Prayer (41 page)

“Which one? Lakewood or the Izrael Church of Good Men and Good Women?”

“Both.” She shrugged. “Nelson Van Der Velden was charismatic, of course. When he died, I guess I began to change my opinion of the church in general.” She smiled. “I’ve been thinking. About us. Maybe you and I could see some more of each other again.”

“Oh? What about Hogan?”

Ruth shook her head impatiently. “He was nothing to me. Just a friend, that’s all. Forget Hogan, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Perhaps I was too hasty about you, Gil. You know something? I think I was clinically depressed. That’s what my doctor says. I’m on Xanax now and I feel much better about a lot of things.” She sighed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’d like us to give our marriage another shot. For Danny’s sake, if nothing else.”

I smiled and laid my hand fondly on her cheek. “I’m afraid it’s a little too late for that,” I said.

“Are you seeing someone else?”

“No. There’s no one, Ruth.”

This was not quite true, but I hardly wanted to mention his name in this context. His name should rarely be mentioned, ever—certainly not without a great deal of precaution. I have Nelson Van Der Velden to thank for that.

“It’s not that I don’t love you or Danny.”

“What then?”

There was no way of making it sound any less peculiar to Ruth than it would sound—although I don’t think it’s any less peculiar than turning down a well-paid job with a top firm of New York attorneys to join the FBI because of what happened back in 2001. What happened to me in Galveston had been as traumatic and affecting as 9/11. Maybe more so.

“It’s just that I’ve decided to become a Catholic priest, Ruth. I’ve joined St. Mary’s Catholic Seminary.”

“But why, Gil? Why?”

“At the time I didn’t have anywhere else other than the seminary to go to, Ruth. Physically and spiritually. I’d come to the end of myself, if that doesn’t sound like too much of a cliché. But now that I’ve thought more about it, I’ve made the decision to enter the priesthood just as soon as I can. I think it’s the right decision for me. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

“Gil Martins, what possible use is there in your becoming a priest?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I grinned. “Time will tell. But I think Bishop Coogan is relieved to have at least one priest who isn’t a pedophile or gay.”

“My God, I certainly didn’t see this one coming.”

“No, neither did I, although I think maybe God did.” I patted her on the arm. “I had hoped you would be happy for me, Ruth. But I can see you’re a little upset by the idea. Well, if you can, pray for me.”

“I don’t think I will.” She shook her head. “Oh, I don’t mean that I don’t wish you well, Gil. It’s just that I’m not sure that prayer is all that effective.”

“Oh, it is,” I said glibly. “Take it from one who knows.”

“I prayed for you before,” she said. “I prayed that you would believe in God again.”

“Well, I guess your prayers were answered then.”

“We get what we pray for and then find out that we didn’t want it after all.”

“Isn’t that so right?”

“Now that you do believe in God, I find that I don’t believe in him so much anymore. Weird, isn’t it?”

“There’s no sense in trying to understand God,” I said. “‘Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out; he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice; he will not afflict. Men do therefore fear him; he respecteth not any that are wise of heart.’ That just means God doesn’t like a smart-ass. Job 37:23–24.”

“Is this what our conversations are going to be like from now on, do you think?”

“Ruth. It’s what our conversations were always like. The only difference is that now it’s me who’s quoting scripture, not you.”

When I left, she tried to kiss me on the mouth, but at the last moment I turned my face so that her lips just brushed my cheek. It wasn’t deliberate on my part, more instinct, really—the way you duck something that might injure you, like a hornet. But it hurt her, for sure, although that wasn’t my intention. As I walked away from my old house and got into my car, there were tears in her eyes. I wondered if the tears came from the fact that she still loved me or if they were because she regretted what she’d put me through. Then again, maybe her tears were for our son and the fact that I wouldn’t see him grow up the way most other fathers do. But I didn’t care. I’d lied when I told her I still loved her; that was just to make her feel better. Me, I didn’t feel the same about anything anymore. Not about her, not even about Danny, and certainly not about myself. Myself least of all.

In the Magnolia Tree Café, an unexpected peal of laughter trickled out of the television for a moment. I looked up from doing the crossword in the
Chronicle
to see what was happening up on the screen. Pastor Penny had cracked a joke; and just to make sure we all got it, she cracked it again.

“Forget Pilates, forget the gym, forget yoga, and forget working out. The best exercise you can get is to walk with God,” she trilled.

Encouraged by the congregation’s reaction to her little joke, Pastor Penny decided to try another.

“You know, the other evening I was stopped by a traffic policeman who informed me that I’d broken the speed limit. He informed me that I’d driven at thirty-five miles per hour in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone. I apologized for my thoughtlessness several times—I’m not used to being stopped by the cops—and I guess he wasn’t used to this, either. I suppose most people in these circumstances get more annoyed than I was. Anyway, he asked me if I was under the influence of alcohol. And do you know, I was so surprised I said no, I’m under the influence of God.”

More laughter. Did anyone of them, I wondered, ever have any idea about the real nature of God? Probably not. And that was probably just as well.

“And you know why I’m under the influence of God?” she yelled—Pastor Penny was kind of in your face with her preaching. “I’m under his influence because God is love.”

Absently I wrote “God is love” on the edge of my newspaper.

But when Pastor Penny’s TV audience laughed, it seemed like they were laughing at me, so after a moment or two of consideration, I crossed out the word
LOVE
and replaced it with
FEAR
. Now, that was a lot more like the truth. I looked at the slogan and nodded to myself. There could be no love where first there was fear. Not ever. And still nodding, I said out loud, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.”

Hearing me speak, the waitress smiled and said, “Amen,” and then, as a reward, she brought me some more of the terribly bitter coffee that tasted like wormwood.

