It was almost funny. Twenty years too late he’d come upon the perfect confessor for an adolescent. I’m a troubled cop not a—the name Giacanna came to mind. Father Giacanna. Fresh from Italy. He could barely speak English. If you said jerk off instead of masturbate he thought you’d been shoplifting and gave a light penance.
The priest cleared his throat.
“Father?”
“Yes.”
He still couldn’t find his voice.
He remembered his toughest confessor. An old Irishman. Couldn’t put anything past him. A single profanity and he’d have you on your knees for two hours.
“My son, it is confession you want?”
“Yes, I . . .”
The priest wheezed.
“Please, my son.”
“Father, when God sent us His Son . . .”
“What is really troubling you? Perhaps you desire counseling.”
“When . . . when Jesus came on the earth. He came as a God of Love. And he was mur—crucified. Suppose he came back again as a God of Hate.”
“You will have to speak clearer. I don’t understand you.”
He raised his voice. “Father, suppose God, like everybody else, learns from experience.”
“What?”
“God learns.”
An edge came into the priest’s voice. “Be careful, son. You are approaching heresy.”
Now that he had begun, Nicholas went eagerly ahead.
“The Old Testament is full of blood and fury. According to those scriptures, God has murdered and maimed people. He’s created since the dawn of time.”
“The Devil! You are speaking of the Devil.”
“Father. We have always overlooked one possibility. Suppose God and the Devil are the same.”
“Leave here!” the priest shrilled. “I won’t hear this. You are not seeking absolution.”
The teller in the Staten Island bank left his window in the middle of a transaction. He made no explanation to the customer whose deposit slip he had already stamped, nor did he speak to any of his co-workers. He took his car from the parking lot and drove approximately one mile to a public grade school, making one stop at a gas station along the way. He drove without haste, but distractedly, and at one point he nearly ran a red light.
His name was Michael Jennings. He was twenty-six years old. He had thin features, a blond mustache, brown eyes, and neatly styled sand-colored hair. He was considered a shy person by most who knew him. He was a homosexual, though not many of his acquaintances were aware of this, and he had lived quietly with the same lover for three years.
He arrived at the school shortly after classes had broken for the day. A number of young children were about to cross the street. A crosswalk guard raised a paddle that read STOP. Instead of stopping, Michael Jennings floored the gas pedal of his car.
The psychiatrist paced back and forth. He sometimes stopped to shuffle papers on his desk. Every few minutes he would remove his glasses and wipe them with a tissue.
Detective Jordan asked, “Doctor, what are you hiding from us?”
The psychiatrist blinked at the policeman’s accusing tone. “You’ve no right to speak with me that way,” he said in a skittering, high-pitched voice. “I’ve told you what, what I feel is everything.”
“Then let us see Michael Jennings,” said Nicholas. He was out of patience with the psychiatrist. The man had made them wait nearly an hour before seeing them. He then proceeded to weave evasive circles around all they asked him. But what bothered Nicholas more than the psychiatrist’s odd reluctance to speak was that so much time had passed between Jennings’ driving into the children and Nicholas’s learning of the incident.
The psychiatrist said, “I can’t allow you to see him. He’s a patient under close observation.”
Jordan’s affable manner had given way after fifteen minutes of the psychiatrist’s evasion. “Look, Doctor, we’re investigating a series of related homicides. You are interfering with our investigation.”
The psychiatrist threw out his arms. “Nonsense! Michael Jennings is simply a man who suddenly went berserk. It happens! Thank God it doesn’t happen often, but—”
“Let us see him,” Jordan interrupted. “We’ll decide if it’s nonsense.”
“You men haven’t told me a thing. Perhaps if I knew what you’re investigating . . .”
“You spoke with him, didn’t you, Doctor?” Nicholas said.
