The Innocents

by Richard Barre

  Next he dialed Mo Epstein, caught him coming home late from an officer-involved shooting—deputies responding to a carjacking, one dead, one wounded. Mo said he’d send people, come himself, get an ambulance for Lisa.

  She stirred on the couch. “Wil—?”

  He went to her, told her what happened. “It’s over, partner. You were incredible.”

  “I never faint—”

  “You held out Reyes from Guerra. I’m not sure I could have.”

  She took a deep breath. “I told him things you’d found out. Tried to act scared. When I said I didn’t know the name, he believed me—”

  He hugged her, felt her wince from it. “I’m sorry, Leese. It’s all my fault.”

  “Our fault.”

  He held her, eased her back on the cushions. Then he went to check on Guerra and Julio.

  Both had moved. The boy was on the floor, fists clenched, knees pulled up under his chin. His pajamas were soaking wet in spots and he was trembling as he stared at Lenny Guerra, who now lay facing the ceiling from the bottom of the spa. Guerra’s hair floated languidly out from his head and his eyes were partway open as though he were trying to awaken from a dream. One of his shoes lay on its side on the black marble.

  Wil went to Julio’s bedroom and got a robe, which he put around the boy’s shoulders. Then he knelt down next to Julio. “Listen to me. He came to, tried to get up, slipped, and hit his head. You tried to save him but couldn’t. The rest of it is our secret. Are we clear on that?”

  “He—made me do things. In the tub and—”

  “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “They’ll send me back.”

  “Julio, I need your help now. I need you to stay with my wife, take care of her while I do something. She’s very important to me. Do you understand?”

  Slowly Julio nodded.

  “Friends are coming, a man named Epstein, who knows what happened except for how he fell back in the water. You tell him, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Julio looked away and began to blink rapidly.

  “It’ll be fine,” Wil said. “I promise.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  St. Boniface loomed ahead in the rain—damned lucky with the way he’d driven. Gutter runoff thumped in the rental’s wheelwells as he made the turn into the parking lot; raindrops looked like falling snow in the floods illuminating the church. It was almost one.

  The white Camry was in a far corner of the lot. Wil braked beside it, saw no one inside, then tried the church doors and found them shut tight. On the lawn the big tent was flapped and dark and sounded hollow as the rain tattooed it. He checked each building, but no light shone in administration or the rectory. As he turned back toward the church, sodden grass squished underfoot.

  Dammit, where were they?

  The scream was so faint that at first he thought it must have been a night bird seeking shelter. Until it came again, more distinct this time, and he saw a sliver of light at a window above the sanctuary. He tried the side door: no luck.

  He circled the church, found the door to the sacristy unlocked, entered a room with vestments, cabinets, drawers, the smell of incense, a single light burning. Closing the door behind him, he drew the .45, cocked it, eased toward the sounds of fighting that were coming from the open door to the sanctuary.

  Where he stopped.

  Poinsettias and mums from the special Mass had been knocked down and trampled; near the altar, unlit candles lay scattered, the broken tapers so many pick-up-sticks. Carpet runners undulated like sea serpents.

  Shadows became human. Martin DeSantis. Jennette Contreras raging:

  “Why—won’t—you—under—stand!”

  It was as if they were dancing: Father Martin in his black cassock leading Jennette—teeth bared—in a violent waltz as the sanctuary flame flickered and the agonized Christ looked down.

  “Let—me—go!”

  Another candelabra fell. The two figures caromed off the altar where Jessica Pacheco lay motionless. Jennette let loose another scream; in her hand was a long, curved knife, held there by Martin’s grip on her wrist. She kicked, snapped at him, cursing now in some language Wil couldn’t make out.

  Martin DeSantis saw him coming. He managed a desperate-sounding “Hurry” just before Jennette broke his hold on her wrist and arced the knife downward. There was a sound of fabric tearing and DeSantis fell back, grabbing at his arm. Red showed brightly through the rip.

  Jennette Contreras made a frenzied lunge toward the altar.

