The cold room

NINETEEN

The next morning, at ten o’clock, after a restless night, I rang the bell of Blessed Virgin’s rectory, a single-family home to the west of the church. A buzzer sounded from inside, followed by a click as the lock on the door released. I entered to find myself in a small outer room, facing a slender woman seated behind a desk. The woman’s autumn-gold dress set off her mahogany skin, as did the amber stones in her large earrings and a tiny cross at the end of the chain that encircled her neck.

‘Yes, may I help you?’ Her voice held the merest hint of the Caribbean.

‘My name is Detective Corbin. Would you let Father Manicki know that I’ll be needing a few minutes of his time?’

‘Can I tell him what it’s about?’

‘That won’t be necessary.’ I flashed my best smile. ‘We’re old friends.’

After a short wait, I was ushered into the priest’s spacious office. A large desk set before a window held a computer, an in-out box and a coffee mug decorated with a photo of the Vatican. The rest of the space was given over to a long couch and four easy chairs. Two of the chairs were set directly across from the couch, two at right angles. Father Manicki was seated in the chair at the far end of the couch. He didn’t rise when I stepped into the room, nor did he offer his hand, and it was obvious that he’d spoken with Sister Kassia. I should have thanked him for the tip, the subject’s current state of mind always being of interest to the interviewer. Instead, I took the chair to his right, perching on the edge of the seat, and let my briefcase drop to the floor.

‘How have you been, Father?’

‘Fine, how about you?’ The priest’s tone was sharp enough to walk the border of flagrant sarcasm.

‘Myself, I’m having a little problem with my conscience, something I need to get straightened out.’

‘Are you a Catholic?’

‘No, Father, but I’m not anything else, either. Besides, nobody understands that confession is good for the soul better than a detective. I’m talking about the relief that follows a confession. I see that relief, plain as day, in the suspects I interrogate. They always feel better once they get that burden off their chest.’

A portrait of the Madonna holding the infant Jesus hung on the wall facing my chair. The infant’s attention was on a book resting on his mother’s lap, which he examined closely while his mother gazed down fondly. Above her, a small angel held a gold crown with both hands. I found myself wondering, as the silence built, why the angel, with his black wings and sumptuous charcoal-gray robes, was so dark. Was there a hidden message, something about vanity perhaps? Or was the artist only working a contrast between the angel and the Virgin’s blond hair and sumptuous blue robes?

‘Are you here to confess?’ Father Manicki finally asked. ‘Because, if you are, I’ll be hearing confessions tomorrow afternoon in the church.’

‘I’m not here to confess,’ I said. ‘Not yet, at least. No, before I can make a confession, I have to know whether or not I’m a sinner. That’s the first step, right? To examine your conscience?’

‘It is,’ he admitted.

‘Then that’s what I’m here for. I want to know if I’m living in a state of sin.’

Father Manicki looked down at his hands, as if he hoped to find the solution to his dilemma inscribed on his knuckles. He’d made a good-faith effort to be rid of me when he failed to identify Plain Jane the first time I approached him, a charade Sister Kassia had exposed when she called me on that Sunday morning. So where could he go now, this compassionate minister to the downtrodden? Could he throw me out on my ass, perhaps after a dressing down for my impudence? If our positions were reversed, that’s exactly what I would have done. I certainly wouldn’t have given him the opportunity to plant a wedge and pound away at it.

I took advantage of the silence to pull my briefcase from the floor, to fumble inside for a moment before removing the likeness of Plain Jane Doe I’d planted all over town. Very carefully, I laid the photo on a glass coffee table so that it faced the priest.

‘I must care about her,’ I said as I straightened up. ‘I wouldn’t have spent all those hours creating that photo on my computer if I didn’t care. Keep in mind, I had very little to start with.’

