the investigation because, and I quote, she was ‘healing, working for God’.”
“Good points all three. Plus, he has no alibi for the night in question. Still, this is mere surmise at this stage, we need hard evidence to make it stick.”
“I will contact her insurance company tomorrow and see how big the pay out was.”
I turned it over a few times in my mind with my glass half way to my mo
uth. I spoke absently, half to myself, “I want to talk to the first emergency responders, too. I’m interested in the wound. It might have more to tell us…”
Walking toward my house about half an hour later, through quiet, lamp-lit streets, Dehan said, “I guess, if either one of us was in a relationship, we couldn’t do this anymore, huh?”
I looked at her with big eyes. “Do what?”
“I mean, me stay over in your guestroom, have dinner and breakfast… A husband or a wife would make that kind of hard.”
I gave a small laugh. “Are you brooding, Dehan? What’s eating you today?”
“Nothing! I’m just wondering. Jeez… I’m Jewish already! We over think everything. It’s part of our purpose in the world. Other people don’t think enough, so we over think to compensate…”
“You’re babbling again.”
“We do that too.”
“Are you trying to tell me you met someone?”
“No!”
The expression of horror on her face made me laugh. “It’s okay if you did, it’s cool. Everything is cool.”
She spoke to her boots. “I just keep wondering why you haven’t.”
Things didn’t go exactly as planned the next morning. As I sat down behind my desk at eight AM, my phone rang.
“Stone.”
I saw Dehan roll her eyes and frown-shrugged ‘what?’ at her. She made a face like a gorilla answering the phone and mouthed, ‘Stone!’
I turned away because Reverend Paul Truelove was talking to me.
“Ah, Detective Stone, I am glad to catch you early. I was wondering if I might come in and have a chat with you.”
“Of course. What’s it about?”
“So, would half an hour suit you?”
“Just fine. See you then.”
Dehan was typing. She said, “Who?” to the screen.
“Reverend Truelove. Wants to have a chat in half an hour. He’s on his way already, apparently.”
She smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Hmmm…”
“What are you doing?”
She picked up her phone and dialed. “Insurance.” She stood up and walked away on very long, slim legs. I called Frank.