by Philip Kerr
“It’s early days, sir. I’m working on a number of possibilities.”
“Look, would you mind if I said a short prayer for her?”
The pastor bowed his head and closed his eyes, which gave me an opportunity to study him more closely.
“Almighty Father, eternal God, hear our prayers for your daughter Gaynor Allitt, whom you have called from this life to yourself. Grant her happiness and peace. Let her pass in safety through the gates of death and live forever with all your saints in the light you promised to Abraham and all his descendants in faith. And on that great day of resurrection and reward we know is coming soon, God, raise Gaynor up with all your saints. Pardon her sins and give her eternal life in your heavenly kingdom. We ask this through Christ our Lord, amen.”
“Amen,” I said. That was for appearance’s sake only. I hardly wanted the pastor thinking of me as badly as my own wife did, not while I hoped to get some information about Gaynor Allitt.
The pastor opened his eyes and then nodded in a way that made you think he really had been speaking to God. He was one of those rare ministers of the church who possess that gift and who made it so much easier for you to believe because he believed with such irresistible force; and when he smiled, it was like he was smiling because he’d felt the power of God’s love and forgiveness. I almost envied him the apparent strength of his faith and, by extension, I felt a little twinge of shame and regret as I recalled my earlier cynical assessment of his character and calling. The man was more sincere than I had imagined.
“What can I do to help you, Agent Martins?”
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Fitzgerald again, if I may, since—by his own account—he knew her better than you. Having said that, it’s incumbent on me to explain just how the Bureau comes to be involved in this case.”
“Yes, I must admit, I was wondering that myself.” He pointed at a long curving sofa that completed the circle begun by his desk. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable and tell me all about it and then I’ll have Frank answer your questions?”
I told Van Der Velden how I’d been investigating the sudden deaths of Clifford Richardson, Peter Ekman, Willard Davidoff, and Philip Osborne; and how Gaynor Allitt had confessed to killing Osborne with prayer.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Did you just tell me that she said she’d killed someone with prayer?”
“That’s right.”
“Prayer to whom, exactly?”
“To God.” I shrugged. “At first we were inclined to treat her as a harmless crank. We get a lot of that kind of thing in law enforcement. But clearly she believed what she told us. And in all other respects she was rational. Which is why, when we released her from custody this morning, we decided to keep her under surveillance. You see, it was also clear that she was very afraid of someone. God, perhaps. I don’t know. Anyway, that might be why she killed herself.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Van Der Velden. He was picking his words with care now. “She actually said that she had prayed for the death of this man, Philip Osborne. I assume you mean the journalist and writer.”
I nodded.
“Did she explain why she had it in for him?”
“Because he was ungodly. I guess you could say because he was one of the unrighteous you mentioned in your sermon. Those who are condemned like it says in the Book of Revelation.”
“But you don’t actually believe that Mr. Osborne was killed by prayer?”
“No. This is just a trail of smoke and we’re looking to see if there’s a real fire underneath it. We thought it might be possible that there was some connection between Osborne’s death and those three others I mentioned. That someone might have been involved in a more practical way. I know it sounds as if we’re grasping at straws. But Gaynor Allitt did seem to know a lot more about Philip Osborne’s death than had been in the newspapers.”
“Did she leave a note?”
“Nope.”
“Did she mention this church?”
“No. Actually she was keen to leave your church out of things. I only found out about you because this address is listed as a favorite destination on her car’s satellite navigation system.”
“You were at the service,” said Van Der Velden, “so I hope you’ll forgive me if I remind you that we pray for people at the Izrael Church of Good Men and Good Women, not against them. We’re an evangelical church, Agent Martins. We believe in the same kind of things they do over at Lakewood.”