Father Stan raised his eyes to meet mine. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying, Father, that when I found her, she looked like this.’ The photo I then removed from the briefcase was a close-up of Plain Jane’s face taken a few moments after I’d rolled her onto her back. I laid it on the coffee table alongside the first shot, inviting a comparison. To his credit, Father Stan didn’t recoil, though his jaw tightened and his full lips squeezed into a thin line.

‘Creating a recognizable likeness wasn’t as hard it might appear.’ I used my index finger to illustrate as I went along. ‘This discharge from her nose and mouth? You can eliminate that in under an hour. Likewise for the crushed portion of her skull. And the main features of her face? Her overbite, her square jaw, her short nose? They’re pretty obvious. The only problem I really had was with her eyes. In this shot, all you can see is a white film, but when I got up close at the crime scene, I observed a pair of blue circles underneath. These circles, they were very faint and I couldn’t determine the exact shade of blue. That’s one reason I printed the final shot in black-and-white. It’s like her skin, which was tinged with green. Taking the green out was no problem. But was she originally pale? Was her complexion sallow? Did she have color in her cheeks? Once a victim’s in this condition, it’s impossible to know.’

I straightened up, drawing the priest’s eyes away from the photos and onto myself.

‘I thought,’ he said, ‘there were police artists who did this sort of thing.’

‘There are, but I was too impatient to wait for them to get their act together. That’s not really the point, anyway.’

Despite my generally bullying attitude, I had Father Stan’s full attention. ‘Then what is?’ he asked.

I again fumbled in my briefcase, making a show of the search, finally removing the original likeness I’d created on the computer. The shot was generic, with Plain Jane staring straight ahead, her face expressionless.

‘See, this is what I first came up with. I don’t think it took more than a few hours.’

‘I recognize her immediately. Anybody would.’

‘I knew that Father, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I wanted more than recognition. I wanted to find.?.?.’ I paused long enough to draw a breath and smile ruefully. ‘Would you believe it’s been more than two weeks and I don’t even know her name?’

Father Manicki tugged at his Roman collar, revealing a line of chafing beneath. ‘I understand how frustrated you must feel, detective, but I don’t see how I can help you.’

I ignored him. ‘The point I’m trying to make is that I must have cared for her. If not, I would have been satisfied with my first effort. Recognizable is what it’s all about, right? For a cop? But I kept going, hour after hour, turning her head this way and that, widening and narrowing her mouth and her eyes, lightening and darkening the color of her hair. There were times, I swear, when I thought I’d go crazy.’

‘If there’s something in this story that’s sinful, I haven’t heard it yet.’ Now that he’d gotten over his initial shock, Father Stan’s voice was much stronger.

‘Tell me something, Father. Have you ever hunted?’

The question brought him up short and his expression became wary. ‘When I was a young man, before I entered the seminary, I hunted deer.’ He hesitated before adding, ‘I was raised near Lake Champlain. Everybody hunted.’

‘Were you successful?’

‘I dropped an eight point buck in my second season.’

‘And how did you feel when you centered the crosshairs on the animal’s chest? When you held his life in your hands? Was it a cold day? Could you see his breath in the air? His chest moving as he breathed? The life in his eyes?’

‘More than anything, I was afraid that I’d miss.’

I nodded once, then let the silence build. Father Stan shifted uncomfortably in his chair, crossing and recrossing his legs. Finally, he said, ‘Do you hunt, detective?’

‘I do, Father. I hunt all the time. But not animals. I hunt human beings.’

There was a crucifix on the wall behind Father Stan’s chair, so perfectly centered above his head that it seemed to be growing out of his skull. The crucifix was little more than an assemblage of sticks that might have been snapped from the branches of the trees outside the church, but there was no resisting its power. The arms outstretched, the body slumped, the head turned slightly to the side, the chin resting on the chest. By that time, if I remembered right, Jesus had already descended into hell. As if crucifixion wasn’t enough.

‘Tell me, Father, can sin be a force for good?’

Father Stan weighed his reply carefully. He seemed in no hurry now. ‘God is omnipotent,’ he said with a smile. ‘He can do anything but create a rock so heavy that He can’t lift it. But I’d still like to hear about this sin. If it really is a sin.’