“I examined him. Nobody spoke with him. I’ve told you that! I’ve explained that the reason the arresting officers brought him here was because he was in a near-catatonic state. He wouldn’t or couldn’t speak. It was all done in proper manner. A judge had given the permission, that signed the papers, allowing me to do what I felt necessary. I behaved accordingly.”
“Why did you examine him alone?” asked Nicholas. “Didn’t you think it important an officer should be there if Jennings made a statement?”
“I don’t like people looking over my shoulder. I’ve explained that.”
Jordan exploded. “Then explain why you kept us waiting a fucking hour! Explain what you’re afraid of.”
The psychiatrist paced back and forth. “I’m a busy man. What the hell do you think running a place like this is? Look, if it’ll be any help to you, I can tell you Jennings was a homosexual.”
Nicholas and Jordan looked at each other. Jordan rolled his eyes in disgust.
Nicholas said, “If he didn’t speak, Doctor, how do you know he’s gay? And why do you keep saying was? He’s not dead, is he?”
“He might as well be. I doubt if he’ll ever come out of the state he’s in. When the police picked him up yesterday there was an identity card. Whom to call in case of an emergency. Police called and got the man, the lover.”
Nicholas broke in, “We talked to the lover! He’s in your outer office waiting to see you.”
“Yes, I know that. Of course, I know that. I thought you people should be seen first. I . . .”
“We used your phone and talked to other people while you kept us hanging. We got the latest statistics on Jennings’ victims. A fourth child died. Another child is never going to walk. A mother trying to save her kid lost an arm. The crosswalk guard never made it home last night to cook her husband’s dinner. Now you tell us what Jennings said. Because I damn well know he talked to you.”
“Look here, I am—”
“You look!” snapped Jordan. “You give us the straight story or we’ll see to it there’s a court investigation.”
The birdlike voice squealed, “Don’t threaten me!”
“It’s a fucking promise, Doc.”
The psychiatrist turned and went to the window. He raised a blind. The window was gray and streaked and he stared out at a gray Staten Island landscape. He toyed with the pull cord of the blind while he talked, never facing the detectives.
“This is off the record. If it helps you with your investigation, fine. But I’ll deny it under oath if it ever comes back to me. Mind you, I’ve done nothing wrong. When the police wheeled Jennings in, I took one look and his eyes were wide open. Not unusual in such cases. But your average patient, you can tell isn’t seeing anything. It’s simply a blank stare. With Jennings, it’s difficult to describe. There was an innocence in his expression. I got the impression he saw me and was trying to draw me inside of himself.
“I had to be alone with him. I was sure I could reach him, but it had to be him and me alone.
“There are certain shots which sometimes work in such cases. I knew the usual methods wouldn’t work. I gave him insulin. Our procedure here is for a minimum of three concurring opinions before any type of shock treatment be given. This was, though, and I emphasize this, a highly unusual case. I believed there was only a short time in which I could reach him. I did not call in my colleagues and made the decision to use insulin on my own.
“He reacted almost instantaneously to the shot. Not in any normal way. Nor any way I’ve heard about. His body stiffe
ned in the usual fashion, but briefly, much too briefly. Then his eyes opened. That is, his eyes focused. Were it not for the restraining straps, I believe he might had sat up. He smiled. An odd smile. If either of you are familiar with the painter Botticelli you know the smile.
“He said, I shouldn’t have stopped at the gas station. And then—then he was gone.”
The psychiatrist continued to stare out the window and toy with the pull cord.
After a moment Nicholas spoke. “He said something else, Doctor.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“God told me to.”
Jordan waited until they were back in the car. He began with a chuckle. It developed into laughter. Roaring laughter. He slapped his thighs and laughed. Between spurts of laughter he talked.
“Christ! I bought it. I really thought you were on to something. And all the while, the whole fuckin’ time you were off on a religious trip. That’s it, isn’t it, Nicholas? Fletcher and Gorman told you they were ordered by God.”
Nicholas was driving. He silently watched the road.