“I’m glad you like Pastor Penny’s TV show,” said the waitress. “I like to watch it, but sometimes the customers object and I have to change the channel.”

“There are no other customers,” I said. “So that’s all right then.”

“Bless you,” said the waitress. “God loves you, brother.”

I restrained my first impulse, which was to laugh out loud in her face, and just politely nodded my thanks.

A couple of days after Van Der Velden’s murder, Harlan Caulfield came to see me at the seminary. We talked in my room, with me sitting on my single bed and Harlan seated in the only armchair.

Harlan’s face looked even more lived-in than usual: the furrows on his forehead now looked so deep that his cranium seemed about to detach from the rest of his head. The space between his always quizzical eyebrows, above the bridge of his nose, was a Gordian knot of anxious skin and sinew. He looked like a human question mark. I didn’t offer him anything. I had nothing to offer except some Salem cigarettes, which would hardly have been fair given his attempt to give them up. I offered him one anyway and then lit one myself when he declined with a curt shake of his head.

“You started smoking again?”

“Why not? Considering everything else that you have to give up, I figure I’ve got to have some pleasures in life.”

Harlan nodded sadly. “Might be worth it at that,” he said. “Just to have a smoke again. My life has no real pleasures. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. So what can I do for you, Harlan?”

“You know why I’m here.”

“It isn’t to beg me to come back to the Bureau,” I said.

“You’re right. Somehow I think we’ll manage to get along without you.”

“Then I suppose it’s about Saint Peter,” I said.

“I wish people wouldn’t use that name,” he said, looking away. “Given your new priestly calling, I’m kind of surprised you do.”

I shrugged. “But you do think it was the same sub who killed Van Der Velden?”

He shrugged. “Could be. Bears all the hallmarks of.”

“A million dollars buys you a nice shiny halo in this town.”

“But you don’t think he deserved it.”

“That depends, Harlan.”

“On what?”

“On what you’re fishing for.”

“All right. Fair enough. Where were you on Tuesday morning at about eight o’clock?” he asked.

“You mean on the morning of Van Der Velden’s murder? I was here. In bed. Just me and my newfound celibacy.”

“I thought priests were supposed to get up with the larks.”

“That’s monks you’re thinking of, Harlan. Besides, I’m not yet a priest.”

“Can you prove you were here?”

“No. I guess someone might have seen me at breakfast. But I don’t remember talking to anyone in particular. One morning is kind of like another in this place. But it’d be kind of weird if I could actually prove it, don’t you think?”

“You can see why I’m asking though, can’t you, Martins?”

“Of course. I knew your killer’s modus operandi. I’m still a member of the Houstonian Club. And I knew Nelson Van Der Velden. Frankly, I didn’t much like him, either. On top of all that, before his death I suffered a nervous breakdown. In your eyes that makes me borderline mentally unstable. I’m surprised you didn’t come to see me yesterday, Harlan.”

He nodded. “Did you kill him?”

“Thanks for asking, Harlan, I’m a lot better now.”

Harlan stared at his hands and then knotted his fingers as if he was about to pray.

I laughed.

“Did I say something funny?” he asked.

“I guess the
Chronicle
was right,” I said. “You really don’t have any new leads, do you?”

“The way I see it, you might have had a motive to kill him; and you could easily have facilitated the opportunity.”

“And the other killings? You want me to provide an alibi for those murders, too?”

“Right now, I’m only talking about one murder.”

“Well, thanks, buddy.”

He looked momentarily sheepish. “I don’t say you did do it, Martins. Merely that you could have done it.”

“Fair enough. But where do you want to go with this?”

Harlan shook his head. “I could bring you in for questioning.”

“You could at that. And just so as you know, I’m waiving my rights. As a favor to an old colleague. I can’t afford a lawyer anyway.”

“Gil, you look good for this murder.”

“That’s going to play well with the media. When all else fails, accuse one of your own.”

“You walked into Van Der Velden’s church wearing a gun.”

“Didn’t you ever take your gun to Lakewood?”

“Maybe.”

“I know I did. My wife used to tick me off for it. Besides, I wasn’t the only one at Clear Lake wearing a hog’s leg. Dr. Van Der Velden had a bodyguard. Although not so as you would have noticed. Not on Tuesday anyway. Guy named Frank Fitzgerald. You might like to run a few checks on him. Claims he’s Homeland Security when he’s not moonlighting as the pastor’s tough guy.”

“Frank Fitzgerald, huh? I didn’t even know Van Der Velden
had
a bodyguard.”

“I would imagine he’s lying low right now. Out of professional embarrassment. Or maybe he’s just worried about getting thrown out of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

“Uh-huh. HPD found the probable weapon. Twenty-two-caliber Walther. Same as all the others. It was in a laundry basket at the club alongside a pair of evidence gloves.”

“I saw. It was in the paper.”

“They traced the weapon back to Dr. Sara Espinosa. That biologist you knew from the University of Texas in Austin?”

I nodded coolly.

“Dr. Espinosa is missing,” said Harlan, “presumed drowned following an auto accident last month in which she appears to have driven her $300,000 Bentley convertible off the Galveston Causeway into the bay near Virginia Point. That’s not far from where you were living before this place.”

“I know.”

“You don’t happen to know what she was doing in Galveston, do you?”

This was a trick question; I knew he knew the answer. Helen would have told him she’d gone there looking for me.

“On the morning she died? Sure. She turned up at my house claiming she had a stalker at her apartment in Austin. This was about three or four in the morning. She’d been drinking. We talked for a while and I’m afraid I told her I couldn’t help. That it was a police matter. Then she drove away. I didn’t hear about the accident until a while later.”

“Hardly very gallant of you. To let her drive off like that.”

“It was the middle of the night. I wasn’t feeling very gallant, Harlan. Or maybe I should just have called the Galveston PD and let them handle her.”