“That was certainly my impression, sir.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. You know, prayer is absolutely fundamental to the Christian. There’s a poem by an Anglican clergyman named R.S. Thomas that I kind of admire. It’s called ‘Folk Tale,’ and one of its lines reads: ‘Prayers like gravel flung at the sky’s window, hoping to attract the loved one’s attention.’ Which puts it very well, I think. God knows everything already. He probably knows what I’m going to pray about before the words are out of my heart. You hope he’ll listen—that maybe you can change his mind about something. Once in a while, I figure, he hears my prayer and maybe answers it, too. That’s my faith. But most of the time I figure he knows what’s right for me and doesn’t pay any attention to my prayers. Most of the time, I think, I’m just flinging gravel at God’s window. I guess what I’m saying is this, Agent Martins: It’s hard to imagine anyone using prayer as a lethal weapon. It would be more than a little impertinent for us to believe that we could call on God like those Old Testament prophets and bring destruction on our enemies. You see what I’m talking about? I don’t doubt the power of God is more lethal than any man-made weapon, but I do doubt that it’s a power that anyone but someone like Moses or Joshua is equipped for or, more accurately, is granted the right to handle. I also have to wonder what kind of God would answer such a prayer as the one Gaynor Allitt claimed to have made. If I might quote another English poet, C. S. Lewis? ‘May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’ Frankly, I’m not at all sure who might answer the kind of prayer Gaynor Allitt claimed she made. But I’m absolutely sure it couldn’t have been our father in heaven.”
The pastor went to fetch Frank Fitzgerald. He was gone awhile.
For a moment or two, I glanced over the magazines on his coffee table; these were more inclined to the intellectual than the spiritual: Forbes, The New Yorker, Scientific American. Then I amused myself by looking at all the books on his shelves. Some of them appeared to be in Hebrew, which convinced me that, unless they were merely for show, Nelson Van Der Velden really had studied scripture in Israel, and not just Christian scripture but Jewish scripture, too. As well as books, there were several framed photographs on the shelves. In one or two of them Van Der Velden was pictured alongside a very old Jewish rabbi, and when the pastor finally returned with Frank Fitzgerald, I asked if the old man was the same Rabbi Kaduri he had mentioned in his sermon.
“Yes. That was taken in Jerusalem not long before Kaduri died. A very remarkable man.”
“Would I be right in thinking that you know a lot about Judaism?”
“My doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley is in comparative religion,” said Van Der Velden, with no small pride. “I wrote my thesis on Judaism and the Kabbalah. Why?”
I took out my phone and found the photographs I’d taken of Gaynor Allitt’s prayer closet.
“You wouldn’t happen to know what this is, would you? In particular, the design on the curtain?”
Van Der Velden looked at my pictures and frowned. “It looks kind of like a parochet,” he said. “That’s a curtain that covers the door to the aron kodesh in a synagogue—which is a cabinet where they keep the Torah scrolls. Only this particular curtain appears to be upside down. The design you see is a menorah—the seven-branched candlestick that’s been a symbol of Judaism since ancient times. Either the person who hung this curtain is ig
norant of the design or . . .”
I waited. “Or what?”
“Or it might indicate someone who wished to be blasphemous—in the same way you might hang a crucifix upside down if you were, let’s say, satanically inclined.”
“The curtain was on the door of a closet where Gaynor Allitt seems to have hidden herself away when she was praying.”
Fitzgerald came over and looked at the pictures on my phone. “Never seen anything like that before, Pastor.”
“You say she prayed in there, Agent Martins?”
“That’s right.”
“It does seem kind of obsessive,” he said. “And I speak as someone who prays a great deal. What do you think, Frank? Is this the Gaynor Allitt you knew?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Look, she was strong in her faith. They say faith can move mountains. Well, maybe it can, but I think you’d have to be a little crazy to try.” He shrugged. “Gaynor was committed, even devout, but she never struck me as mad enough to go around praying for folks to be dead.”
“It sounds to me like she was suffering a nervous breakdown,” said Van Der Velden. “From overwork, perhaps.”
