Blood of Angels

by Reed Arvin

  I shake my head, not wanting to hear. Don’t do this, I think. Don’t make me take you down with him. “Someone with your education is obviously aware of the penalties for perjury,” I say quietly. “This wouldn’t be an overnight stay in the county lockup with your solidarity sisters. This is three to five in the state penitentiary. If the DA decided to go for obstruction of justice—and knowing Rayburn, he would—that’s ten more.”

  “My statement stands.”

  “In that case, you might want to practice answering a few questions that are likely to come up,” I say. “Like why you didn’t mention this information at Bol’s arraignment.”

  “I didn’t know he had been arraigned until after it happened. I was out of town, in Washington, D.C.” She gives me a caustic look. “Protesting.”

  “And at the grand jury?”

  “Moses’s lawyer seems to be under the impression that my testimony might be considered…unreliable.” She pauses. “Rita West holds you in very high regard. She’s convinced you would tear me to pieces on the witness stand because of my political activism.”

  “I have the feeling it might come up, yeah.”

  “Rita says my arrest record at previous executions would be…I believe the phrase was ‘like bait to a hungry shark.’” She pauses. “Apparently, you are the shark, Mr. Dennehy.”

  I smile. “I accept the compliment.”

  “Rita is looking for corroboration before she brings me out, but she’s not going to find any. Moses and I were alone, and no one saw us together.”

  “Then she’s going to have to put you on the stand and let you sink or swim.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Dennehy. She’s going to have to let you at me.”

  “If you get on the stand and lie, you’re going to leave me no choice. I can’t have the system of justice compromised.”

  She gives me an unpleasantly knowing look. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

  I step back. “So you’re working with Buchanan.” She says nothing, her face scrupulously neutral. OK. “You have to admit, though, it’s a hell of an irony,” I say.

  “What’s that?”

  “The fact that you’ve tried to save the lives of all those criminals is the very reason why nobody is going to believe you now, when you try to save Bol’s.”

  She stares at me, her face reddening. She brushes past me toward the door. “You should go,” she says. “I have twenty homeless people showing up in an hour, and they’re going to be hungry.”

  “Alone?”

  “I have Robert.”

  “The addict?” She gives me a surprised look. “We met in the sanctuary. He didn’t give me his name.”

  “Robert is cautious with strangers. He’s had hard times, but he’s found safety here.”

  “All the same, I’d be careful. Some of the homeless in this city aren’t above taking advantage of a woman.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Is Jimmy Roland in your group? Short guy, he’d be about fifty by now.”

  She thinks a moment, then nods. “Mr. Roland, that’s right.”

  “He was my first case. He used a rock to beat in the head of another guy for stealing his coat. It was cold outside, but over at the DA’s office we still look down on that kind of thing.”

  She watches me quietly for a moment, then shakes her head. “You’re trying to rattle me, Mr. Dennehy. It won’t work.”

  “I’m trying to warn you. But you’re a grown-up. What you do with your time is your business.”

  “That’s right. And my time with you is up.” She opens the door, inviting me out.

  I step through. “The twenty dinners. Who’s paying for that?”

  “We’re selling the church’s art, Mr. Dennehy. I can either welcome the hungry to my door, or I can turn them away and look at pretty pictures. Not a very complicated decision.” The door closes, and I’m left in the hallway alone.

  Outside, I decide to cut through the church’s employee parking lot to Fifth Street, saving two long city blocks on my walk back to 222 Second Avenue. The tiny lot is behind the church, twelve narrow spaces crammed between the back of the church offices and a service alley that feeds the towering, thirty-story bank behind it. The only car is parked in a space marked Pastor; it’s a white, midnineties Volvo sedan that has definitely seen better days. Perfect, I think. The classic neohippie car. As I walk past, I see a face looking down from high above, in the church. The face is only visible for a moment; then it’s gone. But I recognize the figure. It’s Robert, the addict.