“Every fuckin’ nut in history has said God told me. If it isn’t God it’s the Devil. The Devil made me do it.”
Nicholas drove.
“Hey! Where you going? This case is over. Turn around!”
“I’m going to find out where Jennings stopped for gas.”
“There isn’t any case. Forget it. I’ll think of something to cover you with Hendriks. He’d have your head if he knew the truth. Mine, too, for not spotting you sooner.”
Nicholas braked to a halt.
“Why you stopping? No church here,” Jordan laughed. “This is a fuckin’ bus stop.”
“You want to turn back, you go. I’ve got a lead to check out.”
There was a wild, tense look about Nicholas. Jordan sobered and said, “Don’t think I should leave you alone.”
“Then shut up.”
Only one gas station was on the route between the bank where Michael Jennings had worked and the school. Jennings’ picture had appeared in the morning Daily News. Nicholas showed the picture to the station attendant.
“Recognize this guy?”
“They oughta string him up by the balls for what he did!”
“He ever a customer?”
“Yep. Stopped yesterday only a few minutes before he did it. Reason I remember is he pulled in and says, ‘Fill it up.’ So I filled it up. One dollar and eight cents’ worth. Faggot creep.”
“How do you know he was gay?”
“Because he didn’t stop here for gas is how I know. Stopped to meet some other faggot.”
“Who?”
“How should I know. He steps out of his car while I’m filling his big order. When I turn around he’s standing over there by the Pepsi machine. Talking to the other one.”
“Can you describe the other?”
“Weird. Looked like one of those—whatcha call ’em? Real pale and white.”
“Albino?”
“That’s it. Blond hair. Long blond faggot hair. Skinny. Wouldn’t say he was wearing a dress, exactly, but it was like a robe of some kind.”
“He leave with Jennings?”
“No. I went to get Jennings’ change and when I come back he’d disappeared.”
Nicholas and Jordan headed back to Manhattan on the Staten Island ferry. While on the boat, Nicholas left the car. He leaned against a railing and stared at the white water the boat left in its wake. He stood stiff and quiet and his hands beat an erratic rhythm against the railing. Jordan stood near and watched him.
A gull swooped low. It squawked. Nicholas reacted as if an explosion had gone off in his ear.
Jordan spoke quietly and without bravado.
“You know, Nicholas, we can’t very well comb New York checking out every blond faggot. Let’s forget it, huh? We can fix the report so Hendriks will be satisfied. What do you say, buddy? Why don’t you quit staring at that water, huh. People drown in it. Fish swim in it. You took a flyer on this one. Let’s let it go at that.”
Nicholas took out his notebook and began flipping the pages. As if to himself, he said, “The mechanic out at Fletcher’s garage.”
“Told us what everybody told us. That Fletcher was a sweet good-hearted guy.”
“Told something else. To prove his point he told us something Fletcher did only a few hours before the slashings.”
“He gave a couple bucks to a panhandler.”
“It was a kid.”
“Hell, panhandling is a way of life for kids these days.”
Nicholas was insistent. “It was a skinny blond-haired kid. I didn’t note it because it seemed too minor. But I remember the mechanic’s description. Shoulder-length hair. They thought the kid was a thief. He’d been hanging around the garage all morning. Then Fletcher went out and talked to him. The mechanic saw Fletcher hand the kid money. Fletcher came back and said the kid was just hungry.”
“Nicholas, you’re grasping at straws.”
They went to the Haskell Publications Building and found the elevator operator who had run the car ridden by Harold Gorman. The operator had a smart, know-it-all attitude and Jordan didn’t get involved in the questioning.
“You cops. Do I got to say it again? I didn’t know there was rifle in the package. I took him up to the top floor. From there he used the stairs to get to the roof. Or maybe he flew.”
“Anyone else in the elevator.”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“This ain’t exactly a leper colony. People do come and go.”
“How about a very pale blond boy? Hair shoulder-length.”
