Unholy Order

by William Heffernan

  Devlin listened again. When he resumed his own side of the conversation, there was an even sharper edge in his voice. “It won’t work. It’s that simple. You have to start by investigating the nun and everybody who knew her. There is no other way. And when the press discovers what happened—and they will—and when they find out we don’t have a killer in custody because we’ve run a half-assed investigation—and they’ll find that out too—then I can promise you that all our butts are going to be hung out to dry.”

  Again, Devlin listened. When he spoke his voice was smoother, softer, but just barely. “What I need is for you to tell those Opus Christi people to cooperate with us. And I need you to tell them that if they don’t there is no way you can keep the press deaf, dumb, and blind. You also have to tell them that I will get a court order if I have to, because if you take that ability away from me I can’t do the job. It’s obstruction, pure and simple, and we can’t work that way. So, boss, I hate to say it, but if you insist on that, you might as well give the case to someone else right from the start. Because my people and I won’t be able to do you a damn bit of good.”

  Again Devlin sat and listened. Finally, a small smile flickered across his lips. “We’ll do our best,” he said.

  Sharon grinned at him as he hung up the phone. “So?” she asked.

  “The mayor says find the killer before the press and the archdiocese have him for lunch.”

  “Do we have to tiptoe around everybody?”

  Devlin shook his head. “But the mayor doesn’t want us to break too many chops, either. These people like to make phone calls, and that gets Hizzoner jumpy.”

  “So Ollie’s out?”

  Devlin grinned at her. “Not a chance. Ollie’s in.”

  Sharon rolled her eyes again. “Well, I tried. What about a court order if we need it?”

  “Not a problem, but we should try to avoid it.”

  Sharon raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise. “So you got what you wanted.”

  Devlin stared up at her. “We’ll see. The mayor’s been known to change his mind when things get unpleasant. I do know that we better deliver. We better catch this guy before the press starts chewing on Hizzoner and these holy rollers. Otherwise we might find ourselves working out of a squad room on Staten Island.”

  Sharon shrugged. “Hey, there’s always a chance we’ll get a nice view of the harbor,” she said.

  When Sharon and Ollie Pitts had left for Opus Christi’s Manhattan headquarters, Devlin joined his remaining three detectives in the bullpen and handed out assignments.

  Stan Samuels was a tall, thin, ascetic-looking forty-year-old, who looked more like an accountant than a first-grade detective. He was known as “the mole” to his fellow cops because of his passion for digging through old records. Devlin told him to search every record he could ferret out, to learn everything he could about The Holy Order of Opus Christi, from the time the group was founded through the opening of their new headquarters in New York.

  Red Cunningham was a three-hundred-pound baby-faced behemoth who could plant a bug anywhere. He also had close contacts with NYPD’s wire experts in narcotics and intelligence. Devlin told him to call in any favors he had in those divisions and get whatever they had on major drug dealers who were importing heroin into the city from South America. He also told Red to check city records for architectural drawings of the Opus Christi headquarters and figure out where best to plant wires if that proved necessary.

  Ramon “Boom Boom” Rivera—the group’s self-proclaimed Latin lover and the squad’s computer whiz—was assigned a complete computer search of everything dealing with Opus Christi. He also was to find out the type of computer system the group used and to determine if and how that system could be hacked.

  “Sounds like you think maybe this group might be involved in this drug deal,” Boom Boom said, when Devlin finished.

  “Not necessarily the group itself,” Devlin said, “but maybe somebody who’s part of the group.” He leaned back in his chair and glanced at each of the three detectives. “I just don’t buy a young nun getting tied up in a drug deal all by herself.”

  “I read the DD-Fives those homicide detectives filed. Said her parents were from Colombia,” Boom Boom said. “Could have been a family thing. Maybe I should run a check on them.”

  “You do that,” Devlin said. “I talked on the phone with the homicide dicks who caught the case. Now I want to talk to them in person. Get things they might not have put in their DD-Fives and work back from there.” He pushed himself up from the chair. “We don’t have a lot of time. The mayor didn’t hand us this case until it was two days old, and that’s very old for a homicide, so get cracking. One other thing. No comments to the press. You refer all questions to the deputy commissioner for public information. No exceptions.”