“As a matter of fact, she seemed very sane to me. Although—well, I’ve been going to church for a long time and I haven’t ever come across a prayer closet before. If that’s what it is. Can you think of any reason why someone would want to pray in something like that?”
“You mean apart from the obvious? Quiet, concentration, it being a special place? My grandma used to pray in bed—it was her way of falling asleep. My daddy used to pray out loud every time he sat in a plane, which didn’t exactly make him popular with the other passengers. On top of high mountains, in burning buildings, or on sinking ships—I think the Lord is used to hearing prayers from all kinds of strange places.”
“One more thing, Pastor,” I said. “In your sermon you mentioned your father. That wouldn’t be Robert Van Der Velden, would it? From the Prayer Pyramid of Power in Dallas?”
“We’re not the family business people sometimes imagine us to be. My father does things his way and I do things mine. And, by the way, the Prayer Pyramid is closed now, in case you didn’t know. The church went bankrupt. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas bought it from the federal court that was administering the windup. They paid fifty million dollars.”
“I’m surprised the Catholics had that kind of money to spare,” I said.
“Just so you know,” said Van Der Velden. “None of that money came my daddy’s way. I like to keep things out in the open so people don’t think I’m connected with the Prayer Pyramid in any way. Especially as he ended up owing so many people so much money.” He grinned and clapped me on the arm. “I wouldn’t want the FBI getting any ideas I’m some kind of crook. I love my daddy, but the name we honor here at the Izrael Church is God’s holy name, not the name of Van Der Velden.”
“I certainly appreciate your candor.”
“Well, all right. Got any other questions?”
“Only for Mr. Fitzgerald. Since you say you knew Gaynor better than Pastor Van Der Velden.”
“That’s right,” said Fitzgerald. “I did.”
“Did she have any family in the church? Next of kin? Friends?”
“How can I put this without making it sound like I’m speaking ill of the dead? She wasn’t a warm person, Mr. Martins. She kept herself to herself. But she was respected. I guess you could say she was the kind of person you admired rather than one you befriended. The kids will be upset, though.”
“Kids?”
“She was a teacher in our Sunday school. We wondered where she was this afternoon. It wasn’t like her not to show up without letting anyone know. You won’t want to speak to them, I hope. It’s going to be bad enough telling them she’s dead without also explaining that she killed herself.”
“No, I don’t think there’s any need for that.”
“Good.”
“Gentlemen. Thank you for your time and patience. I wish I could have come here as the bearer of better news. But I have enjoyed seeing your magnificent church. If I’m not mistaken, it was once an airport building?”
Van Der Velden nodded. “One of our wealthier members bought the building for us from Ellington when commercial air services ended there. This used to be the Continental Airlines building.”
“Whatever happened to them?” I murmured.
“And please, anytime you’re in the area, stop by. Especially on a Sunday. You’re always welcome to worship with us.”
On leaving the Izrael Church of Good Men and Good Women to drive back to Galveston, I stopped at several gas stations until I found one with a well-stocked grocery store and a large rack of magazines and periodicals—in particular, the current issue of Scientific American. I was keen to find a copy because, as I had glanced over the various magazines on the smoked-glass coffee table in Pastor Van Der Velden’s handsomely appointed office and registered the name of Dr. Sara Espinosa on the cover, I had realized this was the second time I had seen her name. The first time had been on the list I had found on the floor of Gaynor Allitt’s prayer closet, inside her Bible. In anyone else’s office, a copy of Scientific American would have seemed innocent enough, and I would have written it off as a coincidence my stumbling across Dr. Espinosa’s name a second time. But given who and what Van Der Velden was, you’d imagine that this was a magazine a Texas preacher would disapprove of.
I was less inclined to think it was a coincidence when I opened the magazine. The article that Dr. Espinosa had coauthored was described as a frank and sometimes controversial exchange of views between two prominent biologists on how scientists ought to approach religion and its adherents.
I selected a bagful of groceries and the magazine, and I read all the way through the article in the car while I smoked a cigarette.
