Secret of the Seventh Sons

by Cooper, Glenn

  “I already told the cops what I did,” Luis said just above a whisper.

  Will was redoubtable in interrogation. He used his tough-guy size to threaten then counterbalanced it with a soothing tone and gentle Southern drawl. The subject was never completely sure what he was up against and Will used that as a weapon. “We appreciate that. It’s definitely going to make things easier for you. We just want to broaden the investigation.”

  “You mean the postcard John got? Is that what you mean by broaden?”

  “That’s right, we’re interested in the postcard.”

  Luis shook his head mournfully and tears started streaming. “What’s going to happen to me?”

  Will asked one of the cops flanking Luis to wipe his face with a tissue.

  “Ultimately, that’ll be up to a jury, but if you keep on cooperating with the investigation, I believe that’s going to have a positive impact on the way things play out. I know you already talked to these officers but I’d appreciate it if you’d start off by telling us about your relationship with Mr. Pepperdine and then tell us what happened here today.”

  He let him talk freely, tweaking the direction from time to time while Nancy took her usual notes. They had met in 2005 in a bar. Not a gay bar but they had found each other efficiently enough and they had started dating, the temperamental Puerto Rican flight attendant from Queens and the emotionally-blocked Episcopalian bookstore owner from City Island. John Pepperdine had inherited this comfortable green house from his parents and he had let a succession of boyfriends move in with him over the years. With his 40th birthday in the rearview mirror, John had told friends that Luis was his last great love, and he had been correct.

  Their relationship had been tempestuous, infidelity an ongoing theme. John had demanded monogamy, Luis was incapable. John regularly accused him of cheating but Luis’s job, with its constant travel to Vegas, carried a certain carte blanche. Luis had flown home the evening before but rather than return to City Island, he went to Manhattan with a businessman he had met on the flight who bought him an expensive meal and took him home to Sutton Place. Luis had crawled into John’s bed at four A.M. and didn’t awake until one that afternoon. Hung over, he had shakily descended the stairs to make a pot of coffee, expecting to have the house to himself.

  Instead, John had stayed home from work and had camped out in the living room, an emotional wreck, almost incoherent and sobbing with anxiety, his hair uncombed, his complexion pasty. Where had Luis been? Who had he been with? Why hadn’t he picked up his urgent phone and text messages? Why, of all days, had he abandoned him yesterday? Luis shrugged the tirade off, wanting to know what the big deal was. Couldn’t a guy go out after work and have a couple of drinks with friends? It was beyond pathetic. You think I’m pathetic, John had shouted. Look at this you son of a bitch! He had run off to the kitchen and had come back with a postcard pinched between his fingers. It’s a Doomsday postcard, asshole, with my name on it and today’s date!

  Luis had looked at it and had told him it was probably a sick joke. Maybe the idiot clerk John had recently fired was getting back at him. And anyway, had John called the police? He hadn’t. He was too frightened. They had argued back and forth for a while until Luis’s cell phone had gone off on the hall table with its campy “Oops I Did it Again” ring tone. John had leaped for it and had cried out, Who the fuck is Phil? Answer, truth be told, it was the guy from Sutton Place, but Luis had dodged the truth unconvincingly.

  John’s emotions had red-lined and, according to Luis, the normally mild-mannered fellow had lost it, grabbing the aluminum softball bat that he had abandoned by the front door a decade earlier after tearing an Achilles tendon in an adult-league game in Pelham. John had wielded it like a lance, pushing the end into Luis’s shoulders, screaming obscenities. Luis had screamed back at him to put it down but the jabbing continued, inflaming Luis beyond his ability to control what would happen next when somehow the bat wound up in his hands and the room began to get painted with blood.

  Will listened with rising discomfort because the confession had the ring of authenticity. Still, he didn’t bring papal infallibility to the table. He’d been duped before, and God willing, he was being duped now. He didn’t wait for Luis to stop crying before aggressively and suddenly asking, “Did you kill David Swisher?”

  Luis looked up, startled. His instinct was to wave his arms in protest which made his wrists chafe against the handcuffs. “No!”

  “Did you kill Elizabeth Kohler?”

