Red Angel (36 page)

The insincere smile came again. “My last name is Mori-arty. In Opus Christi we tend to use only our Christian names.” He held the smile. “As the apostles of Our Lord did.”

“You’re here in some official capacity?” Devlin asked.

“Well, of course I’m here to celebrate sister’s life in Christ, and her reunion with Our Lord and Savior. But otherwise, yes, I’m also here for a more official purpose.” Matthew appeared ready to stop with that then seemed to realize that further reticence might be unwise. “I’m director of
public information for The Holy Order,” he said. “I’m here to deal with the media.”

Or not deal with them, Devlin thought. “Good. Then maybe you can also expedite some interviews for us.”

“Interviews? Who could you possibly want to interview?” Matthew waved his hand, dismissing the foolishness of his words. “What I mean is, that I can give you whatever information you need.”

Devlin offered up his own insincere smile. “That’s not how it works, Matthew.
We
decide who we want to talk to, and we talk to
them.
”

“But the members of our order don’t know anything about this tragic business.”

Sharon Levy stepped forward, moving closer to Matthew. She was a tall, willowy redhead, strikingly beautiful. She also was an out-of-the-closet lesbian who had little tolerance for self-important male bullshit.

She patted Matthew’s arm, instantly unnerving him. “Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. Let me explain. People in your holy order knew the victim, right?”

“Well, of course.”

“Good. We need to talk to them.” She hurried on before Matthew could object. “And if I’m right, nuns never travel alone—sort of a custom to go at least in pairs. Am I right there, too?”

“Well, yes, but …”

Sharon cut him off. “So, when Sister Manuela flew into Kennedy, there were probably one or more other nuns with her. Am I still on target there, Matthew?”

“Yes.” Matthew’s eyes had grown severe and suspicious.

“Then for starters, we need to talk to whoever was with her. Then we need to talk to anyone who knew her.”

Sharon gave him a bright smile that almost made Devlin laugh.

“So, you see, even though you can probably tell us a great
deal, there are still a lot of people we need to talk to. And since some lowlife scumbag viciously murdered one of your brethren, I’m sure you want to do everything you can to help us do that. Am I right, again?”

Matthew had seemed jolted by Sharon’s choice of words, the term
lowlife, scumbag
making him take an involuntary step back. But Sharon had achieved what she was after. Matthew’s little game of who’s running the show had come to a screeching halt.

He began haltingly. “You … must … understand … that life within The Holy Order is very insular … Very protected. This is done for the benefit of our members’ immortal souls. Contact with the outside world … is limited.”

Again, Sharon cut him off. “Hey, we understand. And I promise we’ll be as gentle as possible.”

Matthew eyed her suspiciously, clearly not believing a word she had said.

“Certainly you don’t expect to have free run of our complex and all its members.”

Now it was Devlin’s turn. Sharon had set the tone. He was definitely “bad cop” to her good. “That’s exactly what we expect,” he said. “We can’t find a killer if we’re told who we can talk to, and who we can’t.”

Matthew shook his head. “I’ll have to talk to my superiors.”

“You do that,” Devlin said. “And you explain that we’re looking for cooperation. If we don’t get voluntary cooperation, then we’ll have to do it with a court order.” He hurried on before Matthew could speak. “Now I’m running this investigation at the request of Mayor Silver. And the mayor has asked me to do everything in my power to keep the press deaf, dumb and blind about certain particulars of the case. Namely the heroin that was found in Sister Manuela’s body, and the fact that she was smuggling it in condoms she had obviously swallowed, and that somebody gutted her to
get that heroin back.” Matthew’s eyes had widened in horror. “Now I’ll do my best to do what the mayor wants, and keep your group and the archdiocese from being embarrassed by all this.” Now Devlin shook his head, imitating Matthew’s earlier reaction. “But if I have to start getting court orders, and hauling people downtown to talk to them, it’s going to make that part of the job very hard. The press isn’t stupid. And they find out about court orders very quickly. You make sure your superiors understand that, okay?”

Matthew seemed stunned. “I’ll do what I can,” he said. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a business card. “Call me at this number later.”