  BACK IN THE OFFICE, I go by Gladys Morrisette’s office. Gladys, a career bureaucrat who must have been the perfect hall monitor in high school, is the only query-certified member of our staff, which means she has access to MAGIC, the national criminal database. Gladys has made it a life-and-death principle that there will never be an unapproved search while she lives and breathes. So I fill out the paperwork, declaring Towns an official witness on the Bol trial, meticulously dealing with the minutiae of the form. She scrutinizes it awhile, then nods. She then directs me to turn around—she’s that paranoid about anybody sneaking a look at the codes—and punches “Fiona Towns” into the database. After a minute or so, I hear her whistle.

  I turn around. “What?”

  “Girlfriend’s been busy,” Gladys says. “Four states and the District.” She points to the laser printer, which is spitting out pages. After a few minutes, I hold Towns’s FBI file, together with state arrest records of Washington, Florida, New York, Texas, and the District of Columbia. I thank Gladys and head to Rayburn’s office, reading as I walk.

  Dolores, Rayburn’s secretary, nods me through. “He’s waiting for you,” she says. “Carl’s with him.”

  I push open Rayburn’s office door and see Carl and the DA standing beside Rayburn’s coffee table. Rayburn gives me an expectant look. “So? What’s up with the crazy woman?”

  I shrug. “She’s working with him.”

  “I knew it!” Rayburn explodes. “It’s a friggin’ delusiac conspiracy.”

  “She just told you?” Carl said. “Just like that?”

  “Not exactly. It sort of came to light while she was telling me the other big news of the day.” I pause. “Towns is going to testify that she was with Bol at the church at the time of the crime. She’s going to be his alibi.”

  There is a moment of silence, which Rayburn shreds by saying, “Jesus Holy Christ! They’re supposed to be fucking Presbyterians over there.”

  “There’s more.”

  Rayburn looks up warily. “What?”

  I spread the files across David’s coffee table, and the three of us gather around. “Disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, unlawful protest, and, most glamorously, incitement to riot.”

  Carl picks up the FBI report. “Arrested in Seattle, at a meeting of the IMF; again in Washington, making noise just outside Bush’s second inauguration; and New York, at the World Economic Forum.”

  “Take a look at Texas,” I say.

  Carl pulls out the Texas file. “Arrested three times. Each one, outside a prison where an execution was scheduled.”

  I nod. “You know those nice people who just light candles and pray for the soon-to-be-departed? She’s not one of them.”

  Rayburn reaches out and snatches the papers. He scans a few moments, then looks up. “She set fire to a police car outside a prison in Tarrant County. That’s destruction of government property.”

  “It delayed the execution twenty-four hours,” I say. “The police were afraid a full-scale riot would start if they went forward, so they had to clear the area and do the whole thing over again the next day.”

  Carl leans back in his chair with a thoughtful smile. “Moral chaos,” he says, quietly.

  I look up. “What do you mean?”

  “A state of mind where the ends justify the means. Within the confines of the worldview, acts that would otherwise be repugnant make perfect sense. Think Greenpe
ace. Think Posse Comitatus. Hell, for that matter, think Al Qaeda.”

  “You’re not seriously comparing a Presbyterian minister with Al Qaeda.”

  Carl shrugs. “Both may be equally committed to their cause.”

  “For God’s sake, Carl, she spends her afternoons feeding the hungry.”

  “So does Hamas.”

  We sit in silence for a second, while a set of fairly extreme possibilities runs through our minds.

  “Hang on, gentlemen,” I say. “We’re losing perspective here. Maybe this woman’s a little hyped-up, but be serious. She’s not a terrorist. It would go against her entire system of belief.”

  “I’m not accusing her of being a terrorist,” Carl says, resolute. “I’m saying that given sufficient commitment to a higher calling, it’s not the people without principles who do the damnedest things. It’s the people with them.”

  “Like lie to protect someone from the death penalty?” I ask.

  Carl stares down at the FBI report. “It’s fair to say that when Fiona Towns is motivated to raise a ruckus, she doesn’t mind breaking a law or two to make her point. For her, this might be nothing more than jury nullification. A simple case of O. J.”

  “Carl’s right,” Rayburn says. “The evidence in this case speaks for itself. Against it, the defense has one thing.” He points to Town’s picture. “Her.” He looks up at me. “She’s toast,” he says. “As of this moment, this trial is no longer about Moses Bol. It’s about her. “I want to know what she has for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I want to know what kind of gas she puts in her car. I want to know everything.”

