Defenders of the Faith Page 13

  Whatever the answer, Paul would find out.

  Chapter 27

  It took Paul three nights of waiting in a loading dock in the alley behind the mission store before Robert Tucker came and opened the garage just after midnight. He was driving a gray panel truck with no identifying signs on the side, and parked it in front of the door. He unlocked it and raised it all the way, then backed the truck inside. By the glow of the truck's backup lights Paul could see a large, squarish pile covered with a drop cloth at the garage's far end.

  He dropped from the dock and shimmered across the alley, entering the garage just as Robert Tucker opened the door to climb from his truck. The dome light shone upon Paul and the .38 revolver he was pointing at Tucker's face. Paul kept the gun steady, though he was surprised to see Tucker's wife Doris in the passenger seat.

  "Climb out," Paul said. "Slow. You follow him. This side. Both of you, go over to the door and close it. Then turn on the light. Stay together."

  They did so slowly, stumbling in the near darkness. Paul took his flashlight from his hip pocket and shined it on both of them. When the door rumbled down, Tucker and his wife turned. Tucker's large face was red and set. His wife's was white, and shook as though she was on the verge of an epileptic fit.

  Then Tucker spoke in a soft, low voice in which Paul heard no trace of fear. "The light's on a pull chain near you. You reach up, you'll feel it."

  Paul wondered if it was a trick to get him to shine his light away from them so they could move. Instead of reaching up, he moved aside. "You get it," he said.

  The Tuckers moved as one toward the middle of the garage, where Tucker reached up and pulled a chain, illuminating the space with a bare hundred-watt bulb.

  "Now," Paul said, "pull the cloth off of that pile. Slow."

  "You're the book man," Doris Tucker said with twitching lips as her eyes widened. "You know, Bob, the one I told you comes in and buys books all the time?"

  "That's right," Paul said. "The book man. Move the cloth."

  Tucker grasped the drop cloth and slid it away, revealing a mass of large, cardboard boxes, on top of which were piled the same type of assortment of electronic equipment that had been found in the van Kevin Greene had been driving. "Okay?" Tucker said. "You want to just take what you want and go? You win, okay?"

  "I don't want any of that. I want information."

  "You a cop?"

  "I'm worse than a cop."

  "Look, mac, let's not play games. Neither one of us is spring chickens, you know? I'm too old for this shit. Now what do you want?"

  "Tell me about Kevin Greene."

  Tucker's mouth set in a grim line, opening only wide enough for the words to leak out. "I don't have a thing to say."

  "Then I'll say it," Paul said. "You used him to deliver stolen goods to somebody in Philadelphia. Didn't you?" They said nothing. "This garage is stone, and there aren't any windows. Nobody will hear a thing." He threw up the gun, his arm rigid. "Didn't you?"

  "Bob..." Doris Tucker said, grasping her husband's arm.

  "If you know, why are you asking?"

  "I want to know how you could take a kid and ruin him. Why a boy? Why not...why not one of these drunks or junkies or other poor bastards who work for you?"

  "You just answered your own question. They're not dependable. They are drunks, and junkies, and cripples. Can't depend on them. And kids are willing to do things for a lot less money." Tucker spread his hands in a gesture of conciliation. "Look, what's the point of all this? Can't we just -- " He began to move slowly toward Paul.

  "Hold it!" Paul stepped back, suddenly wondering if the man might have a weapon on his person, feeling foolish at not having checked. "Don't you move, either of you. Get down on your knees."

  "Now you're not gonna shoot us."

  "Get down on your knees. Or do you want me to shoot a leg out from under you?"

  "All right," Tucker said, slowly dropping to his knees. He nodded to his wife. "Doris?"

  She knelt too, overcoming her fear long enough to look distastefully at the oil stained, cement floor.

  "How did you trick him?" Paul said. "What did you tell him so that he'd do it?"

  Tucker looked at Paul as if he were a type of animal he'd never seen before. "Are you some kind of idiot? Fool him? He knew."

  "He couldn't have known. He wouldn't have done it."

