Blood of the Wicked cims-1

by Leighton Gage

  "Got an appointment?" he said, before Hector had a chance to utter a word.

  "I'm here to see Father Gaspar."

  The young man raised his eyes and sighed. "I didn't think it was to see me, so I ask you again. Have you got an appointment?"

  "No, but-"

  "Then call and make one."

  He started to swing the door shut, but not quickly enough.

  "Hey," he said, "get your foot out of the-"

  Hector didn't wait for him to finish. "Tell Father Gaspar that it's police business."

  The door swung open again, relieving the pressure on Hector's foot.

  "You're a cop?"

  Hector nodded. "I'm a cop. Federal Police."

  "Prove it."

  "Jesus Christ," Hector said, but he reached for his wallet.

  "We don't take the name of the Lord in vain around here," the young man said, reprovingly. He studied Hector's ID. "You got a business card in there?"

  Hector fished one out and handed it over.

  "Okay, wait here. And take your foot out of the door."

  Hector did, and the surly servant slammed it shut.

  A few minutes later the servant was back. This time he swung the door wide, led Hector toward the back of the house, and ushered him into a room where a fat man in a black cassock was waiting for him. Limpid brown eyes stared at Hector from beneath bushy eyebrows.

  Hector took the hand he was offered. The priest exerted only the slightest pressure before he let go.

  "Father Gaspar Farias," he said.

  "Pleased to meet you, Father. Hector Costa, Federal Police."

  Completely bald, Father Gaspar had slightly protuberant eyes, a wide mouth, virtually no neck and a double chin. His head seemed to be out of proportion to the rest of his body. He reminded Hector of a huge frog.

  The priest's study was a high-ceilinged room lined with bookshelves. A rustic dining table had been pressed into service as a writing desk. Two cane chairs were situated in front of it, and a more comfortable one, in black leather, was behind.

  A strong floral perfume hung in the air. Hector sniffed. Lilacs? The priest was using a scent more suited to a woman than to a man, and to an older woman to boot.

  "Have a seat," Father Gaspar said, indicating one of the cane chairs and sinking down in the other.

  When Hector sat he felt a cold blast of air-conditioning on the back of his neck. He glanced upward and discovered that his chair had been placed directly under the vent. He shifted his seat and tried leaning forward slightly, but it didn't seem to help. The priest showed no sign of noticing his discomfort.

  "Am I the first to welcome you to Cascatas, Delegado?"

  Father Gaspar was using Hector's title, the one on his business card, a clear improvement on the treatment he'd received from Ferraz.

  "Yes, Father, you are. Not the first person I've spoken to, mind you, but certainly the first person to welcome me."

  A look of consternation came over the priest's face. "I'm sorry. Euclides can be a bit abrasive at times."

  "Euclides?"

  "The young man who answered the door, my self-appointed watchdog. Sometimes a bit too zealous, but-" The priest broke off when the door swung open.

  Euclides came in carrying a tray with coffee, already poured. He put a cup and saucer in front of each man.

  Hector picked up his cup and took a sip. The coffee was nauseatingly pre-sweetened, and cold. He glanced over at the priest and saw a thin wisp of steam arising from the other cup. Determined not to give Euclides any degree of satisfaction, Hector drained the remainder of his coffee, and smacked his lips, as if he'd actually enjoyed it.

  The servant's thin smile faded. He leaned his back against the wall, settling in.

  "Thank you, Euclides," Father Gaspar said pointedly. Then, when his servant still didn't seem to get it, he added, "That will be all."

  Euclides narrowed his eyes and left without a word. Hector had no doubt he'd be listening on the other side of the door.

  "What can I do for you, Delegado?"

  "I'd like to talk to you about Dom Felipe."

  Father Gaspar furrowed his brow. "A terrible thing, that. A terrible thing."

  "You knew him well?"

  There were four picture frames on Father Gaspar's desk, all with their backs toward them. The priest leaned forward, picked up the largest one and handed it to his visitor.

  "That's him, there, on the right."

