Anatomy of Fear

by Jonathan Santlofer

  I led them into the apartment, holding my breath. I called out, “Uela!”

  There was no answer.

  The big redhead cop spied the Eleggua by the door. “What’s with the voodoo shit?”

  I almost punched him.

  Terri told him to go canvass the rest of the building, probably just to get him out of my face. Then we started down the narrow hallway I’d known all my life.

  “Stay here,” she said to the black cop. “And watch our backs.”

  He flinched. “You think the perp’s still here?”

  Terri didn’t answer him and I had no idea, my usual radar buried under anxiety.

  We checked everything. The front-hall closet was crowded with coats and scarves, impossible to hide in; the living room wide open; the cuarto de los santos produced raised brows from Terri, but she didn’t say anything, and it was empty; so was the bathroom.

  “Looks clean,” she said. “Can you try calling her again?”

  “This is her only phone.”

  “No cell?”

  “My grandmother? You kidding? She hasn’t even graduated to a cordless.”

  We went back to the kitchen, and I spread the drawing that I’d taken from Wright’s trash onto the table.

  “Did I read this wrong?”

  The young uniform leaned over my shoulder. “What is it?”

  “A drawing of this building, can’t you see that?” I had no patience. All I could think was that Tim Wright had been here and taken my grandmother with him. But where?

  “Looks it,” he said. “But the number’s wrong.”

  “What?” The guy was really working my nerves.

  “This isn’t 106. It’s 301, according to the address we got on our orders—and that’s what it says outside.”

  Jesus, he was right. I hadn’t noticed until he said it. The minute I’d seen the sketch and recognized it as my grandmother’s building, I’d just reacted. Now I looked at the three sketches we’d taken from Wright’s work table and tried to see if I’d missed anything else.

  The cop Terri had sent out to canvass the building came back breathing heavy. “Fuckin’ elevator is out.”

  “What about the neighbors?” she asked. “They see—hear—anything?”

  “Place is practically deserted. Maybe ’cause it’s Sunday,” he said, “And because of the holiday.”

  “What holiday?” I asked.

  “It ain’t a biggie—unless you ask my wife, Maureen—Feast of the Annunciation. She’s like an expert on everything Catholic. I don’t know what it’s about, the feast, I mean, but Mo, she doesn’t miss a single—”

  I stopped listening. “One-oh-six,” I said aloud. Then it clicked, and I saw it: what Wright was planning to do. “Jesus Christ!”

  “Yeah,” said the redheaded cop. “I guess he had something to do with the feast.”

  I heard my grandmother’s words when I’d kissed her good-bye. Change my clothes and go to church.

  “A church!” I shouted, already moving, halfway out the door. “That’s where Wright’s headed. One-oh-six is 106th Street. My grandmother’s church. Saint Cecilia’s.”

  56

  Terri was calling for more backup as I sped the Mercedes through the streets of Spanish Harlem. I’d told her what I thought was about to go down.

  “You’re sure about this?” she asked. “I just want to make sure before I call out the cavalry.”

  I nodded, eyes on the road, mind focused on getting there. “Yes,” I said. I couldn’t be certain, but that’s what his drawings were telling me. I felt like I knew this guy—the way he thought, what made him tick. “He’s been practicing, right? We saw that in his sketches. Three, four pictures of each vic till he gets it right. Maybe they were all practice—the murders, I mean, to build up his courage for something bigger, for this.” My mind was flooding with images—going to the church with my grandmother; there with Julio as a kid, the two of us helping to paint a funky replica of the Last Supper in a small basement room; Wright’s explosion sketches—past and present, bodegas and botánicas blurring past the car windows.

  Terri was still on her cell when I made the turn onto 106th Street, tires screeching.

  “There it is,” I said. “Santa Cecilia.”

  Inside, the church was about half full. Not quite the standing-room-only Wright had probably expected and wanted, but enough to make a statement.

