VC03 - Mortal Grace (28 page)

“You can judge that better than me.” Cardozo took a last delicious forkful of steak. “You’ve had more dealings with Counselor Strauss than I have.”

In the mirrored, softly lit restaurant around them, businessmen’s voices made a continuous murmur. Thoms leaned back to let the waiter take his plate. He’d eaten only half his shad roe.

“Strauss says you’ve been nagging him, pestering his client.”

“All I wanted was ten minutes with Martin Barth.”

“Strauss says you’ve been trying to hang every murdered runaway in the last three years on Barth. You’ve been digging up unrelated cases.”

“The murders of Richie Vegas and Wally Wills are very closely related. You might call them identical siblings.”

“Related to what?”

“Ms. Basket Case.”

For a moment Thoms wasn’t saying anything. And then, “Ms. Basket Case was closed over a year ago.”

“Just hear me out.”

“Are you giving me a choice?” Thoms lit a Benson & Hedges filter king.

“Look at the points in common.” Cardozo held up fingers, itemizing. “Three Caucasian teenage runaways. Dismembered. Abandoned in public areas in identical Styrobaskets. Identical acrylic gray shag rug fiber and incense were found on the victims’ clothing.”

Thoms exhaled one smoke ring and then a second. “You’re talking like a headline writer for the
Enquirer.
This is shit and you know it—coincidences, not links.”

“Nine points are common to two out of three victims. First, alcohol and cocaine in the blood.”

“Vince, this is fucking trivial!”

“But six points
aren’t
trivial: A matzolike substance was found in the mouths of all three. The feet and wrists were tied with leather belts. The victims were beaten—”

The lines grooving Harvey Thoms’s mouth deepened into angry furrows. “So help me, Vince, if your reason for going after Martin Barth after all these months is matzo balls and belts—”

“Their skin was burned with wax. Cocaine was injected, not snorted or smoked—
injected.
And one similarity is light-years beyond coincidence: traces of azidofluoramine in the liver.”

“What the hell’s azido—”

“Antipanic medication. The FDA has okayed it for testing, but it’s not available to the public.”

Harvey Thoms’s bifocals began tapping on the white linen tablecloth. “Granting any or all of these points…it still doesn’t add up to a case. Not in the sense the D.A. uses that word.”

“I’ve saved the best for last.” Cardozo waited for the waiter to bring their coffee. “Martin Barth confessed to all three killings.”

There wasn’t the slightest flicker of a reaction on Harvey Thoms’s face. “Who says?”

“The detectives who handled the murders.”

“I can’t fucking believe this. Barth says he killed
three
? Give me those case numbers.”

“You won’t find the confessions. I checked the records. There’s nothing in the computer.”

Thoms threw down his napkin. “Okay. You’ve got nothing. You’ve got Strauss in an uproar and you’re going to get my office in hot water for nothing.”

“Barth’s confession to Ms. Basket Case isn’t in the computer either.”

Thoms’s stare was like an upraised fist warning Cardozo to stay back. “What the hell are you telling me? What’s your point? Barth’s been playing with the attorney general’s computers?”

“I’m not sure Barth killed any of those kids.”

“We went through this a year and a half ago.” For that one instant Thoms’s eyes seemed to focus on a point far beyond the mirrored walls of the restaurant. “Why would he confess?”

“To close the cases.”

“Why would he care?”

“Someone else cares.”

“Who’s this someone else? Who’s Barth helping? Why’s he helping?”

“I haven’t got all the answers yet.” Cardozo stirred his coffee. “But we found photographs of three dead kids in Father Montgomery’s file—Vegas and Wills and the alleged housebreaker, Pablo Cespedes.”

A sudden electricity charged the space between Cardozo and Thoms.

A thin smile bent the A.D.A.’s mouth. “Just like the anonymous note said.” Thoms slid ramrod-straight to the edge of his chair. “Then you think Montgomery is behind the killings?”

“A year and a half ago you didn’t want to hear this.”

“A year and a half ago I could have been wrong. I could be wrong now. So could you.”

“Right now a team of detectives is running down the other names in that file. There may be others missing or dead.”

“It could be Montgomery.” A glow came into Thoms’s face. “A presentable case could be made. We don’t know for a fact when he set that booby trap. We don’t know for a fact he was mugged in the park three weeks before the break-in.”

“There wasn’t a break-in.”