  “No!”

  “Did you kill Marco Napolitano?”

  “Stop!” Luis sought out Nancy’s eyes. “What’s this guy talking about?”

  By way of a response, Nancy continued the battery, “Did you kill Myles Drake?”

  Luis had stopped crying. He snorted his nose dry and stared at her.

  “Did you kill Milos Covic?” she asked.

  Then Will, “Consuela Lopez?”

  Then Nancy, “Ida Santiago?”

  And Will, “Lucius Robertson?”

  Captain Murphy grinned, impressed at the rat-a-tat.

  Luis shook his head vigorously. “No! No! No! No! You guys are crazy. I told you I killed John, in like self-defense, but I never killed these other people. You think I’m the fucking Doomsday Killer? Is that what you think? Come on! Get real, man!”

  “Okay, Luis, I hear you. Take it easy. You want some water?” Will asked. “So how long have you been flying the New York-Las Vegas route?”

  “Almost four years.”

  “Do you have a diary, some kind of flight log handy?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a book. It’s upstairs, on the dresser.”

  Nancy hurried out the door.

  “You ever mail any postcards from Vegas?” Will demanded.

  “No!”

  “I heard you say loud and clear that you didn’t kill these people but tell me this, Luis, did you know any of them?”

  “Of course not, Man!”

  “That includes Consuela Lopez and Ida Santiago?”

  “What? Because they’re Latino, I should know them? What are you, some kind of an idiot? You know how many Spanish there are in New York?”

  He didn’t break stride. “You ever live in Staten Island?”

  “No.”

  “Ever work there?”

  “No.”

  “Got any friends there?”

  “No.”

  “Ever visited there?”

  “Maybe once, for a ferry ride.”

  “When was that?”

  “When I was a kid.”

  “What kind of car do you drive?”

  “A Civic.”

  “The white one out front?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any of your friends or relatives drive a blue car?”

  “No, man, I don’t think so.”

  “You own a pair of Reebok DMX 10s?”

  “Do I look like I’d wear some jive-ass teenage sneakers, man?”

  “Did anyone ever ask you to mail postcards from Las Vegas?”

  “No!”

  “You admitted you killed John Pepperdine.”

  “In self-defense, man.”

  “Did you ever kill anyone else.”

  “No!”

  “Do you know who killed the other victims?”

  “No!”

  He abruptly halted the interview, went looking for Nancy and found her on the upstairs landing. He had a bad feeling and her crimpled mouth confirmed his fears. She was wearing a pair of latex gloves, leafing through a black 2008 day planner. “Problems?” he asked.

  “If this diary is legit, we’ve got big problems. Except for today, he was in Las Vegas or in transit during every other murder. I can’t believe it, Will. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say fuck. That’s what you should say.” He leaned wearily against the wall. “Because this case is completely fucked.”

  “Maybe the diary’s been doctored.”

  “We’ll check the
records with his company, but we both know this guy’s not Doomsday.”

  “Well, he killed Victim Nine that’s for sure.”

  He nodded. “Okay, partner, here’s what we’re going to do.” She put Luis’s diary down and opened her notebook to take down his instructions.

  “You don’t drink, do you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good, consider yourself designated. We’re going to clock out and go off duty in about five minutes. Your assignment is to take me to a bar, talk to me while I get drunk then drive me home. Will you do that for me?”

  She looked at him disapprovingly. “If that’s what you want.”

  He knocked back his drinks quickly, shuttling the waitress between the booth and the bar. Nancy watched him slip the bonds of sobriety while she moodily sipped a diet ginger ale through a bendy straw. Their table at the Harbor Restaurant overlooked the bay, the calm waters blackening as the sun began to set. He had spotted the restaurant before they made it off the island, muttering, “That place’s bound to have a bar.”

  He wasn’t drunk enough to miss the fact that Nancy was uncomfortable having an after-work drink with her superior, a guy who happened to have a reputation as an office scoundrel and souse. She was literally squirming with discomfort.

  She wasn’t talking so he amused himself by doing a boozy profile. She probably felt like an enabler, helping him lube up as fast as he could.

