by phuc
They were almost home when Rachael started telling him what happened. Or what she remembered of it.
After being questioned by Bernie Haskins at length, Rachael had emerged from the interrogation room and gone straight to Daryl's desk. She was still tired and wanted to go home. Daryl had grabbed his keys and glanced at the overhead clock. He had plenty of time to whisk Rachael home and be back in time to question Father Glowacz. He told Bernie Haskins that he would be back in an hour and escorted Rachael out of the building.
He asked how the interrogation went. “Fine,” Rachael said. She remained silent as they got in the car and drove out onto Main street. Daryl decided not to press the issue further. She would tell him when she was ready. He was simply glad that she was here with him. Daryl's only concern now was for her mind. He had hoped the questioning would help her confront those issues and deal with them.
So when she started talking, Daryl was pleasantly surprised and glad. “I told Bernie all I know, Daryl, which isn't much. I hope he doesn't think I'm a fool."
“He's not going to think you're a fool,” Daryl said, getting off the freeway at Central. He headed up the street toward Magnolia.
“He seemed rather disappointed that I didn't see Charley actually kill his mother,”
Rachael said, her features wan and tired. “I was ... locked in that bathroom during much of that..."
“And thank God you were,” Daryl murmured, eyes on the road. “What did you tell him?"
Rachael paused, as if collecting her thoughts. Then she told a simplified version of her story of how she went to the house, how Charley invited her inside and ushered her to his room because he didn't want to disturb his mother. “Even then I didn't feel right about it,” she said. “I got a creepy feeling about him. I can't explain it, but if you were a woman you would understand. There are just some guys that just radiate this ... weirdness about them that is akin to your skin feeling like worms are crawling all over it."
Daryl nodded. He had heard the feeling described to him before by other women of guys that just didn't feel right to them. Mainly rape victims. It was a sixth sense that was often ignored when it should have been heeded.
“We sat on the couch and I started questioning him and then he started to get really weird,” Rachael resumed. “He started going on about how he didn't kill those people—and I hadn't even asked him about the Butcher murders. It was as if he had already made up his mind that I knew he was involved in the murders and he was denying it. Then he grabbed me and I tried to get away from him, tried to tell him to calm down, and that's when he attacked me.” She stopped, took a deep breath and continued. “I kneed him in the groin and we both went down. He ... had his hands around my throat and was strangling me.” Her hands went up to her throat where the bruises were still evident. She had been complaining of a sore throat since last night and at times she talked with hoarseness in her voice.
“We both got up,” she continued. “And he came at me and I tried to disable him with a straight punch, but I didn't even see the knife. He jabbed it into my side. I gave him a forward chop in the Adam's apple, but he got me again. He was just about to stab me again when I grabbed his wrist and disarmed him. I was able to elbow him in the solar plexus, and that's when I used that opportunity to run. Only I was so disoriented, so overtaken by everything, that the first place I ran to was the bathroom. The moment I got in the bathroom I could tell he had recovered and was coming after me, so I slammed and locked the door.” She was breathing heavily, remembering it. “He pounded on the door and yelled at me for what seemed like hours, and I just screamed and screamed at him. I was barely aware I was bleeding. Finally I heard him move away from the door, and that's when I heard his mother out in the hall. Then...” She took a deep breath and paused.
“Then I guess he attacked her. I couldn't bear to hear it, so I covered my ears with my hands. I was just ... so out of it."
“It's okay,” Daryl said.
“At some point,” Rachael continued, “I saw that I was hurt and I got a towel to try to stop the bleeding. Then I just ... I don't know ... lost it I guess. I barely even remember hiding in the bathtub. I just remember things in bits in pieces. Like...” Her breath was starting to hitch again, as if she were going to cry.
“You don't have to tell me if you don't—” Daryl began.
