When Greg joined the priesthood, we resented him for that, too. We figured he was trying to prove he wasn’t one of the white-trash Neville brothers. I feel differently now, but the old resentments can still pop up. Call it sibling rivalry, call it jealousy. Whatever it is, I didn’t have the time or energy for it. I needed ice in my veins if I was going to get past the slide show still playing above the garage.
Greg was standing outside the front door. A young Mountie was with him. Guess the cruisers had arrived. She looked from Greg to me, smiling at the resemblance. We weren’t exactly twins, but there was no mistaking the connection. Gunner and I have more in common, but Greg and I look like brothers. I ran my hand through my own hair as I looked at his unruly mop, the dark curls falling over his forehead into his eyes. Beneath all that hair, Greg’s face was a golden brown, much darker than mine. His gunmetal blue eyes looked black behind the tan. The month spent walking through France and Spain had darkened his skin and melted away what little body fat he had. His face seemed harder. I wondered if I ever looked that tough. The tiny white collar looked more out of place now than ever. I asked the constable to take Bobby over to my car and wait with him.
“Pray for us, Father,” Bobby said.
“I will, Bobby, I will.” Greg touched Simms on the arm.
Greg watched them walk away, reached out, and embraced me. I returned the hug. It felt uncomfortable. I hug Gunner every time I see him and don’t even realize I do it. With Greg, it always feels awkward. I slapped him on the back as he released me. No patch there, maybe that was it.
“You’re going to have to get some meat back on those bones,” I said.
“The Camino changes you, body and soul. You should consider taking the walk yourself.”
“I think a ride out to Sturgis would be enough of a pilgrimage for me.”
“I suppose you do.” His eyes locked on mine. “Tell me about Sandy.”
“Not much I can tell you, Greg. He was found dead at the old city dump this morning. He was murdered, but everything else is evidence I can’t share.”
He looked back across the driveway. “You don’t think Bobby had anything to do with it, do you? He’s a good man despite his past. He loved Sandy. I know that.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind. We don’t have any reason to suspect Bobby or anyone else yet. I just want to talk to him. Sam and Thelma are in the kitchen waiting for you.” I started to move toward Simms. Greg grabbed my arm.
“Cam, Pastor Gardner was a good man. His church has saved the souls of thousands. Bobby is just one example. But, he was also a man, and men have weaknesses. Try to protect his work; let us remember him as a beacon of Christ.”
I pulled my arm free. Did Greg know? Could he be asking me to cover it up? I felt the knuckles in my right hand pop as my fist tightened at my side. Greg’s dark eyes stayed with mine.
“What exactly do you mean by weakness?” I tried to keep my tone neutral.
“I don’t know for sure; he confided in me. Well, he tried to. He told me he battled demons and wondered if his good works were enough to erase his sins.” He pushed the dark curls away from his eyes. I caught myself reaching for my own and stopped.
“Did he tell you what those sins were?”
“No. I was giving him time. I was sure he’d tell me when he was ready. I couldn’t offer him the reconciliation of the confessional and struggled with how I could help.”
He placed the edge of his thumb against his breastbone. I knew he was feeling the crucifix beneath his shirt. My spotter Ronald’s crucifix. It was a tell. Lies are tricks one mind tries to play on another. The body can’t lie. It reacts no matter what the mind tells it to do. I didn’t want to believe Greg knew about the kids on that computer. I touched his hand. The crucifix was my badge of guilt. If I had left our hide after three kills like Ronald had asked, he’d be alive. I was happy to let Greg have it. I wondered if he was touching it now to ease his guilt.
“Why don’t you tell me about the prayer you are saying right now?”
Greg pulled his hand down.
“I am praying for the Church of Salvation. I should go see Samuel.”
I nodded. There wasn’t any point in pushing him. We had too much baggage. It’s easy to unravel lies in a controlled interview when you are detached and professional. Any cop can do it. If you bring your emotions to the game, forget it. The ringing in my ears told me my emotions were pinning the meter. Blair arrived at my side.
“Father.” He nodded at Greg and turned to me. “You want me to have a word with Bobby?”