‘Most of the time,’ I replied, ‘my job is pretty mechanical. I get cases, everything from burglaries to murders, and I investigate. Sometimes I make an arrest, mostly I don’t, but I don’t get worked up either way.’ I raised my eyes, until I was looking directly into Father Stan’s. ‘But there are other days and other cases, like this particular case, when I’m as single-minded as a serial killer. I tell you, Father, I’ve thought about this for a long time, trying to figure out what’s going on, and the closest word in the English language for what I feel is lust. That’s why I asked you that question. Can sin be a force for good?’

This time Father Stan was ready for me. ‘Obsession,’ he declared, ‘is not a sin. From a purely psychological point of view, Mother Theresa was obsessed.’

‘What if you felt as though you’d sacrifice anything to achieve your goal? What if all concern for the victim, along with your duty to society, suddenly vanished? What if you were willing to sacrifice your livelihood? The only woman you’ve ever loved? What happens when it becomes entirely personal?’

‘Are you asking me for absolution?’

‘Can you be forgiven for a sin you know you’ll commit again?’

‘God doesn’t ask you to guarantee the future. He only asks you to try.’

‘Trying is not an option at the moment. Later, perhaps, after I do what I have to do.’

‘Then you can’t be absolved.’

‘That’s what I figured before I came here. But it’s okay. I accept the sin and whatever punishment follows. I can do that because I’m certain that the end I seek is good.’

‘Certain that the end justifies the means? Is that it?’

I reached down into my briefcase to withdraw the last arrow in that particular quiver, a full-body shot of Plain Jane lying on her back with her abdomen split open.

‘In this case, Father,’ I said as I laid the photo on the table, ‘it surely does.’

I sat back in the chair, leaving Father Stan to contemplate the gruesome reality. I knew all the words likely to be running through his mind at that moment — ghastly, horrid, ungodly, frightful, hideous, evil — as I knew those words would lead to other words, like sadist and serial killer. I also knew the reality, that Jane’s evisceration had come after her death, wouldn’t occur to the priest. That was because, in an odd way, harvesting a dead woman’s organs in order to remove her fetus is even more evil than murdering her for pleasure.

‘Can you still remember her voice?’ I asked when the priest finally raised his head. ‘I mean the sound of it when she whispered her sins to you in the confessional? Was it breathy, husky, musical? Did she have an accent? Did you speak Polish?’

Father Manicki responded by stacking the four photos and handing them to me. ‘I cannot be forced to violate the seal of the confessional.’

‘Forced?’

‘By the law.’

I laughed out loud as I accepted the photos. ‘You think I’m going to get a subpoena?’

‘No,’ he admitted, ‘that’s not your way.’

‘It’s not my way and I’m not going to vanish, either.’ I held up the photos, fanning them out like a deck of cards before stuffing them into my briefcase. ‘Because the man who did this will kill again. He has to be stopped and I think you’re the only one who can stop him.’

‘Think?’

The subject never controls the interview, even when the interviewer stupidly phrases his remarks. I simply ignored the question.

‘Tell me, Father, have you ever heard of a priest named Joseph Towle?’

Father Stan’s involuntary recoil was quickly replaced by a grudging smile as he echoed Sister Kassia. ‘I underestimated you, detective.’

‘Does that mean you’re familiar with the details?’

‘Every priest in the country is familiar with the details.’

The facts were simple enough. In 1987, two teenagers from the South Bronx, Jose Morales and Rubin Montalvo, were convicted of murdering another teen, Jose Rivera, then sentenced to life in prison. Two years later, in 1989, a fourth teen, Jesus Fornes, approached a street priest named Joseph Towle, asking for guidance. In the course of the private conversation that followed, Fornes told the priest that it was he who’d killed Jose Rivera, and that his conscience was troubling him. Only at the very end of this conversation did Father Towle give Fornes absolution for his sins. For the next twelve years, Father Towle sat on this information while Rivera and Montalvo sat in prison. Then, in 2001, after consulting with his superiors, he finally came forward to inform the appropriate authorities. By that time, Jesus Fornes, the actual murderer, was four years dead.