“I want to finish,” Rachael said, looking at him. She looked tired and worn out, but she looked like she was ready to go back into battle again. Her eyes regained some of that spark that he found so attractive. Daryl nodded at her to continue. “I could hear him out there, muttering and crying. I couldn't tell what he was saying, but I could tell that he was ... cutting her up. And then I heard him get up and leave the room—"
“Charley left the room?” Daryl asked.
Rachael nodded. “He left the house once I think. He was gone for like.... I don't know.... an hour maybe. I really don't remember. I think I blacked out a lot.” She paused.
“The next thing I remember, aside from that weird feeling you get when you think you're awake or half asleep and you're really just out of it, is waking up and everything was so quiet. And ... I knew he was out there somewhere, just ... waiting for me to come out."
They were almost at the house. Daryl was silent as he pulled the car into the driveway and turned it off. He turned to Rachael and touched her arm lightly. “Are you going to be okay?"
Rachael nodded. She mustered a smile. “I'll be fine. I'll probably need therapy for the next ten years, but I'm fine."
“Nothing wrong with therapy,” Daryl said. It sure could have helped Charley Glowacz, he thought. He felt more pity for Charley Glowacz now. It was slowly replacing the rage he had felt two days ago when he'd almost killed him. He was looking forward to talking to Charley's brother John; maybe he would be able to shed some light on Charley's sickness.
Daryl helped Rachael out of the car and they walked to the front door together. He unlocked the door and they went in. Petey greeted them at the door with a great swishing of his hindquarters. “Petey!” Rachael cried as the dog jumped on her, trying to smother her face in dog kisses. The central air conditioning had kicked in, and the house was fresh and cool. Rachael turned to him, holding onto Petey's front paws, still favoring her right side a little bit. She smiled. “I'll be fine. You go back and talk to Father Glowacz. Will you try to be home early tonight?"
“I'll be home early,” he said, kissing her. She hugged him and he held her; he was finding it hard to resist holding on to her whenever the opportunity arose. She had come so close to being taken away from him and holding her whenever possible, touching her, holding her hand, was his way of making sure the contact between them was unbroken, that she was still with him in the here and now. That she would never go away.
When Father John Glowacz showed up at Parker Center looking tired and haggard an hour later, Daryl Garcia offered his hand. “Father, please accept my condolences for your loss. I'm very sorry."
“Thank you,” Father Glowacz said. His face was pale, his cheekbones appeared sunken, as if he hadn't eaten in the last few days. His eyes were red with black circles under them. He managed a small smile. “It's been a tough forty-eight hours. I haven't gotten a bit of sleep and I'm supposed to say Mass tomorrow morning."
“I'll try to make this as quick as possible then,” Daryl said, leading the priest down the hall of the homicide division. He stopped at a door on the right and opened it. He stood aside and motioned for Father Glowacz to enter. “Go on in and have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?"
“Water would be fine,” Father Glowacz said, stepping into the bare interrogation room. “I've had so much coffee that I'm afraid when I get back to the rectory I won't be able to sleep."
“Okay. Be right back.” Daryl went to the break room and got two glasses of water from the Sparklets dispenser. He carried the Styrofoam cups back to the interrogation room, handed Father Glowacz his, set his own cup down on the scarred wood
en table that sat in the middle of the room, and closed the door. Father Glowacz had already seated himself in one of the stiff wooden chairs and Daryl Garcia took a seat opposite him. A tape recorder sat on the table. Daryl's hands traced the tape recorder's buttons. “So you don't want to have an attorney present with you during questioning?” Daryl asked. Father John Glowacz wasn't a suspect in the least, but he had given the priest the option of having an attorney present during questioning when he spoke to him on the phone this morning. He had told him that in his brother's best interest it might be best if he spoke to one before he came to Parker Center this evening. Father Glowacz said he didn't think he would need one.
Father Glowacz nodded his confirmation of this again. Although he looked nervous, he appeared to be weathering this quite well. “I'm sure. A lawyer would only mess things up. I want to get what I have to tell you off my chest."
“Do you mind if I tape it?"