  The priest was reading, switching between Spanish and English. Behind him a huge crucifix, garishly colored; Christ’s flesh, pale yellow, striped with intense vermilion blood. Dozens of candles were burning and I could smell incense in the air. It brought to mind Maria Guerrero’s bótanica on a grander scale.

  I scanned the room, but couldn’t find my grandmother. “I don’t see her,” I said, my panic escalating.

  “We’ll find her if she’s here,” said Terri.

  And what if she wasn’t? What then? I was no longer sure. Suppose Wright had made that drawing with the wrong number just to throw me off.

  I started down the aisle looking for familiar faces, whispering the same question: “¿Has visto á Dolores Rodriguez?” I tried hard to keep the anxiety out of my voice. I didn’t want to start a panic.

  No one seemed to have seen her, a few people voicing objection to my disturbance. “¡Silencio! ¡Silencio!”

  A friend of hers worked her way out of a pew. She said my grandmother had promised to meet her at church, but had never shown up.

  The priest stopped the service and the congregation went silent, everyone staring at me and Terri. I didn’t care. I got up on the altar and asked him if he’d seen my grandmother. He said no, told me I had to go, that I was ruining the service. I leaned toward him, and whispered, “You have to get everyone out of here.”

  He looked at me as if I were crazy. “¿Por qué?”

  The congregation was getting agitated, whispers swelling, a few people muttering, pointing at me.

  The priest took hold of my shoulders, and said, “Debes ir,” that I should go.

  I heard the distant whine of sirens.

  “Backup is arriving,” said Terri. “I have to go out and meet them.” She turned to the priest and spoke very calmly. “In a few minutes there are going to be a lot of police here. I need you to ask your parishioners to leave. Do you understand?”

  His face was filled with questions.

  “Listen to her! ¡Escúchala!” I said.

  There were doors on either side of the altar that led to the sacristy. I chose the one closest to me.

  By the time Terri got outside, the scene had taken on movielike proportions: a caravan of cop cars, EMT, ambulances, sirens blaring, beacons flashing; behind them the Bomb Squad, two vans with a SWAT team; two of her own men, O’Connell and Perez; detectives and uniforms emptying out of cars, heading her way.

  She was going to have to handle this. It was her case until the feds got here. She still had no idea if Wright was inside. If he wasn’t, she had just cost the NYPD a lot of money—and plenty of embarrassment. There was a TV news crew setting up across the street.

  The local precinct captain reached her first, heavyset guy, face red, breathing heavily. “What’s going on?”

  “First off,” she said, “get your men to cordon off the street—and get these people back.” She gestured at the locals who were crowding the sidewalk in front of the church. “And see what you can do to shut down that damn news van.”

  The captain went into action and Terri felt the rush that accompanied power. She made her way to the SWAT team leader, a guy who looked like he’d stayed too long at the gym, overmuscled arms unable to lie flat against his sides. Behind him, his men were suiting up and Terri knew the sight of a dozen men carrying Mac-10 rifles would scare anyone. “I don’t want a panic,” she said. “But we have to get everyone out of the church. Give it a few minutes. The priest is asking everyone to leave quietly, and hopefully they will.”

  I heard the sirens. If Wright was in the church
, he could hear them too.

  My pulse was racing, blood pounding in my ears, but I had to stay calm, had to think. Where would he go if he wanted to be concealed and still do the most damage?

  The basement.

  The verbal part of my brain shut down and I was all visual instinct.

  I saw a staircase and took it.

  57

  The minute my grandmother saw me she started struggling, but he got hold of her and knocked her to the floor.

  I aimed my gun. I wanted to kill him on the spot, but didn’t dare take a shot, not with explosives strapped to his chest and now a detonator in his hand.

  Above her taped mouth my grandmother’s eyes were wide with terror.

  I didn’t know if Wright had the guts to blow himself up but remembered Dr. Schteir’s profile of zealots—men who have no trouble flying airplanes into buildings and dying for what they believe in.