Their eyes connected.

“Hey.” Thoms snapped a finger. “What if…Montgomery invited this Cespedes kid into the rectory. Made a pass at him, tried to get him to do drugs and s/m. The kid freaked. In the struggle Montgomery was blinded and the kid was killed.” Thoms raised his coffee cup. “That kind of scenario I could take to a grand jury.”

Cardozo told himself that this would be an excellent opportunity to keep his mouth shut. He lifted his cup.

Two cups clinked.

Thoms took a long, thoughtful swallow. “Who wrote the note?”

“We haven’t got the handwriting analysis yet.”

“You know what would be beautiful? If his assistant, the woman priest—if she wrote it, if she knows what he’s done and she’s ready to blow the whistle on him.” It was a little less than a statement, but a lot more than a question. “What do you think?”

“It’s going to be hard getting Bonnie Ruskay to testify against Father Montgomery. Maybe impossible.”

“Why’s that?”

“She worships him.”

“Pablo was doing okay.” Sy Jencks opened the manila file marked
CESPEDES, P.
He spread several of the sheets out on his desk. He stared at them, chest softly heaving. He had the squint lines of a Marine drill instructor and he wore his hair in a brush cut that was going gray. “Pablo was what the juvenile probation system considers a good bet. Never missed an appointment. Since release, never used drugs, so far as we knew. Had no bad associates, so far as we knew. Committed no infractions, so far as we knew.”

Cardozo’s ballpoint skittered across the sheets of his notepad. He flipped a sheet.

“He was in therapy at a city-funded project called Operation Second Chance, and so far as we knew he was doing well there too.”

Cardozo glanced up. “Second Chance is the outfit that rehabilitates young offenders?”

“All of my probationees go there.” There was a wry suggestion of a grin in Sy Jencks’s pale brown eyes. “They have to. It’s the law.”

“And you say Pablo was keeping out of trouble—so far as you knew.”

Sy Jencks pushed back his swivel chair. He gazed up at the ceiling. The cinderblock walls of his office had been painted industrial gray, but the overhead fluorescent lights tinted them a pale flickering green.

“Pablo was one of our stars. If you look at the stats, it seems very unlikely Pablo would turn housebreaker. He doesn’t fit the profile. He wasn’t an antisocial kid. He wasn’t a violent kid.”

“What kind of kid was he?”

“If anything, I’d say he was creative, solution-oriented; to coin the old cliché, a sensitive loner. Sure, he had a street veneer, but it didn’t go deep. In his heart of hearts, Pablo was scared shitless of the streets.”

“What was he on probation for?”

“He broke into a store and stole a guitar. Can you beat that? One stupid guitar. And he wasn’t that good of a thief. Eight people heard the alarm, saw this skinny kid running with a guitar. Cops caught him in three minutes.” Sy Jencks shrugged. His torso must have thickened since he’d bought his plaid cotton shirt, because the buttons were straining to stay shut. “First offense.”

“What do you know about the friend he spent his last night with, this Andy fellow?”

The black telephone on the desk let out a series of piercing rings. Sy Jencks waited for it to stop and then he lifted the receiver and laid it on the desk top. “Pablo never mentioned any Andy to me.”

“Then if he wasn’t in his foster home, where would he spend the night?”

“Where do any of them spend the night? The streets.” A lot of anger, a lot of sadness seemed to be tamped down in Sy Jencks’s voice. “Or hustle a bed from some chicken hawk.”

“Did Pablo ever mention Father Joe Montgomery at St. Andrew’s Church? Or Reverend Bonnie Ruskay?”

“No, not to me.”

“Father Montgomery served on the board of Operation Second Chance. There’s a possibility Pablo could have met him there.”

“Anything’s possible, but Pablo never mentioned it to me.”

“Did he ever mention any chicken hawks?”

Sy Jencks shook his head. “I was his probation officer; for me he had to be straight and narrow. If anything like that was going on, he might have told his therapist. Therapy talk is privileged.”

“Who’s his therapist?”

“Paula Moseley, at Operation Second Chance.”

“
The
Paula Moseley—Douglas Moseley’s wife?”

“I take it you’ve met the bitch?”

THIRTY-SEVEN

C
ARDOZO PROPPED HIS NYPD
placard in the windshield and stepped out of the car.