“No. Go right ahead."
Daryl pressed the RECORD button on the tape recorder.
Taking a sip of his water, Daryl leaned forward over the table, trying to collect his thoughts. He had everything he wanted to ask the priest in his head. Four simple questions. He fired off the first one. “Tell me about Charley's childhood. As much of it as you recall. He's five years older than you, correct?"
Father John Glowacz nodded, sipping his water. He appeared to think about what he was going to say, his brow furrowed in concentration or struggle. “When Charley was born, our parents weren't doing very well. Our father was an alcoholic, a rather violent one, and ... well, Charley wasn't a wanted child. At least that's what I learned years later from our mother. They fought a lot and he used to beat her up. Used to thrash the two of us around as well. We moved to the house in Highland Park when dad got a promotion—
he was a foreman at a construction company—and he put in the addition on the house right away. He did that himself. About a year later he finally left the family. It drove my mother to tears."
Daryl let this sink in, trying to imagine what it had been like for the two young boys. As a cop he had often seen the first hand results of children in dysfunctional families. It was the worst thing he had ever seen, worse even than the murders and the gang crimes he came to live with as a homicide detective. When children were the victims of their parent's neglect and cruelty it was enough for one to question the nature of the universe, to wonder why God would allow such things to happen. How could any parent kill their children, abuse them like that? It was something he could not understand.
“How old were you when your father left?"
Father Glowacz's brow furrowed. “Oh, I guess I was ... eight years old or so, and Charley was twelve or thirteen. By then he was very self-sufficient. He was a good brother to me. He kept me away from our folks when they were fighting, kept me entertained with different games we'd make up. He took me to church a lot. We went to church every Sunday as a family, but Charley took me to St. Anthony's when we lived in Boyle Heights, and later Our Lady when we moved to Highland Park. The church became my sanctuary."
Father Glowacz covered the formative years pretty quickly. Charley became the man of the house after their father left, and took care of young John while their mother worked two jobs to keep the mortgage paid and food on the table. Their father never supported the family, and neither boy was stricken with grief when he died five years later from alcohol poisoning. When Charley graduated from high school he took a job as a butcher at a grocery store, which he held for three years. He worked various second jobs during this period as well. By the time John graduated from high school, Charley had left the grocery store and was working at Acme Insurance as a file clerk, while their mother had left her second job permanently and settled into a secretarial position. John got an academic scholarship to Notre Dame University.
Daryl's ears perked up at this bit of information. “You went to Notre Dame?"
“Yes,” Father Glowacz said, taking a sip of his water. He still appeared to be fumbling through the interrogation, as if he was struggling with some inner turmoil. He's probably feeling as if he's betraying his brother, Daryl thought. “It was a good school. I did quite well there,” John said.
“Where did you live? In the dorms on campus, or in town?"
“I had an apartment in town,” John said, fidgeting in his chair, obviously nervous now. “It was nice, a split level duplex. I ... I had a roommate, a young woman who lived on the lower floor. I lived upstairs and—"
“Did your mother or Charley ever come out to visit you?” Daryl was leaning forward, very interested in this bit of information.
Father Glowacz's brow furrowed again in thought. “Yeah, a few times I suppose.
“Do you remember when?"
John shrugged. He appeared to slump in defeat. “God, I really don't know. I suppose ... let's see ... Mom visited me during my first semester, and my brother came out a few times after that. Then they both came out at least twice, and then my brother came back out to visit two or three more times."
“Try to remember dates for me,” Daryl said. “It's very important."
John sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his face. “Well, let me see.” He appeared to think about it for a moment, and after about five minutes he was able to confirm a series of visitation dates: a visit from Mom in November of 1982; a visit from both Charley and Mom in May of 1983; a visit from Charley in October of 1983; a visit from Mom again in February of 1984; a visit from Charley in September of 1984, and two more visits from Charley in April and September of 1985. Mom came back for another visit in March of 1986, and again in May when he graduated. Charley never did come back.