Dr. Espinosa was a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas in Austin, and despite her comparative youth and good looks, she was also the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates and international prizes. A few months before, at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, she and Professor Ambrose Salomon from the University of Cambridge, in England, had debated the most effective way to oppose religiously motivated threats to scientific practice. Espinosa was less inclined than her colleague to achieve a peaceful coexistence between science and religion; and the main thrust of her argument was that the best way of discrediting and eventually destroying all religion was to continue teaching the facts of human evolution and to keep pseudoscientific variants of creationism out of school science curricula. In view of what Gaynor Allitt alleged had happened to Philip Osborne, it seemed reasonable to suppose that any Christianist taking a hostile view of him would have taken a similarly hostile view of Dr. Espinosa.
I was still no nearer discovering the details of how Osborne and the three others had met their deaths; but suspecting a hidden cause as I did, it seemed like a good idea to look more closely at Pastor Van Der Velden and his church—not to mention Dr. Espinosa—because I was already half convinced that she might be in danger.
The following morning, as soon as I was done making my report on the arrest of Johnny Sack Brown and his HIDDEN group, and briefing the shrink who was scheduled to go to the FDC and evaluate his mental state, I would tell Gisela that, in my opinion, there was compelling circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism. At first, she would probably resist the idea. But she could hardly ignore the list of names in Gaynor Allitt’s house, her strange confession, her horrible bloody suicide, the mocking sarcastic message she’d left for me, and the way Dr. Espinosa’s name had cropped up on Gaynor Allitt’s list and on the cover of a science magazine in Nelson Van Der Velden’s office. Surely all I had to do to move the investigation forward was to ask Dr. Espinosa if she had received any threats in the form of self-destructing e-mails, like the
ones received by Peter Ekman.
Arriving back at the diocesan house in Galveston, I washed up with some relief and made myself an omelet; after I’d eaten it, I Googled Van Der Velden and then the professor, with a large whiskey in my hand, while at the same time I tried to arrange things in an orderly fashion on the table I was using as my desk. Sometimes it seems I can’t work at all unless I get a nice shape to my things: my laptop square in the center, my mouse wet-wiped and placed on its antibacterial pad, my cell phone always on the left-hand side, a clean page open in my notebook, a neat row of carefully sharpened pencils, a new eraser still in its cellophane. I guess we all have our peculiar little rituals when we’re at our desks.
It was after midnight when I was through. I drank a second largish whiskey in the hope that it would put me in touch with much-needed oblivion. It didn’t and it wasn’t long before I was wishing I’d taken Helen Monaco up on the offer of her couch. Which was all it had ever been, of course, an offer to sleep on her couch and not with Helen herself. That much was certain now. But in truth, I probably stayed awake because I had so much else to think about; there were so many programs still running in my head that my body couldn’t decide which of them to close down first before sending me off to sleep. And so I just lay there, staring at the shadows that were thrown on the ceiling by a full moon as big as a bowling ball, my poor mind racing with the day’s residue of everything that had happened to me since leaving the house that morning: Gaynor Allitt’s improbable confession at HPD headquarters; her suicide from the top of the Hyatt; the revelation that Helen was a lesbian; that damning list of names in Gaynor’s weird prayer closet; the discovery that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Houston and Galveston was the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation; the announcement that Bishop Coogan was about to become the subject of a grand jury investigation for aiding and abetting the escape of yet another tot-banging priest—even though I was aware of what was about to happen to Eamon, I was, of course, strictly forbidden from contacting him, and besides, DCS Net was tapping his telephones so that to call would have been career suicide—seeing Ruth again; seeing Ruth with that outsize fuckwit, Hogan; the suspicion that she and Hogan were already in some kind of a relationship; the suspicion that the Izrael Church of Good Men and Good Women and its apparently easygoing pastor were involved in some kind of horrible conspiracy to murder the opponents of all organized religion.