  “No!” Father Martin’s cry was hoarse with exertion. Wil leaped between Jennette and the child; Jennette raised the knife and leered at him. Her voice was shrill, compressed:

  “Kneel, disbeliever, the child is His. Menga para Chawa Uve.” She charged.”Hijo de Olosi! Muerte para los enemigos de Chawa!”

  The knife came close enough to feel its wind; Wil gave ground, then timed a jab and slammed the gun against her forehead. Jennette Contreras crumpled. He kicked the knife away, checked to see the baby was unharmed, then felt Jennette’s neck for pulse. He faced Martin DeSantis.

  “She’ll live. You?”

  The priest nodded, gasping. Blood ran down his arm and onto the carpet. Wil found a stole in the sacristy and wrapped it tight around the wound. The stream became a trickle, then stopped.

  “I’d forgotten how strong she is,” Father Martin said, almost to himself.

  “I was wrong,” Wil said. “I had Lenny for the murders, with Jennette helping him blackmail you.”

  Martin DeSantis held his arm. His face was the color of ash.

  Wil went on, “Until I got what he was blackmailing you for.” He reached into his pocket and handed over Anita Espinosa’s bracelet.

  DeSantis took the bracelet and looked at the inscription, then sagged heavily against the altar rail. “You seem—reasonable, Mr. Hardesty,” he said at length. “Someone who would not knowingly instigate tragedy.”

  “Go to the law, you mean,” Wil said.

  “Destroy something that is of benefit to a great many.”

  Wil looked around St. Boniface, seeing Benito Reyes’s eyes, his drumsticks poised to play.

  “An open mind is all I ask,” Father Martin continued. “You’ll listen to what I have to say?”

  “Don’t expect any miracles of faith.” Wil wiped rainwater off his face; his wet hair was starting to feel cold. Beyond the circle of light, empty pews became darkness.

  “You understand the term babalawo?”

  “No.”

  “I was ten when I became babalawo to my people. It means high priest. You know what that meant to a worshipper of Chawa?”

  “I can imagine.”

  “The power of life and death. Vida para vida.”

  “Anita Espinosa,” Wil said.

  “Chawan tradition is the way of the blood and not quickly washed away.” He turned the bracelet in his bloody fingers. “Anita Espinosa is my sin and my shame, Mr. Hardesty. A sacrifice meant to obtain one last favor from Him—to smile upon my upcoming endeavor with the Catholics. Since then, everything I’ve done has been to atone, though nothing ever will.”

  Nuances: sanity and madness, saint and sinner, roads chosen versus those compelled; Wil corralled his thoughts. “Lenny must have gotten quite a kick out of putting a Chawa idol in your office.”

  “Perhaps. But I made it remind me of what I chose.”

  “What about Jennette?”

  Martin DeSantis focused on the sanctuary lamp. “She helped me hold Anita while I used Lenny’s knife—”

  “Lenny wasn’t even there?”

  “No. We’d had a fight and Lenny was…with someone. His passions never included Chawa anyway—even in Cuba.”

  It was like having the piece that defied you suddenly fit the puzzle, the last key twist in the lock. “Two outsiders against the world,” Wil said. “Lenny was in love with you back then, wasn’t he? It’s how he could do all this to you now, use you. To him the money’s
been secondary, he was rich when he came here. But you threw him over for his sister, then you left them both for this. No wonder he hated you. Saving his life with that alibi was only what you owed him.”

  “Love and hate are two sides of the same coin, Mr. Hardesty.”

  “So are his revenge and your ambition.”

  A twinge of pain crossed the priest’s features, and he adjusted the tourniquet. “After I left Key West, Jennette was never the same, he told me. Slipping in and out of reality, worsening over the years, imagining herself my priestess. All this time Lenny’s protected her.”

  “While she killed the Innocents.”

  Martin DeSantis sighed heavily. “They were for me, all of them. Sacrificed to Chawa so the charitable missions of St. Boniface would succeed. Seven missions, seven sacrifices.”

  “With Jessica intended for Los Amigos.”

  “Yes.”

  Wil felt a wave of fatigue. “Seven dead children—damn near eight—to bless the work of a man of God.”

  “The irony is not lost on me, Mr. Hardesty.”