  "He knew. He'd done it before."

  "Then how did you get him to do it? Threaten him? His family? What?"

  "I paid him, that was all. I told him what I needed done, and I paid him."

  "No. He wouldn't have."

  "Read my lips. I...paid...him."

  "It's true," Doris Tucker said, nodding her head rapidly. "He did."

  "Easiest thing in the world."

  Easiest thing in the world.

  The smug look on Robert Tucker's face was unbearable. Paul stared at it, knowing that the man told the truth, that Kevin Greene had been willing to break a law, commit a crime, for the money. Not for love, or loyalty, or his own life, but for money. He had been corrupted that easily.

  That easily.

  Easiest thing in the world.

  Paul Blair needed no further cue. In front of him was a creature that corrupted unto death, and his arm stiffened, and he pulled the trigger so quickly that Robert Tucker's face did not have time to look frightened or surprised or to show any other emotion before the bullet slammed into his brain, killing all emotion forever, except the terror and pain of an eternity in hell. His head jerked, his eyes remained open, and he fell slowly backwards, then twisted to the side. His face, still smug, slapped the cement floor.

  Without a scream, without a sound, intent only on her own self-preservation, Doris Tucker had run to the door, grasped the handle, and was desperately trying to lift its bulk. But the hydraulics of the old door were balky, and she barely had it an inch off the floor when Paul grabbed her arm, yanked her away, and pushed the door back down, sealing the two of them and the dead man from the ears of the world.

  She fell on her knees, and started to crawl away from him, toward the back wall of the garage. He caught up with her easily, held the pistol at the back of her head, and fired, dropping her instantly. Her fingers twitched for a moment, her left leg kicked once, and she was still.

  Paul stood for a long time, looking down at the shells of the sinners he had killed, and who had killed Kevin Greene. What he had done, he had done automatically, in the grip of a divine retribution. Only now, after the killing was done, did he consider other options.

  He could have turned them over the police, but even if they had been convicted, Kevin's death could not have been placed on the list of their crimes. They had received stolen goods, and that would have been the extent of it. A few years in prison at the most, and then freedom, and the chance to corrupt again. People always did what came easy, and to the Tuckers corruption had been the easiest thing in the world.

  A small, sharp shock of self-recognition came to Paul then, as he realized that he had just as easily taken two human lives. Was he just as corrupt then? Even more so?

  He dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. No. His acts were not murders. They were acts of justice, approved by God, demanded by Him, in accordance with Paul's sacred oath, made so many years before.

  He had become more than the biblical Avenger of Blood. He had become an Avenger of the Spirit as well, and his acts were offerings, made on the altar of his vow, for God's and the children's sake.

  And with that pleasant and self-righteous metaphor he consoled himself, excused his acts of blood, rationalized his taking of human life. It had served him in the past, and would serve him in the time to come.

  Chapter 28

  "They match," Rich Zielinski said, walking into Olivia's office and tossing the ballistics report onto her desk.

  She snatched it up gleefully. "Yes, by God! As soon as Tom said they were .38 slugs, I knew."

  "So this means?"

 
"It means that there hasn't been a series of unrelated killings, with three or four crazed murderers running around Buchanan. It means that there's one crazed murderer running around."

  "Wait a minute -- the guy who did Davonier all those years ago also did Santiago and the Tuckers?"

  "And Aston and Bronson, though I can't be sure of that one. But it sure as hell fits the M.O."

  "So what's the motive -- pure vigilantism?"

  "Not sure," Olivia conceded. "But somebody is snuffing bad guys with a .38, so what do you think?"

  Zielinski shook his head. "If this is the same guy who killed Davonier, what made him decide to start playing Batman again over ten years later?"

  "I don't know, but something had to set him off. For now I want a comparison of all the physical evidence of these three most recent crimes. Compare any hair, threads, everything, and we'll see if there's any kind of link."

