Red Angel (35 page)

Rossi snorted, and Devlin turned to Martínez. “Show him the newspaper,” he said.

Martínez held up an English-language edition of
Granma.
One of the lead stories above the fold carried a photograph of María Mendez. The headline read RED ANGEL SURVIVES CRASH. COMPANION KILLED. Next to it was a second story, detailing a nationwide crackdown on prostitution.

Ippolito got off his bunk and snatched the paper from Martínez. He read the story about the Red Angel, then turned to Rossi. “It says this doctor wasn’t killed. It says a friend of hers was.” He looked back at the paper to make sure he got the words right. “It says she’ll be back at her job at the Ministry of Health by the end of the month.”

Rossi took the newspaper from Ippolito’s hands, looked at it, and snorted again. “I recognize the picture,” he said. “But even if the picture’s legit, the newspaper’s a phony.” He looked up at Ippolito. “It’s all bullshit. Devlin and his Cuban buddy are just tryin’ to turn the screws on me.” He glanced through the bars. “Go away, Devlin. Go fuck your little girlfriend. Go have a nice life while you still got time.” He slapped his old man’s chest again. “Like a bull, Devlin. Like a fucking bull.”

Devlin turned to Martínez. “He doesn’t believe us.” He turned to Pitts. “He thinks we’re bullshitting him, Ollie.”

“Hey, it’s show-and-tell time,” Pitts said. “Martínez, you gotta do your thing.”

Martínez nodded, offered up his Cuban shrug, then walked back to the door. “I will do my best,” he said.

María Mendez entered the cellblock with Adrianna at her side. She walked up to the bars and stared down at the old man seated on the bunk. She looked at the newspaper in his hands, then raised her face.

“Do you recognize me from my photograph, Señor?”

Rossi stared at her. His lower lip trembled, almost imperceptibly, and his breathing was suddenly labored. He fought it as long as he could, then his hands began to shake. He stared across the cell at Ippolito. “It’s a fake,” he gasped. “The broad’s … a fake.”

He could barely get the words out. Mattie hurried across the cell and dragged the bottle of oxygen to Rossi’s side.

Rossi grabbed the mask and placed it over his mouth. “She’s a … fake,” he said, his words barely audible through the mask.

Devlin took the Red Angel’s arm and turned her toward the door. Halfway there, he stopped and looked back at Rossi.

“Hey, Bathrobe. Sorry to rush off. But we gotta get Ollie to the airport. He’s got a flight back to New York.”

“Yeah,” Pitts said. “I gotta start spreadin’ the word about the old Bathrobe bein’ locked up in a Cuban jail.”

Devlin shook his head. “I guess the boys will figure you’re a goner, Bathrobe. Not right away, of course. A day or two might go by before they start dividing up your turf. Jesus, could be a helluva mess.”

Devlin started away again, then stopped once more. He looked back over his shoulder. “Hey, Bathrobe,” he called. “Have a nice life.” A smile spread across his face. “How did you put it a little while ago? Oh, yeah.” The smile widened. “While you still have time.”

Outside the cellblock they waited while Martínez locked the ancient steel door.

María Mendez, Cuba’s Red Angel, reached up and gave Devlin’s cheek an affectionate pat. She turned to Adrianna. “This man,” she said. “He reminds me of Martínez. He, too, is something of a scoundrel.”

Adrianna looked at Devlin and smiled. “I know, Auntie. He’s a terrible scoundrel. It’s one of the things that makes him so lovable.”

I would like to thank my editor, Zachary Schisgal, and my agent, Gloria Loomis, for their unwavering enthusiasm for this book. Also, a special thanks to my Cuban friends and fellow writers Luis Adrián Bentancourt, Ignacio Cárdinas, Daniel Chavarria, Justo Vasco, José Latour, and especially Arnaldo Correa, all of whom taught me about their country and the great love they have for it. I would also like to acknowledge the memory of Plante Firme, Cuba’s great Palo Monte
palero
, who before his death generously shared the mysteries of his faith with me.

It should also be noted that the political views in this book are those of my imagined characters (and in some cases my own) and should not be attributed to any individual mentioned here.

UNHOLY ORDER

A
P
AUL
D
EVLIN
M
YSTERY

by

William Heffernan

Available in hardcover from
William Morrow and Company

They followed the vested priest in long lines, two abreast, first the men, then the women, all of them young, all looking as though they had just stepped from steaming baths—every one so clean and fresh and seemingly innocent. Next came the nuns, also young, each one dressed in the black and white habits you seldom see anymore, large rosary beads wrapped around their waists, the crucifixes at the ends hanging to their knees. Brothers followed in black suits, each distinguishable from the handful of priests who brought up the rear only by the black neckties they wore in place of clerical collars.

Paul Devlin watched as the coffin was placed over the open grave. Watched as the young men and women divided, each sex moving to opposite sides of the bier; the nuns then stepping in front, closest to the coffin, the brothers and priests forming a rank at its foot.

Sharon Levy leaned in to Devlin and whispered. “God, all those kids. They look so freshly scrubbed. It’s scary.”

Devlin glanced at his tall, redheaded sergeant. “You have something against clean?” he asked.

“I love clean,” Sharon said. “It’s uniformed clean that makes me nervous.”

She was right, of course. Devlin had noticed it, too. All those pink cheeked kids, all in their late teens or early twenties, all with faces that looked almost angelic. Every bit of it so out of place, considering the corpse.