“I’ll do that,” Devlin said. “By the way, what was Sister Manuela doing in Colombia?”

Matthew seemed momentarily flustered. “I’m told she was visiting her family,” he said.

Devlin watched Matthew walk away, a slight slump to his shoulders. Then he turned back to the gathering around the grave, taking in the nuns who stood closest to the coffin, wondering which of them had been with the murdered nun on her family visit. It was a hot, humid day, steamy, and Devlin noticed that despite the heat all of the nuns seemed crisp and fresh. In all the years he had dealt with nuns, all the way back to his childhood, he had never seen one perspire. He wondered now, as he had many times, how they managed to do that.

Devlin sat behind the desk in his private office, Sharon Levy perched on its edge. Devlin only used the office for private conversations, preferring to use a vacant desk in the outer bullpen, so he could work more closely with his team of five detectives.

“How do you want to handle this?” Sharon asked.

“With speed.” Devlin raised his hands and let them fall back to his desk. “There’s no way we’re going to keep the press in the dark no matter what the mayor thinks. They’re already circling the carcass, and sooner or later they’re going to be all over our collective ass. So first, I want two people handling the interviews at Opus Christi. Get as much as we can, as fast as we can. You head that up. I think those kids, especially the young women, might talk more openly to you.” He grinned. “Besides, I think Matthew likes you.”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “Who should I take with me?”

“Ollie Pitts.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Exactly. But I think a dose of Ollie will keep Matthew and everybody else in line.”

“Do I get combat pay?”

Devlin laughed. “Because of sweet, lovable Ollie? How can you even suggest such a thing.”

The telephone interrupted them. It was the mayor. Devlin had been expecting the call. He listened for several long minutes as an unusually nervous Howie Silver rattled on. Sharon watched him. There was a scar on Devlin’s cheek, a gift from an earlier case, and it whitened whenever he became angry. His team of detectives had learned to watch for it—a sign they had pushed the boss too far. Now, as Devlin listened to the mayor, Sharon saw the scar grow whiter with each passing second.

The mayor paused for breath and Devlin jumped in. “Howie, here’s the bottom line. I can’t promise you the press won’t find out about the drugs, or that this nun was gutted to retrieve them. My people and I will do the best we can, but there are too many mouths, too many people who know what happened. Second, our best shot is to get this killer
before
they find out, and we sure as hell can’t do that if you’re telling me we have to tiptoe around these Opus Christi clowns. And finally, limiting our ability to investigate this
case the way it
has
to be investigated defeats the whole purpose of having this squad. If you insist on it you have to accept the fact that it’s a prescription for failure …”

Sharon could tell the mayor had cut him off, and she watched as Devlin listened and stewed. But he wouldn’t have it any other way, she thought. She had worked for the man for two years now, and she had learned that he was a truly complex character. First he was a detective, deep down into his personal core. He loved the challenge of finding the answers to something that seemed unsolvable. But even that wasn’t enough. He seemed to need more. He reveled when obstacles were thrown in his path by outside forces. She hadn’t been with him on his last case in Cuba, where a combination of Castro’s government, Afro-Cuban voodoo cults and a faction of the U.S. Mafia had been aligned against him. Ollie Pitts had been there and had told her about it. It was the type of case that brought out the best in the man. Just like the Roland Winter case. She had been at his side throughout that bit of madness, as the city’s most powerful real estate magnate had tried to end Devlin’s career, and when that had failed, his life.

Devlin’s voice roared back as the mayor paused again. “Look Howie, you’ve got plenty of people at the Puzzle Palace who can handle this case. Pick one, and give them the scenario you’re giving me. Then sit back and watch the walls come tumbling down. Because their chances of finding this killer are just about nil if they can’t interview everyone they
need
to interview.” Devlin listened again. When he resumed his own side of the conversation there was an even sharper edge in his voice. “It won’t work. It’s that simple. You have to start by investigating the nun and everybody who knew her. There is no other way. And when the press discovers what happened—and they will—and when they find out we don’t have a killer in custody because we’ve run a half assed investigation—and they’ll find that out, too—then
I can promise you that all our butts are going to be hung out to dry.”