  On the altar, Jessica Pacheco stirred. Wil took off his jacket, covered her with it. “Why risk bringing her here?” he said.

  “Jennette is not well. She told me she thought it would give us what we once had—what her aunt robbed us of by sending me off to Baltimore. Tonight she waited until everyone had left. I’d been up praying for the little one.”

  Wil sat on the altar steps and massaged his hurting knee. “At what point did you learn about the others?”

  “I am not a monster, Mr. Hardesty.”

  “Maybe. But Jennette did this because she still loved you—from the beginning she’d have wanted you to know. Explain to me how turning a blind eye to murder is doing penance for Anita Espinosa?”

  Jennette Contreras snorted, then raised up and looked wildly around before curling into a tight, rocking ball from which whimpering sounds emitted. Martin DeSantis shook his head.

  “God help us. She wrote me notes after each one,” he said. “Rambling explanations, deeply disturbed. Lenny kept them from me until one day after we’d quarreled.”

  “Yet you said nothing.”

  “Try to imagine how I felt, Mr. Hardesty, what was at stake. What would it have accomplished except to tear apart everything I’d worked for, create more innocent victims of poverty and despair?”

  “How about your silence almost got another child killed tonight? How’s that one feel?”

  “He promised me he’d keep her under control.”

  “Lenny knew all along what she was doing. And you trusted him to keep his word after he’d allowed seven children to die?”

  The priest’s eyes drifted to Jennette. “She was his sister. Despite her condition, he refused to have her institutionalized. Covering up was a small price to pay, is how he put it.”

  “And Julio?”

  “No matter what you think, he’s better off than when Lenny found him.” Martin DeSantis looked at his arm, flexed the fingers. “Leonardo Guerra made St. Boniface, Mr. Hardesty, I told you that before. Somehow he found me here, me with big plans and no way to make them happen. Well, he figured out the way. Tonight we took in nearly three million dollars in pledges.”

  “Of which he gets what—twenty percent, a third? Easy when you control the finances.”

  “Whatever Lenny holds out is bread on the water. What he does for St. Boniface is all that matters.”

  “You knew he ordered Paul Rodriguez killed, the kind of a man he was. But why rock the boat—money pouring in from the donors, from Niños.” Wil brushed away seep from the cut on his face. “How does it feel to be a Guerra enterprise?”

  The priest straightened. “Do you realize how many men, women, and children we help each year? The suffering we alleviate? The unloved and unwanted given new hope and life? Extraordinary achievements are worth extraordinary measures. Surely you can see that.”

  “The greater good again.”

  “Exactly. Paul Rodriguez said you’d been in Vietnam. You must have known innocent children were dying there, yet you participated, I assume for the greater good. Do you get my point?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “I’m asking you only to be reasonable, Mr. Hardesty.”

  “To walk away.”

  “You know what we do here, how high the regard for it. The demand. Let Anita and the others live on in the work. That’s how I came to terms. For me it was either that or go insane.”

  “Your work here is the only reason I came alone, Father. I kept hoping I was wrong, that you’d sort it out for me—happy ending or something. That maybe you weren’t in league with the devil and the greater good is really what it sounds like instead of what people like you twist it into. How many more kids were you prepared to let die?”

  “Don’t you see? From now on there will be only children saved. As for Jennette, I know places where she’ll be cared for. Discreet places. After this, Lenny will go along.”

  From the altar, Jessica Pacheco gasped and started to cry.

  “I see,” Wil said. He stood up stiffly and went to her, picked her up and held her, was aware of her heart beating against his chest, her warmth and the smell of baby shampoo. “Lenny Guerra’s dead, Father. To hell with discreet. And to hell with you.”

  They were gone now: Jessica and Donna Pacheco, Jennette Contreras, Martin DeSantis, the cops except for Epstein and Freiman. Paramedics had taken Lisa to the hospital for observation and tests preparatory to having her hand operated on later that morning. On the phone she’d sounded dulled from painkillers, but holding.