Daryl nodded along, taking it all in. The last three dates of Charley's visits corresponded to murders committed in the South Bend area. It was almost too good to be true. “Did you always live in the same place in South Bend?"
“No. Like I said, I had that nice duplex with my roommate, a girl named Stacy Temple. But for my freshman and sophmore years, I lived on campus in the dorms. In my junior year Stacy and I rented an apartment four blocks from downtown. It was a great place. Horrible neighborhood, but a great apartment. Stacy had the basement, and I had the upper floor. It was an old, three story Victorian home that had been chopped up into apartments. It was perfect for a couple of college kids.” Father John Glowacz smiled.
“Did this ... Stacy Temple ever meet your brother?” Daryl asked.
Father Glowacz nodded. “Several times. The first time Charley and mom came to visit us at that house, Stacy had to move back to her own quarters for awhile. We—"
“Why's that?” Daryl asked. He was jotting down notes.
“We were dating,” John said, trying to sound casual. “Living together, I guess you could say, and—"
Daryl Garcia looked at the priest in surprise. “So you weren't attending Notre Dame with the intention of being a priest? You were actually living a secular life?"
Father John Glowacz nodded. “Y-yes. I ... I was rather confused about where I wanted my life to go. Stacy was, too. We just sort of ... threw ourselves together and had this mad, passionate affair. She was just as confused as I was."
“I bet your mother wasn't that happy with it,” Daryl said.
“She never knew.” Father John Glowacz sighed. “That's why whenever she came Stacy moved back into her downstairs apartment. Later, when we graduated and she came out here to California and I entered the priesthood, we still managed to stay in touch. I even helped her out for awhile when she moved to California. Mom was hurting for money and that back house was livable space, so Stacy rented it for awhile from my mother."
This was news Daryl wasn't expecting. He leaned forward over the table. “How long did she live there?"
“I ... I don't know.” Father Glowacz rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.
He looked nervous. “A year, maybe a little more."
“Charley lived at the house the whole time she was living in the ba
ck house?"
Father Glowacz nodded. “Y-yes."
“When did she move out?"
John shrugged. He sighed. “I don't know. Three years ago maybe. Sometime in late ‘95."
“Have you heard from her since?"
“No."
Daryl detected a hint of sorrow in that last answer. He regarded the priest calmly, noting his body language and posture. He's nervous about something, he thought. He's nervous about something and I'll be damned if I know what it is. At least he had a name: Stacy Temple. He could do some checking on her, try to have her located and questioned to see if her story corroborated Father Glowacz's. As to why Father Glowacz was so nervous, perhaps even embarrassed about mentioning her, Daryl had his suspicions, so he decided to try a different tactic of questioning.
“Both you and Charley were raised in the Catholic faith,” Daryl asked, trying to find the right words to formulate his next question. “Tell me more about the kind of values you and Charley were raised in."
Father Glowacz frowned. “We were raised with good values. We had a good Catholic upbringing. Our mother raised us well."
Daryl tried to backtrack; he could see that he had offended Father Glowacz, but he didn't give a shit. The priest had just revealed why he had been so nervous whenever he mentioned his old lover Stacy Temple. “Humor me, Father. What kind of values specifically? Did she teach you that you weren't to take the Lord's name in vain and to go to Church every Sunday? Did she tell you that if you looked at a girl with lust that you would fry in the Big Hot Place? What kind of values?"
Father Glowacz's frown deepened. “Charley and I were raised to respect our mother, to respect the church and God. We were raised to be good Catholics. Are you Catholic Detective Garcia?"
“Yes,” Daryl answered. He didn't want to get into why he hadn't attended Mass in nine years, so he quickly brushed the question aside. “But still, humor me, Father. When I was a kid going to catechism, some of my buddies who came from good Catholic homes were encouraged by their fathers to chase as much skirt as possible, while my grandmother, God rest her soul, told me that to do so was a grave sin in the eyes of God.