Again, Devlin listened. When he spoke again his voice was smoother, softer, but just barely. “What I need is for you to tell those Opus Christi people to cooperate with us. And I need you tell them if they don’t, there is no way you can keep the press deaf, dumb and blind. You also have to tell them that I
will
get a court order if I have to, because if you take that ability away from me I can’t do the job. It’s obstruction, pure and simple, and we can’t work that way. So, boss, I hate to say it, but if you insist on that, you might as well give the case to someone else right from the start. Because my people and I won’t be able to do you a damn bit of good.”

Again Devlin sat and listened. Finally, a small smile flickered across his lips. “We’ll do our best,” he said.

Sharon grinned at him as he hung up the phone. “So?” she asked.

“The mayor says find the killer before the press and the archdiocese have him for lunch.”

“Do we have to tiptoe around everybody?”

Devlin shook his head. “But the mayor doesn’t want us to break too many chops, either. These people like to make phone calls, and that gets Hizzoner jumpy.”

“So Ollie’s out?”

Devlin grinned at her. “Not a chance. Ollie’s in.”

Sharon rolled her eyes again. “Well, I tried. What about a court order if we need it?”

“Not a problem, but we should try to avoid it.”

Sharon raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise. “So you got what you wanted.”

Devlin stared up at her. “We’ll see. They mayor’s been known to change his mind when things get unpleasant. I do know that we better deliver. We better catch this guy
before
the press starts chewing on Hizzoner and these holy rollers.
Otherwise we might find ourselves working out of a squad room on Staten Island.”

Sharon shrugged. “Hey, there’s always a chance we’ll get a nice view of the harbor,” she said.

When Sharon and Ollie Pitts had left for Opus Christi’s Manhattan headquarters, Devlin joined his remaining three detectives in the bullpen and handed out assignments.

Stan Samuels was a tall, thin, aesthetic looking forty-year old, who looked more like an accountant than a first grade detective. He was known as “the mole” to his fellow cops, because of his passion for digging through old records. Devlin told him to search every record he could ferret out; to find out everything he could about The Holy Order of Opus Christi, from the time the group was founded, through the opening of their new headquarters in New York.

Red Cunningham was a three hundred pound, baby-faced behemoth, who could plant a bug anywhere. He also had close contacts with NYPD’s wire experts in narcotics and intelligence. Devlin told him to call in any favors he had in those divisions, and get whatever they had on major drug dealers who were importing heroin into the city from South America. He also was told to check city records for architectural drawings of the Opus Christi headquarters, and to figure out where best to plant wires if that proved necessary.

Ramon “Boom Boom” Rivera—the group’s self-proclaimed Latin lover, and the squad’s computer whiz—was given the assignment of a complete computer search of everything dealing with Opus Christi. He also was to find out the type of computer system the group used, and to determine if, and how that system could be hacked.

“Sounds like you think maybe this group might be involved in this drug deal,” Boom Boom said, when he had finished.

“Not necessarily the group, itself,” Devlin said. “But maybe somebody who’s part of the group.” He leaned back in his chair and glanced at each of the three detectives. “I just don’t buy a young nun getting tied up in a drug deal all by herself.”

“I read the DD-5’s those homicide detectives filed. Said her parents were from Colombia,” Boom Boom said. “Could have been a family thing. Maybe I should run a check on them.”

“You do that,” Devlin said. “I talked on the phone with the homicide dicks who caught the case. Now I want to talk to them in person. Get things they might not have put in their DD-5’s and work back from there.” He pushed himself up from the chair. “We don’t have a lot of time. The mayor didn’t hand us this thing until it was two days old, and that’s very old for a homicide, so get cracking. One other thing. No comments to the press. You refer all questions to the deputy commissioner for public information. No exceptions.”

WILLIAM HEFFERNAN
won the 1996 Edgar Award for his novel
Tarnished Blue
. He is the author of fourteen novels, including the international bestsellers
The Corsican, Ritual, Blood Rose
, and
Corsican Honor
. A former reporter for the
New York Daily News
, he lives in Vermont with his wife and three sons.