“No, let me do that,” I said. “Can you take Greg inside to see Sam and Thelma?”
“Sure.” He looked at me, a question in his eyes.
“You and I can chat again later, Greg.”
I took deliberate long breaths as I walked back to the car. I needed to shake the feeling that Greg might be worried about the legacy of a monster and not about the children he devoured. Bobby Simms would get the best of me. He was no virgin in this game. Still, I had to watch my own prejudices. I was in the dark, and it felt like I was jumping at the first shiny thing. He was the suspect from central casting, and, as appealing as an ex-con in the house seemed, he was probably too good to be true. Bobby looked glum and guilty sitting in the back of my car as I approached. Maybe he wasn’t too good to be true.
Decorative stonework covered the ground around the fountain. The little cherub was still pouring water into the garden. I stretched my back, continuing with the deep breathing, thinking I should learn yoga. I took my time, wanted Bobby to be damn clear on who was in control. I let him stew in the backseat. The Gardner property no longer looked like an exclusive estate. One RCMP cruiser blocked the end of the driveway, and another was parked on the grass near the garage. Yellow tape ran from behind the garage to a large oak tree half the distance to the road; it looped around the tree and stretched to a stone pillar at the entrance to the drive. Another length of tape ran from the opposite side of the garage to a wooden newel post at the end of a small private dock behind the house. The inner-city charm of yellow tape. Nothing like it to send property values into the basement, even in a place like this.
The cruisers were here guarding the property, but I still didn’t see the crime-scene trucks. I needed the techs to go through that scene to see if it was real or staged. I also needed them to clear it before Blair and I could have our time there. Waiting is torture; action helps. I headed for Bobby. I pulled open the door and asked him to jump into the front seat. Treating him like a guest now. He moved up front and stared through the windshield. We both watched as a German shepherd came from the side of the house. The officer at the end of its leash looked at me and shook his head. I felt bad for the dog. They live for that joyful scratch behind the ears when they find a piece of evidence. Not a lot of scratching going on with this case. Bobby smiled when the officer unhooked the leash and let the dog jump into the back of an unmarked police SUV.
“No dice today, pup,” he said.
“Just one of the tools, Bobby. You know that,” I said.
“Looks like it was a waste of time, like what you’re doing here.” He turned his gaze on me. A yard-hardened con stare.
“Relax, Bobby, you’re no suspect, or I’d be reading you your rights. You know that. I just need some information. When did you last see Pastor Gardner?”
He looked at me and then toward the house. A smile formed and he leaned back into the passenger door, turning his body to me. An open posture, a sign of honesty. In most people.
“Last night. We had a short meeting after dinner,” he said.
“Anyone else there?”
“Yes, Samuel and several members of the youth outreach team. We were discussing the summer retreat in Canso and looking for ways to draw more young people to Christ. Always a challenge.” He smiled.
“Were you two alone
after that meeting?”
“No. I was the first to leave.”
He wouldn’t be dumb enough to try a lie that easy to uncover. Still, I made a note to check it.
“Where did you go?”
“Home. And no, I can’t prove that.” His arms folded, and the smile was gone.
“Don’t worry about that right now, Bobby. I can’t prove I was home last night either, and, like I said, you’re not a suspect.” He relaxed his arms but didn’t drop them, keeping his posture closed. “Let’s talk about your relationship with the victim. How does a repeat offender like you end up working with a guy like Gardner? Hell of a life change.”
“No. It’s been more of a heavenly life change. As it says in Isaiah, ‘To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.’ Look at your life, Cam, and how Greg has changed it. You must believe God’s hand reached out to save you,” he said.
“Stop with the Bible quotes, Bobby. I’m seeking a different kind of truth. Just tell me how you met Pastor Gardner and what your relationship was.” We both turned in the car as a large motorhome made its way in past the yellow tape and parked near the tennis courts. Our rolling command centre.