  And she was probably falling for him. He could see it in her eyes, especially the first thing in the morning when she came into his office. Most women succumbed eventually. It wasn’t boasting, just a fact.

  Right now she probably hated him for who he was and wanted him simultaneously. He did that to women.

  In the small glow of a kerosene table lamp, his body compressed and softened like an unfired clay mold left outdoors on a scorching day. His face sagged, his shoulders rounded and he slumped on the shiny vinyl banquette.

  “You’re supposed to talk to me,” he slurred. “You’re just sitting there, watching me.”

  “Do you want to talk about the case?” she asked.

  “Fuck no, anything but.”

  “What then?”

  “How about baseball?” he suggested. “You like the Mets or the Yankees?”

  “I don’t really follow sports.”

  “That so…”

  “Sorry.” Through the windows she watched the running lights of a powerboat crawling past at headway speed until it was out of sight. His head was lowered; he played with the ice cubes in his drink, sending them into a vortex with his finger and when the glass was empty he crudely waggled his wet finger at the young waitress.

  He tried to sharpen Nancy’s blurring features by scrunching his forehead. “You don’t want to be here, do you?”

  “Not particularly.”

  He made her flinch when he banged the table with the heel of his hand, too hard and too loudly for decorum, turning heads. “I like your honesty.” He scooped up some nuts and crunched on them, then brushed the salt off his greasy palms. “Most women aren’t honest with me till it’s too late.” He snorted as if he’d just said something humorous. “Okay, partner, tell me what you’d be doing tonight if you weren’t babysitting me.”

  “I don’t know, helping with the dinner, reading, listening to music.” She apologized. “I’m not a very exciting person, Will.”

  “Reading what?”

  “I like biographies. Novels.”

  He feigned interest. “I used to read a lot. Now I mostly watch TV and drink. Want to know what that makes me?”

  She didn’t.

  “A man!” he cackled, “A goddamned twenty-first-century male Homo sapiens!” He slammed more nuts into his mouth, truculently folded his arms across his chest and curled his mouth into a toothy shit-eating grin. From Nancy’s stony reaction, he knew he was going too far, but he didn’t care.

  He was getting good and drunk and too bad if she didn’t like it. The waitress had a small gold crucifix which swung and knocked against the top of her deep cleavage when she put down another scotch. He leered at her. “Hey, you wanna come home with me to watch TV and drink?”

  Nancy had had enough. “I’m sorry, we’ll take the check,” she said as the waitress scurried off. “Will, we’re leaving,” she announced sternly. “You need to go home.”

  “Isn’t that what I just suggested?” he drawled.

  The “Ode to Joy” rang from his jacket. He groped until he was able to extract the phone from his pocket. He squinted at the caller ID. “Shit. I don’t think I should talk to her right now.” He handed it to Nancy. “It’s Helen Swisher,” he whispered as if the caller were already listening.

  Nancy pushed the talk button. “Hello, this is Will Piper’s phone.”

  He slid from the booth and weaved toward the men’s room. By the time he returned, Nancy had paid the bill and was waiting for him beside the table. She decided he wasn’t too wasted to hear the news. “Helen Swisher just got David’s client list from his bank. He had a Las Vegas connection after all.”

  “Yeah?”

  “In 2003 he did a financing for a Nevada company called Desert Life Insurance. His client was the CEO, a man named Nelson Elder.”

  He had the appearance of a man trying to steady himself on the deck of a storm-tossed boat. He swayed unsteadily and loudly pronounced, “Okay then. I’m gonna go out there, I’m gonna talk to Nelson Elder and I’m gonna find the goddamned killer. How’s that for a plan?”

  “Give me the car keys,” she demanded. Her anger pierced his inebriation.

  “Don’t be sore at me,” he implored. “I’m your partner!”

  Out in the parking lot their senses were clobbered by warm gusts of salty wind and the pungent bouquet of low tide. Ordinarily, this one-two punch might have made Nancy dreamy and carefree but she looked like she was in a dark place as she listened to Will shuffling behind her like Fran-kenstein’s monster, drunkenly mumbling.

  “Going to Vegas, baby, going to Vegas.”