“Sandals?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe’s right. One was around that day looked that way. Wore one of them loose Indian shirts. Spotted him as a junkie. Why I kept my eye on him. We don’t want that shit around here. Can’t say for sure he was on the same car as Gorman.”
“What happened to him?”
“Do I know? I can’t watch everything.”
Jordan wasn’t convinced but he made no comment when Nicholas turned into the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel and they headed for New Jersey.
Harold Gorman’s mother held a picture of her son while she talked.
“I only saw him from a distance. From the window. Harold didn’t usually hang out with those types. The long hair and sandals. I thought it peculiar enough to ask Harold. He said the boy was just somebody he knew. Somebody from New York. Washington Heights. I remember specifically Washington Heights because you would think a person looking like that would live in Greenwich Village. Is he responsible for what Harold did? I believe the boy’s name was Bernard Phillips.”
SIX
They had found their link. The coincidence of the boy being seen with the three slayers and having gotten his name was enough to satisfy Hendriks. He gave them more time.
Now began the detailed and frustrating work of a search.
They started with the detective’s classic but unromantic tool. The telephone directory. In the Manhattan book alone there were seventeen B. or Bernard Phillipses. A court order got them the names of an additional four who weren’t listed. They then had the other four boroughs to cover. They found Bernard Phillipses of various ages, sizes, colors but not one matched the age, shape, coloring of their Bernard Phillips.
They checked the Motor Vehicles Department. Bernard Phillips, their Bernard Phillips, either didn’t drive a car, or if he did, he didn’t have a license.
They checked every public record and source available. They used money and every other method necessary to get hold of documents normally unavailable to the police. They put the word out through informants on the street.
They collected stacks of unrelated information which was read, re-read and read again, always hoping to find the one clue that would lead them further.
Because of the possible homosexual tie with Jennings, they spent some evenings covering the city’s gay ba
rs.
Detective Jordan took to working his eight hours and quitting. He had privately reported to Hendriks that it looked like Nicholas had stumbled onto something. He never mentioned to Hendriks the little phrase that had originally gotten Nicholas’s interest. He neither knew nor questioned why he held back the information, and his personal attitude about the case wavered from day to day. As the tedium of the search wore on, he began to think it all one odd coincidence, he began to think Bernard Phillips, their Bernard Phillips, didn’t exist.
Nicholas worked long bleary hours into the night. He told Casey to expect him when she saw him and he would go home only for a change of clothing. His rest came from short naps on a cot in back of the squad room or when he leaned over his desk and dozed. His meals were black coffee and delicatessen sandwiches and cartons of Chinese food that usually cooled and gelled before he ate it.
His desk became a growing clutter of odd notes and scribbled speculations and photocopies of various public records, a house of cards which he constantly tore apart, shuffled, and rebuilt into a new pattern. But nothing resulted.
No leads.
No nothing.
Bernard Phillips—his Bernard Phillips—was on no school records. His name appeared on no welfare rosters nor had he ever received a Social Security number. Nicholas personally checked the New York Selective Service board, then called the main office of the Selective Service in St. Louis. Bernard Phillips had never registered for the draft. Nor was he a registered voter. He had never been a member of the Boy Scouts, nor any organization Nicholas could find. He had never owned property. The FBI and the State Police claimed the name was on none of their lists.
Not for a moment did Nicholas consider the possibility that his Bernard Phillips didn’t exist.
Jordan thought that possibly Mrs. Gorman had gotten the name wrong. He called on her two more times. The calls had the effect of making the woman more sure of her statement.
The theory that had gnawed at Peter Nicholas before Jennings entered the case now nagged him again. He did not attempt to discuss his theory with another priest. Two priests had sorely disappointed him within a matter of days. The thought of another rejection by his church worried him nearly as much as a new fear that began to creep up on him. One evening Jordan gave voice to his fear.
God Told Me To Page 5