The law in New York State forbids a minister, priest or other member of the clergy from disclosing a confession or a confidence in a court of law. Father Towle overcame this burden by asserting that Fornes had come to him for counseling. The absolution part was a mere afterthought.

I’d known all this going in, of course. Still, I listened patiently while the priest recounted the various excuses offered by Father Towle. Then I asked a pair of questions.

‘If what Jesus Fornes told Father Towle wasn’t a confession, why did Father Towle wait twelve years to come forward? Why did he leave Montalvo and Rivera to rot in prison?’

‘Those are good questions, detective, ones I’ve asked myself.’

‘And what was your answer?’

‘That the questions are irrelevant to this conversation. You see, there’s a major difference here. Your victim’s confession took place in a confessional. As such, it was formal from the beginning. Every word she spoke falls under the seal.’

‘You’re right about the difference, Father, but there’s another difference, too, and one major similarity. The other difference, of course, is that Jesus Fornes was a killer and Jane Doe was a victim.’

‘And the similarity?’

‘Fornes was dead when Father Towle came forward. Jane Doe is dead even as we speak. Wherever they were headed, to heaven or hell or oblivion, they’re already there. Nothing Father Towle told the court, and nothing you tell me, can harm either of them.’

Father Stan’s mouth opened, but I cut off his response. ‘And by the way, Father, just in case you’re worried about revealing her sin, I already know she was pregnant.’

I crossed my legs and let my eyes wander to the portrait on the wall opposite my chair. The Madonna was looking at the infant Jesus, her head twisted down and to the right, the angle so unnatural I knew she couldn’t assume it unless her neck was broken. Still, the line that ran from the hem of her robe, over her son, then around the semi-circle of her hood was compelling. To create her alive would have been to ruin it.

‘Tell me what you want.’ Father Stan finally said.

‘I want to know where she worked and who she worked for.’ I spoke without taking my eyes off the painting. ‘I want to know who made her pregnant. As I said, I’m not interested in her sins.’

‘That distinction is meaningless in the context of the confessional.’

‘Why, Father? Why should where she worked be kept a secret?’

‘Penitents come to the confessional expecting secrecy. They have to trust us.’

‘Ah, I see. Well, if that’s your problem, let me put your mind at rest. Nothing you tell me will ever be repeated in public. First, because the Criminal Procedure Law forbids a priest revealing information obtained in the course of a confession. And second, because what you were told in the confessional is classic hearsay. It cannot be used in a trial.’

‘Then how did Father Towle testify?’

‘Father Towle testified at a hearing where the rules are a lot less strict.’ I finally turned to look into his eyes. ‘Listen to what I’m telling you, Father, because I mean it from the bottom of my heart. All I want you to do is give me a push in the right direction. I’ll take it from there and your name will never come up.’

By then, Father Stan was sitting with his arms folded across his chest, his legs crossed at the knees. He was telling me that his mind was closed, but I still had cards to play.

‘What I’m gonna do now,’ I continued, deliberately breaking eye contact, ‘is run through a scenario I’ve created in my own mind. The sequence appears logical on the surface, but I could be way off. That’s where you can help me.’

‘I’ve already told you that I can’t comment.’

‘I’m not asking you to comment. In fact, what I’m going to assume, unless you correct me, is that I’ve got it right. You don’t have to say a word.’

Again, putting a stop to the conversation was the priest’s best move. I’d made my argument and he’d responded, so long, see ya later. But he merely sat there, his eyes jittery with indecision.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘let’s start with the pregnancy. I’m not thinking rape here, because there’d be nothing to confess if she was raped. I’m thinking that a young girl in a strange country, a girl whose opportunities were few and far between, made a big mistake in the name of love. I’m thinking she became pregnant with an inconvenient child, that she was pressured to have an abortion, by her employers and by Aslan Khalid. I’m thinking that she was confused, that she sought counseling from the only counselor available. That would be you, Father.’

