The Darker Side (36 page)

“Nature of the beast,” Alan says.

“Have any of them mentioned the victims’ Catholic connection?”

“No. Only the Preacher’s.”

“Good.”

I brief them all on my conversation with AD Jones and my proposed handling of the confessional information.

“Probably the best move,” Alan agrees. “They’re a little touchy about scandals.”

“My mother is Catholic,” James says, out of nowhere. “She loves going to confession. The idea of someone violating that would kill her. The big question now is, how is he doing it?”

“Finish making that list.”

“AGENT BARRETT?”

I’d answered a call on my cell phone from a number I didn’t recognize.

“Yes?”

“This is Cardinal Adam Ross. Of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles?”

“Oh. Hello, Cardinal.” I frown. “Is ‘cardinal’ the correct form of address?”

“Cardinal is fine. So is Adam, if you like.”

“Let’s stick with cardinal, then. How can I help you?”

“I think that question goes both ways, Agent Barrett. I received a call about ten minutes ago from the Director of the FBI. A very disturbing call. I’m in my car on the way to your office right now. Can you see me?”

The man’s manners are impeccable in spite of the obvious tension in his voice. I had expected imperious; he’s the picture of politeness.

“I’ll be here, Cardinal.”

AD JONES WHISTLES. “THAT WAS
fast. I got off the phone with the Director less than a half hour ago.”

“How did that go?”

“He agrees with your plan. He says to keep it under wraps permanently if at all possible.”

“Do you know Cardinal Ross, sir?”

“I’ve never met him. I’m not exactly the churchgoing type. But if he’s on the Director’s speed dial, he’s a mover and a shaker. Try and treat him accordingly.”

“We play well with others as long as they return the favor, sir.”

“ISN’T CARDINAL ONE OF THE
stepping-stones on the road to wearing the Pope hat?” Callie asks.

“Technically, any Catholic male who fit the criteria could become Pope,” James says. “In practice, it’s reserved for the cardinals. The last time a non-cardinal was elected Pope was 1378.”

“How does someone become a cardinal?” I ask.

“You’re appointed by the Pope. They’re called ‘the princes of the church.’ It’s a big deal, obviously, and it comes after years of service. You’d be a priest first, then probably an auxiliary bishop, then a full bishop and then an archbishop—which is also a position appointed by the Pope. Cardinals are then chosen from the archbishops.

“The cardinal electors are the most powerful individuals in the Catholic Church other than the Pope himself. They appoint the new Pope when the old one dies. There are usually about a hundred twenty of them, which is a very, very small per capita when you consider the overall size of the Catholic Church. Roughly one or two cardinals per eight or nine million Catholics.”

“I’d imagine they have a direct line to the Pope?” I ask.

“Yes.”

This gives me a better picture of the man who’s on his way up in the elevator to see me. He’ll be smart, hard-nosed, and used to the accoutrement of power and command. Most important, for our purposes, he’ll be someone who can make decisions and issue orders that others will listen to.

Hopefully he’s not an asshole.

“Do you think they wear anything under those robes?” Callie asks.

“Slacks, dear, we wear slacks.”

We turn to the voice, which is as rich and baritone as any of us could have imagined coming from a cardinal.

Cardinal Ross is very tall, nearly six foot four. He’s got silver hair and is thin, though not unhealthily so. He has a long face to go with his height, and while it’s not unattractive, it has recorded the years. I estimate his age at just over sixty. He has dark eyes that sweep over us with a certain weight, a definite gravitas. He’s dressed in simple clerical black; slacks, shirt, jacket, and the white collar with a large silver cross hanging down. The simplicity of his garments don’t lessen his presence; the man fills the room.

He’s come alone, it seems, which surprises me.

I hold out my hand. “Welcome, Cardinal.”

He takes the hand and shakes it, smiling down at me as he does. He holds the grip for a little longer than needed, letting his eyes take in my scars.

“Thank you for having me.”

I introduce him to the rest of my team. He looks around the office with some interest.

“So you catch murderers here.”

“We try, yes.”

He walks over to the dry-erase board, examines the names. Paces around the desks, nodding in what seems like approval.

“The most important jobs always seem to get done in the humblest surroundings.” He glances our way and smiles. “Before anyone takes offense, I’m not knocking your offices. I mean it as a compliment.”

“We’re a simple folk,” Callie drawls.

“Somehow I think that statement is both true and false, Agent Thorne. You have a narrowness of focus and a terrible simplicity of purpose, but you understand complexities of evil that are beyond me.”

Callie grins. “You can certainly lay it on thick.”

He laughs. It’s a nice laugh. Rich and unself-conscious. “Occupational hazard. I’m not being dishonest with my praise, I assure you.”

“That’s nice, but can we cut to the chase?” James asks.

He’s put my own words to voice, though with more hostility than I’d have liked. Cardinal Ross takes it in stride, unruffled.

“Indeed. Your Director called me. He briefed me on your suspicions regarding this man bugging our confessionals. I’m sorry to ask, but can you please explain how you came to this conclusion?”

I tell him about the Preacher, still holding back on the matter of the crosses in the wounds. I mention the conversation with Father Yates, his unspoken confirmation regarding Rosemary Sonnenfeld. Cardinal Ross rubs his forehead when I am done, and looks very, very troubled.

“Do you mind if I sit down?”

Alan gives him a chair.

“I understand. And agree, of course. There’s no other way he could have known. This is terrible, terrible, terrible. If this got out it would shake the faithful badly.”

“You sure you’re not just worried about more lawsuits?” James sneers. “Your church did a fine job of hiding pedophiles for many years.”