  As Freiman paced, Wil checked his watch: almost five. The rain had stopped, although hollow plunks still came from a gutter somewhere. Gray was beginning to show in the windows, the stained glass figures in monochrome. In the right front pew, Julio tightened his grip on the cassock covering him, his breathing audible from the altar steps where Wil and Mo Epstein sat.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Hardesty,” Freiman said. “You managed to cross me and still come out smelling like a rose.” A candle snapped under his foot. “You know how much I’d like to see you selling heating oil in North Dakota?”

  “I have some idea, Captain.”

  Freiman pulled on his trench coat, jammed his hands in the pockets. “Your kind stink. You play it fast and loose with the rules, risk everything, and give it all a bad name. Maybe this time you grease through. But get this: Whenever I can put an asterisk by your name or a red flag in a file or a black mark on a request, consider it done. And try bending a law sometime. You read?” His coat flapped as he turned and left.

  “Means you impressed him,” Mo said finally.

  “Pretty obvious.”

  Mo nodded. “What about the boy?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You have an idea?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Sad we couldn’t bottle that look on Donna Pacheco’s face, we’d make a fortune. She sure dumped off some pounds. Not a bad looker underneath it all.”

  Wil replayed joyous shrieks that still echoed.

  Mo looked around. “Nice time to be in a church,” he said. “Quiet.”

  Wil nodded.

  Mo said, “They turned up some things at Jennette’s, stuff you missed. Dried blood, effects from the victims. Enough to prove they were killed there.”

  “Anything to ID the kids?”

  “Lab people thought no, but they’re giving it a shot. Where’s this put Zavala, you think?”

  “Guerra had him in a vise for killing those federal agents at Calexico in ’71,” Wil said. “Not to mention saving Bolo’s life. Over the years he’d have ordered Bolo to bury the bodies in the desert per Jennette’s instructions. Guerra probably found it amusing that Bolo’s kid was going to be number eight. My guess is he tried to sell Jessica first, then gave her to Jennette when she proved to be too hot.”

  Mo pulled out a handkerchief, ran it over his face. “Still not without risk. W
hy didn’t Guerra just stop her if it meant nothing to him?”

  “Each one she killed twisted the knife deeper into DeSantis, bound him to Guerra a little tighter. Worth it to him, I suppose.”

  “Anything so long as the money kept flowing. Speaking of which—”

  “Earlier I talked to a guy named Warren Sumner—church counsel. The dust needs to lift a bit before he knows whether the work will survive intact. That and a few prayers.” Wil bent forward, elbows on his knees. “What did you take DeSantis in for?”

  “Questioning for now,” Mo answered. “Conspiracy and/or adoption fraud later—depends on what the DA decides. You want a guess, they’ll probably let the church handle it. Some nice parish in Siberia.”

  “And Anita Espinosa?”

  “That old a murder—the lone witness a crazy? Be up to who’s in office down there. Still, the bracelet may be enough for some hotshot to build a case around. As for the Innocents, we got Jennette, Guerra, and Zavala. Nobody here’s gonna want to put Father Martin in jail. What’ll bring him down is his association with them.”

  “With Guerra and Jennette anyway,” Wil said. “I doubt he had much to do with Zavala.”

  Behind them in the sacristy there were noises; an altar boy poked his head out, saw them and the disarray, and retreated.

  Mo stood up. “It’s all right, son. We’re gone.” He turned to Wil. “I tell you good work? You hung in. Now come on, they want to open for business.”

  Wil looked around. As he did the boy came out and was joined by another—two scrubbed-looking blond kids in black and white. They started cleaning up the mess.

  Watching them made something resonate inside, a chord that brought to mind a time when the questions and answers were simple. “You go,” he said with a glance at Julio. “I think we’ll stick around for the six-o-clock.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mass was over by six-forty, Lisa not due in surgery till eleven. Wil called Ignacio Reyes, apologized for the hour, and told him they needed to talk, explaining that he’d be bringing a friend along. On the way, he and Julio stopped for coffee and scrambled eggs, then headed out again, feeling somewhat revitalized. The morning was bright and sunny after the storm, no clouds showing and a north wind shaking the last of the rain from the trees. L.A. sparkled; the foothills were green with new growth. Already it was warm enough for Wil to crack his window as they drove.