Bobby told me a story that sounded rehearsed. Like he’d told it from a pulpit too many times. I watched for tells, but his body was relaxed, his posture open again. His shaved head rolled back to rest on the side window, like he was watching the movie of his life. The move made it easier to see the neck tattoo above his collar. It was a lynx, its teeth bared. The tattoo worn by all the Litter Box Boys. A gang tat is a shield in prison, where Bobby’s story of salvation started. On the East Coast, the lynx was second only to the Stallion tat in the prison yard. Everybody inside knew the Litter Box Boys were the dirty-deed disciples of the Stallion and had the club’s protection.
Sandy Gardner ran a prison outreach program that Bobby claimed led him to his new path. Jesus got credit for doing the real heavy lifting and cleansing Bobby of the sins of his old ways. I knew the old Bobby, and wasn’t sure I was ready to trust the new one.
I remembered him as the dumbest, most violent thug to fall short of the Stallion standard. When I still rode with the club, Bobby was a typical Stallion hang-around. Ready to prove himself at every opportunity. He thought he could beat his way into the club. No finesse. Bobby was a follower who thought he was a leader. Told the club he hacked up a girlfriend because she turned rat on him, thought he could make his bones that way. Claimed he gave her a Colombian necktie to silence her forever. When her body didn’t turn up, we all figured he made it up. Besides, she wasn’t ratting on the club. No one cared.
He did his first trip for aggravated assault. He tried to prove he was a man by putting a heavy beating into some guy in a bar. Did it because the guy looked at a full patch’s ol’ lady. The brother thanked him, slapped him on the back, and let him do his time. It was that beating that cost Bobby any chance of making it to prospect status. He lost control and made the patches look bad. Knocking a guy out for stepping out of line was okay, but Bobby kept pounding on the poor slob long after it was necessary. He got off on the violence a little too much.
The beating drew him a two-year sentence. Hefty for a bar fight. That dead girlfriend’s body surfaced while he was doing that stint. She was a hooker, and the cops never linked it to him. Chances are she went down to a bad trick, and he used the whole thing as some bullshit attempt to impress the club. Didn’t work. Murderer or not, he wasn’t back on the street long when he took fall number two. This one for kidnapping and torture. The Stallion lawyer defending him was sure they could beat the charge until Bobby insisted on taking the stand. The final bust had him trying his bad luck in the pot-import market. All that, and yet here he sat, free and still a relatively young man. Have to love our revolving-door prisons.
“Without Pastor Gardner, I’d be at the clubhouse or back inside. You changed, you found a way out. Well, Christ led me away, same as you.”
“It took a taste of hell before I walked away, Bobby. Different journey. What I need to know is do you still have a foot in it? I can find out,” I said, reminding him.
“No, man, the Stallion world is empty. I know it now. Jesus is the only one I ride behind. He loves me, He makes me perfect. I don’t need that false power. Matthew teaches us to beware of false prophets. The Church of Salvation is my club. Thank you, Jesus.” He closed his eyes and touched his heart.
It could be that Bobby was a new man. It could also be that he was full of shit. I needed to know, and listening to him preach wasn’t helping me decide. The garbage on the laptop should be hold-back evidence, but I knew it could shake Bobby up.
“What about the kiddy porn, Bobby? Matthew say anything about that? Is it the good pastor’s private thing, or are you into it, too? You a couple of diddlers out here, or do you just get off on watching?”
He turned, leaning closer, moving his head into my space as he spoke through clenched teeth. “I had nothing to do with this. You know it. I can see it in your eyes, motherfucker.” Old Bobby was still in there, one poke below the surface.
“Man, if I was a diddler, I’d be dead already. Shived in a shower long ago.” His eyes were wide, his breath short as he looked through the windshield, checking for witnesses. He turned back to me. “So fuck you, Neville. And you better step carefully. If anything, I mean anything, comes out that hurts this church, the person who makes that happen will feel real pain. That means you too, asshole.”
I put my hand on the steering wheel and pulled myself forward, forcing him back into his own space.
“You’re a fucking parolee making threats to a cop, Bobby. Are you really that stupid? I could violate you right here. I don’t want to toss you back inside, but I won’t lose sleep over it either.” Bobby leaned back. I tried to relax. “Whatever shit falls on the church is what it is. I won’t start it or stop it. Now what was Sandy Gardner into?” He looked at me, silent. “Tell you what, you help me, and I’ll see that we keep his bad habit away from the media.”