  17 SEPTEMBER 782

  VECTIS, BRITANNIA

  It was harvest time, perhaps Josephus’s favorite season, when the days were pleasantly warm, the nights cool and comfortable, and the air was filled with the earthy smells of newly scythed wheat and barley and fresh apples. He gave thanks for the bountiful proceeds from the fields surrounding the abbey walls. The brothers would be able to restock the dwindling stores in the granary and fill their oaken barrels with fresh ale. While he abhorred gluttony, he begrudged the rationing of beer that inevitably occurred by midsummer.

  The conversion of the church from wood to stone was three years complete. The square, tapering tower rose up high enough for boats and ships approaching the island to use as a navigational aide. The squared-off chancel at the eastern end had low, triangular windows that beautifully illuminated the sanctuary during the Offices of the day. The nave was long enough not only for the present community, but the monastery would be able to accommodate a greater number of Christ’s servants in the future. Josephus often sought forgiveness and did penance for the pride that bubbled up in his chest for the role he played in its construction. True, his knowledge of the world was limited, but he imagined the church at Vectis to be among the great cathedrals of Christendom.

  Of late, the masons had been hard at work finishing the new Chapter House. Josephus and Oswyn had decided the Scriptorium would be next and that the structure would have to be greatly expanded. The Bibles and rules books they produced, and the illustrated Epistles of St. Peter written in golden ink, were highly regarded and Josephus had heard that copies made their way across the waters to Eire, Italia, and Francia.

  It was mid-morning, approaching the third hour, and he was on his way from the lavatorium to the refectory for a chunk of brown bread, a joint of mutton, some salt, and a flagon of ale. His stomach was rumbling in eager anticipation, as Oswyn had imposed a restriction of only one meal a day to strengthen the spirit of his congregation by weak
ening the desires of their flesh. After a prolonged period of meditation and personal fasting, which the frail abbot himself could scarcely afford, Oswyn shared his revelation with the entire community which had dutifully assembled in the Chapter House. “We must fast daily as we must feed daily,” he declared. “We must gratify the body more poorly and sparingly.”

  So they all became thinner.

  Josephus heard his name called. Guthlac, a huge rough man who had been a soldier before joining the monastery, caught up with him at a run, his sandals slapping on the path.

  “Prior,” he said. “Ubertus the stonecutter is at the gate. He wishes to speak with you at once.”

  “I am on my way to the refectory for supper,” Josephus objected. “Do you not feel he can wait?”

  “He said it is urgent,” Guthlac said, hurrying off.

  “And where are you going?” Josephus called after him.

  “To the refectory, Prior. For my supper.”

  Ubertus was inside the gate near the entrance to the Hospicium, the guest house for visitors and travelers, a low timber building with rows of simple cots. He was rooted to a spot on the ground, his feet unmoving. From a distance Josephus thought he was alone, but as he approached he saw a child behind the mason, two small legs visible between his tree-trunk legs.

  “How may I help you, Ubertus?” Josephus asked.

  “I have brought the child.”

  Josephus didn’t understand.

  Ubertus reached behind and pulled the boy into sight. He was a barefoot, tiny lad, thin as a twig with bright ginger hair. His shirt was dirty and in tatters, exposing a ladder of ribs and a pigeon chest. His trousers were too long, hand-me-downs that he had not yet grown to fit. His fine skin was parchment white, his staring eyes green like precious stones, and his delicate face as immobile as one of his father’s blocks of stone. He was tightly pressing his blanched pink lips together, and the effort to do so tensed and puckered his chin.

  Josephus had heard about the boy but never laid eyes on him. He found him an unsettling sight. There was a cold madness about him, a sense that his small raw life had not been blessed by the warmth of God. His name, Octavus, the eighth, had been bestowed on him by Ubertus the night of his birth. Unlike his twin, an abomination who was better destroyed, his life would be blissfully ordinary, would it not? After all, the eighth son of a seventh son is but another son even if born on the seventh day of the seventh month of the 777th year after the birth of the Lord. Ubertus prayed he would become strong and productive, a stonecutter like his father and his brothers.