Passionaries Page 15

  “It’s not the Church we have to worry about,” Agnes quipped.

  “The three of you have a lot of influence. Is this really the image you want out there?”

  “Public relations isn’t our biggest concern either.”

  “Do you know why anyone would want to kill the woman?”

  “No,” Lucy replied.

  “What were the three of you doing there?”

  “Visiting a friend,” Agnes said.

  “If you want to know who killed Perpetua, ask Dr. Frey,” Cecilia shouted, unable to contain herself any longer. “And ask him about Bill while you’re at it.”

  “Still trashing Frey? What in the hell would he have to do with that old woman?”

  The girls were silent. The last thing they wanted was for the police to find the relic before they did.

  “If the straitjacket fits . . . ,” CeCe retorted.

  “He’s the one releasing lunatics into the streets,” Lucy said. “Into that halfway house along the Gowanus.”

  Murphy pushed back. “Born Again is a joint community initiative between the hospital, the city, and the Church. Everyone in there is prescreened for violent or antisocial behavior.”

  “Who screens them?” Agnes asked.

  “Psychiatric department at Perpetual Help.”

  “So, Frey?” Cecilia concluded sarcastically for him.

  “Smells almost as bad as the canal,” Agnes said.

  “It’s the most successful rehab program in the city. Getting people back on their feet,” Murphy said. “The place is monitored twenty-four-seven.”

  “Look at you. Spitting back talking points from a goddamn city press release,” CeCe said.

  Lucy was unimpressed. She chipped away at the detective’s defensiveness. “Funny how everyone gets to do fund-raisers for it and score political points and congratulate themselves.”

  “Isn’t that how you make a living?” he replied snidely.

  “Only if there’s a photographer.”

  “Saint for sale,” he said. “How holy.”

  “I think you have saints mixed up with angels,” Lucy rejoined.

  “It makes sense about Frey if you just let it,” Agnes said, interrupting Murphy and Lucy trying to one-up each other.

  “Put it in writing,” the captain snorted. “Write the mayor. Or the archbishop if you got a problem. I’m not the zoning board or the complaint department.”

  “No, you’re the police department. Supposedly,” Agnes snapped, showing an uncharacteristic flash of anger and sarcasm.

  He picked up his coffee and his files and started out. “I’m watching you,” Murphy said, frustrated. “That is a threat.”

  He slammed the door, clearly embarrassed.

  “I think we might be getting through to him,” Agnes whispered.

  “Do you think he’s in Frey’s pocket?” Lucy asked.

  “Who knows?” CeCe said wearily. “Either way, I think Agnes is right. We made our point.”

  “Let the cops sniff around for a while,” Lucy agreed. “Time to put some pressure on the doctor for a change.”

  The old man in the white skullcap knelt, deep in prayer, after hours in the Sala Dei Santi, Room of the Saints, of the Borgia Apartment at the Vatican. Long robes trailed over the backs of his red shoes, symbolizing the blood of the martyrs, and down to the marble floor.

  “Holy Father!” a voice called urgently from behind. “Me dispiaci.”

  He raised his head and slowly opened his eyes, focusing on the large fresco of The Disputation of St. Catherine by Pinturicchio before him. He rose and turned to face Cardinal DeCarlo, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the oldest of the nine congregations at the Vatican.

  “Che cosa?” the pope asked.

  The slender man with the sharp nose, thin lips, and sunken eyes untied the leather binder in his hands and rifled through the papers inside, displaying them for the pontiff. Now that Easter week was over, it would be easier, he surmised, to gain the pope’s full attention.

  “The situation we’ve been following in New York has taken a turn,” the papal nuncio explained. “A bad turn.”

  “How so?”

  “The cult around the boy and the survivors has grown.”

  “This is not necessarily a problem, is it?”

  “I fear our silence in this matter has only made things worse.”

  The pope was cool and dispassionate in his assessment as he again reviewed the headlines of Sebastian’s death and subsequent investigation. “This is not the first time we have observed such circumstances. Surely the local authorities and clergy are involved.”

  The nuncio, feeling he was not getting through, handed the pope a brief of the latest news reports.

  “There has been a murder.”

  The Holy Father clasped his hands behind his back and began to walk. The prefect took his arm, whispering the circumstances of the crime and the disappearance of Sebastian’s heart.

  “What do you propose?”

  “That we investigate this blasphemy before more are deceived or injured or killed.”

  “Blasphemy? How do you know it is blasphemy? The intervention of God in the world is the very basis of faith, is it not?”

  The cardinal was silenced by the pope’s challenge, remembering to whom he was speaking. “Of course we believe such things are possible, in miracles—”

  “I didn’t ask what you believe,” the pope interrupted sternly. “I asked how you know.”

  The nuncio continued to argue for his views. “I know that things are spinning out of control and will worsen without our intervention. This is a challenge of the highest order to the primacy of the Church. To your authority.”

  “Yes, we must identify the true enemy and put a stop to this before more are injured or worse.”

  “Then you concur, Holy Father? Someone must be sent.”

  “Yes,” the pope agreed. “Someone reliable.”