Every piece of garbage we found up in the office would be public once the case hit the courtroom, but I hoped the lie would get him talking. If he was involved, he’d trip over his own lies; they always do. His reaction to being called a diddler felt like motive to me. If he was a full-on Jesus freak and found Gardner with kiddy porn, his prison instincts might have taken hold. Hard for a guy like Bobby to find out his hero in Christ is a toddler-stalker. Motive and opportunity looked good on Bobby.
“I don’t know what his demons were. Like all of us, he had them. All men of God are tested, Cam. Do not throw stones at his memory, no matter his demons.”
I didn’t believe Bobby was in the dark when it came to demons. But I could see he was in control again. I had nowhere to go with him. He knew it.
The yellow tape surrounding Sandy Gardner’s property held back a fleet of cars, vans, trucks, and one very large motorhome now. They were white with the silhouetted Mountie on his rearing horse on the side, the red, yellow, and blue stripes of the national force prominent on each vehicle. No police merger when it came to branding. A lone Halifax Regional Police SUV huddled near the road, its blue on white looking faded. I recognized it as a watch commander’s truck. At least we brought some rank to the party. As I turned toward the house, I realized just how much. Chief Simon Davis stood talking into a cellphone beside the motorhome we use as a mobile command centre. He wore a nylon windbreaker with POLICE in bold letters on the back. His navy blue ball cap was pulled down to meet a set of mirrored sunglasses, trying not to stand out. Tough when you’re the top cop. Davis was the youngest chief in the history of the Vancouver city force more than a decade ago. He walked away from that job when we started chasing terrorists in Afghanistan. He commanded an armoured unit and picked up a chest full of ribbons. He walked away from that career after a couple of tours and found himse
lf shortlisted for the chief’s job here. Army’s loss was Halifax’s gain. We were over there at the same time, but I didn’t meet him until I joined the force here. He waved me over, then opened the door to the motorhome and stepped inside.
The command bus was a couple of years old but never seemed to shed that smell of new carpet and leather. The fleet manager took extra care with it. There was no way to keep squad cars smelling anything even close to new, so the bus was probably a point of pride. We use it for whatever a crime scene calls for. It serves as a search headquarters, a coordination centre, or just a place to regroup and catch your breath. The chief sat in a small padded armchair set against the wall opposite the entrance. He took off the ball cap and glasses. The cap had left a mark along the sides of his close-cut hair. I didn’t mention it.
“First of all, Detective, let me say I apologize for showing up at an active crime scene. I am not here to second-guess you, but this one is going to draw a crowd.”
“Already starting to,” I said as I took the seat beside him.
“Fair enough. I’ll get right to the point. We are setting up a task force on this for obvious reasons, and, for now, Inspector MacIntosh will take the lead.”
We both felt the same way about MacIntosh.
“Inspector MacIntosh?” I asked. “You sure he’s the right guy?”
“Someone has to coordinate. You just worry about the investigating. I will elevate Sergeant Cage to the role of supervisor, so you’ll be dealing with her on most things. She’ll answer directly to MacIntosh and keep me in the loop.”
Murders are solved in the field, but murder investigations are run from behind a desk, three desks actually. As team leader, MacIntosh would have ultimate authority. Most leaders don’t interfere with the field work. Instead, the job is about keeping an eye on the paperwork, the budgets, and the flow of evidence. I wondered if MacIntosh would be willing to sit in the backroom on this. Probably not. Below the lead, two sergeants share duties. The file manager keeps the log, assigning task numbers for every step taken by the investigators and building the disclosure file for the crown. The supervising sergeant is where the desk meets the field. A good supervisor protects the team from the kind of insanity that an overzealous file manager or team leader can impose on an investigation. Supervisors need to know the field and understand the dynamics of police management. Carla Cage was rock solid in the field, but was she up to keeping a bully like MacIntosh in the background in a high-profile media circus like this?
Disposable Souls Page 7