  In the photo, Dom Felipe's hair hadn't yet turned white. There were three men in the shot. The man standing on the left was a younger, and much thinner, Father Gaspar. The third man was the Pope.

  "Taken… let me see… seventeen years ago this April in the garden of the Vatican. Autumn here, but it was springtime in Europe. Winter had been mild that year. You can see that the flowers were already in bloom." He took the photograph back from Hector and stared at it.

  "The bishop and I were great friends," he said. "Longtime friends. I shall miss him. The church will miss him." He seemed to make a conscious effort to shake off his melancholy. His voice took on a more businesslike tone when he said, "Have you made any progress in discovering who did it?"

  "Not yet, Father. Were you there when it happened?"

  "Yes, I was. I was standing in the vestibule of the church. I saw it all. The first shot hit him in the chest. The second…"

  His words tapered off. He shook his head, rubbed some dust off of the top of the frame, and returned the photo to its original position.

  "Sorry, Father. I'm sure this must be painful for you, but-"

  "No, Delegado. Don't apologize. I want to be of any help that I possibly can. Please, ask away."

  "Thank you, Father. I'll try to be brief. Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill him?"

  Father Gaspar hesitated. Hector noticed, and gave him a gentle push. "Did he have any enemies?"

  "Everyone has enemies, Delegado. Even priests."

  Hector sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. His instincts told him Father Gaspar was holding something back. "Could his death have had something to do with ah… an intimate relationship?"

  Father Gaspar looked confused.

  Hector was forced to explain.

  "Women, perhaps? Or boys?"

  "Certainly not," Gaspar said, reddening.

  "Money, then? Was he particularly fond of money?"

  The priest shook his head. "To him, money was only an instrument, an instrument he employed to help the less fortunate. And to celebrate the glory of God."

  "You're not giving me much to work with, Father. In my world, unless they're insane-and, believe me, I'm not ruling out that possibility-people kill each other for revenge, jealousy, money, and very little else."

  "And do you think, Delegado, that your world is so very different from his or, for that matter, from mine?"

  "Frankly, I hope it is. Mine can get pretty ugly at times. But, if he wasn't killed for revenge, or for jealousy or for money…

  Hector let the unasked question hang in the air.

  Father Gaspar folded his hands over his ample stomach, and blinked. It made him look all the more like a frog. Then he nodded, as if he'd made a decision.

  "Are you familiar with liberation theology, Delegado?"

  "Familiar with it? No. I've heard the term, that's all."

  "The expression liberation theology comes from the title of a book, a book written more than forty years ago by a Peruvian priest named Gustavo Gutierrez. He entitled it The Theology of Liberation."

  "I don't see-"

  "Bear with me, Delegado. I don't know any other way to explain this, and I think it's something you should be made aware of."

  Hector inclined his head.

  The priest continued. "Liberation theologians believe the church should be involved in what they call `the struggle for economic and political justice."'

  "Struggle?"

  "That's the word they use. Struggle." Father Gaspar lifted a forefin
ger like a teacher anxious to make a point. "They maintain that there are two kinds of Christianity: their kind, liberation theology, which proposes radical change, and another kind, one that favors the status quo."

  "And by the `status quo,' they mean?"

  "The current distribution of wealth, more specifically of land."

  "What's land got to do with theology?"

  "For them? Everything! They maintain that rural people who don't own at least a small piece of land are doomed to live as an underclass. On the other hand, they say that the ownership of vast tracts of land defines membership in a group that exploits and oppresses the poor."

  "And you, Father? Do you subscribe to that?"

  The priest looked shocked, as if Hector had just accused him of something morally repugnant. "Of course not! But all liberation theologians do. They also believe that priests who defend the status quo, priests like Dom Felipe and myself, are lackeys to the rich. They say we're brainwashing the poor."

  "Brainwashing?"

  "Brainwashing. Their phrase, not mine. They accuse us of convincing the landless that they should be patient here on earth because that's what God wants. Then, when they die, they'll get their reward in heaven."