  I needed to see what he was thinking. Maybe I could talk to him. Maybe.

  “You did a good job of imitating my drawing style. Of setting me up,” I said. “The cops think it’s me. Not you. You can walk out of here and they’ll never know who you are. It will be me who goes down for the murders.”

  Nothing.

  “You can be free. Do you understand?”

  Another long moment passed. He said nothing.

  “I’ll help you get out of here, okay? Give me your mask. I can be you.”

  “It’s too late.” His words came out muffled, suffocating under the mask. “I have orders.”

  You know him. You’ve been inside his head. Think.

  “Are you sure that’s what He wants? What if you’re wrong? What if you…make a mistake?”

  “He makes no mistakes.”

  “No, but…mortals do. And you’re mortal, aren’t you? Or do you think you’re a god?”

  His body went rigid.

  My grandmother’s lips were moving beneath the tape and I knew she was praying.

  We were only six feet apart. I could hear him breathing, almost feel him thinking. I pictured his basement hideout, the newspaper accounts he’d pinned to the wall, and remembered again that he was proud of what he’d done.

  “Let me be a witness to what you are about to do. Let me see you, the man who is cleansing the race in the name of God.”

  He yanked the ski mask off so fast I flinched, my finger twitching on the trigger.

  Everyone was out of the church. Everyone but Rodriguez, thought Terri. If he hadn’t found Wright he’d have been out by now.

  “Give me your two best shooters,” she said to the SWAT team leader. “I don’t want to freak him out with the whole battalion.” Then she turned to Perez and O’Connell, and signaled them to follow.

  I stared into the face I’d been drawing, come to life. Flesh stretched over muscle and bone, his eyes narrowed, staring back at me.

  I wanted to understand what had made Tim Wright the man he’d become, but all I could see was the hatred in his features.

  I saw the anger in his eyes and the touch of madness that drove him.

  But then I saw something else, something that cut through the madness and hate and anger. For just a moment his eyes widened, muscles working in tandem to wrinkle his brows up, not down.

  The risorius muscle stretched his lips, but the depressor labii parted them. Then the muscles drew his lips tight across his bared teeth.

  And the mentallis muscle set his chin to quivering.

  It was fear beneath the hate.

  A quote resonated somewhere in the back of my mind: We hate what we fear.

  I watched his facial anatomy shift between anger and anxiety, muscles convulsing and twitching. He was struggling to tamp down his fear, trying to set the tough-guy features back in place, but it was too late; I’d seen it, how truly scared he was under all his armor.

  “You use God as an excuse,” I said. “An excuse to hate—an excuse to kill. You want to justify the evil you do. But believe me, God is not on your side.”

  That hit a nerve, the line between his brows deepening, lips stretched taut across his teeth, anger and fear battling it out on his face.

  I should have seen it coming but didn’t: the lunge that knocked me off my feet.

  My back hit the ground hard and the Smith & Wesson flew from my hand. He was coming at me again but I got my feet into his gut and sent him reeling, the detonator too. I held my breath, expecting the blast when it hit the floor, but nothing happened. Then he was on me and the room was spinning, his face inches from mine, a blur, the two of us kicking and punching, cries of pain and breath coming so close I didn’t know if it was him or me. I felt a crack across my nose and tasted blood in my throat, elbowed him hard in the ribs, and when he pulled back punched him in the face harder than I’d hit anything or anybody in my life, my knuckles searing with pain.

  He fell away from me and I used the moment to tear the tape from my grandmother’s wrists and ankles. She was free, but she didn’t move, frozen, not wanting to leave me.

  “Nato—”

  “Go!” I yelled. “¡Vete!”

  He was coming at me again.

  It was Nate’s voice, Terri was sure of it. She signaled the cops and together they raced down the basement hallway and saw her, the old lady, coming toward them, shaking, unable to speak, pointing at the half-open door behind her.

