Blackbird (27 page)

‘This where the plot get thick,’ Mouncey said. ‘Snitch say e’body call Keets the Chaplain.’

THIRTY-THREE

When I’d set up a meeting with Keets at the prison, LA said she wanted to come along.

‘Tell him I’m a secretary or something – maybe I can detect a clue,’ she said. ‘By stealth.’

‘Great idea,’ Zito said. ‘You still got your secret-agent licence, right?’

The only prints found on the ‘Capt Bonum’ letter and envelope belonged to Bertie and a couple of post office workers, and the envelope itself was the self-sticking type, meaning it didn’t need licking and therefore gave up no DNA. Something tying Keets to the letter would have been a good hole card for the interview, but even without that I thought we might get some use out of the letter when we talked to him.

When the day came, a skinny redheaded corrections officer led LA and me back to a dingy, low-ceilinged conference room that smelled like mice and looked even bleaker and more desperate than the prison in general. Except for a square, grey metal table and a few hard-used military-looking chairs, there was no furniture in the room, which was brightly lit by the kind of fluorescents that give human skin the colour of dead amphibians.

‘Homey,’ I said.

LA glanced around the room. ‘No place for a claustrophobic, but I guess we’ve seen worse.’

The heavy metal door fitted with a reinforced glass observation window opened and the redheaded guard brought Keets into the room. He was unshaven and looked seventy or so, outfitted in standard jailhouse-orange scrubs, ragged-out carpet slippers and thick horn-rimmed glasses over small blue eyes. He leaned on an aluminum quad-cane, a pale man, not really obese but heavy and soft from prison food, with oily, iron-grey hair lying in long discrete hanks across his shiny scalp.

‘Rap on the door if you need anything,’ said the guard. He gave his prisoner a final glance and let himself out.

I shook hands with Keets and introduced LA, saying, ‘This is Lee Rowe. She works with me.’

‘Why don’t we all sit down?’ he said. ‘These old shanks aren’t what they used to be.’

We took chairs on three sides of the table, LA briskly opening a steno pad and producing a stick pen, looking clerical and well-organised.

‘Forgive me, Ms Rowe, but I am something of a student of human taxonomy,’ Keets said. ‘You appear to me to be of partial northern Mediterranean extraction, possibly Greek. May I ask if that is so?’

LA, whose long-gone biological father, or sperm donor if you listened to Rachel, actually had been Greek, said, ‘I’m mostly who-knows-what.’

‘Ah, the Greeks,’ said Keets as if she had confirmed his speculation. ‘Among the most estimable of races until their eventual debasement. Of course with your height and noble features I would suspect yours must be the old, true blood
of Pericles and Pythagoras.’ He watched her print the date neatly at the top of her page.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said neutrally, drawing a line under the date.

I said, ‘I appreciate your willingness to talk to us, Mr Keets. Or is it Reverend Keets?’

He smiled. ‘We both know you could have compelled me, at least to meet with you. And you may call me whatever you like.’

‘And we both know how long that would have taken and how little good it would have done.’

A nod of acknowledgement. ‘How can I serve you, Lieutenant?’

‘We’re here about the murder of a psychologist – ’

Keets shifted in his chair and leaned the cane against the table. ‘A Jewish woman psychologist, I believe,’ he said. ‘We’re not allowed use of the internet here, but we do have day-old newspapers and a certain amount of television access.’

‘You’re right about Dr Gold,’ I said. ‘And your name came up as someone who might have information that would help us.’

‘My name?’

‘Actually, what came up was a reference to “the Chaplain”.’

‘And it came up how?’

‘An anonymous tip to the hotline.’

‘Ah.’

‘I thought being as familiar as you are with the survivalist and Christian Identity groups might give you some insight that would help me figure out who killed Dr Gold. And why.’

Another smile. ‘Nicely put, Lieutenant. What you mean
to say, I believe, is that you hope I might be able to finger someone for you.’

I turned to LA. ‘Ms Rowe, would you call that a – what’s the term?’

‘Semantic quibble, I believe.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘So let me ask a different question: you acted as chaplain to the Sword of the Lord faction in Arkansas, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, proudly.’