  Jesse bit into an apple that he’d bought at the deli across the street from the morgue. He stood around, waiting for Mayfield to take one of his regular cigarette breaks, but there was no sign of the tipster. After a while one of the doors popped open, and Ronnie, a lanky mortuary worker, stepped out.

  Jesse waved and walked over. “Mayfield around?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “A friend.”

  “You don’t look like someone he’d be friends with.”

  “Well, not exactly a friend. More like an acquaintance.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jesse handed over a crisp fifty. “Is he around?”

  “Nah,” the guy replied, pocketing it.

  “Is he working the night shift today or something?”

  “Nah,” the guy said again. “Didn’t show up. Yesterday or today. Boss says he’s toast if he doesn’t turn up tomorrow.”

  “Did he say anything? Was he in trouble?”

  “You know the type,” the guy said. “Drugs. Robbery. In and out of jail. Nuthouses.”

  “Nuthouses?”

  “Rehab. Matter of fact, that’s where I thought you might be from. You look like one of the douchebags that come around here to see him.”

  “Rehab. Like at Perpetual Help?”

  “Yeah. I thought you said you knew him?”

  Jesse ignored the question and pulled out another fifty-dollar bill. “Know where I can find him?”

  Ronnie looked down and tugged at the bill. Testing its authenticity. He held it up to the light, snapped it a few times and slipped it into the pocket of his scrubs.

  “He was living in that group home on the Gowanus.”

  “Was?”

  “He left or got thrown out a little while back.”

  “Why?”

  “He was always talking smack like they were trying to keep him doped up, dependent, and how he wanted to stay clean, start fresh.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “I don’t know, man. I’m not his parole offic
er.”

  “Born Again you said?”

  “Yeah, near where that crazy shit in that church went down a while back. You heard about that, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jesse said. “I heard.”

  “Let’s just say Mayfield ain’t the most reliable type.” Ronnie smiled. “Played everybody.”

  Jesse’s jaw tightened, still unsure if he’d been fooled by Frey or by Mayfield. Or both.

  “You believe he was trying to change his life, stay sober?”

  “Looked like he was doin’ good for a while, but people don’t really change, know what I’m sayin’. They always get you eventually.”

  “Who gets you?”

  “The demons inside.”

  Jesse nodded, reached out for Ronnie’s hand, and shook it.

  “Let me know if he turns up,” Jesse reminded sternly. “Tell him Jesse is looking for him.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that,” Ronnie mocked, laughing and shaking his head as he made his way back inside. “Whatcha gonna do when you find him?”

  Jesse smiled back at him and winked. He sensed a chance at redemption. For being fooled. Putting the girls in danger. For Perpetua. For losing the heart.

  “I’m gonna kill him.”

  Martha pushed her way through the expectant crowd outside the precinct, shouting for her child. Agnes didn’t need to be notified that her mother had arrived; she could hear her through the barred and tinted windows of the stationhouse.

  “Agnes!”

  Agnes looked at Cecilia and Lucy for some moral support, but their sympathetic frowns did little to relieve her anxiety. The closer Martha came to the doorway, the louder her shouts became.

  “Did she have to be notified?” Agnes asked of the officer assigned to her.

  “Sorry, it’s the law,” the woman said. “You’re still a minor.”

  Martha barged in. Red faced and nearly hyperventilating with anger.

  “Please, ma’am, keep it down,” the desk sergeant advised as she entered the building. “She’s fine.”

  “Don’t you tell me to keep it down. I demand to see my daughter!”

  Agnes was escorted out and into the vestibule by one of the female police officers, with Lucy and Cecilia close behind. She stood silently, waiting for her mother to notice.

  “I’m here, Mother,” she said, her voice barely audible over Martha’s wretched racket.

  “What are you doing?” Martha screamed. “I’m called down to the police station. Is this what it is has come to?”

  Agnes stepped closer to Martha. Cautiously. “Stop it, Mother. You’re embarrassing me.”

  “You’re sitting here in a jail cell and I’m embarrassing you?” Martha spewed.

  “Are you done?” Agnes said calmly, trying to defuse the situation.

  “No, I’m not done,” she fumed, pointing her finger accusingly at Lucy and Cecilia. “I blame you two for this. For dragging her into this, filling her head with this nonsense.”

  Cecilia and Lucy swallowed hard, feeling bad for Agnes.

  “Mrs. Fremont,” Lucy began to explain in Agnes’s defense, “we—”

  “Not another word. I’ve heard about the two of you,” Martha said, turning away from Lucy and toward the desk sergeant. “Show me your friends and I’ll show you who you are!”

  “I’m so sorry,” Agnes mouthed at them as her mother took her by the arm and dragged her out of the precinct house.

  Lucy and Cecilia stared out at Agnes and Martha as the crowd parted to let them pass.

  “Tough bitch,” Cecilia said.

  “Yeah,” Lucy remarked. “Wish I had one.”

  Dr. Frey nodded to the overnight janitor as he approached the elevator. Frey was his usual spry self. One arm full of folders, the other carrying a black satchel. The janitor looked up from his mop and bucket. “Good evening, Doctor.”

  “Good evening,” Frey replied.