  Seconds later, Wright emerged, detonator in hand.

  The two SWAT team cops dropped to firing position.

  “Wait!” Terri raised her hands, displaying her gun, then very slowly placed it on the ground. “Easy now,” she said. She nodded for the others to do the same. “Everything is going to be fine.”

  Perez and O’Connell put down their weapons and so did the SWAT team.

  “On the floor,” said Wright. “All of you. Or I blow this place up.”

  Terri took a minute to study his face. Was he going to do it? She couldn’t judge. She needed Rodriguez to tell her—and where was he? There was blood trickling from Wright’s nose and his lip was split. He’d been fighting. No doubt with Rodriguez.

  Wright waved the detonator.

  “Okay,” she said, “okay. Everything’s cool.” She laid her hand on Nate’s grandmother’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” she said.

  “Down! Now!” Wright screamed, his chin quivering, eyes wild, and Terri could see he was beyond reason.

  When they were all on the floor, Wright marched over them and Terri watched his boots pass in front of her eyes. For a second she thought—I can do this, I can grab him, knock him to the floor, and subdue him—but she couldn’t chance it.

  When she dared lift her head, he was halfway up the stairs. He glanced back and shouted, “RAHOWA!” then disappeared.

  Terri gave the signal and the two SWAT team cops charged after him. She got the old woman to her feet, then turned to O’Connell and Perez. “Get her out of here. Now.”

  “My grandson—”

  “He’ll be fine,” said Terri.

  “What about you?” asked Perez.

  “I’ve got to find Rodriguez.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he said. “O’Connell, you take the woman.”

  They didn’t have to look long. Seconds later Nate staggered out of the room, blood on his face, his shirt.

  “My grandmother—”

  “She’s fine. O’Connell just took her out back. Your face—”

  “Tell me about it later,” said Nate. “Let’s go.”

  The SWAT team was stalking Wright down the main aisle of the now empty church as Terri and I caught up to them.

  Wright had turned to face the men, while inching backward slowly and deliberately. I didn’t know if they were going to try to shoot him before he had a chance to blow himself up. It was a huge risk and impossible to call.

  I was several yards away but close enough to see something had shifted in Wright’s face, the muscles starting to relax, and it frightened me more than his anger.

  “Don’
t crowd him!” I shouted to the SWAT team. They were closer to Wright than I was, rifles aimed.

  I turned to Terri and whispered, “I think he’s getting ready to blow.”

  She acknowledged me with a slight nod.

  The main sanctuary of the church seemed bigger than it had only moments before, the emptiness oppressive, clanging heat pipes playing a discordant dirge, light from the clerestory windows picking out worn tiled floors and pockmarked wood, everything in surreal detail.

  Terri laid her gun down on a pew and raised her hands as she walked into the main aisle, totally exposed. “Tim,” she said softly. “You know me, Terri Russo, from the station. I can help you get out of here alive. Let me do that. Just put the detonator down.” She took a few steps toward him and he seemed to be listening, his hand slightly lowered. Then one of the SWAT team, a young guy, sweat on his brow, lower lip trembling, raised his rifle just a fraction of an inch, and Wright stiffened, thumb quivering on the detonator as he backed out the church door.

  58

  Tim Wright held the detonator above his head, inched his way down the church steps, and onto the sidewalk. He was an easy target, but no one was going to take the chance; the explosives on his chest looked like they could take the church and half the crowd with him.

  The Bomb Squad stood by while uniforms moved everyone down the block. The SWAT team got into firing position.

  Collins had arrived with her agents and was conferring with a couple of the chiefs.

  I was on the steps with Terri and Perez, and while Wright held everyone rapt I combed the crowd for my grandmother. When I saw O’Connell leading her into a patrol car, the big cop with his arm around her tiny frame, my eyes welled up. She looked so small and frail, this powerful woman who had saved my life and meant so much to me; the idea that I could have lost her unendurable.