  ~ * ~

  It turned out there was. Traces of latex from the same type of gloves had been found on both the handle of the Tuckers' garage door and the hilt of the sword that had killed the couple in the bookstore basement. It wasn't definitive, but it was enough proof for Olivia that the same person had committed all of the murders. Now all she had to do was figure out why.

  All right then, she thought, sitting at her desk, her door and her eyes closed...

  ...thirteen years ago, he lucks into it -- finds the kid, kills the pervert, thinks hey, this is all right, I'm a hero, and he lives on that for years and years, and then, thirteen years down the road, he goes after a drug dealer.

  Why?

  Somebody he loves OD's? Make a note to check on all reported fatal or near fatal overdoses last spring.

  Then he goes for the bookstore people. A lot of rightwing Christians in town are up in arms over them. A churchgoer then? Breaks in to scare them? Or to find out what they're really doing, and they find him, they fight and he wins.

  Okay, so what about the Tuckers? They get killed a few weeks after their delivery boy cracks up. See if the family members have alibis for the night the Tuckers died. That's a long shot -- the kid's father just happens to be the guy? Check anyway.

  So our victims are a child killer, a pusher, two porno dealers, and a fence. Great bunch. And who kills them? Some self-appointed crusader.

  A crusader. Crusades. Going off to fight the heathen and reclaim Jerusalem. Or reclaim Buchanan...

  There were people out there crazy enough to do it. The extreme religious right, of which there were a goodly number in Buchanan County, scared the hell out of Olivia. It seemed to her that while she was out there trying to protect people's rights, they were trying to take them away.

  Their presence in the political arena in particular was getting more and more redolent of violence. It was as though conservative losses in the last election had made the rhetoric that much more aggressive, from the “Birthers” to the Teabaggers. Despite the election results, they seemed to feel that the country had been stolen away from them, and if they had to preserve the tree of liberty by watering it with the blood of tyrants, so much the better. They fell into line behind the Becks and Limbaughs and Hannitys, who fed their fears and prejudices, but who would be the first to deny any culpability when someone got freaked out enough to start shooting, start defending their country and, by extension, their faith.

  She would look into the church link then, find out what religious connections the victims -- or those they harmed -- might have had. She was just writing a memo to that effect when her door opened and Norm Feathers, a stocky man in his early thirties and one of the assistant DA's, came in.

  "How's the Tucker case?" he asked, and she told him about her theories, including the possibility of the perpetrator being some misguided religious zealot.

  "Sounds like you ought to come with me to the inquisition tonight." She looked at him curiously, and he went on. "I've been invited to the meeting of the local CCYC -- that's Conservative Christian Youth Coalition to us heathens."

  "I thought you were a Presbyterian."

  "I am, but these people make anybody who isn't one of them feel like a heathen. I'm supposed to represent the department's view of the family planning clinic watch -- you know, tell why we've got patrols there, ask them not to pass out pickled fetuses to the patients, and all that. It's no-win for me. To them, we're the folks guarding the baby-killers. And worst of all, these are kids who've had pro-life hammered into them from the time they were fetal, so there's very little respect for the other guy's point of view."

  "Ah, to be young and self-righteous," said Olivia. "Are you serious about me going?"

  "Not really, but if you want to, that'd be great. I could use a bodyguard. They may try to abort me retroactively."

  Olivia laughed. She liked Norm. At least he had a better sense of humor than the other ADA. "Okay, I'll go with you. I want to see what these kids are like."

  Chapter 29

  And she found out, all too quickly, what the Conservative Christian Youth Coalition was like. How could children, she wondered, be so judgmental and vindictive? Most of them were still in their teens, with a lifetime of new experiences and emotions before them, and yet they behaved like patriarchs. They pontificated and preached and pronounced judgment over sins to which they had not yet been tempted, and it was only the social gathering before the meeting proper.

  Olivia recalled the scene from her childhood. Her church had had a basement as equally dismal. There was the shuffleboard lane worked into the otherwise geometrically perfect tiles, and the white blotches against the light green paint where pipes had once burst or rainwater leaked; at one end was the stage made of blond wood that had seen only religious dramas, poorly written and tediously acted; at the other end were the serving windows for church suppers through which must have passed thousands of pounds of American cheese, white bread, and slices of pale and tasteless bologna. Tonight's menu consisted of trays of store-bought chocolate chip cookies, and urns of watery coffee and punch the color of a pimp's car.