The mutilated body of the young nun they were burying had been found three days ago, gutted and stuffed in the trunk of a car at Kennedy Airport. It was late summer, still oppressively warm, and the car had been abandoned in the long-term parking lot. There hadn’t been much left by the time the nun was found—at least for forensic purposes. But there was enough to tell she had been carrying heroin in her body. A lot of heroin, packed in condoms she had swallowed.

The detectives who first caught the case initially speculated that the young woman had only been posing as a nun when she came through customs. It had proven a false assumption. The woman, María Escavera, was a second-generation U.S. citizen, whose parents had emigrated from Colombia. She was also a postulant in The Holy Order of Opus Christi, where she had chosen the religious name of Sister Manuela.

So far the media hadn’t tumbled to the drugs. That part of the forensic report had been buried. They only knew that a nun had been viciously murdered, and that was how Mayor Howie Silver wanted it to remain.

We don’t need a goddamn media circus
, he had said, when he had handed Devlin the case.

Devlin looked down the long winding cemetery road all the way to the main gate. Uniformed cops were there now holding back the newspaper reporters and television crews.

It was already a circus, and would be an even bigger one once the newshounds got wind of the drug angle. Then it
would become a full-scale three ringer. Of that Devlin had no doubt. There was no way to avoid it. Sooner or later word would leak out—a cop hoping to curry favor, or someone in the ME’s office. He only hoped it came after they had found the killer. If it came before … He didn’t even want to think about it. He shook his head, annoyed by his thoughts. Stop whining, he told himself. It’s part of the job, the one you wanted, the one you agreed to do.

Devlin was inspector of detectives; a rank that had lain dormant for many years until the mayor had cajoled him into returning to the force from an early disability retirement. The promotion that went with the job gave him unusual power in the New York Police Department, a fact that he enjoyed more often than not. He worked directly for the mayor with the right to supersede even senior commanders under Howie Silver’s umbrella of protection. It was Silver’s way of escaping the political intrigue that permeated One Police Plaza, the headquarters building better known as “The Puzzle Palace” to working cops. It allowed the mayor to put Devlin in charge of the high profile, politically dangerous cases that so often battered, and occasionally broke, any man foolish enough to become mayor of New York.

But the power of the mayor might not be needed for this case. The NYPD brass seemed more than willing to step aside.

Devlin considered the gathering again. Everyone present was a member of Opus Christi—
The Holy Order
, as it was known to its members. It was one of the most influential factions within the Catholic Church; some said the most influential, even surpassing the Jesuits. The mayor had made his position clear. Devlin was to find the killer, and keep the press at bay—not only to cover Hizzoner, but also to avoid any embarrassment for the Archdiocese of New York. Devlin understood. He had already clashed with the archdiocese
on an earlier case, and the mayor had borne the brunt of its wrath. It was with good reason that New York’s Catholic prelature was known as
The Powerhouse
to the city’s politicians, a distinction not lost on NYPD’s senior commanders.

The priest began the final prayers, driving away Devlin’s thoughts. The prayers were in Latin, something he had not heard since childhood when he spent every Sunday morning sitting with his sister and parents at St. Joseph’s Church in Queens. During the intervening years, the long dead language had been abandoned by all but a few Catholic sects. Hearing it now he recalled how mysterious it had seemed to him all those years ago, a tongue known only to those initiated in the sacred rituals of
Holy Mother, the Church.
A faint smile flickered on his lips as he thought of that term and how the Dominican nuns who had ruled his earliest years of school had used it over and over again to elevate those in Rome who ruled the lives of every Catholic.

Again, he studied the gathering of young men and women, as they recited the Latin responses to the priest’s prayers. He wondered if they understood the meaning of the words they mouthed, something he had never achieved himself. Perhaps they did. They seemed so intent. Many had their eyes closed; others had raised them to the heavens, all emulating a “Christ-like” attitude of devoutness that his own nuns had struggled but failed to achieve with their ragtag collection of New York street kids.

Devlin’s gaze stopped on one young nun. Tears streamed down her cheeks and her entire body seemed to tremble. He leaned in close to Sharon Levy. “That nun in the first row, the one who’s crying and shaking like a leaf …”

“Yeah, I already spotted her,” Sharon whispered back. “Looks like somebody we should talk to. Find out what’s got her so scared.”

Devlin felt eyes burning into his back. He turned and
found that two suits had slipped in behind the priest. The older of the pair—a man who appeared close to Devlin’s own age of thirty-eight—was staring at him intently.

The man started toward him immediately, stopping only a foot away. His voice was low and hushed to avoid disturbing the service; his words blunt to the point of being rude.

“If you’re with the press, you don’t belong here,” he said.

Devlin reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his badge and ID wallet. He opened it, flashing the tin. The man studied it intently. “And who are you?” Devlin asked.

The man ignored the question. “Are you investigating Sister Manuela’s death, officer?” he asked instead. He was a few inches shorter than Devlin’s six feet, and painfully slender except for a slight paunch. His eyes were a soft, pale brown, like his hair, and he had a long, thin nose and tight, narrow lips. His pale gray suit hung on him like a sack.

The man’s tone had remained overbearing, and Devlin decided to put a quick end to it. “The rank is inspector, not officer,” he said. He nodded toward Sharon. “And this is
Sergeant
Levy.” He paused a beat. “I asked who you were?” He held the man’s eyes, defying him to continue his self-important game.

The man broke eye contact and forced a smile. “I’m Matthew.”

Devlin waited for more, but nothing came. It was like pulling teeth. “Matthew what?”