  "Land in heaven?"

  Hector smiled, but the priest didn't.

  "Unfortunately, some of the simpler people interpret it exactly that way. It's a lie! We don't teach them that. We teach that paradise awaits for all good men, both rich and poor. Liberation theologians, on the other hand, postulate that everyone has a God-given right to a certain degree of wealth in this life. They want to force radical change. They propose redistribution of wealth, redistribution of land, here and now."

  "Sounds like Marxism."

  "Similar, but different. The concept of sin is alien to Marxism, but not to liberation theologians. To them, not overthrowing the ruling class, not fighting to redistribute wealth, is a sin, a sin of the gravest nature, perhaps the gravest one of all."

  "So they basically advocate some kind of a holy war, a crusade, a Christian jihad?"

  "Exactly. And they embrace anything it takes to achieve their ends."

  "Even violence?"

  "Even violence. There was a classmate of Gutierrez, a priest by the name of Camilo Torres. He was killed fighting with the guerillas in Colombia. When they found his body he had a weapon in his hands."

  Hector shook his head. "How can the church tolerate something like that?"

  "The church doesn't. Not anymore. Liberation theology has been condemned."

  "Condemned?"

  "By the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the body that rules on such things.

  "And Dom Felipe…"

  "Devoutly carried out the dictates of his superiors."

  "Which brought him in direct conflict with the liberation theologians?"

  "Exactly. But he welcomed the conflict. Dom Felipe saw it as his duty to bring them to heel. He made it clear that priests who were liberation theologians had to renounce the doctrine or leave the Church."

  "Which wouldn't have made him popular with the people from the Landless Workers' League."

  "Just so. Simple people-and most landless farmers are simple people-interpreted his action as a rejection, by the Church, of everything that the league stood for. The good Catholics among them became concerned that they might be doing something wrong, even impious. They quit the league in droves."

  "Which gave the league a good reason to dislike Dom Felipe."

  "Exactly."

  "Enough to kill him, do you think?"

  "Perhaps, but that's not my point."

  "What is your point, Father?"

  "There are still priests out there who ignored Dom Felipe's clear instructions. They're recruiting for the league, battling the landowners, planning the occupation of fazendas, doing all the things that Dom Felipe expressly told them to stop doing."

  "And what, Father, does all of this have to do with the murder of Bishop Antunes?"

  Father Gaspar looked surprised.

  "Isn't it obvious? I'm trying to tell you, Delegado, that the man who killed Dom Felipe could have been a priest."

  Chapter Seven

  The door to Orlando Muniz junior's bedroom, a door he kept locked and bolted, shattered. Most of it crashed to the floor. What was left flew back on its hinges. Orlando rolled onto his left side and reached for the revolver he kept in the drawer below the lamp, but before he could close his hand around the grip a heavy body fell on top of him.

  "Somebody get the lights," a voice said.

  Somebody did, and they dazzled him. He opened his mouth to call for Anselmo, and shut it again when he felt cold metal against his forehead. The muzzle of his own revolver. He heard the weapon being cocked and stopped struggling. They stripped off the sheets that covered him and dragged him out of bed.

  Orlando was tall with blond hair and blue eyes and had once been handsome. Once. These days, he had a thick waist, a veined cherry of a nose, coarse skin, and permanently bloodshot eyes.

  Some said his early good looks had been passed down from his paternal grandmother, a German immigrant to Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state. Others, less charitable, ascribed Orlando's Teutonic genes to a schoolteacher named Ernst Koppel, who'd been beaten to death under mysterious circumstances some six months before Orlando was born. Those same people offered, as support for their argument, the comportment of Orlando's mother, Solange, who'd been seen to shed more tears at Koppel's funeral than anyone else including Koppel's wife of almost a decade. Solange's husband, Orlando Muniz Senior, didn't attend the funeral. While it was taking place he was seen in the bar just across the square from the church. He'd seemed to be having a very good time.