  Norm had already been cornered by the Reverend Ronald Wilber, who Olivia assumed was a big mucky-muck among this crowd. Olivia, with a detective's urge for snooping, found it expedient to wander away and listen in on some of the conversations.

  She couldn't help but smile as she overheard a boy who probably did not yet shave lecturing a man who looked to be in his fifties on how the media's concentration on sex had brought morals to a nadir unequaled since the 1960's. The man gave every indication of paying close attention to what the boy was saying, nodding and furrowing his brow as if in complete agreement. But Olivia detected a benign amusement in the man that the boy was too naive to notice.

  Then the man turned toward her so that she saw him full face instead of profile, and she realized that she had seen him before. She tried to remember where, and knew only that it had been a long time ago. But then he looked directly at her.

  His eyes widened, and for an instant an unreasoning joy came over his face, as though she was a lover whom he had not seen in many years. Then his expression changed. First he turned pale, and then he looked embarrassed at having his emotions viewed so nakedly. He turned away from her, heading toward the seats at the front of the room.

  She knew him then. It was in her rookie year. He was the man she had told about his wife's death in an accident. It had been the first time she had ever informed anyone of a death, and she had been as devastated as he. Although he had denied that it could have been his wife, the man had emptied at the news, his rationalizations as transparent as his casualness.

  Had he recognized her? If so, why that sudden burst of joy?

  "Excuse me, everybody!" The Reverend Ronald Wilber's tenor voice soared across the room, shattering Olivia's reverie and stilling the storm of conversation. "Let's get seated now, shall we?"

  ~ * ~

  Dear God, Paul thought as he sat down at the far end of the fourth row.

  Evey. I thought she was Evey.

  But then, of c
ourse, he had remembered that Evey was dead, so it couldn't be Evey. It was someone who reminded him of Evey, someone who had reminded him of her before, too.

  He had seen this women some other time, he was sure of it. But now the resemblance to his dead wife was eerie in its closeness. Living people should not look like the dead, and once-loved.

  Who was she, he wondered. Who was she, and could he bring himself to speak to her?

  ~ * ~

  The Reverend Wilber and Norm Feathers were sitting together in the front row, waiting for the faithful to gather. But Olivia sat near the back where she could see more of the crowd, lowering herself onto one of the metal folding chairs with unpadded seats. The principle begun with the hard pews of New England, she thought, was eternal. Make the ass uncomfortable so the brain will stay alert. She considered snidely that the ass might be where most of these kids had their brains anyway.

  Now the Reverend Ronald Wilber was on his feet, eyes closed, arms raised as though he were being robbed. "Oh Christ, our precious savior and lord, look down upon us," he prayed in strident tones that sounded vaguely southern. Why, Olivia wondered, did all these charismatics and pentecostals and evangelicals make themselves sound like Joe Bob Briggs, even if they were from New Jersey? She was tempted to leap up, slap a hand on Wilber's vocal cords, and shout Heal!, but was able to resist the temptation.

  The Reverend Wilber proceeded with the request for blessing, touching on the weakness of man (never woman), the spinelessness of "our current leaders" to do anything about the temptations confronting young people, and covering most of the bases that would be stomped into the dirt by the following discussion and "strategies session."

  Wilber then introduced the President of the CCYC, a Buchanan Bible College freshman named Peter Hurst. The boy was tall and handsome. Olivia thought only his very dark hair kept him from looking like the ideal little Aryan. He wore a dark, well tailored suit, a pleasant contrast to Wilber's gaudy checks, and a dark striped tie against an off-white shirt. His voice, she noticed, was also far different from Wilber's. It was a baritone surprisingly deep in one so young, and lacked even the trace of an accent. Peter Hurst could, Olivia thought, have acceptably read the news anywhere in the country.