  Chapter Two

  Father Patrick Donovan hummed a show tune as he removed a starched white surplice from the sacristy’s vestment drawer. He wasn’t sure about the lyrics, or even the title, only that it was a lesser song from the Broadway musical he had seen the previous week. Still, the melody had hidden itself in his brain, and he had found himself humming it off and on ever since.

  The priest laid the surplice on a small table and smoothed it with his hands. His frail wrists stuck out of the sleeves of his cassock. He looked at them and frowned.

  You’re wasting away, he told himself. He ran a hand through his thinning hair. He had lost so much of it in recent months. It was the medication, he was certain of it.

  The priest did not hear the man enter the sacristy door behind him. Only the sound of the door clicking shut alerted him. He turned, smiling, thinking one of the boys from the choir had arrived early.

  Ten feet away a slight, swarthy man returned his smile.

  “May I help you?” Donovan asked.

  “I came to see about joining the choir,” the man said.

  Donovan tilted his head to the side, a sign of regret. “I’m afraid it’s a boys’ choir,” he said. “We do have adult men join in on special occasions: Christmas, for instance. We need them to sing the basso in more complex pieces.” He studied the man’s slight frame. “You don’t sing bass, do you? You look more like a tenor.”

  The man shrugged. “I can try.” There was a hint of an accent in his voice that the priest could not place. The man offered up another smile that did not carry to his eyes. There a hard, cold glint resided that made the priest uneasy.

  “Well, if you wait in the church proper I’ll give you a brief audition when the boys arrive. It shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes.”

  The man nodded and started for the door, and the priest turned back to his surplice. Then the man was behind him, so quickly and quietly the priest never heard or sensed the movement.

  One hand covered the priest’s mouth and the other flashed a double-edged blade before his eyes. The priest’s head was pulled back until his ear was against the man’s mouth.

  “A gift, maricón,” the man whispered.

  The last thing the priest sensed was the smell of spices on the man’s breath.

  Opus Christi’s Manhattan headquarters was located on Second Avenue, between 44th and 45th Streets, a twelve-story tower set amid some of the city’s pricier residential and commercial real estate.

  From the sidewalk, Ollie Pitts eyed the building with distaste. He ran a hand over his buzzed hair, then placed both hands on his hips.

  “What’s wrong?” Sharon Levy asked.

  “There used to be a great little Irish gin mill right here,” Pitts said. “Christ, this city’s turning to shit. First Disney destroys ‘the deuce’; now a bunch of Bible thumpers are tearing down bars. What the fuck is next?”

  Sharon gave a snort of laughter and glanced up Second Avenue. A few blocks north was a notorious sex shop that claimed to have the city’s largest selection of sex toys. The shop was also known for its outrageous holiday window displays, with Easter especially causing major angst among the c
ity’s more spiritually inclined. Then the shop windows were decorated with Easter baskets, each holding multicolored vibrators, dildos, and vaginal eggs. She smiled to herself, wondering how Matthew—“as the apostle”—would react if any of the Holy Order’s female members were caught window-shopping.

  She grabbed Ollie by the elbow. “Come on, let’s get this done,” she said. “We’ll commiserate on the decline of Irish bars later.”

  Matthew met them in the lobby. The light-gray suit he had worn at the funeral was still in place, hanging on his scarecrow frame like an expensive sack. Standing next to Ollie he looked even more emaciated. He extended a hand and Ollie swallowed it with the ham that protruded from his coat sleeve.

  There was a second man with Matthew, younger and huskier but still no match for Ollie’s two hundred and forty pounds. Matthew introduced him as John.

  Ollie gave them a flat smile from his bulldog’s face. “Matthew and John. Huh. You got Mark and Luke stashed someplace upstairs?”

  Matthew blinked at the remark. John frowned.

  Sharon fought off a smile. So it begins, she thought. The irrepressible charm of Ollie Pitts.