  I nod. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” he answers. “Watch that Sudanese kid, too. As far as this office is concerned, we’ve got a killer on the street.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  THE WEEKEND COMES, and I miss Jazz like hell. This is her third year for soccer camp, a ritzy operation held down in Sewanee, on the campus of the University of the South. It costs a fortune, not that this bothers Sarandokos. But at fifteen hundred bucks, I hope they serve the kids shrimp cocktails before their filet mignon. At least soccer camp gives me an idea for Jazz’s birthday present, and it’s something Sarandokos can’t buy at any price. Last year I was the coach for Jazz’s soccer team, and Sarandokos had the grace not to come to a single game. There are a hundred good memories, even though the team only finished a little above five hundred. I want to freeze that last spring, the way she laughed and tried her hardest and forgot about the game fifteen minutes after it was over. She was still a little girl, and if she knew she was the best-dressed girl on the team off the field, she didn’t show it. Her birthday present will be a scrapbook of photographs from the season. I put it together over the weekend, and Sunday evening I put the book in a box and wrap it with a note: For you, Jazz. Mia Hamm better watch out.

  Father-daughter scrapbooks are not on the minds of people in the Nation over the weekend, however. Paul Landmeyer’s assessment that things are getting tense there proves on the money. There are a couple of small incidents on Sunday, and by Monday morning, the Nation is alive. Well-used cars with dented fenders are circling Tennessee Village, hunting Bol, or if he’s not handy, anyone else tall, black, and foreign. Always easy to rile, the Nationites have taken this one personally. Tamra Hartlett was raped and killed in her own home. There needs to be justice. This news comes to me courtesy of Josh Ritchie, one of six full-time investigators for the DA’s office. Josh moved down from Wisconsin a few years ago, mostly to do more investigating and less freezing his ass off five months a year. He’s got tousled, blond hair, a slim, athletic body, and although he’s thirty-one years old, with the right clothes he can pass for anything from twenty to forty. He walks in first thing in the morning and plops in a chair, looking tired. He’s wearing flared jeans, a red-and-black-striped dress shirt, untucked, and square-toe loafers without socks. He sets an opened can of Red Bull on my desk.

  “What was it, business or pleasure?” I ask, smiling.

  “Work, this time,” he says. He turns his baseball cap around backward and leans back. “What you got for me?”

  I push Town’s mug photograph and address across the table. “Fiona Towns,” I say. “She’s the pastor of Downtown Presbyterian Church. Let me know what she does with her life.”

  Josh picks up the photograph. “We’re surveilling preachers now?”

  “She’s a material witness in a murder-rape,” I say. “So, yeah. I want to be informed. Daily check-ins, at least.”

  “Nice eyes. I like green.”

  “Not to touch, Josh.”

  Josh laughs. “Haven’t crossed that line yet, chief.” He looks at the photograph. “What was the murder?”

  I pull out photographs of Tamra Hartlett and Moses Bol. “The guy is African, named Bol. He killed the woman.”

  Josh looks up. “This is the guy everybody wants over at the Nation.”

  “You heard something?”

  “There’s already been a skirmish or two over this. Word is, if Bol walks, they’ll take matters into their own hands.”

  Beautiful. Things aren’t complicated enough, without a little vigilante justice on our hands. “Trust me, if Bol walks, it’ll only be from the showers to his cell in Riverbend prison,” I say. “Which is where you come in. Bol and Hartlett were seen arguing several times during the week before the murder. Problem is, we don’t know what about. Your job is to answer that question.”

  Josh puts the pictures in his pocket. “You got it, chief.”

  With Josh dispatched, I dig into the paperwork to put a wire on the phone where Moses Bol’s roommates are still living, which, thanks to the Supreme Court of the United States, is far from automatic, even when someone is accused of murder-rape. I run the paper by Rayburn before I send it over to Judge Ginder, just to get the DA’s perspective on it. I’ve got an hour left before lunch, so I spend it preparing for the pretrial conference Stillman scheduled with Tamra Hartlett’s father, mother, and boyfriend for tomorrow. Just before noon, I go by Carl’s office, which Carl has spent the day emptying. It’s Monday, which means a ritual lunch with Carl, me, and Paul Landmeyer, the chief of Police Forensics.