“James!” I snap.

The cardinal holds up a hand. “No, Agent Barrett. I’ve come to accept that I deserve any chastisement about that matter sent my way. I never personally hid a pedophile priest, but members of my church did, and it was shameful. My concern isn’t with public relations, in spite of what you might think. This is a matter of faith. Have any of you ever given confession?”

“I have,” I say. “But not since I was younger.”

Alan keeps his face bland at my little white lie.

“Not me,” Callie says. “A good thing too. I’d have made some poor priest blush.”

James doesn’t reply.

“Can you imagine how you’d feel if you found out someone besides your priest and God was listening in? It goes beyond scandal—it is a violation of one of the most basic, beautiful, and trusted bastions of Catholicism. Priests have died rather than break the seal of confession.”

“Cardinal,” I say, “we’re not on a crusade here. We don’t need to make this public. What we do need is cooperation and access.”

“You’ll get it, of course. You’d get it regardless. But I do appreciate the reassurances. The truth is, it will come out sooner or later. I’m sure someone else will consider the facts as you did and come to the same conclusion. What you will be giving me is time.”

“It wouldn’t hurt if the man responsible was captured either,” I point out.

“I can’t deny the truth of that. What do you need from me?”

“We’ve made a list of all the victims and have cross-referenced their geographical locations with nearby churches. I need to reach every one of these churches, and I need to find out if these victims were parishioners. Once we confirm they were, we need to speak to the priest in charge and see if they remember our man.”

“I can provide you with three members of my staff immediately. They can make the call and tell each priest to cooperate fully, and then pass the phone to you.”

I blink, taken aback.

“That’d be perfect.”

“I’ll arrange it the moment I leave.”

35

JEZEBEL, CALLIE, ALAN, AND JAMES ARE IN THE PHONE ROOM
with the three priests the cardinal provided us. I observed for a little while. The cardinal’s men are all business, no questions; serious men, used to serious tasks. They are there to do what they’ve been told to do.

There’s a definite “when I say jump…” phenomenon within the church hierarchy, apparently. The cardinal’s men would call and get someone on the phone without much delay. They’d relay in terse words that they were passing the phone to a member of the FBI and that the priest at the other end was to answer any and all questions. One of my guys would take the phone and do the interview. They’d pass it back to the cardinal’s man, who’d make it clear that not a word was to be spoken about this, ever. Then they’d hang up. Simple, no muss, fuss, or complaints.

I’ve left them to it and taken a moment for myself inside the now empty Death Central. So much change has happened in the last few days. I’ve flown apart and come back together again. The Preacher let the world know he existed and I’ve followed his trail to the dark of the confessional booths.

I need a moment to step back, to look at the forest, not the trees. I need to try and see the man we’re after.

He is smart. His ideas are not new, but his take on them has depth, care, a certain reverence. He’s not hiding another motive behind the words he’s saying. He believes them, they are what drives him.

So what are those words?

They come down to truth, lies, and sin, and they are wrapped in religious significance. He hasn’t taken a philosopher’s path, where truth is a generality. His take on truth revolves around the specificity of salvation. What does it tell me?

He was raised Catholic.

I nod to myself. Yes. He grew up around the imagery, the back and forth of guilt and worry and hope mixed with mild self-loathing and self-forgiveness. He grew up seeing Christ on the cross and with the obligation to feel something about that.

Fine. Why, then, does he need to tell the world about it?

Because he thinks the world is not listening.

The world? No. That’s the visible manifestation. We’re dealing with a serial killer here. This isn’t a man who had a strong belief and devoted himself to getting the word out. This is a man who’s spent twenty years or more looking for those with the worst secrets so he could murder them on camera. However you slice it, whatever the supposed belief system constructed around it, murder is still always an act of anger. It may or may not be anger at the person being murdered. In fact, in the case of serial killers, it’s most often misplaced rage. Mom or Dad, killed over and over and over again.

Someone or something was not listening at some point in his life. Someone or something intimate to him, someone or something important and entwined with his sense of self. The consequences of this angered him, and now he’s making sure that this particular message never gets swept under the carpet again.

What’s the message?

Simple words. He’s said them in various ways; I hear them now like a bell:
Don’t lie to God.

There’s a flaw in his logic, I realize, a huge, gaping hole in his argument: the people he’s murdered had already confessed their sins. They’d done what he said they should, they’d knelt down in the confessional and they’d struggled with the words until they found the courage to say them.

Maybe he doesn’t consider that his victims were flawed. Perhaps they weren’t examples of what not to do, but examples of what should be done. Maybe the fact that they’d already confessed and were thus guaranteed a place in heaven let him kill without guilt, provided him with the system of rationalization he needed to violate that commandment we all seem to agree on: thou shalt not kill.

Or maybe, I think, this is where the rubber leaves the road with him. Maybe this is where he stops making sense and starts making crazy. He’s built himself a church of ideas, but it was built on murder, with the bones of his victims.

Maybe, I think, for all his speeches about truth, he’s the one lying the most.

I smile at this idea. I like the idea of him failing himself and his principles. I like it a lot.

You’re no different. I look at all these names, and that’s what I really see. Just like all the monsters; you’re not talking to God, you’re not talking to me, in the end, you’re talking to someone you used to know, and however much you scream, they’ll probably never listen.

IT’S TEN O’CLOCK. EVERYONE IS
back at Death Central, listening as James briefs us on the results of the phone calls.

“We were able to confirm specific churches for approximately ninety percent of victims killed within the last five years. Beyond five years the percentages go down because the priest running the church has changed.”