‘And I understand you were a mathematician.’

‘I have taught mathematics, yes. It is, I believe, the purest of the many languages of God. But I am also an ordained minister of Christ.’

‘What denomination would that be?’

‘There can be only one true church.’

‘Are you still involved with the movement?’

‘Jaston Lawrence Keets, Chaplain, Army of the Sword of the Lord.’

‘No serial number?’

‘You are accustomed to command, Lieutenant?’

‘It’s not exactly everything it’s cracked up to be.’

‘Have you experienced combat?’

‘A few minutes at a time.’

‘Ah. Then you have taken human life?’

‘That’s not all it’s cracked up to be, either.’

‘But in principle you have no objection to killing when circumstances warrant?’

‘There’s not always a choice.’

‘Indeed. You are no doubt a good officer. By the way, do you, as they say, believe in our government’s wars, the ones they keep telling us are fought to preserve our freedom?’

‘Not enough to think that’s what they’re really about.’

‘But as a soldier you would have served as ordered?’

‘Yes.’

‘My wars were a long time ago. Look at me now – I have arthritis, diabetes, kidney disease. My liver’s no good any more. I have no family to return to if I leave here. Assuming I knew who executed your Zionist quack, what inducement do you imagine might cause me to inform on good soldiers for doing as they were ordered to do?’

‘Interesting way of looking at it. Do you think the killers were somebody’s soldiers, acting on orders?’

‘As it happens, no.’

‘Why not?’

‘I do not think those men, whoever they were, believed in anything beyond themselves.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The killing clearly was not exigent, nor did it strike effectively at the illegitimate occupation forces of Washington, either of which might have justified the effort and risk of such an undertaking. Of course I applaud the death of any Jew, but in this case the target was merely a symptom, one of millions. She was neither an important agent of the occupation nor an immediate threat. Her death was an empty gesture, serving only to bring unnecessary pressure on the liberation movement. I think your killers, Lieutenant, were ad hoc mercenaries.’

‘And none of your own?’

‘And none of my own.’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said LA deferentially. ‘Would you mind telling us how you would have responded if you actually had ordered the killing?’

Keets looked at her a long moment. ‘That’s a remarkable question.’

LA waited politely.

‘I imagine I would have simply denied all knowledge of the situation and advised you to go to hell,’ he said.

I caught what may have been a faint smile from LA.

‘So you probably don’t think much of the NBA?’ I said.

He grunted dismissively. ‘Ten niggers leaping, and a partridge in a pear tree. If jumping makes civilisation, let’s elect a parliament of jackrabbits. No, sir, the hope of humanity on earth has never rested in any but white hands, and it never will.’

‘Mr Keets, do you know Benjamin Frix?’

‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘I do know that you are using the wrong tense for a reason, and that Mr Frix was recently found dead in the ashes of his home. No doubt that is regarded as a suspicious circumstance. For all I know, you are proceeding on the theory that there is some connection between his death and Gold’s. Are you prepared to tell me why you asked if I knew him?’

‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘What can you tell me about this?’ I pushed a copy of the death threat across to him.

He picked up the paper, tilted his head back to get the best benefit of his trifocals and read the letter, LA watching him closely. ‘The Revelation of St John the Divine,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘Along with snippets from Genesis and Deuteronomy. An interesting juxtaposition. It’s possible the reference to the flaming sword is a nod to the ZOG’s dastardly adventure in Waco some years ago.’

‘Excuse me – ZOG?’ said LA, her pen poised.

‘Our Zionist Occupation Government,’ replied Keets. ‘Usurpers of the mantle of Jefferson and Jackson. At any rate, the letter is an interesting document. What do you make of it, Lieutenant?’

‘That’s my question to you.’

‘And I am persuaded by it that you derived no identifying evidence from this,’ he said, glancing at the letter again. ‘Thank you for having the sense not to try to bluff me in that regard. May I assume that because of the reference to a chapel you thought of me as the author?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘For one thing, I don’t believe you would’ve misspelled my name.’

He smiled. ‘Even as subterfuge?’

I said nothing.

‘Unable to assume the guise of ignorance even to avoid prosecution? That’s quite an indictment.’