  Matthew held up a manila folder to Sharon. “This is all the information the order has on Sister Manuela,” he said.

  Sharon took it and gave him a broad smile. “I’d also like a list of all the members of the order,” she said. A look of shock erupted on Matthew’s face, and she hurried on. “It would be helpful if they were divided by sex. Detective Pitts will be interviewing the men and I’ll handle the women. It will let us know we’ve talked to everyone.”

  “You don’t … seem to understand,” Matthew sputtered. “We are a worldwide organization.”

  Sharon’s smile became patently patient. “The New York members will do,” she said.

  “But our membership and our files are confidential.”

  “I understand that,” Sharon said, still smiling. “And we’ll keep them confidential. But we need the list to make sure we’re not missing anyone when we interview these people.” She gave him a seemingly regretful shrug. “Inspector Devlin explained all this to you. One way or another we’re going to have that list, Matthew.” She softened the implied threat of a court order by flashing the smile again. “Just try and remember that we’re the good guys; we’re on your side. Now, if you’ll get that list together and give us two rooms where we can interview the men and the women, we’ll get started.”

  “I don’t … see the point. I mean … you have the folder.”

  Sharon raised the hand that held the folder. “This is nice. But it’s bubkes, Matthew. Now listen to me. We’re going to interview each member of the order. And we’re going to do it today. Any delay will impede this investigation and reduce our chances of catching the animal who killed Sister Manuela. And we can’t allow that to happen. Do we understand each other?” Sharon’s smile was gone now, replaced by a toothy grin spread across Ollie Pitts’s face.

  Matthew was certain that Pitts was hoping he would say no. He felt a shiver move along his spine. “I’ll have to get approval from my superiors,” he said. “It will take about fifteen minutes.”

  The two homicide detectives who caught the Sister Manuela case worked out of the Queens precinct that covered Kennedy International Airport. They were old hands, both nearing the end of thirty-year careers and the pensions that awaited them. Consequently, neither objected to handing over this high-profile case to Devlin’s team.

  “It’s like I told you on the phone,” Detective Harry Hannigan said. “There was no way I believed this was a nun when we found the body.”

  They were gathered around Hannigan’s desk in the precinct squad room. Hannigan resembled a side of beef, right down to his red face. His size reminded Devlin of Ollie Pitts, but all similarities ended there. Hannigan was in his early fifties with a full head of gray hair and the demeanor of a cop who has seen more than his share of police work.

  His partner, Murray Cohen, was half Hannigan’s size and two or three years younger. He had a drab everyman look that probably made him a natural running a tail, someone you could see every day and never notice.

  “There was no question about it being a drug-related murder,” Cohen said. “There was white powder residue on her habit.” He drew a long breath. “The perp who did this was an animal. The ME said he didn’t even put her out of her misery before he sliced her open. Cut her throat after he opened her belly. We figure she started screaming, so he didn’t have a choice.”

  “He didn’t do it first because he didn’t wanna risk losing more of the drugs,” Hannigan said. He tightened his lips and shook his head, again the man who had seen more of life than he cared to. He raised his chin toward the calendar on his desk. “Three months from today I’ll have my thirty years in, and my papers will hit personnel an hour later…. I can’t fucking wait,” he added for emphasis.

  “The way this is starting out I may want to join you,” Devlin said. They were words of mollification and camaraderie. He wanted—no, he needed—the cooperation of these men if he was going to make up the time already lost. He leaned forward. “I’ve read your initial DD-Fives. Tell me what else you’ve come up with.”

  “Squat,” Hannigan said. His face became defensive. “Look, Inspector, we ran a clean crime scene. Everything by the book. What the ME and the criminologists ended up with was as good as they could get. But you gotta remember that this little nun baked in that car for a couple of days. So …” He ended the sentence with a shrug. “We’re hoping we’ll end up with some hair or fibers from her habit, but those results haven’t come back yet.”

  “I understand,” Devlin said. He glanced at Cohen. “You get background on the nun?”