  “You have a visitor.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  The janitor returned to mopping, and Frey stepped into the elevator car and rode it to the top floor.

  He walked past reception, down the long hallway to his office. He could see a man sitting, his back to the office door. Frey rushed into the room and placed his folders and bag down on the desk before taking his seat. “Captain.”

  “Doctor.”

  “What can I do for you a this late hour?”

  The doctor shuffled through some papers, all but dismissing his visitor.

  “I thought this might be a good time to talk,” Murphy suggested, “since you haven’t returned any of my calls during office hours.”

  “Office hours? This is a hospital not a bank, Detective. I’m paid to attend to my patients and the business of the facility at all times. One must prioritize.”

  Murphy chafed at the suggestion that a call from law enforcement wasn’t very high on Frey’s list. “Has anyone ever told you that you are an arrogant man?”

  “Yes, but I assume you didn’t come here to insult me.”

  “We’re having trouble with Born Again.”

  “You mean you are. It seems to be working quite well for the rest of us.”

  “Not exactly. Two of the patients released are dead, and a horrific crime in the vicinity of the house also raises questions.”

  “Yes, I read about that. Awful.”

  “There are a lot of sick people in the world.”

  “I understand you brought the girls in for questioning?”

  “Informally, yes.”

  “I didn’t realize the police did anything informally.”

  Murphy shrugged off the doctor’s diss. “You sound disappointed. Do you think they actually had something to do with it?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time that ritual murders or even suicides, human sacrifice and the like occur under circumstances like these, where cults are involved.”

  “That’s quite a leap Dr. Frey. Ritual killing. Cults. I’ve seen no evidence of that.”

  “Well, that might be because you’re not looking.”

  “With all due respect, you have no idea where I’m looking. Every possibility is being investigated.”

  Frey looked away from the detective and out his office window at the top of Perpetual Help. He gazed over at what remained of the tower of the Church of the Precious Blood. “People expect psychiatrists to be magicians, Detective, but my job is not that complicated. It requires neither the years of training demanded by the medical board nor particular insight into the human mind. What it does require is the ability to see what is in front of you, plainly, dispassionately, without bias.”

  “And what is it you see, Doctor?”

  “In Cecilia, Lucy, and Agnes, I see three very sick girls. I’ve made no secret of that.”

  “Well, word on the street is that some see three saints.”

  Frey smiled. “And the difference is?”

  “Careful, Doctor. You’re talking to a parochial school graduate.”

  “My point exactly, Detective Murphy. The fact that you could repeat such a ludicrous observation with any seriousness is why those three are still on the street and not in treatment.”

  “Under your care of course.”

  “Ideally, yes. I do have an ego and they present a unique challenge.”

  “The same challenge as Sebastian?”

  “Do you know where saints would be today Detective? Right out there.” Frey pointed to the ward just beyond his office door. “Committed. Observed. Medicated. Cured in most cases. Prevented from becoming a danger to themselves or others. Not talking to animals, vomiting as retribution, or standing on one leg for years to prove the existence of God to the uninformed and superstitious. They would be treated.”

  “That was the plan for Sebastian, I assume. Personality management.”

  “Indeed, for his own good and the good of the general public. And you see what happened once he escaped? Mayhem. Death.”

  “Which brings us back to Born Again.”
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  “I’m sorry, but that has nothing to do with me.”

  “The girls seem to feel differently.”

  “And you believe them?” Frey huffed. “If you intend to accuse me of such things, you’d better have good evidence, and a good lawyer.”

  “Those addicts were released on your authority.”

  “No, those former addicts were released based upon an established set of criteria, approved by the hospital board, the city, and even our community sponsors.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me about either of them?” Murphy asked, handing over a file on each.

  Frey thumbed through them casually. “Not really,” he said. “The usual. Bad habits, bad choices.”

  “Then what are they doing out on the street?”

  “We don’t warehouse substance abusers anymore, like returned packages in a dead-letter office, Captain. We treat them to the best of our ability, with the best medical technology, medications, and cognitive therapies at our disposal, and return them to society. We seek to rehabilitate them.”

  “Not everyone can be rehabilitated, Doctor, or should be,” Murphy countered. “The jails are full of the consequences of their bad decisions. And the cemeteries.”

  “You were saying there was a murder?”

  “An old woman in the neighborhood. Odd thing is, she knew Sebastian. She was one of the protesters outside the church.”

  “Tragic, but some of these people are attracting a lot attention to themselves. It’s not difficult to imagine them being followed home, robbed, killed.”

  “This wasn’t a robbery homicide, Doctor. This was personal. Whoever did this was gloating, wanted to send a message.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t reading too much into this, Captain?” Frey said. “Getting caught up in it all?”

  “Hmm? ‘Reading too much into this?” That’s a strange comment coming from a psychiatrist,” Murphy said.

  “Not everything is a mystery,” Frey said.

  “I just can’t figure what those girls were doing there.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Those girls are delusional. As bad as Sebastian. Probably worse. And they are walking around scot-free.”

  “They aren’t guilty of anything criminal. If anything, they are victims of Sebastian. Traumatized. Sick. You just said so yourself.”