When the priest failed to challenge any of my assertions, I again turned to stare into his eyes. ‘Did you tell her that abortion is murder? Did you tell her to resist? To fight for the life of her child? Did you bring about the very conditions that led to her death?’

Father Manicki stared back at me for a moment, then he shook his head as though trying to rid his ears of my words. ‘You deceived me,’ he declared. ‘You led me to believe that she was tortured.’

‘According to the medical examiner, she was locked in a refrigerator for an extended period of time right before she was killed. That sounds like torture to me.’

‘The cold.?.?.’ The priest’s jaw snapped shut and his eyes lit up with anger. ‘Let’s ignore the fact that you’ve been manipulating me ever since you walked into the room. Let’s ignore your bullying attitude. The simple truth is that the seal is absolute. If I could have helped you, I already would have.’

I ignored the outburst. ‘Father, do you remember the man with the narrow eyes? He accompanied the women from time to time?’ I hesitated long enough for the priest to nod. ‘Well, his name is Konstantine Barsakov and he was murdered. I know because I’m the one who found his body. The women were gone by then. Aslan, too. That’s why I was so certain that Aslan would kill again. He already had.’

Father Manicki rose to his feet, not to throw me out, but only because he could no longer contain the tension. I rose with him, until we were standing only a few feet apart. The advantage, here, was all mine. I was a head taller than the priest and he was forced to look up at me.

‘If you violate the seal of the confessional,’ I said, ‘that would be a mortal sin, right?’ When the priest nodded, I continued on, my tone calm and reasonable. ‘See, that’s what I don’t understand. From what I can tell, all mortal sins are equally mortal. So why are you making such a fuss about this one? Why don’t you just commit the damn sin, accept the guilt, do your penance and seek absolution? Unless, of course, you’re merely protecting the institution.’

Father Stan’s mouth dropped open. Without doubt, as a priest who ministered to the poor, he’d fought the hierarchy all his life. ‘Get out of here,’ he said.

‘Sure, but first tell me this. Tell me which mortal sin is the most mortal? To provide a detective with a few facts revealed to you in a murder victim’s confession? Or not to provide those facts, knowing that Aslan Khalid will kill again? Bear in mind, Jane Doe is dead, now and forever. Those other women, they’re still breathing. And they most likely want to keep it that way.’

I stood there, wearing the most inscrutable expression in my repertoire while I watched Father Manicki, his face red, his hands curled into fists. For a moment, I thought he’d break, but then he abruptly sat and took a series of quick breaths.

‘I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘I can’t help you.’

I turned away, not to leave, but to cover my disappointment. If the priest chose not to help, the only link to Jane’s killer was Aslan Khalid.

‘Would it be a sin,’ I asked, my tone considerably more gentle, ‘for you to tell me her name? Just that, Father, just her name?’

The priest shook his head. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible.’

‘Impossible?’ I rose to my feet and dropped a business card on the desk. ‘The alternative to blind obedience is right in front of your eyes. It won’t disappear when I walk out of this room. How could it when what you’re looking at is your own conscience?’

Father Manicki waited until my hand was on the doorknob before he spoke. ‘Mynka,’ he finally said, his voice little more than a whisper, though he pronounced each syllable distinctly. ‘Her given name is Mynka. I don’t know her family name.’

I turned to look at the priest, hoping this damaging admission would lead to a flood. No such luck. Father Stan’s mouth was tight, his jaw locked down, and I had the impression that he’d cut a deal with his good angel. He would give me this much, I would leave, then he’d feel better about himself. And perhaps he would, right up until I returned on the following day, and the day after that, until he realized I might return one day bearing another set of crime scene photos, these of a victim he might have saved.