  Whatever the truth of his origins, one thing about Orlando Muniz Junior was certain: He was a drunk. Not just an ordinary drunk, but a world-class drunk. He started the day with a tumbler full of cane spirit and an ice-cold beer. He had more beer and more cachaca for lunch, often to the exclusion of anything else. And he consumed at least two bottles of wine at dinner, usually following them with multiple doses of Madeira, a Portuguese brandy to which he was partial, a case of which never lasted him more than a month.

  Orlando seldom went to bed before 2:00 in the morning, and often found himself awake at 4:00 or 5:00 AM, his body craving more alcohol. Recently, to assure a good night's sleep, he'd taken to consuming a healthy dose of a sleeping potion that his doctor had refused to prescribe, but that one of the local pharmacists was all-too-willing to provide. So it might have been the alcohol, and it might have been the drug, but one or the other had dulled his wits and slowed him down just enough to prevent him from getting his hand around the grip of that revolver. And either one or both also caused him to stare stupidly around him, shaking his head to clear it, blinking his eyes in confusion and trying to absorb what was happening to him.

  The room was filled with men, all of them wearing hoods, a few of them holding guns and most of them clutching makeshift weapons: mattocks, pickaxes and machetes. The man who had Orlando's Taurus. 38 pointed it in the air and slowly released the hammer, demonstrating that he knew how to use a revolver.

  There was a commotion at the door. Anselmo, his face bloody, his holster empty, was hustled into the room. The man behind him, hooded like all the others, was wearing a red T-shirt bearing the logotype of the Landless Workers' League. While Orlando watched, the man threw a loop of white cord over Anselmo's head. There was a wooden toggle at either end.

  They wouldn't dare, Orlando thought.

  But they did.

  The man gripping the toggles changed hands and started pulling outward, tightening the garrote around Anselmo's neck.

  Anselmo's tanned brown face began to flush, only slightly at first, and then becoming redder and redder, as if he was lifting a heavy weight. The capanga's mouth opened and his tongue popped out, but no sound escaped his lips. He needed air in order to cry out and he wasn't getting any. His legs scrab
bled, as if he was running in place. Suddenly, the room filled with the smell of excrement, and a spreading stain appeared on the front of Anselmo's faded jeans. His eyes rolled upward and his legs collapsed.

  The man in the red T-shirt kept up the pressure until he was quite sure the capanga was dead. Then he motioned to a short man with a prominent Adam's apple just visible under the fall of his hood. Together they dragged Anselmo's lifeless body out of the room.

  Orlando was waking up fast. His throat was so dry he had to swallow, twice, before he could utter a word. The word he chose to utter was "please." That was about all he could manage, but it seemed to help. He could hear them relaxing, shuffling their feet, some of the tension going out of them.

  "Please? Did you say please?" the spokesman said.

  "Yes. I said please. Please, don't hurt me." The words were coming easier now.

  "Did Aurelio Azevedo ask you not to hurt him when you nailed him to a tree? Did he ask you not to geld him like one of your cattle? Did his wife and children beg you to spare their lives?"

  Orlando started shaking his head, stopped when he felt the shooting pain behind his eyes. The brandy always gave him a headache when he didn't have time to sleep it off. "I had nothing to do with any of that," he said.

  The spokesman put his hooded face only a few centimeters from Orlando's own, so close that Orlando could smell the tobacco on his breath.

  "No?"

  He searched Orlando's eyes.

  "No," Orlando said. But he looked away.

  "You're lying," the spokesman said, and then, raising his voice only slightly, "Carlos."

  The man with the red T-shirt, the man he'd called Carlos, came back into the room, his garrote doubled back into a loop and dangling from his right hand.

  "Kill him."

  The executioner stepped forward and slipped the white cord around Orlando's neck.

  "No. For the love of God-"

  "Answer me, then. What did Aurelio do when he knew you were going to nail him to that tree?"

  Orlando shook his head. He lifted one hand and got two fingers between his throat and the cord. The man with the garrote gave a little pull on the toggles, enough to let his victim sense that mere fingers weren't going to be enough to save him.