I waited.

‘Ah, well, you’re probably right.’ He shook his head. ‘Vanity is certainly master to us all.’

‘And if you had misspelled my name to throw us off, what would be the point of the chapel reference?’

He glanced at me sharply and nodded. ‘You’re clearly an intelligent man, Lieutenant.’

I said, ‘Make a note, Ms Rowe.’

She jotted something on the pad.

Keets said, ‘Many people think of athletes, which I believe you once were, as dullards, but the reverse is more often true. In any case, you’re correct, I didn’t write this. Or have it written. But I’m sure the misspelling of your name was an attempt at deception. I dare say the entire letter was intended as a red herring.’

‘And not a warning to back off?’

‘Please, Lieutenant. Who would be asinine enough to expect something like this to stop a police investigation? Or
deter a man such as yourself? Only an idiot, surely. But it is a threat to you personally. The address and salutation tell us that whoever wrote them knew the correct abbreviation of “captain” and the airport designation and common shorthand for Traverton, and was aware that you were investigating the killing, none of which would be particularly consistent with the implied subliteracy of the document. And the author was erudite enough to locate and correctly quote several biblical passages, as well as put them together in a coherent way. It’s clear no ordinary criminal wrote this. But I believe it suggests something further.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I think it’s likely the person you’re looking for is actually someone who not only knows who you are and how to spell your name correctly but is in fact someone quite close to you. Someone with a very specific reason for targeting you.’

‘So what do you think?’ I asked LA as we drove down Border through the light mid-afternoon traffic toward Tri-State.

‘Well, Keets takes a kind of offbeat pride in his affiliation with the Sword movement, but it’s not his natural element. He’s much too bright for that.’ She fiddled with the radio, settling on one of the Shreveport classic rock stations. A Beatles single from ’67, ‘All You Need Is Love’. She adjusted the volume. ‘He’s a man who’ll never be at peace with himself,’ she said. ‘Think about it – all that mental wattage, but he’s permanently stuck with a bunch of guys who think higher education means getting a GED. His involvement with them was probably a reaction to
some trauma he experienced. And he’s ashamed of something about his military service.’

‘How do you know that?’ I said.

‘His expression when he mentioned it, the fact he didn’t elaborate, the way he jumped immediately from that to his health problems, as if they were a judgement on him in some way. My guess is he either feels he was a coward under fire or he did things over there that he still has guilt about. Maybe both.’

‘Then he’s not a sociopath?’

‘No. If he were, he’d have spent more energy trying to flatter and manipulate us.’

‘He gave it a shot with you.’

She shrugged. ‘That was nothing – just male reflex. He was much more interested in showing us how smart he is.’

‘So what did you write when I told you to make a note?’

She held the pad up for me to read:
Note to self – check definition of ‘intelligent’
.

‘Okay, got me,’ I said. ‘If Keets had been right about me I would’ve known better than to ask. So, back to the reverend – you were talking about how you know he’s not a sociopath.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘The other thing is, with a sociopath you don’t get a lot of signs of autonomic arousal.’

‘You’re saying he had them.’

‘Yeah. Especially when he read the letter.’

‘What were you watching at that point?’

‘Heart rate, blink rate, respiration, pupils.’

‘How the hell did you watch his heart rate?’

She touched her finger to the side of my neck the way she had the night she arrived. ‘Looked right here,’ she said. ‘Carotids are just under the surface.’

I visualised my throat constantly pulsing out my thoughts for all the world to see, my irises semaphoring every emotion, my mind naked as a pole dancer. No wonder I could never beat her at gin rummy.

‘So what did all that tell you?’ I said.

‘I don’t think he knew anything about the letter at all before you showed it to him. But in the abstract it interested him very much, juiced him, gave him something to think about. A puzzle, a new angle on the world. Guys like him are bound to get pretty bored in prison.’

‘Yeah, that’s another thing that’s never made a hell of a lot of sense to me – how a character that smart ends up in the joint in the first place.’

She opened the window a couple of inches, lit a cigarette with her slim gold lighter, took a drag and blew out smoke. She said, ‘Short answer?’