  “Only that she and her family came here from Colombia ten years ago.” Cohen shrugged. “We hit a stone wall with those Opus Christi characters. We even sicced our lieutenant on them, and they told him to talk to the archdiocese, he didn’t like their answers.” Cohen laughed. “You can imagine how far he got with those guys.”

  “Hell, we couldn’t even find out where her parents live, or if they’re even still alive,” Hannigan said.

  “The nun’s parents weren’t at the funeral,” Devlin said. “Or anyone we could identify as a relative.”

  “Guy I talked to at Opus Christi headquarters said their members cut all family ties when they join up.” He shook his head again. “Maybe they weren’t invited. Wouldn’t that be a helluva thing.”

  “Or they could be dead or back in Colombia,” Cohen said.

  “What else?” Devlin asked.

  “We took down the license plates of every car parked within a hundred yards of the crime scene,” Hannigan said. “Then we ran all the plates through the DMY computer.” He laughed. “Came up with four stolen cars. So far we’ve contacted about a third of the people whose cars were parked there but came up with zilch. Nobody saw anything suspicious. You want, we’ll finish the list for you.”

  “That would be a big help. It would free my people for other things.”

  “You got it,” Hannigan said. “It’ll take us a day and a half, tops.”

  The telephone interrupted them. Hannigan answered it, then handed the receiver to Devlin. “For you, Inspector,” he said. He raised his eyebrows. “Mayor’s office.”

  Devlin listened and made some quick notes as one of Howie Silver’s aides babbled excitedly. “Tell the mayor we’ll handle it. It’s probably not related, but he’s right; the press will treat it as though it is.” He listened again. “Okay. Tell him I’ll call as soon as I know what we’ve got.”

  Devlin handed the receiver back to Hannigan, who raised his eyebrows again, this time as a question.

  “Somebody killed a priest in Greenwich Village,” Devlin said. “Cut his throat from ear to ear in the church sacristy.”

  “Just like the nun,” Cohen said. “Still, it’s gotta be a coincidence. But you’re right, the press won’t think so.” He scratched his chin. “No indicati
on of drugs?”

  Devlin shook his head.

  “Jesus, what the fuck’s with this city?” It was Hannigan this time. He blew out a long stream of air. “I guess my sainted mother was wrong. Old girl tried to talk me into a seminary when I told her I signed up for the cops. Said the priesthood was safer work.”

  “What do you mean they’ll be sitting in on our interviews!” Sharon demanded.

  The two men who were the cause of Sharon’s anger stood behind Matthew. They were in their early thirties, at best, and like Matthew both wore bland suits and neckties.

  “These gentlemen are attorneys,” Matthew said. “They are also numerarier in our order and are well acquainted with our members. I’m sure they’ll be a help to you. Of course, they’ll also be there to protect the rights of the people you’re questioning.”

  “These are interviews, not interrogations,” Sharon snapped. “These people are not suspects. We’re simply looking for information.”

  “I believe they are within their rights to have an attorney present,” Matthew said. “We are not denying your request. We’re cooperating fully. But we are also offering this protection to our members.”

  “Sounds like you wanna find out what we find out,” Pitts said. “Have your own boys there to—”

  Sharon raised a hand, cutting him off. “We’ll ask each person if they want these gentlemen present,” Sharon said. “That’s their right, too.”

  Matthew gave her a thin smile. “I’m certain they’ll say that they do,” he said.

  The priest’s body lay in a pool of blood that had spread over much of the tile floor. From the broad, uninterrupted arterial spray that covered a nearby wall, Devlin could tell that the killer had stood behind the priest as he cut. A blood-soaked vestment lay next to the body, part of it still clutched in the priest’s hand.

  Devlin glanced at the two detectives who had caught the case. “The victim was getting ready for some service?” he asked.

  “Choir practice,” one detective said. His name was Rourke. He was tall and slender, with a wispy mustache, about thirty-five, Devlin guessed. His partner, about the same age, had an identical drooping mustache, typical of so many younger cops. But he was shorter and rounder. His name was Costa. Mutt and Jeff, Devlin thought.