Above the smoothly flowing traffic of East Eightieth Street, the headquarters of Operation Second Chance shimmered like a Renaissance mirage. A bronze plaque beside the entrance said the town house had been built by the Astors and once occupied by them. Inside, Cardozo saw that they’d left their chandeliers and marble statues behind.

A young man led him to a small elevator and took him upstairs to Paula Moseley’s office.

She was all crisp hospitality. “How nice to see you again, Vince.”

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Moseley.”

“Please. Call me Paula.”

He looked around the tall-windowed room with its signed Jasper Johns lithos. “Beautiful office.”

“Thanks. I believe the work environment should be like home. It relaxes the patients.”

Cardozo tried to imagine street kids pouring out their gut aches in a three thousand dollar custom-built chair from the “Home” section of the
New York Times.
He wondered which city budget had furnished Paula Moseley’s office. Which bureaucrat’s brother-in-law had pocketed the 100 percent markup and the 20 percent kickback.

“I need to ask you some questions about Pablo Cespedes.”

“Yes. Poor Pablo. Won’t you sit?”

They sat in armchairs near the window. He had a sense that the meter was ticking, that this was a stall to eat up the minutes till her next patient came in.

“Pablo was killed breaking into St. Andrew’s rectory.”

Her big green eyes did surprise marvelously. “I had no idea of the circumstances. I’m astonished. Pablo wasn’t a criminal.”

Cardozo asked if Pablo had been involved in a sexual relationship.

“I’m sure he was sexually active, but he never mentioned any particular relationship to me.”

“Did he ever prostitute himself with men?”

“He was pretty open with me, and he never mentioned anything like that. He did say something about three-way sex with a woman and a man. It sounded a little shady to me. The man had some connection with the entertainment industry. Pablo wrote songs and performed them. Supposedly the man was going to help him break into TV and music videos.” Paula was silent. She did thoughtfulness very well too. “In fact, at our last session, Pablo said he was waiting for an audition with this person.”

“Could this man possibly have been Father Joe Montgomery?”

“No way.” Paula Moseley’s eyes blazed. “Father Joe is a man of absolute personal integrity. I can personally vouch for that.”

“Was Pablo acquainted with Father Montgomery?”

“I’d very much doubt it.”

“Isn’t it a possibility? Father Joe served on the board here, Pablo came here for counseling.”

“Father Joe never came here. I frankly doubt that his path ever crossed with Pablo’s.”

“Did Pablo ever mention Reverend Bonnie Ruskay?”

“Never. I doubt he knew her.”

“Apparently he told you a great deal about himself.”

“Pablo was an extremely intelligent, funny, charming, and strange young man. He had enormous potential. He understood that the therapeutic process rests on trust, and yes, he told me practically everything about himself.”

“Was he doing any drugs?”

“Absolutely not. He’d been clean and dry since his trial.”

In the light of that reply and the drugs that had shown up in Pablo’s autopsy, Cardozo had to wonder how well Paula Moseley knew her patients.

A buzzer sounded.

“You’ll have to excuse me. My next patient is here. This has been delightful. Can we continue another time?”

“Sure.” Cardozo rose. “Another time.”

Cardozo sat at his desk in his shirtsleeves and winced. On the small TV screen, Pablo Cespedes whipped a guitar he had not bothered to tune. Grinning from sideburn to sideburn, he chanted,
I am God, I am God, God is in me….

“What
is
that racket?” Ellie asked from the doorway.

“Your tax dollars at work. Pablo Cespedes performing his own material. Apparently he thought he could get backers to put up the money for a cabaret act.”

“Well, it’s an alternative to holding up guitar shops.”

“Barely. And if you think that’s awful…” Cardozo stopped the tape and slipped another into the VCR.

An image came up on the screen: Father Joe Montgomery in drag—draped boa, slinking snakeskin, and a Marilyn wig—singing “Anything Goes.” Cutaways showed a bespectacled Phil Donahue strolling with a mike and a tolerant-liberal smile through a largely female studio audience.

Ellie stared, small-eyed and for just an instant dumbstruck. “What the hell was he doing on
Donahue
?”

“Publicizing one of his shows, educating the public about transvestism—all the usual Christian good works.”

Ellie seemed to succumb to a kind of fascination. She angled the straight-backed chair toward the screen and sat and watched. It was as though she was mentally dissecting every toss of the wig, each flipped wrist and wiggled hip. “You know, the scariest thing about that man is—he’s not bad.”