  Carl has another week at work, but he’s a lame duck, with no new cases. The more he gets his housekeeping taken care of, the cleaner his escape will be on the last day. He looks up when I enter, annoyed, then relaxes when he recognizes me. “I thought it was more good-byes,” he says, grimacing. “It’s been like a funeral in here today. Secretaries blubbering, lots of ‘you lucky bastard’ speeches. Makes me want to puke.”

  “It’s only going to get worse,” I say, grinning. I point to the few remaining boxes of books stacked on the floor. “What are you going to do with those?”

  He picks up a thick crimson volume and reads the spine. “Criminal Practice and Procedure,” he says. “I could bequeath it to a law library in Guam. Better yet, start fires with it. Seven hundred pages, say ten pages a fire. Ought to last me a couple of winters, easy.”

  I watch him replace the book, looking as bowed down as I’ve ever seen him. He’s been like a father to me, only better, because he doesn’t carry the psychological trauma of my real father’s death. And as with a real father, watching him retire gives me a glimpse at my own ending: thirty-one years of hard work, packed up into boxes, then carried off as though they had never happened. I blink, then look out the window. Carl, as senior prosecutor, has a prime office overlooking the Cumberland. It’s the de facto viewing location for the big fireworks displays over the water on Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and New Year’s Eve. With Carl’s retirement, the office is mine, if I want it, which I’m not sure I do. There’s something eerie about displacing him physically, as well as in the hierarchy of the office. I only have a few more days to decide; other, less conflicted prosecutors are eager to take my place if I don’t stake my claim. “So how does it feel?” I ask.

  He stands and walks to the large picture window th
at makes up the back wall of the office. “It feels like I’ll see this view a few more times,” he answers, his voice quiet. “A few more walks through the front door. A few more trips to the courthouse.”

  “You going down there every day?”

  He nods. “Call it habit. I just don’t want to stop.”

  I smile. “You could always change sides,” I say. “No age limit on that.”

  “Thirty-one years of putting them away, I’d feel like a traitor. Anyway, I’d just end up kicking your ass in court, and I don’t think I could take that.”

  I laugh out loud. “You ready to head to the Saucer? We’re a little early, but what the hell.”

  “Yeah. God knows, I’ve got nothing to do here.”

  “I’m going to invite Stillman.”

  Carl raises an eyebrow. “He’s not as big a prick as you think, by the way.”

  “Glad to hear it, since he’s my new partner. But I’m inviting him to spend time with you, not me.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I’ve got a week left for you to rub off on him. You better work fast.”

  Finally, a real smile breaks out on Carl’s face, which is when I realize that’s all I wanted to see. He isn’t kidding when he calls the DA’s office his family; he never married, eventually outlived his parents, as well as one of two sisters. He knows how to do one thing in life—fight like hell to put away bad people—and it’s hard to picture him in some retirement home making friends. He’d sit there at dinner listening to how somebody was the top salesman for the Aetna company or something, and he’d want to jump out a window. I’ll be there for him then, if I’m still standing. But for now, I just want to see him smile. “Let’s go, old man,” I say. “We’ll make Stillman buy.”

  WE ROLL DOWN THE HALL and pick up Stillman, who looks like he’s just won the lottery when we invite him to lunch. Fifteen minutes later the three of us pile out of Carl’s Buick and walk into the Saucer, a vast, informal club with tatty couches for seating, air the approximate color of cigarette smoke, and after 8:00, music provided by any one of the thousand desperate country music wannabes floating around Nashville. Stillman looks around like he doesn’t want to sit his two-hundred-dollar slacks on any of the nappy couches, and Carl rolls his eyes. He points to the bar, which is fifty feet of polished hardwood. “You see that, son?” he says. Stillman nods. “Behind that bar is a row of eighty-three taps. Eighty-three. Each one pours a different kind of heaven into a glass. Ambers, ales, pilsners. Beer as dark and thick as sludge, as light and sweet as honey. Those taps are a ticket to the four corners of the world. Japan. Germany. And, thanks to the late, great Ronald Reagan and his victory over the evil empire, Russia, Poland, and the Czech Republic.” He smiles reverently. “Not to forget the mother country.”